Need help converting Monster Hunter Freedom 1 save to another region

[DjBlades]

Heyo everyone. Long story short, I've been trying to play MHF1 online with a friend for a long period, finally tracked the problem down to us using different regional versions of the game (And yet the coldbird IP let us connect anyway, confused us entirely ). Is there any way I would be able to convert my save file for use for the american version of the game? I've already tried just renaming the folder but that just throws a "Save file is corrupt" error, and all the programs I've found while searching the internet require me to use a real PSP.
Is there any program or method that would allow me to convert my Monster Hunter Freedom 1 save file from EU to the USA version without the use of a real PSP?

[LunaMoo]

Coldbird's server allows playing different regions of MH games together since they ARE compatible. If your savedata isn't compatible after simply renaming(at least assuming it's EU<->US versions which should work fine with each other) then most likely you were playing a game modified to run on outdated psp firmware.

No idea how such patches worked as they were mostly used by pirates and have no idea if the savedata made by game modified in such way can be fixed. But I'm quite sure this could also be the real cause of your adhoc incompatibilities and if I recall others having problem with it - that "mod" will also stop you from being able to transfer your character to newer MH games.

[DjBlades]

(12-13-2016 07:40 PM)LunaMoo Wrote:  Coldbird's server allows playing different regions of MH games together since they ARE compatible.

How do you mean? Coldbird let us meet in the gathering hall, but both our games would immediately have us "break off" from one another after the load screen was finished. If I used a private network like Evolve or Tunngle, proadhocserver's logs would show us joining up with each other, but we wouldn't be able to see each other at all in the hall. Using the same region as each other fixed that case.

As far as I know, my game is completely unpatched or anything like that. Is there a way I could specifically check for this?

[LunaMoo]

Servers based on ppsspp server code will only have like 1 or two games connecting between regions since we don't have the database of such games built-in aka most people don't care enough to type a few extra lines in with built-in server being used mostly for LAN play among people using same region anyway;p.
Coldbird cared about the whole online aspect hence why his popular server automatically will translate quite a few games that are known to work between different regions.





If you "aren't sure" whenever you patched it or not aka if you downloaded it from some warez site on the net, then it almost surely will be patched as those patches are known from causing such "save corruption" among other stuff and they were commonly used around the time this game was released.
In general you should not expect support for warez related problems here, legal stuff and our forum rules aside, games intentionaly broken to work on some outdated shit are simply not worth investigating emulation wise.

[DjBlades]

Alright, understandable. Thanks for the help anyways. Guess I'll see if I can get my friend to drop me some materials on a new save instead.

But another question, would patching a game stop it from working on multiplayer entirely? Or if both players used the same patch (The english patch for Monster Hunter Portable 3rd, in this case) would it still work?

[TkSilver]

Compatibility patches range depending on the version of CFW they were ment to make compatible. So on some it probably won't on others it probably will. It really depends on if the patch included stuff to trick the PSN network and how imbedded the version checks were.

The easiest way to get a 100% compatible iso is to just dump your UMD and then you know it wont have any patches.

[LunaMoo]

Patching is a bit generic word, so let's treat different cases separately:
a) game updates,
b) fan translations/mods,
c) cfw compatibility patches.


Starting from "a" - those usually require same patch version, sometimes showing a separate "multiplayer" version like for example Toukiden Kiwami(which had quite a few important updates with lots of content;p) which different patches could have same multiplayer version and as long as that number matches the games were compatible.

As for "b" - usually those will not affect anything important, unless it's some early bad/untested work, don't really recall any existing fan translation breaking multiplayer through.
I can say for sure MHp3rd last "maverick" fan translation was definitely fine, especially HD version as the standard one requires decrypting some files one by one which is annoying process that requires real psp.

"c" is still technically "b" ~ fan made modification, except it messes up with important functions and that's the whole reason it causes problems.

Best way to ensure getting clean copy of a psp game imo is to get it on ps store;p, digital download has 0 collectors value, so price is also fair in opposite to some rarer umd's.

[DjBlades]

Didn't expect such an in depth explanation, thank you for all your help.