Action Replay Max Ps2 Code List Download VERIFIED
It's a program which lets you take the codelist.bin file downloaded from CodeJunkies, and strip out all the games that you don't care about in order to create a smaller file -- thereby giving you a lot more room on your memory card. In addition, you can also add additional games and codes, whether from an official source or a third-party website.
Action Replay Max Ps2 Code List Download
Another option, which might be simpler for those with a modded console and lots of spareCDs, is to burn your own copy of the ARMAX CD itself, replacing the standard codelist withyour customised one. Since I don't have a modded console myself, I can't verify thisprocedure, but someone (called ITSE) provided this guide.
An additional feature that can come in handy is the ability to compare codelists. Themost useful example of this is to compare the (official) codelist you've just downloadedagainst the one you had downloaded previously, thereby allowing you to see which codesand/or games have been added. Among other things, this allows you to see if there wasanything interesting, giving you an indication whether it's worth going to the troubleof copying the codelist over to your console. In addition, you can of course comparecustom codelists against each other as well, although that is less useful as customcodelists are frequently wildly different from each other.
At its heart the program merges codelists together. You can selectively enable and disablecustom codelists (to prevent them being included in the merge), but you cannot disable theofficial codelist. This in turn means that you cannot prevent a code in the official codelistfrom appearing in your final codelist except by excluding the entire game that contains it --although you can tweak it by renaming it or changing the order in which it appears.
Note that while MCM does perform basic validation of codes you enter (to catch typos andthe like), and I've put in a number of sanity checks to discourage making invalid lists, itis still possible to slip a bad codelist through the cracks. Care is warranted. We willnot take any responsibility for corrupted savegames or other weirdness through the use ofany codes you've set up through MCM.
Initially this function won't be available, since you will have only justdownloaded your first codelist. Once you download a later codelist, though,this button will become available, and if clicked will show you the list ofgames and codes that have been added or removed between your older list andthe newly-downloaded one. This can help you determine if there's aninteresting new game to add to your favourites or not.
Note that this will only be available during the session that you downloadedthe new list -- once MCM is closed, it will "forget" about the older list andwill no longer be able to show you the changes.
The core of the program is still your list of favourite games. Only codesfor these games will be exported into your personal codelist file. Typicallyyou should choose the smallest number of games you can (normally just the onesyou expect to be playing over the next few days/months), since the smaller yourselection here, the smaller the resulting codelist file will be and hence themore room you'll have on your memory card for actual gamesaves. One exceptionto this is if you're burning a new ARMAX CD (requires modded console), in whichcase you'll probably want all of them.
To choose your favourite games, you first need to see what's available. Soclick on the "View full combined codelist" button. This button will always showyou the largest codelist we have -- the result of combining all the other listsspecified in the program. From here, the simplest thing to do is to scrollthrough the list and tick the boxes next to those games you're interested in,finishing up by clicking the "Update favourite games" button. (If you don'tclick the button, changes to the checkboxes won't affect your favourites -- thisis to help prevent accidentally changing your favourites.)
New in MCM v2 is the ability to manage (and edit) custom codelists, whether builtby yourself or downloaded off others. This is what the list on the left side ofthe main screen is for. Bear in mind that this is an optional feature of theprogram -- if you just want to use the official codelists, then that's fine.
To start out with, you've got two options -- you can either create a new codelist(with the New button) or import an existing list (with the Add button). Once you'veadded a codelist to the list, you'll see that it has a checkbox next to it. Thisdetermines whether the list is enabled (which it is, by default). Anenabled list will be included in the combined codelist; a disabled one won't be.This allows you to "swap in" different (perhaps conflicting) codelists fairlyeasily.
There are two main functions that a custom codelist can perform. The first, obviously,is containing entirely new games or codes. Note that MCM will not help you actuallycreate these codes -- it's strictly a codelist manager. You will need toobtain valid codes from elsewhere. The second function is to "tweak" existing codes,especially those from the official codelists. Perhaps you want to rearrange the codes toput the ones you use the most near the top, or perhaps you want to correct a typo orprovide additional comments for a given code. All of that is possible.
