Rayman 1

[RibShark]

So today I loaded up the game on my PS2, and put in the password where I finished Pink Plant Woods with three cages broken. To my surprise, the map medallion for Pink Plant Woods was empty; no three Electoon faces. It must be a rare glitch because I used to play Rayman 1 on the PS2 with the passwords for years until I got both a PS1 and PS3, and I never experienced that glitch until today.

Passwords can only save whether a level has all cages broken or not. If you create a password when there are 1-5 cages broken, when the password is entered it will act as if no cages have been broken in the level.

[Steo]

Just tried that there. Started a new game, broke 3 cages for 3 Electoons on the Pink Plant Woods medallion and took a picture of the password then loaded the game with it and haven't got any Electoons

Password I got was B! XNCM3? 6Z

Also if I remember right I think this used to happen me as a kid when I had no memory card for a while. Very annoying though.

Edit: Yeah it seems as RibShark says it only saved level progress and completed medallions. I definitely remember having that problem as a kid which is why I had to buy a memory card when mine went missing.

[Ray502]

Thanks RibShark.

That's weird though. Is that supposed to be intentional from using the passwords? Doesn't sound right if so.

[Steo]

You probably want to hear it from RibShark but from my guess it looks like if you complete Pink Plant Woods you're likely gonna get the same password (with a blank medallion) whether you get 0-5 cages but if you get 6 cages you get a different password which will save the progress of the completed medallion.

The above is basically what RibShark already said but I think that's what he means. Same password for x amount except for a completed medallion.

Kind of dumb though, they could've just made the password have extra characters and made it remember the exact amount of Electoons on each level but then that would've been a lot more work with an extra 6 password variations per level along with there being 18 levels that can have all those extra variations.

I'm sure they could have done it if they really wanted to.

Edited yet again: I collected 2 cages instead of 3 and got a slightly different password. Reason it's different is it actually remembers how many lives you had too. I thought it didn't but I had input the wrong password. Dunno about you but I'd prefer it to remember the Electoons than the amount of lives.

[Droolie]

Kind of dumb though, they could've just made the password have extra characters and made it remember the exact amount of Electoons on each level but then that would've been a lot more work with an extra 6 password variations per level along with there being 18 levels that can have all those extra variations.

I'm sure they could have done it if they really wanted to.

Yeah, just a few extra characters.

Let's do some maths.
There are 102 cages in the game so you'd need 102 bits to save cage progress normally (say 0 for not collected and 1 for collected), which is almost 13 bytes. Rayman 1 uses passwords of only 10 characters long.
Now a byte can take 256 values, but one character in the password system can handle far less. You can choose between 26 letters, 10 digits and I think 2 symbols (? and !) so one character can only take 38 values. Because of that you'd need passwords of approx. 86 characters long (=102/8)*(256/38)) just to be able to save cage progress, and that isn't counting the other values that the password stores. I suppose it could be compressed a bit, but not by much.

... Yeah, I'm fine with those 10 character passwords lacking cage progress

[Steo]

Kind of dumb though, they could've just made the password have extra characters and made it remember the exact amount of Electoons on each level but then that would've been a lot more work with an extra 6 password variations per level along with there being 18 levels that can have all those extra variations.

I'm sure they could have done it if they really wanted to.

Yeah, just a few extra characters.

Let's do some maths.
There are 102 cages in the game so you'd need 102 bits to save cage progress normally (say 0 for not collected and 1 for collected), which is almost 13 bytes. Rayman 1 uses passwords of only 10 characters long.
Now a byte can take 256 values, but one character in the password system can handle far less. You can choose between 26 letters, 10 digits and I think 2 symbols (? and !) so one character can only take 38 values. Because of that you'd need passwords of approx. 86 characters long (=102/8)*(256/38)) just to be able to save cage progress, and that isn't counting the other values that the password stores. I suppose it could be compressed a bit, but not by much.

