Yesterday, 04:30 PM -
Good morning everyone. I want to preface that I am not particularly familiar with this forum, but I have been using RPCS3 for a while. I made an account just to post this because there is zero information on this process anywhere. If this is the wrong place, please do let me know and I will move it. Feel free to skip the context if you just want to know how to do this. Instructions are at the bottom.
While I was tinkering around with an old Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker save I had on my XBOX 360, I was curious if I could do this when I wanted to play it with a friend who only had the PS3 version. It's possible this may ONLY work on MGS PW as I haven't tried on anything else yet. I will likely add to this post as I experiment, but I don't have that many games for both consoles. My best guess as for why this worked is because XBOX 360 saves are naturally unencrypted, similarly to RPCS3's. The format that can actually be read by the console seems to be different from the one you generate when you save.. saves.. to portable media, which is why you can't just transfer it directly to RPCS3 DESPITE them being unencrypted. From what I can gather, the extraction process (step 6) converts it into console-readable data. Aside from the fact it works, the files become nearly identical in size, which lends some credibility to my theory. I'm sure someone will know better than me in this regard of course, I would love to hear thoughts on it.
As I said, this may not work for every game, but the fact it even worked for one is very promising. If you want to try this out, you will need:
- RPCS3 (duh).
- A copy of the game for RPCS3 (again, duh).
- The save data originating from the XBOX 360.
- USB flash drive (or some other way to transfer the save from the XBOX 360 to your PC).
- Velocity File Manager. Github: https://github.com/hetelek/Velocity
Here are the steps I took. Your exact situation may differ:
1). Create a new save game in RPCS3 for the game in question. Just to the point where it appears in the savedata directory (/dev_hdd0/home/00000001/savedata/).
2). Transfer your save data from your XBOX 360 to your PC via your method of choice. USB flash drive is the easiest method.
3). Open Velocity.
4). Click File > Open > Package.
5). Find your save data and open it.
- In my case, it was buried in a directory that was transferred and named ambiguously. If you're not sure what to look for, find the RPCS3 version of the save file for reference. They should be very similar in naming. Mine was at /Content/E853E256E39CCA86/4B4E083C/00000001 and named NA_00000000.000.
6). Right click the file in the UI and click "Extract selected". You can put it somewhere you will remember.
7). Find the RPCS3 counterpart and replace it with the newly created file. Make sure to rename the generated file so it matches the one you're replacing.
8). Start the game and check if it works.
Update. I did two more tests of this method. Metal Gear Solid 2 HD edition and Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain.
MGS2 didn't put up a fuss. It looks like cases where the game has multiple files for its saves, you just need to make sure to replace each of them. In MGS2's case, there was a MASTER.BIN file and a DATA.BIN file. So long as both are replaced with this method, it works. I also found while testing this one that (what I assume to be) the PARAM.SFO file that every PS3 game comes with has the data the save game menu displays in it. This means that the menu will display the original save file's information until you load it, then overwrite it via normal saving. This seems to work flawlessly in both MGS PW and MGS2.
MGS5 was not so lucky. It has 6 different files in its saves. The game did not recognize them and assumed the save was corrupted. I suspect the save data for this game is much more complex and has some console-specific data that prevents this from working. I still suspect it's possible for this game to work, but some extra research would be needed.
While I was tinkering around with an old Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker save I had on my XBOX 360, I was curious if I could do this when I wanted to play it with a friend who only had the PS3 version. It's possible this may ONLY work on MGS PW as I haven't tried on anything else yet. I will likely add to this post as I experiment, but I don't have that many games for both consoles. My best guess as for why this worked is because XBOX 360 saves are naturally unencrypted, similarly to RPCS3's. The format that can actually be read by the console seems to be different from the one you generate when you save.. saves.. to portable media, which is why you can't just transfer it directly to RPCS3 DESPITE them being unencrypted. From what I can gather, the extraction process (step 6) converts it into console-readable data. Aside from the fact it works, the files become nearly identical in size, which lends some credibility to my theory. I'm sure someone will know better than me in this regard of course, I would love to hear thoughts on it.
As I said, this may not work for every game, but the fact it even worked for one is very promising. If you want to try this out, you will need:
- RPCS3 (duh).
- A copy of the game for RPCS3 (again, duh).
- The save data originating from the XBOX 360.
- USB flash drive (or some other way to transfer the save from the XBOX 360 to your PC).
- Velocity File Manager. Github: https://github.com/hetelek/Velocity
Here are the steps I took. Your exact situation may differ:
1). Create a new save game in RPCS3 for the game in question. Just to the point where it appears in the savedata directory (/dev_hdd0/home/00000001/savedata/).
2). Transfer your save data from your XBOX 360 to your PC via your method of choice. USB flash drive is the easiest method.
3). Open Velocity.
4). Click File > Open > Package.
5). Find your save data and open it.
- In my case, it was buried in a directory that was transferred and named ambiguously. If you're not sure what to look for, find the RPCS3 version of the save file for reference. They should be very similar in naming. Mine was at /Content/E853E256E39CCA86/4B4E083C/00000001 and named NA_00000000.000.
6). Right click the file in the UI and click "Extract selected". You can put it somewhere you will remember.
7). Find the RPCS3 counterpart and replace it with the newly created file. Make sure to rename the generated file so it matches the one you're replacing.
8). Start the game and check if it works.
Update. I did two more tests of this method. Metal Gear Solid 2 HD edition and Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain.
MGS2 didn't put up a fuss. It looks like cases where the game has multiple files for its saves, you just need to make sure to replace each of them. In MGS2's case, there was a MASTER.BIN file and a DATA.BIN file. So long as both are replaced with this method, it works. I also found while testing this one that (what I assume to be) the PARAM.SFO file that every PS3 game comes with has the data the save game menu displays in it. This means that the menu will display the original save file's information until you load it, then overwrite it via normal saving. This seems to work flawlessly in both MGS PW and MGS2.
MGS5 was not so lucky. It has 6 different files in its saves. The game did not recognize them and assumed the save was corrupted. I suspect the save data for this game is much more complex and has some console-specific data that prevents this from working. I still suspect it's possible for this game to work, but some extra research would be needed.
This post was last modified: 1 hour ago by Nightseer769.