Author: hobbitdur

mmag.bin (a standalone file of the menu archive, loaded at menu startup) drives the in-menu magazine viewer: each entry describes one magazine page view — the text window, the page picture, up to 4 picture overlays and up to 4 text overlays. The picture overlays reference mngrp.bin Pos 4, the text overlays reference the book-text string sections (raw files 87+).

The file is an array of 68-byte entries (69 entries in the English PC release), with no header. mmag2.bin (the Chocobo World screen pages) uses the same entry format.

Entry format

Offset Size Description
0x00 2 Window X (24 in all retail entries)
0x02 2 Window Y (8)
0x04 2 Window width (336)
0x06 2 Window height (184)
0x08 2 Paper mat X (relative to the window, see the paper mat)
0x0A 2 Paper mat Y
0x0C 2 Paper mat width (0 = not drawn)
0x0E 2 Paper mat height (0 = not drawn)
0x10 1 Paper mat red (multiplied by the zoom colour byte, /128)
0x11 1 Paper mat green
0x12 1 Paper mat blue
0x13 1 Paper background parameter A (PS1 GPU E1 texture page bits)
0x14 1 Paper background parameter B (PS1 GPU E2 texture window bits)
0x15 1 Text file index: the string section loaded is raw file 87 + this value
0x16 1 Page texture category (see the category table below)
0x17 1 Page texture page number
0x18 1 Weapon index: ORed as a bit into the savemap unlocked-weapons mask, and the weapon’s remodel line (from mwepon.bin) is drawn on the page. 0xFF = none. Used by the Weapons Monthly pages (one weapon per page)
0x19 1 Weapon line spacing
0x1A 1 Zell Duel move id: unlocked in the savemap and its button combo (from the kernel Duel data) is drawn. 0xFF = none. Used by the Combat King pages
0x1B 1 Angelo move id: unlocked in the savemap. 0xFF = none. Used by the Pet Pals pages
0x1C 2 Weapon list X
0x1E 1 Weapon list Y
0x1F 1 Weapon quantity column X offset
0x20 2 Duel combo X
0x22 1 Duel combo Y
0x23 1 Footer flag: 1 = draw the footer line, menu string 1/13/28 (“{CrossLeft} {CrossRight} to scroll {Circle} to go to Tutorial”), centred at x = (336 - text width) / 2 + 24, y = 200. Only the multi-page books set it
0x24 16 4 picture overlay slots, 4 bytes each (see below)
0x34 16 4 text overlay slots, 4 bytes each (see below)

The paper mat (0x08-0x12)

These seven bytes do not describe the page picture, and 0x10-0x12 are a colour rather than a scale. Menu_Magazine_DrawPageImage (0x4C95A0) builds a single GP0(0x62) primitive — a monochrome, semi-transparent rectangle with no texture coordinates at all — whose R/G/B are the three bytes at 0x10-0x12, each multiplied by the matching byte of the zoom colour and divided by 128 (so 128 = unchanged):

prim.r = zoom.b0 * entry[0x10] / 128
prim.g = zoom.b1 * entry[0x11] / 128
prim.b = zoom.b2 * entry[0x12] / 128
prim.code = 0x62                      // monochrome rect, variable size, semi-transparent
prim.xy   = window.xy + entry[0x08..0x0B]
prim.wh   = entry[0x0C..0x0F]

It is the tinted mat drawn behind the page art: the art itself is a picture overlay. Entry 0’s (115, 35, 0) is the sepia backing of the Lion Heart photo, and the Pet Pals pages use it as the reddish frame around the dog. Combat King has no picture overlay at all and uses the mat alone, as the banner behind its Duel move name.

Both the width and the height must be non-zero for it to be drawn. The entries that want no mat do not use zeroes: they store (255, 255, 255, 255) with a (0, 0, 0) tint, which lands a black rectangle at (279, 263) — off screen.

Overlay slots

Both slot arrays use the same 4-byte layout; a slot with id 0xFF is unused:

Offset Size Description
0x00 2 X position (relative to the window position)
0x02 1 Y position
0x03 1 Id
  • Picture overlays (0x24): the id selects a sprite in the SP2 quad-list table at Pos 4 of mngrp.bin (raw file 7), drawn over the page. These carry the page art. Their quads sample the page picture directly: every magazine quad has texpage 0x00AE = VRAM (896, 0) in 8bpp — exactly where the page picture TIM declares itself — and CLUT 0x36A0 = VRAM (512, 218), the TIM’s own (single) CLUT row. A quad is therefore a plain crop of the decoded TIM, at the slot’s position plus the quad’s own draw offset.
  • Text overlays (0x34): the id selects a string in the book-text string section (raw file 87 + entry byte 0x15), drawn with the menu text engine.

