2:22 Here's a very simple answer in terms of what platinum versions of the games are and why they even exist in the first place. Platinum Versions of games are essentially greatest hits versions, it's the same game but lacks any art work on the discs, they were also cheaper in release. But this only applied to games that were best sellers on the system like Final Fantasy VII, Resident Evil 2 and Metal Gear Solid. Personally since I collect games for the PS1 I'm not a fan of the Platinum version of the games because you lose all the charm of the original discs, but if you just want to play the game then they are no different from original versions.
Dante this is incredibly insightful. Thankyou for the explanation, that makes complete sense to me now :) I think personally that the original copies are better because of the original art work on the disk!
@@JoeyDoesTech Months late, but there is a pretty strange thing with the Platinum versions. iirc in The PlayStation 3's Software emulation, the game's image looks a bit blurrier depending if the version of the game is Black Label or Platinum.
Congrats on successful repair. Working on an unknown mod can be tricky. You never know if it was installed incorrectly and maybe damaged something. Curious to see what happens with #2. Keep up the good work.
I cannot remember 100%, but I'm pretty sure that was a very terrible mod chip to play burned games. With how long the wires were, and the chip being wrapped in electrical tape I'm sure the person saw a tutorial online and thought, "That's super easy!!!! I can do that!!"
Great job! Nice to see someone making an effort to restore these consoles and not having them end up in landfill. As for the Theme Park issue, did you ever manage to fix it? It might have something to do with the potentiometers of the CD drive. Perhaps it has been tampered with due to some previous issues with discs that the console could not read anymore. I am absolutely unsure of it but I do know that is the type of "fix" that can cause very strange behaviour.
I'll be honest Toolz I have no idea pal! It's currently sat under my desk in good condition ready for it to re surface sooner or later :) Making sure they don't go to landfill is the dream :)
That chip is certainly a mod chip. Early PS1 mod chips weren't very stealthy. They constantly injected their code while the console was running. Some later PS1 games could actually detect if a mod chip was present, and if they did, they would display this screen: preview.redd.it/luksqowwly531.jpg?width=480&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=da1ff3c3e822b9256f3183cb46c9f2f6ad07d85e. Later on, there were "Stealth" mod chips which would only inject their code when they needed to and would then stop injecting their code. And that essentially made the mod chip detection code found in some later PS1 games obsolete. As far as the difference between Platinum Hits and the regular copies, usually there's not much. But sometimes there are. For example, as far as I'm aware, all Black Label copies of Crash Bash do not have the mod chip detection code present. Whereas the Greatest Hits (The North American name for Platinum Hits) version of the game does. PAL copies could be different, of course. As far as the game being recognized as a CD. If you go to the CD Player on the Main Menu and insert a disc, it will bring up all the tracks on the disc. Track 1 is game data. However any track after that is usually music from the game. Some PS1 games stored music as standard Red Book Audio, which is the name of the CD audio format. You could take a disc like this, put it into a standard CD player, and play the soundtrack from it by skipping track 1. There's a game called Swagman for the PS1 that's a perfect example of this.
Thank you so much for taking your time to elaborate on this video BlueWolf :) The game works on one of the other PlayStations though, so would you think replacing the laser would fix the issue, or could it possibly be something BIOS related on the PlayStation which is why it doesn't play the disc? I guess my question is, how come it's recognized as a CD in one PlayStation, but not the other you know? Thanks again :)
@@JoeyDoesTech Hmm. Quite bizarre. The one PS1 that it isn't working could have a dirty or slightly weak laser. You could try cleaning the lens with a q-tip and rubbing alcohol or Windex. If that doesn't work, there is a potentiometer on the ribbon cable going to the laser on the drive. This video will show you what I mean as well as doing a pot tweak: th-cam.com/video/-mXM2UTjDiI/w-d-xo.html. Be extremely careful doing this. It's best to have a multimeter and measure the resistance before you start adjusting things. That way, if you somehow end up making things worse, you can go back to where the factory set rating was. Then you can try again. If you don't have a multimeter, then you can still try it. Just give it a VERY small turn clockwise and then test to see if it will read the game. And again, be careful. Take a picture of where the pot was before doing any adjustments. You can end up permanently destroying the laser if you're not careful and adjust things too far.
the chip just allowed the player to use pirated discs. Basically, a lot of people would rent a game, burn it, and you could play the copy as if it were a regular game. Sony started making sure their games couldn't be used like that anymore so in the end people stopped chipping them.
