Update 04-Sep-02
www.china-magic.com have posted this on their web site: For marketing reasons and to stop confusion we have decided to seperate the v5/6 (R type) and V7 magic chips. Please use only the "R" for the version 5 and 6, and the "V7" for the version7. Future magic2 V7 chips will not support v5/6 machines.
Update 03-Sep-02
In relation to the story below, when we installed a PAL Messiah into the PAL v5 in question, everything worked perfectly.
We learn as we go (with thanks to
Aerick for refinements) - namely:
- DVD booting is distinct from DVD-R booting
- Pressing EJECT after Red Screen and EJECT to close tray invokes disk authentication which is not caught by Magic 2
- Removing the RESET wire is the easiest way of turning Magic 2 off (already known)
This is what happened in a v5 PAL install today. We tried both the BROWN V7 chip and the RED
V7 chip with the same negative results. The
Z point was not connected.
- DVD-R booted perfectly. First time every time.
- PAL DVD game would not boot normally. It would go to Red Screen. We pressed EJECT twice to get the tray out/in and it went to the browser. At the browser we pressed X and let it find the PS2 disk. We pointed to the PS2 disk and it booted. This method worked without fail.
- Import DVD original game failed after the EJECT stage with the red screen.
- We detached RESET from the Magic 2 and the PAL DVD booted first time instantly.
So, without knowing if there is a flaw in Magic 2 (bearing in mind that the non-underline V7 was not subject to the PS2 bug and also that Mr. Magic 2 had sent me the RED V7) we have concluded (possibly wrongly!) the following from this:
- Because a DVD original was rejected on first boot to Red Screen, there is a failure to properly handle the BIOS call. This could be in the particular Magic 2 chips because we actually chipped a second PAL v5 with a RED R chip with complete success. Or there could be a problem with the BIOS but the two PS2s were identical.
- An in region DVD original game actually goes through the PS2's region check and having passed, goes through a different path than a DVD-R which obviously fails the region check. Because it is in-region and at Red Screen, pressing Eject with no Z wire tells the Magic 2 nothing; so it stays in PS2 mode and passes the region test.
- An out-of-region DVD original game also goes through the region check but, having actually complied in so far as having the wobble in the groove, again goes through a different piece of BIOS code from a DVD-R which has no such wobble. Because it is out-of-region and at Red Screen, pressing Eject with no Z wire tells the Magic 2 nothing; so it stays in PS2 mode and fails the region test.
- A DVD-R has no wobble in the groove and some sort of patch to PS2 behaviour must be applied when this disk is rejected. So here the Magic 2 takes over and happens to correctly patch the BIOS (or whatever it does) at this time.
- Update: Messiah does things differently.
Tomorrow we will connect
Z and see what happens.
Update: Made no difference. If it still doesn't work, then we will whack a Messiah in!
Update: Which we did and it worked.
There will be some of you who will lap this stuff up and others who will yawn or wonder what all this twaddle means. I love it!