Tuesday, January 1, 2008

RS-GUI PopstationMD and ImpalerPSX Eboot Creator

RS-GUI and ImpalerPSX are gui interfaces for DarkAleX's multiple disk popstation. I was going to do a head-to-head comparison of these two apps but I don't believe either one is really near a final version. I will give you my findings up to now:

RS-GUI:
Pros:

  • Supports img, cue, bin, and iso
  • Interface is O.K.
  • Full preview of icon and wallpaper png's (along with error messages if the sizes of images are incorrect, nice touch)
Cons:
  • No automatic game codes. This feature is coming but not implemented yet.
  • I received an error message and that's pretty much all it said: "error occurred" during my first attempt at creating a multidisk eboot. After using PSX2PSP to find my game code, I had input "slus " in lowercase letters. I changed to uppercase and no error.
ImpalerPSX:
Pros:
  • Interface is nice and clean.
  • Input the game's name and it will give a list of possible game codes.
Cons:
  • Only supports iso. Since my game images are img, I had to use UltraISO to convert them to iso.
  • ImpalerPSX has to copy your game iso's to another folder to work on them. This takes a long time: 4 disk game X 650 MB (minimum) each disk = a long wait.
  • The app consistently locked up on me. I wasn't able to complete the eboot creation process. I tried to contact Impaler but his feedback page on his website gave me a 404 error and I couldn't find a forum thread to get help. I think that converting the img to iso is the problem.
I am going to put this comparison on hold. Please don't take these criticisms too seriously since neither of these apps seems complete. Here is what I would like to see if I were going to use one of these to create multidisk eboots for all my PSX games:
  • Red Squirrel needs to add automatic game codes. I hate opening another app to find the code for this app. Also, better error messages: tell me what I'm doing wrong.
  • Impaler needs to add other image formats other than just iso. I shouldn't have to use another app to convert to iso. I will continue to try and get a usable eboot out of this app, hopefully the problem is something I am doing wrong.
These developers are very good at what they do. I have to utmost confidence that both of these apps will eventually become what we need them to be. Can't wait for updates....just need to be patient....

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