@@JoeyDoesTech I honestly don’t know. For some of the later games, anti piracy messages would pop up alongside a phone number to call stating something along the lines of we believe this play station has been illegally modified, please call… for assistance. Or something like that. I haven’t the faintest clue though. It’s possible the person who installed the chip did it incorrectly and accidentally soldered it to a wrong pin. But that’s my best guess.
The chips would be there to make them be able to play games on CD-R (piracy) and also play games imported from other regions, it was a common modification to make to them.
Thanks for the info. Best of not having it in there I guess! Especially if I don't know what to do with it :P I didn't think it would make it so that other games wouldn't work though? That's the weird part.
Enjoying catching up with your tech roots. 😁 I do wonder if the mod chips are confusing the PlayStations and whether later games were developed to block such mods. For curiosity, what are the copyright dates on each game? Platinum games are bestselling games that have sold X amount of copies since it's original release a few years previous. They are then released at half the original price, often with minor patches built in (bearing in mind this was an era when games were thoroughly tested before being released and any game-breaking problems meant the batch had to be recalled and replaced as opposed to a downloadable update). Nintendo called their "Platinum" equivalent brand Player's Choice. PAL is predominantly the UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand region. Region locking is better explained in episode 3 of my "Electronics For The Lesser Knowledgeable" series, and affects games, movies and video broadcasting.
2:22 Here's a very simple answer in terms of what platinum versions of the games are and why they even exist in the first place.
Platinum Versions of games are essentially greatest hits versions, it's the same game but lacks any art work on the discs, they were also cheaper in release. But this only applied to games that were best sellers on the system like Final Fantasy VII, Resident Evil 2 and Metal Gear Solid.
Personally since I collect games for the PS1 I'm not a fan of the Platinum version of the games because you lose all the charm of the original discs, but if you just want to play the game then they are no different from original versions.
Dante this is incredibly insightful. Thankyou for the explanation, that makes complete sense to me now :) I think personally that the original copies are better because of the original art work on the disk!
@@JoeyDoesTech Months late, but there is a pretty strange thing with the Platinum versions.
iirc in The PlayStation 3's Software emulation, the game's image looks a bit blurrier depending if the version of the game is Black Label or Platinum.
Congrats on successful repair. Working on an unknown mod can be tricky. You never know if it was installed incorrectly and maybe damaged something. Curious to see what happens with #2. Keep up the good work.
Thankyou so much Taylor! :) Have a good weekend.
Yes! One fixed, one to go. Well done.
I cannot remember 100%, but I'm pretty sure that was a very terrible mod chip to play burned games. With how long the wires were, and the chip being wrapped in electrical tape I'm sure the person saw a tutorial online and thought, "That's super easy!!!! I can do that!!"
There was SO much excess wire that just didn't need to be there! He made my life a lot harder :D
Thanks for watching :)
@@JoeyDoesTech He really did! You're welcome for watching, and thanks for the great content =D
Great job! Nice to see someone making an effort to restore these consoles and not having them end up in landfill. As for the Theme Park issue, did you ever manage to fix it? It might have something to do with the potentiometers of the CD drive. Perhaps it has been tampered with due to some previous issues with discs that the console could not read anymore. I am absolutely unsure of it but I do know that is the type of "fix" that can cause very strange behaviour.
I'll be honest Toolz I have no idea pal! It's currently sat under my desk in good condition ready for it to re surface sooner or later :) Making sure they don't go to landfill is the dream :)
Its sooo cool to see Joey beginnings now he is a totally expert guy!!!