Draw order

Menu_Magazine_Draw (0x4C9330) fills a PSX ordering table, so the primitives it adds last are the ones drawn first. Back to front, a page is:

  1. the paper background (Menu_Magazine_DrawPaperBackground, 0x4C96F0)
  2. the menu window gradient (BattleUI_DrawWindowBackground)
  3. the paper mat
  4. the picture overlays
  5. the text overlays, then the footer line when byte 0x23 is set

The paper background is drawn as 64px-wide vertical strips across the window width, textured from the E1/E2 bits at 0x13/0x14. In every retail entry these are E1 = 0x00 and E2 = 0xC0, which give texpage VRAM (896, 0) and a texture window of mask (28, 28) offset (0, 24): the U/V are wrapped to 0-31 and 192-223, i.e. a single 32x32 tile at VRAM (896, 192)-(927, 223), just below the 256x192 page picture TIM loaded at the same texpage.

That parchment tile is mngrp.bin raw file 12: a standalone 2048-byte file holding one 32x32 8bpp TIM whose header places its image at VRAM (896, 192) and its CLUT at (512, 219) — a row below the page pictures’ shared CLUT at (512, 218). It is the only TIM in the game data declaring that placement, and it stays resident while the page TIMs swap in above it. It is uploaded when a book opens: Menu_Tutorial_Update case 14 calls Menu_LoadMngrpTextureAsync(12, staging) right after loading the SP2 table (raw 7), and the texture loader sends the TIM to the emulated VRAM at its header-declared placement. The menu window fill (BattleUI_DrawWindowBackground, coloured by the player’s Config window colour) is blended over the paper, which is why the pages read as darkened parchment in game.

Page texture categories

The page texture loader maps the category to a base raw file index inside mngrp.bin; the loaded file is base + page number:

Category Base raw file Content
0 28 Weapons Monthly issue pictures
1 20 Loaded by the Combat King pages, but never drawn (see below)
2 24 Pet Pals pictures
3 44 Occult Fan pictures
4 48 Card textures (unused by mmag.bin)
5 71 Card rules / battle tutorial pictures
6 180 Card icon explanation pictures
other - The page number is used directly as the raw file index

A page texture is only ever sampled through the picture overlays — nothing else draws it. The five Combat King entries (28-32) have no picture overlay at all, so their texture is loaded into VRAM and then never read. Category 1 is theirs alone, and raw file 20 is in fact a byte-identical copy of raw file 28, the Weapons Monthly weapons: the reference is vestigial, and those pages have no picture. What fills their banner is the Duel combo.

Magazine map (English PC release)

Entries Content Text file (raw) Page pictures (raw)
0-27 Weapons Monthly, 7 issues × 4 pages (1st, March…August) 87 28-34 (one per issue)
28-32 Combat King 001-005 (1 page each) 87 20
33-38 Pet Pals Vol.1-6 (1 page each) 87 24
39-42 Occult Fan I-IV (1 page each) 87 44-45
43-50 Battle tutorial, 8 pages 88 74-75
51-63 Card rules, 13 pages 89 71
64-67 Card icon explanation, 4 pages 89 182
68 Empty terminator entry - -

Entries 0-42 are the item-menu magazines: using a magazine item opens the items module’s own reader (a parallel implementation of this viewer, draw functions Menu_ItemMagazine_Draw/Menu_ItemMagazine_DrawPage), whose entry range comes from bytes 2/3 of the item’s mitem.bin row and which uses a second in-memory copy of mmag.bin (mmagbuffer). The unlock fields (0x18-0x22) are only processed by this item-menu reader — reading the page is what unlocks weapons, Duel moves and Angelo moves, every frame the page is displayed. The tutorial-book viewer ignores those fields (entries 43-67 have them at 0xFF). Entries 43-67 are the three tutorial-menu books, whose first/last entry indices come from mtmag.bin.

