Help! How to contribute guide

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Revision as of 20:12, 25 January 2011 by Ngng (talk | contribs) (some CRC info as requested)
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Welcome to the PCSX2 Wiki and make yourself at home!

You are free to contribute to this wiki if you have information to correct, update, or add here. Be sure to read these simple steps to be more productive and helpful.
First of all if you are new to wikis, take your time to check out this tutorial.

  • Before creating a new game article please verify whether the game is already present in the wiki - use the search box on the left panel. As you should know many games have multiple releases, depending on revision and region. Therefore each game article may contain several infoboxes: one for each revision/region. For example the page for Drakan - The Ancients' Gates contains two infoboxes, one for the PAL release and another for the NTSC release. Thus there is no need to create new pages for each different region or release of the same game - instead, just add new infoboxes on the exisiting page as necessary.
  • When creating a new game page please ensure that you name it exactly after the original PS2 title. This will help to avoid any confusion in the future.
  • For the sake of consistency and more efficient editing each game page contains an infobox template. It looks something like this:
{{infobox game
|image             = Drakan_-_The_Ancients'_Gates.png
|caption           =
|developer         = Surreal Software
|genre             = Action-adventure, RPG
|gameinfo          =
|wikipedia         = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drakan:_The_Ancients%27_Gates
|reviewlinks       = http://www.gamespot.com/ps2/action/drakantheancientsgates/review.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gssummary&tag=summary;read-review
|reviewscore       = 7.7/10
<!-- NTSC-U props -->
|NTSCU             = 1
|serialsNTSCU      = SCES 50006
|CRCsNTSCU         = 04F9D87F,ABC12345
|releasedateNTSCU  = July 5, 2002
|statusNTSCU       = 2
|linuxstatusNTSCU  =
|macstatusNTSCU    =
<!-- PAL props -->
...

It's easy to update such pages as you only have to enter each variable's values after the equals (=) sign. However, when you create a new page it will be empty so you will need to copy a sample infobox from any existing page and then correctly edit the values. For variables to which you do not know what to enter, leave them blank. Copy the Mac and Linux infoboxes as well but if you did not test them, leave their values blank and put a note saying 'untested' so players who tested on those platforms can fill up the variables later.

  • Values like serials, CRCs, release dates, and statuses are distinguished by region type. Find your region (be it PAL, NTSC-U or NTSC-J) and update the value accordingly. So for instance if you want to set the game as playable on Windows and your region is NTSC-U, assign '2' to 'statusNTSCU' variable.
  • Status values are numeral, please do not set it to something like 'playable', it won't work. Use '2' to show that the game is playable, 1 = goes ingame, 0 = is broken. Remember, use the Preview button to make sure your edit shows up correctly before actually saving the page.
  • Genre value can be any text but please be advised to stick to the current defined game categories (Action, Adventure, Arcade, Compilation, Casual, Fighting, Horror, MMO, Minigames, Shooter, Sports, Racing, Remake, RPG, RTS are currently defined, please propose more on the talk page). You can use any combination of these words to set up the game category. For example, setting genre to "Action-Adventure,RPG" automatically stores this game under Action, Adventure and RPG categories simultaneously. And if the genre is "Extreme Sports" the game will be categorized as "Sports". You can also add categories by hand if necessary.
  • You can set as many genres as you like delimiting them by commas (ex. "Action,Adventure,Fighting,Minigames"). This will put the game in all those categories simultaneously.
  • Before committing the changes please confirm that they are correct by using Preview button. Fix any errors you may have inadvertently made and keep previewing until you are finally satisfied with all your edits - only then should you save the page. This will help you from committing multiple updates to correct each error as you find them.
  • When uploading pictures please crop unnecessary parts and name them according to the PS2 game title (for example, this file).
  • CRCs are special hexadecimal numbers uniquely identify the main executable game file (i.e. each game modification has its own CRC). You can find this value near the beginning of the console (activate it in Misc/Show console menu) log. The line with it will look like this:

ELF (cdrom0:\SLPS_259.15;1) CRC=0x0A70CB4C, EntryPoint=0x00100008
This value is not particularly important but for the sake of completeness it can be provided (PCSX2 will identify or game and apply patches using it).

I found the page, but I only want to say it works better/worse on my specs

Let's say you found the game's page here on the wiki and it already has some information that you don't feel needs updating, but you'd like to mention that it plays better/worse on your computer. For this kind of information, please use the game's Talk Page.

However, if the original information was of an older emulator version but the game plays better now on a newer version, feel free to update the information directly on the game's page. For example, on the page it says with PCSX2 version 123 the person got 30fps using a Core2Duo 2.00 GHz, but you have a newer version, 456, and you got full 60 fps using a Core-i5 2.66 GHz. In this case your information is more recent and your results better, so update the game's page. However, please copy and paste the old information into the game's Talk Page so that people can still refer to the lower spec. Make sure to copy their settings like speed hacks if they had notes on that as well.

The page doesn't exist, how do I create it?

If you have already searched for the game you wish to edit information for on this wiki, but it doesn't exist, you can create it yourself. Don't worry, it's easy and only takes a minute! You can create a new page by adding the complete game name into the following input box (please make sure it is corretly spelled, you can check the spelling in wikipedia or on any game site like, for instance, gamespot) and then pressing the button. The empty game infobox will be added on your new page so you'll be able to fill it up as you see fit:

Good luck and Thank You for contributing!