PlayStation formats¶

The PlayStation games on StarLancer's engine, such as Star Trek: Invasion, keep some files in the console's own formats. The code is in src/formats/playstation/, and the discs' Mode 2 sectors are described in Disc images.

sltool tim info <picture.tim>             # a picture's size and depth
sltool tim png <picture.tim> <out.png>    # a picture, as a PNG file

Executables¶

A disc's SYSTEM.CNF names the executable the console starts, in a line such as BOOT = cdrom:\SLUS_009.24;1. The executable, a PS-X EXE, is a 2048-byte header, then the program's text:

Offset	Size	Field
0	8	`PS-X EXE`
16	4	The address the program starts at
20	4	The global pointer at the start
24	4	The address the text loads at
28	4	The text's size

TIM pictures¶

A TIM picture is a header, a colour table for a picture of palette indices, then the picture:

Offset	Size	Field
0	4	`0x10`
4	4	Flags: the depth in bits 0 to 2, and in bit 3 whether a colour table follows
8		The colour table's block, if any, then the picture's block

The depth is 0 for 4-bit palette indices, the leftmost pixel in the low bits, 1 for 8-bit indices, 2 for 15-bit colours and 3 for 24-bit colours. A block starts with a 12-byte header:

Offset	Size	Field
0	4	The block's length, this header included
4	2	x in video memory
6	2	y in video memory
8	2	The width, in 16-bit units of video memory
10	2	The height, in rows

The colour table holds one palette a row. A colour has 5 bits each of red, green and blue, from the low bits, and a flag in bit 15 that makes it semi-transparent where the drawing asks for it. The colour 0x0000 is drawn transparent. sltool writes a picture as RGBA, with the first palette, and 0x0000 transparent.