Playstation ripping tutorial

[Magma MK-II]

This is a not-so-quick Playstation sprite ripping tutorial. You will need ePSXe and PSX-Vram:

ePSXe official site
PSX-Vram download

Note: I believe this works with other PSX emulators other than ePSXe, but I haven't tested.

Note 2: This tutorial also works for ripping textures!

What we'll do first is take a save state on the emulator. So, you play the game to the point where what you want to rip is, then take a save state (use "F1" button), then exit the emulator.

Now, open the folder where you installed ePSXe, and open the "sstates" folder. You'll see two files, one of which have a .pic extension. Ignore this one and copy the other one (it should be named something like SLUS<some number>.000).

If you have already downloaded and extracted PSX-Vram, then paste the save state on the PSX-Vram folder (you don't have to do this, but it is better for convenience). Now rename the file to "something.7z" (without the commas, of course). Now extract the contents of the file (you will need WinRAR of 7-Zip), and you'll get a file without extension.

Open PSX-Vram (vram.exe):



Yeah, this is the main window of PSX-Vram. There is no HUD; everything is done on the keyboard. Now you must drop the extracted file into the main window of PSX-Vram:



1 - These are screenshots from the point where you took the save;
2 - These are the tiles that make the sprites;
3 - These are the palettes;
4 - This is the work area.

As I said, everything is done on the keyboard, so here are the commands:

* Buttons "1" through "0" change the tile size (8x8, 16x16, etc). Usually we just use "0" for backgrounds and "9" for regular sprites.
* "W", "A", "S" and "D" scrolls through the graphics. As you move through the graphics area, the sprites will appear correctly in the work area.
* The arrow keys scroll through the palettes. They will change the palettes of the sprites in the work area. By holding "shift" you scroll by smaller increments, useful if you're going up or down through the palettes.

Depending on the game, the sprites will bae already organized or not; whichever way it is, now you just use print screen and paste it on Paint. Note you'll be only using what is on the work area.