If you're just starting out using MCM, chances are that you've manually entered somecodes into your PS2 at some point. If you follow the normal codelist update strategies(which usually involve deleting your old codelist file), these can get lost. But neverfear, MCM now includes the ability to import these as well.
Note that you only need to import manually-entered codes if they were obtained from athird-party source -- codes that were in the official CodeJunkies codelist are alreadyavailable to MCM (if you've downloaded them).
WARNING: if you import these codes into a custom codelist and then include thatin the codelist being exported by MCM, then you should delete the original files(arsettings.dat or ActionReplayMAXSettings) from your MAX Drive ormemory card afterwards. This is because any user-entered codes in those files takesprecedence over the codelist.bin file that MCM generates, so any changes made in MCMwill be overridden by the "old" codes in the files you imported from. (Don't forgetto take a backup copy of these files before deleting them though, just in case.)
Only one codelist at a time is editable -- this is called the "active codelist". Youcan make any of the custom codelists active simply by clicking the Make Active buttonwhen the codelist is selected -- it doesn't even matter if the list is enabled ordisabled. Note however that the official and combined codelists cannot be made activeand thus cannot be edited directly (they can, however, be edited indirectly byoverriding their codes).
Once you've made a codelist active, it will appear in the Active List section. Fromthere, click on the View button to see the list of games and codes within just that list.When viewing the active list, a number of additional functions become available, such asthe ability to directly Add a new game or code, or Edit an existing code (editing a gameis achieved by editing its master code). This can be as simple as changing the textassociated with a code (and in fact, if a valid decryption engine couldn't be found thenthat's all you'll be able to do), or include changing the actual definition of the codeas well -- though again, MCM will not help you with that, except to verify that the codeyou've entered is a valid one.
There's one other useful ability that appears once you've made a list active: if youview a different list (including the combined list), an option to add a given game to the active list appears. This is how you can accomplish tweaks to existinggames/codes, since once they're in the active list then they become editable.
There is also limited support for moving codes up and down within the list, which you canuse for example to put your most frequently used codes at the top for easy access. It'slimited because we don't support reorganisation -- while you can move codes within a folderand you can move folders of codes, you can't move a code into or out of a folder. Thereare two important reasons for this. The first is that folders themselves require a uniqueid (just like any other code in the list), making them tricky to create on the fly. Thesecond is that exclusive codes (the ones that appear as radio buttons and only allow youto select one at a time) depend on the folder they're in to determine which codes cannotbe mixed -- which is important to prevent code clashes. Moving those around would let youset up potentially unsafe codelists, which doesn't seem like a good idea.
To create the combined codelist, the official codelists and any enabled custom codelistsare merged together. The merging itself is an ordered process -- this means that if agiven game or code exists in two different codelists, then whichever one is mergedlast "wins" and will be included in the final merged codelist.
The starting point is always the codelists from the CDs (if you've imported them), sincethey should be the oldest. Then the downloaded codelist is merged with that, producinga combined Official Codelist. After that, each of the enabled (ticked) custom codelistsare merged in the order listed (meaning ones toward the bottom will "win" over onesfurther up), and the result is the Combined Codelist. After that, the list is filtered by your choice of favourite games, and the final result is your Personal Codelist, which is the one that you'll end up exporting to ARMAX.
The most useful thing to remember is that you can move custom codelists up and down toinfluence when they are merged in, and consequently which of them will "win" if there isa clash. This isn't all-or-nothing at the game level, though -- you can delete individualcodes from a given codelist, which will ensure that they can't clash with codes merged inearlier. This whole merging thing makes it fairly easy to create little "patch" lists thatonly change one or two codes in a given game (or add additional codes without affecting anyof the standard ones). But all this merging also means that you can't get rid of a givencode entirely without disabling any codelists that contain it -- and you can't disable theofficial lists.