... Yeah, I'm fine with those 10 character passwords lacking cage progress

Yeah I wasn't entirely sure about the maths but I think that might be a little bit too much to input each time

That explains why so never mind. Memory card if you want cage progress remembered or leave the PlayStation on

It has to remember lives too which can go between 0 and 99 so that's more to the maths lol.

River City Ransom on NES had 33 character passwords and that was bad enough

[Ray502]

leave the PlayStation on

That's exactly what I did earlier. I played the entire game 100% without turning the PS2 off. Moving on to Revolution whenever I have the time.

No passwords for that game, just a working memory card.

[Steo]

leave the PlayStation on

That's exactly what I did earlier. I played the entire game 100% without turning the PS2 off. Moving on to Revolution whenever I have the time.

No passwords for that game, just a working memory card.

Just reminds me of the good old days

I'm getting a PS1 myself in a couple of days but I have a third party 1mb memory card here that should do the job. I'll be playing both Revolution and the PS1 Great escape. I think it was you that said the PS1 version has a few differences so I wanted to try it

Basically though the only reason I thought it would've been possible is the amount of lives having 100 variations then the cages having 102, but what I didn't think of is that the lives are a set number whereas just 1 missing cage could have 101 variations if I'm right, so 2 missing could have about 201 and so on. I'm probably still wrong but either way that's gonna total up to quite some amount of characters

Edit: I really can't wait to play Revolution even though I haven't bothered to finish the dreamcast version yet. I hope it comes tomorrow

[RibShark]

Kind of dumb though, they could've just made the password have extra characters and made it remember the exact amount of Electoons on each level but then that would've been a lot more work with an extra 6 password variations per level along with there being 18 levels that can have all those extra variations.

I'm sure they could have done it if they really wanted to.

Yeah, just a few extra characters.

Let's do some maths.
There are 102 cages in the game so you'd need 102 bits to save cage progress normally (say 0 for not collected and 1 for collected), which is almost 13 bytes. Rayman 1 uses passwords of only 10 characters long.
Now a byte can take 256 values, but one character in the password system can handle far less. You can choose between 26 letters, 10 digits and I think 2 symbols (? and !) so one character can only take 38 values. Because of that you'd need passwords of approx. 86 characters long (=102/8)*(256/38)) just to be able to save cage progress, and that isn't counting the other values that the password stores. I suppose it could be compressed a bit, but not by much.

... Yeah, I'm fine with those 10 character passwords lacking cage progress

Some letters aren't available so there's 32 characters per password, and I believe some bits are used as a checksum, so that's even less total bits per password.

[Droolie]

Actually, looking back on my earlier calculation, it seems incorrect because I used multiplication and division rather than powers... I probably just shouldn't have posted it if I was going to make a blunder like that.

Here's a more correct calculation (hopefully...):
The amount of variations is (amount of possible values)^(amount of variables).
We keep track of every cage whether it's collected or not collected. So that's 102 different variables with 2 possible values each, which is 2^102 total variations.
The password system is 10 characters/variables with 38 possible values, so 38^10 variations/different passwords. While that's much less than 2^102, you wouldn't need 86 characters to get beyond that because 38^20 already seems to be enough. So 20 characters should be able to store cage progress.

So while a lot better than 86, it's still too much and as RibShark said there aren't even 38 values per character, and there are invalid passwords too, so those passwords would still be way too large.

[Steo]

I really didn't think about all of that so yeah it was never gonna happen unless you were willing to type in more than double the characters everytime you want to play. That and it would've been a lot more work for UBISOFT to bother. Still cool that it had the password option for people that had no memory card though. Better than starting the whole game again.

Also @Ray502 if you have a PS1 I assume you must have no memory card? If you did you could just put the PS1 memory card into the PS2 and save the game (I'm guessing you already know that anyway) Not that it matters since you just basically left the console on and cleared the game. Also I didn't know PS2 controllers worked on PS1 until today

You'd think Sony would've just allowed you to save PS1 games to the PS2 memory card but maybe there's a reason for that too.