That chip is certainly a mod chip. Early PS1 mod chips weren't very stealthy. They constantly injected their code while the console was running. Some later PS1 games could actually detect if a mod chip was present, and if they did, they would display this screen: preview.redd.it/luksqowwly531.jpg?width=480&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=da1ff3c3e822b9256f3183cb46c9f2f6ad07d85e. Later on, there were "Stealth" mod chips which would only inject their code when they needed to and would then stop injecting their code. And that essentially made the mod chip detection code found in some later PS1 games obsolete. As far as the difference between Platinum Hits and the regular copies, usually there's not much. But sometimes there are. For example, as far as I'm aware, all Black Label copies of Crash Bash do not have the mod chip detection code present. Whereas the Greatest Hits (The North American name for Platinum Hits) version of the game does. PAL copies could be different, of course. As far as the game being recognized as a CD. If you go to the CD Player on the Main Menu and insert a disc, it will bring up all the tracks on the disc. Track 1 is game data. However any track after that is usually music from the game. Some PS1 games stored music as standard Red Book Audio, which is the name of the CD audio format. You could take a disc like this, put it into a standard CD player, and play the soundtrack from it by skipping track 1. There's a game called Swagman for the PS1 that's a perfect example of this.
Thank you so much for taking your time to elaborate on this video BlueWolf :) The game works on one of the other PlayStations though, so would you think replacing the laser would fix the issue, or could it possibly be something BIOS related on the PlayStation which is why it doesn't play the disc?
I guess my question is, how come it's recognized as a CD in one PlayStation, but not the other you know?
Thanks again :)
@@JoeyDoesTech Hmm. Quite bizarre. The one PS1 that it isn't working could have a dirty or slightly weak laser. You could try cleaning the lens with a q-tip and rubbing alcohol or Windex. If that doesn't work, there is a potentiometer on the ribbon cable going to the laser on the drive. This video will show you what I mean as well as doing a pot tweak: th-cam.com/video/-mXM2UTjDiI/w-d-xo.html. Be extremely careful doing this. It's best to have a multimeter and measure the resistance before you start adjusting things. That way, if you somehow end up making things worse, you can go back to where the factory set rating was. Then you can try again. If you don't have a multimeter, then you can still try it. Just give it a VERY small turn clockwise and then test to see if it will read the game. And again, be careful. Take a picture of where the pot was before doing any adjustments. You can end up permanently destroying the laser if you're not careful and adjust things too far.
the chip just allowed the player to use pirated discs. Basically, a lot of people would rent a game, burn it, and you could play the copy as if it were a regular game. Sony started making sure their games couldn't be used like that anymore so in the end people stopped chipping them.
Ah very interesting. Any ideas why when the chip was removed it decided to work though?
@@JoeyDoesTech I honestly don’t know. For some of the later games, anti piracy messages would pop up alongside a phone number to call stating something along the lines of we believe this play station has been illegally modified, please call… for assistance. Or something like that. I haven’t the faintest clue though. It’s possible the person who installed the chip did it incorrectly and accidentally soldered it to a wrong pin. But that’s my best guess.
The chips would be there to make them be able to play games on CD-R (piracy) and also play games imported from other regions, it was a common modification to make to them.
Thanks for the info. Best of not having it in there I guess! Especially if I don't know what to do with it :P I didn't think it would make it so that other games wouldn't work though? That's the weird part.
If it had gone bad or come loose then who knows what havoc it would impart !
Good video man! Btw the chip om the motherboard is a mod chip and makes the console able to play back ups of games
Legend Bart, thanks for letting me know :)
Joey Does Tech no problem man! ;-)
Enjoying catching up with your tech roots. 😁
I do wonder if the mod chips are confusing the PlayStations and whether later games were developed to block such mods. For curiosity, what are the copyright dates on each game?
Platinum games are bestselling games that have sold X amount of copies since it's original release a few years previous. They are then released at half the original price, often with minor patches built in (bearing in mind this was an era when games were thoroughly tested before being released and any game-breaking problems meant the batch had to be recalled and replaced as opposed to a downloadable update). Nintendo called their "Platinum" equivalent brand Player's Choice.
PAL is predominantly the UK, Europe, Australia and New Zealand region. Region locking is better explained in episode 3 of my "Electronics For The Lesser Knowledgeable" series, and affects games, movies and video broadcasting.
Playstation 1 and 2 😂👌