Build Dark Souls PS2 from your own game

This page turns your copy of Dark Souls Remastered (Steam, PC) into a disc image of the PS2 port that plays in PCSX2. The conversion runs on your computer. Your game files never leave it.

Nothing is uploaded

The check in step 1 reads a few game files inside your browser and compares their SHA-256 hashes with the versions the port is tested on. The conversion in step 2 also runs inside this tab and writes the ISO to your disk. This site hosts code only: no game data, and nothing made from it. The ISO you build is made from your copy of the game, so keep it to yourself.

Latest build

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1 Check your game copy

Pick the folder that holds DarkSoulsRemastered.exe. In Steam: right-click the game, then Manage → Browse local files. Only the 15 files the converter depends on are read, and only to hash them.

2 Convert in your browser

The port's own converter runs inside this tab (Python in WebAssembly): it reads your game folder, builds the maps, characters, menus and scripts, and packs them with the latest build of the engine into DarkSoulsPS2.iso. The browser build has no sound yet (the game's MP3 sound banks need a decoder the converter cannot run here); the script below builds the same disc with sound. Keep the tab open while it works. It takes a while (about 10 to 20 minutes; the maps are the slow part). Each worker uses up to about 2.5 GB of memory, and several run side by side, so use a desktop browser (Chrome, Edge or Firefox) with other big tabs closed, and pick fewer workers if your PC runs short of memory.

Choose your game folder in step 1 first.
Or build it with a script instead

The same build as a local command (Docker or Podman, or your own ps2dev toolchain): faster on a big machine, and the way to go if the browser runs out of memory.

Paste this into a terminal:

It downloads build-iso.sh, which fetches the port's source at the commit above, builds a container with the PS2 toolchain the first time, converts your game data and writes DarkSoulsPS2.iso in the current folder.

3 Play

  1. Install PCSX2 2.x and set it up with a BIOS dumped from your own PS2.
  2. Open DarkSoulsPS2.iso (System → Start File, or drag it onto the window). HostFs is not needed for the ISO.
  3. Controls: left stick moves, right stick turns the camera, Circle rolls (hold to dash), R1 attacks, Cross acts, Start opens the menu.

This is an early prototype: Firelink Shrine, Undead Burg and the Undead Asylum block, the Warrior, enemies and event scripts. See README for what works and what doesn't yet.

How it works

The PS2 engine holds no game data: every game value it needs is in the packs, so one engine build from the project's CI serves everyone. This page runs the same Python converter the developers use (in Pyodide, with its C helpers compiled to WebAssembly) on your files, in your browser, and writes the disc image locally.

Prefer to do it by hand?

Clone the repository and follow the README's quick start, then make -C ps2/proto iso.