The unlock block (0x18-0x22)

Menu_ItemMagazine_DrawPage both applies and draws it. Each field sets its savemap bit every frame the page is up — that is the whole unlock mechanism — and two of the three also draw:

  • Weapon index (0x18) — ORs 1 << index into SG_PARTY_BATTLE.unlocked_weapons, then draws the weapon’s remodel line from mwepon.bin (mweaponbuffer + 12 * index + 4, four {item id, quantity} pairs, empty ids skipped). Per row: the item’s type icon at (weapon_list_x, weapon_list_y - 2), its name at weapon_list_x + 14, and the quantity right-aligned on weapon_list_x + weapon_quantity_column_x (menu_draw_number_rightaligned). Rows step down by weapon_line_spacing (0x19). The item name comes from the kernel (getTextBattleItem), and the type icon is byte_B88024[mitem.bin row's item type] + 223, i.e. one of icon.sp1 ids 223-229. byte_B88024 is a 24-byte table indexed by the item type: 0,0,0,1,1,1,2,3,4,5,6,1,3,3,3,3,6,1,1,6,6,0,0,0.

  • Duel move (0x1A) — ORs 1 << id into SG_LIMIT_BREAK_ZELL, then draws the move’s button combo from the kernel’s Duel section: up to 5 u16 codes at offset 16 of the 32-byte entry, terminated by 0xFFFF. Buttons start at (duel_combo_x, duel_combo_y) and step 40 px right, with separator icon 55 drawn 16 px left of every button after the first.

    A button code is a pad bitmask, and its icon is 128 + (index of the lowest set bit of code & 0xF0FF) — an icon.sp1 id. The mask drops bits 8-11, which is why the icon ids the combos actually reach are 128-135 and 140-143:

    Bit 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8-11 (masked out) 12-15
    Icon 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136-139 140-143
    Button L2 R2 L1 R1 Triangle Circle Cross Square Select, L3, R3, Start the four d-pad directions

    So Dolphin Blow (04 08 04 08) is L1 R1 L1 R1, and My Final Heaven (1100 2000 4000 8000 0010) is a full d-pad rotation followed by Triangle. Note the engine remaps ids 128-139 through the player’s key config at runtime, so the glyph a player sees depends on their bindings; icon.sp1 ships the PlayStation pad set.

  • Angelo move (0x1B) — ORs 1 << id into SG_ANGELO_KNOWN, and draws nothing. The Pet Pals pages show their dog through an ordinary picture overlay like any other page.

Function addresses

Function Address Description
Menu_Magazine_Update 0x4C9060 Viewer state machine (page turning, zoom)
Menu_Magazine_Draw 0x4C9330 Draws window, page picture, text overlays, footer
Menu_Magazine_DrawPictureOverlays 0x4C9670 Draws the 4 picture overlay slots
Menu_Magazine_DrawPageImage 0x4C95A0 Draws the paper mat rectangle
Menu_ItemMagazine_DrawPageImage 0x4FDA50 The item reader’s copy of it, same logic
menu_draw_text 0x4BDE30 Glyph blitter: cell = code - 0x20, atlas of 21 columns of 12x12, +13 y per line break
menu_draw_number_rightaligned 0x4A3400 Draws a number ending on the given x (via menu_draw_number_colorsel, 0x4A3530)
getTextBattleItem 0x47EA30 Item name, from the kernel’s item name text sections
Menu_Magazine_LoadPageTexture 0x4C9920 Loads the page picture TIM from category/page
Menu_Magazine_DrawPaperBackground 0x4C96F0 Draws the paper background in 64-pixel strips
Menu_ItemMagazine_DrawPaperBackground 0x4FD5B0 The item reader’s copy of it, same logic
Menu_LoadMngrpTextureAsync 0x4AC400 Loads a mngrp raw file and uploads its TIM to the emulated VRAM at the header-declared placement (page pictures, parchment raw 12)
Menu_Tutorial_Update 0x4C9CB0 Tutorial menu state machine; case 14 uploads raw 7 (sprites) + raw 12 (parchment) on book open
Menu_Magazine_FirstEntry 0x1D7D3A5 First mmag entry of the currently open book
Menu_Magazine_LastEntry 0x1D7D3A6 Last mmag entry of the currently open book
Menu_DrawSp2Sprite 0x4FDCA0 Generic SP2 quad-list sprite renderer (also cardanm.sp2)
Menu_ItemMagazine_Draw 0x4FC990 Item-menu reader main draw (parallel implementation)
Menu_ItemMagazine_DrawPage 0x4FD6E0 Item-menu page draw, incl. the unlock fields 0x18-0x22
Menu_BookTextBuffer 0x1D773A4 Static buffer receiving the book-text string section
mmagbinbuffer 0x1D2BAF8 Pointer to the loaded mmag.bin
mmagbuffer 0x1D2BB6C Second in-memory copy of mmag.bin used by the item-menu reader