Bios questions (not asking for it, so its legal).

3368 Views 19 Replies 13 Participants Last post by Mr. Anderson, Mar 12, 2005

mitug

Discussion Starter · Feb 10, 2005

ok, i'm not asking for the bios, i just want to know what it is? and y do i need it? what happends if i dont have it, and what happends if i do? what is the difference between the built-in-homemade-PCSX2-BIOS and the BIOS in the original PS2? if i get the BIOS from my PS2 to my PCSX2, will it be better to use it instead of the built-in-homemade-PCSX2-BIOS? if yes, y? if not, y?
please answer me, i know those questions are newby questions, but i am a newby in this.

1 - 20 of 20 Posts

Squigi63

· #2 · Feb 10, 2005

BIOS is an acronym that stand for Begin in Open State.

mitug

Discussion Starter · #3 · Feb 10, 2005

what about the rest of the questions?

Squigi63

· #4 · Feb 10, 2005

The BIOS are the opening to the PS2. I do believe for PS2 emulation you need them and I haven't heard anything about homemade BIOS unless you rip them off your own PS2. Yeah your defiantly asking way too many questions at once.

D_Pyro

· #5 · Feb 10, 2005

Um ya, dont listen to Squigi63. He doesnt know what he's talking about. BIOS stands for Basic Input Output System and is required to get instructions from the system (in this case the program). As of now I believe you cant even use a emulation BIOS in the newest version.

tycoon18

· #6 · Feb 10, 2005

yes D_Pyro is right BIOS stands for Basic Input Output System not Begin in Open State.

Mykas0

· #7 · Feb 10, 2005

Hi.
Bios is required, since it gives the PS2 the basic "drivers" it will need, for things like using the controllers and making input/output of data to the memory cards.

MaZa

· #8 · Feb 10, 2005

So its the very basic operation system for the very basics of computer/console, how every chip and stuff works etc...

jopinou

· #9 · Feb 10, 2005 (Edited)

mitug said:
ok, i'm not asking for the bios, i just want to know what it is? and y do i need it? what happends if i dont have it, and what happends if i do? what is the difference between the built-in-homemade-PCSX2-BIOS and the BIOS in the original PS2? if i get the BIOS from my PS2 to my PCSX2, will it be better to use it instead of the built-in-homemade-PCSX2-BIOS? if yes, y? if not, y?
please answer me, i know those questions are newby questions, but i am a newby in this.

The BIOS is a piece of software. It is resident inside the PS2 read only memory and it takes the hand when you turn the PS2 on. It looks for any CD'rom or DVD-rom, and when it finds any one it reads the tracks and loads the tracks contents (some game software) into the memory of the PS2. Then this software takes the control of the PS2 and, oh miracle, your awesome game starts.

It is said that the game software needs to call the BIOS when it wants to do some stuff like to read the CD ROM, to get an input from the PAD or to write the video. Most times these are basic input or output stuffs, including any exchange with specific chip inside the PS2 (like the sound chip). This is why the BIOS is called BIOS, which is an acronym for "BASIC INPUT OUTPUT SYSTEM".

Y're welcome

mitug

Discussion Starter · #10 · Feb 16, 2005

realy thx for the answers. now, lets say i dont have the bios in the PCSX2. will games work for me? and if i do have it, will games work for me? (if the answers for both of these questions are "no", what do i need the bios in PCSX2 for?)

$refraction$

refraction

· #11 · Feb 16, 2005

mitug said:
realy thx for the answers. now, lets say i dont have the bios in the PCSX2. will games work for me? and if i do have it, will games work for me? (if the answers for both of these questions are "no", what do i need the bios in PCSX2 for?)

both answers are no, but you will have a lot more luck with the BIOS than without it.

the no to having it is basically because the emulator isnt finished yet, it is still in development, so compatability is still pretty low, altho you may see some screens like logos and menus.

blueshogun96

· #12 · Feb 16, 2005

Just in case you are about to ask why the fps rates are so slow, it's because this is an LLE (low level emulation) emulator, and the ps2 hardware is very complex. The speeds depend more on your processer power rather than your gfx card or your GPU. You can increase your speed by setting the GSdx9 plugin to use a fixed pipeline rather than pixel shader 2.0. I changed these settings yesterday and now I get from 9 to 20 fps on average.

EDIT: I think Squgi63 was trying to be funny :lol:

zizozac

· #13 · Feb 16, 2005 (Edited)

As many said on this thread ; Bios is the basic input output system chip that is used to detect ps2 or any type of system hardware components; it is the first chip the system detect and i add for that without Bios you will not able to run ps2 commercial games cause most of games has something called custom modules that depends in its work to sub routines which is placed inside bios so those modules will not load if those routines (instructions) are not found and if you run agame without bios you will see that most of games will stops at loading those modules ;i don,t know lot of information about hardware specification cause i didn,t care for that trend too much

mitug

Discussion Starter · #14 · Feb 17, 2005

zizozac said:
and i add for that without Bios you will not able to run ps2 commercial games

and if i run them (the commercial games) with a bios, will they run?

jopinou

· #15 · Feb 17, 2005

mitug said:
and if i run them (the commercial games) with a bios, will they run?

