138w ago - Today PSGroove has shared details courtesy of
inf1 on how to run PS3 games which contain 4+GB files from an external PlayStation 3 FAT32 HDD.
Those interested can check out the guide below, and be sure to share your results in our
PS3 JailBreak Game Compatibility List.
To quote: Due to FAT32 limitations users needed to run these games from internal hard drive only. However, it seems that isn't the only option anymore. Many games utilize a file format known as PSARC (*.psarc).
These files ending in .psarc are archive files similar to zip or rar files on PC. By extracting these large archive files and using the smaller files that are inside, users can get stay under the 4GB limit.
This method has been tested on Uncharted II, and will only work on games utilizing the psarc file format.
1) Download
PSARC.zip PlayStation Archive Utility (or the
PARC GUI v0.1 or the
PARC GUI v0.2 update by
TeamKidneyBean if you prefer).
2) Extract zlib.net.dll and PSARC.exe to any folder.
3) Find any files more than 4Gb for example /PS3_GAME/USRDIR/build/main/pak22.psarc (5,596,444,529 bytes)
4) Copy pak22.psarc into zlib.net.dll and PSARC.exe directory.
5) Extract pak22.psarc (just drag-n-drop pak22.psarc to PSARC.exe)
6) Now copy pak22 folder with extracted files to gamefolder /PS3_GAME/USRDIR/build/main
7) Now you can delete pak22.psarc.
8) Copy PS3_GAME folder with game to your external fat32 usb hdd GAMEZ/Uncharted2/
9) Use Backup Manager to load game, should work fine.
just joined, a special interest in streaming HD movies...
I tried something similar back before the PS3 was hacked. I was trying to find a way to transfer >4GB videos from the PS3 to a USB drive, so I thought the PS3's own format would be an obvious choice. Unfortunately, it didn't work -- the PS3 wouldn't mount the USB drive when in that format. If that has secretly changed in one of the updates, that is pretty interesting.
Regarding your question, I think the difficulty of creating such an app would depend on some unknown factors. The internal HDD is per-console encrypted, and while we already know how to retrieve those keys and do the decryption/encryption, it adds some complexity.
The PS3's built-in format utility targets the internal drive and it may or may not be written in such a way that it could be patched to target USB instead. If you had to write your own utility, you'd need to figure out the partition structure, which as far as I know, nobody has done yet.
I only tested this on a 160GB drive, but I assume it works on any drive.
This is what I did....
1. Took a 160GB hdd and hooked it up internally.
2. Allowed the PS3 to install it's proprietary files, format, fix file system.
3. Booted to hack, filled up the hdd with games.
4. Put the drive in an external case and hooked it up via USB.
5. It works.
I did this 2 days ago and looked around to see if anyone else already did this. I found nothing.
NZHawk's Awesome MountPoint Manager v1.0 used with this method is great. It isn't hard to figure out what else to do. Naysayers will want proof, I'm not looking for recognition. I am just sharing what I discovered. I was curious, tried it and it works.
I do have a question though.... How hard would it be to make a homebrew app that would install the PS3's file system on an external without having to go through this process?
this to me doesn't sound possible considering if the USB's on the PS3 could recognize that format wouldn't sony already have a format function for that use.