[Ray502]

Also @Ray502 if you have a PS1 I assume you must have no memory card? If you did you could just put the PS1 memory card into the PS2 and save the game (I'm guessing you already know that anyway) Not that it matters since you just basically left the console on and cleared the game.

I have both a PS1 and PS2 memory card. Before I began actually playing the game, I tried using the PS2 memory card, but as you mentioned the game couldn't read it. Then I inserted the PS1 memory card in the PS2, but the game couldn't read that. So I had to select no to the if I have a memory card question.

Also I didn't know PS2 controllers worked on PS1 until today

I didn't know that either.

[Steo]

I have both a PS1 and PS2 memory card. Before I began actually playing the game, I tried using the PS2 memory card, but as you mentioned the game couldn't read it. Then I inserted the PS1 memory card in the PS2, but the game couldn't read that. So I had to select no to the if I have a memory card question.

I have trouble sometimes with the PS2 not reading memory cards especially the fat model. It seems to act like a game cartridge sometimes and just work if you take the card out and just reinsert it. Maybe that's all that's happening in your case? You'll know if you sit in the browser and put the card in if it shows up there.

I didn't know that either.

Yeah 17 years later after the PS2 release I finally find out. I told someone on here yesterday that it wouldn't work and was told by someone else that it actually does

[Fifo]

I didn't know that either.

Yeah 17 years later after the PS2 release I finally find out. I told someone on here yesterday that it wouldn't work and was told by someone else that it actually does

Yeah I tested it today and it definitely does work.

[Steo]

I didn't know that either.

Yeah 17 years later after the PS2 release I finally find out. I told someone on here yesterday that it wouldn't work and was told by someone else that it actually does

Yeah I tested it today and it definitely does work.

I also looked it up online as soon as you said it., not that I didn't believe you but just that I was shocked after not knowing about it for so long (since 2001)

I just haven't had a PS1 in so long that I didn't know and couldn't try it but I literally didn't think it would work.

If I'm right, the buttons in the DS2 are pressure sensitive in some games like in Gran Turismo 3 and I'd imagine 4 is the same. You press x softer and the car doesn't accelerate as much. I'd imagine that's the main difference to why some PS2 games don't support the DS1.

[Fifo]

I didn't know that either.

Yeah 17 years later after the PS2 release I finally find out. I told someone on here yesterday that it wouldn't work and was told by someone else that it actually does

Yeah I tested it today and it definitely does work.

I also looked it up online as soon as you said it., not that I didn't believe you but just that I was shocked after not knowing about it for so long (since 2001)

I just haven't had a PS1 in so long that I didn't know and couldn't try it but I literally didn't think it would work.

Haha.

If I'm right, the buttons in the DS2 are pressure sensitive in some games like in Gran Turismo 3 and I'd imagine 4 is the same. You press x softer and the car doesn't accelerate as much. I'd imagine that's the main difference to why some PS2 games don't support the DS1.

Spot on! That’s exactly why.

[Steo]

Spot on! That’s exactly why.

I was right... for once! So this is what it feels like

I just remember that being the only real difference because it has the same amount of buttons and axis so I assumed it had to be something to do with that. I also remember using a white PSone controller and it working then trying to play Bulletproof and it complaining that I had to insert a DualShock 2 controller and was like what?!

[Aaron]

I also remember using a white PSone controller and it working then trying to play Bulletproof and it complaining that I had to insert a DualShock 2 controller and was like what?!

Oh, wow! Did it actually ask you to insert a PS2 controller? (on a PS1 game?)

[Steo]

Oh, wow! Did it actually ask you to insert a PS2 controller? (on a PS1 game?)

Nah, Bulletproof is a PS2 game but I had been playing other PS2 games with the PS1 controller until that game decided to complain that it needed a Dualshock 2.

[Aaron]

Oh, wow! Did it actually ask you to insert a PS2 controller? (on a PS1 game?)

Nah, Bulletproof is a PS2 game but I had been playing other PS2 games with the PS1 controller until that game decided to complain that it needed a Dualshock 2.

Oh, ok