It's a very nice question and i'm very happy you ask it. By the way do you want a coke or a scwheppes ?

Mykas0

· #16 · Feb 17, 2005

Of course they won't run...

asatru

· #17 · Feb 24, 2005

What a BIOS actually is

Squigi63 said:
BIOS is an acronym that stand for Begin in Open State.

I've never heard BIOS standing for that, i work as a Computer technician, and it has always been understood that BIOS stands for "Basic Input/Output System".
What a bios is and does is this:
It is required for most interactive electronics to work, it is a piece of software that runs at the most basic level to allow for the machine to even function.
if your psx or ps2 didnt have a BIOS, or it became damaged, you would just get a blank screen when you turned it on.
You know how on your ps2 you have the browser menu, and the configuration menu..... this is all software included in the bios for "Basic" functioning.
on your ps2 the bios tells the video how to display, it tells the ps2 how to receive and interpret input from the controllers and remote. it is a hardware "Driver", it allows for the Firewire port to work, and it allows the USB ports to work.
your ps2 is actually a computer scaled way down.
you can run an operating system on it ( see the Linux Project for PS2 ), and the BIOS is just a bunary file that loads at boot-time.
your ps2 is basically a motherboard, CPU, video card, sound card, usb port, firewire port, and cd drive. these pieces are all brought together in working order by the bios

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Mr. Anderson

· #18 · Mar 12, 2005

asatru said:
I've never heard BIOS standing for that, i work as a Computer technician, and it has always been understood that BIOS stands for "Basic Input/Output System".
What a bios is and does is this:
It is required for most interactive electronics to work, it is a piece of software that runs at the most basic level to allow for the machine to even function.
if your psx or ps2 didnt have a BIOS, or it became damaged, you would just get a blank screen when you turned it on.
You know how on your ps2 you have the browser menu, and the configuration menu..... this is all software included in the bios for "Basic" functioning.
on your ps2 the bios tells the video how to display, it tells the ps2 how to receive and interpret input from the controllers and remote. it is a hardware "Driver", it allows for the Firewire port to work, and it allows the USB ports to work.
your ps2 is actually a computer scaled way down.
you can run an operating system on it ( see the Linux Project for PS2 ), and the BIOS is just a bunary file that loads at boot-time.
your ps2 is basically a motherboard, CPU, video card, sound card, usb port, firewire port, and cd drive. these pieces are all brought together in working order by the bios

Interesting, so it might be possible to kick off the BIOS and replace it e. g. with a suitable Linux-Kernel as possible on PCs? (yes, it is possible to run a PC without a typical BIOS. But please, don't try if you don't exactly know what you are doing, you have been warned)
I suppose it is possible. At least in theory. But would it then still be possible to run games? Is there a problem of compatibility as for Windows vs Linux or is it just basic enough not to cause any problem?
This could work. And if it is working, it should also possible to run the PCSX2 without a BIOS, but with the right kernel. So you wouldn't have to buy a PS2 any more for playing PS2 games, right? (Provided PCSX2 1.0 is released

) Would this be legal?

I-Chan

· #19 · Mar 12, 2005

I think you are mixing concepts. The bios starts the system as it is. When you turn the system on, it's hardwired to boot to the bios. The bios initializes devices on the system and has the method for starting it, be it launch a part of itself as gui (like in most consoles), or look in a predesignated area of memory to load the OS (like in pc, looking in the boot device's system block). Afterwards, you may or may not use the methods provided by the bios to access the system components, but the bios must be there. And in consoles, most of the times the bios procedures are used.

Mr. Anderson

· #20 · Mar 12, 2005

I-Chan said:
I think you are mixing concepts. The bios starts the system as it is. When you turn the system on, it's hardwired to boot to the bios. The bios initializes devices on the system and has the method for starting it, be it launch a part of itself as gui (like in most consoles), or look in a predesignated area of memory to load the OS (like in pc, looking in the boot device's system block). Afterwards, you may or may not use the methods provided by the bios to access the system components, but the bios must be there. And in consoles, most of the times the bios procedures are used.

No, you do not need BIOS-Routines, you can access hardware directly. You just need to make the kernel suitable and put it to the place the hardwired routines are looking for. (e. g. EEPROM) Of course that means to overwrite the BIOS, so it's really dangerous, if you don't have an extra flash device.
A well patched kernel might be able to completely replace the BIOS and even allow to play the games.

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