Technical Details

If you purchased a modded PS1, it is equipped with a modchip, which allows for backup game discs to be played. The most important thing to be aware of is that you are REQUIRED to burn onto a CD-R. The disc drive is unable to read any other media.

You can get your games anywhere you can find ROMs, and burn them to the CD-R using any burning program you’d like. If you have never burned a disc, ImgBurn is an excellent tool.

PSIO

The PSIO is an optical drive emulator that connects to the Serial Port on the back of certain revision PS1 consoles. It allows you to play games in bin/cue format from an SD card. It is also capable of showing some game art as well as managing memory cards. The main benefit of this mod is that you are able to keep your Disc Drive installed in the console, meaning you can still use your physical games in addition to using the SD card vs other ODEs like the xStation.

Adding Games to the SD Card

Games must be in cue/bin format (meaning your game rip will contain a .bin and a .cue file (one is data one is audio), but there are also some requirements of the PSIO that mean they need to be compiled in a certain way as well as have some additional information added. Luckily, a tool exists that makes this very easy for you.

  1. Assemble all of your games into folders named after the game. Place all of these games into a folder (for example, a “games” folder which contains individual folders such as “Spyro Year of the Dragon” or “Metal Gear Solid Disk 1” etc. If you have downloaded game rips from the internet just unzipping them into a folder of the same name as the downloaded .zip should suffice.

An example of a “games” folder. Each folder contains the file for the respective games.

An example of a “games” folder. Each folder contains the file for the respective games.

Example of the inside of a game folder as it comes directly from a game rip. Note the separated .bin files and .cue file.

Example of the inside of a game folder as it comes directly from a game rip. Note the separated .bin files and .cue file.

  1. Download PSIO-Helper for your operating system.

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  1. Place the executable into the folder which contains all of your game folders.

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  1. Run the executable.

    If you receive a message that “Windows protected your PC” select “More Info” and then “Run Anyways”

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