Converting 2K13 to 2K20 on PSP - Info So Far & Help Needed

[gabelegal]

I'm on this quest to update 2K13 in order to play with the 2019-2020 roster. It is not easy as I thought and I followed MANY online dead ends, that led me to write this post.
What I'm gonna do here is catalog all the info I got so far regarding modding for the 2k13 psp, mods already available, possibilities, persons of interest, etc.
I hope the this post helps clarify others who are looking for, or trying to do the same as I am right now, maybe we can help eachother in some aspect idk:


BEFORE WE START:

Some basic info:

I'm a total newbie to using forums itself, so MODS, if something's outta place here just tell me and I edit or delete it.
English is not my first language, so there will be grammar mistakes here and there.
I'll link the source to everything at the end of this post.

Let's get it.


GOAL:

The goal here is to create a updated 19-20 roster that is playable in Season Mode and Association Mode, on an actual PSP system. I'm not even trying to mess with textures, logos, cyberfaces and stuff like that, it would be nice, but I realized that this is so so so much more difficult to do, so let's leave that as a bonus, and keep the roster as our priority here.


MODS ALREADY RELEASED AND PERSONS OF INTEREST:

Basically we got 3 functional mods for the game today:


The Easypig/JEDL Mod:

It was originally a roster update for 2014. Apparently the user named Easypig made missing players, rookies, and updates on players positions, numbers and ratings using CMF (CheatMaster Fusion). Later the user JEDL used Easypig files as a base to update it to 2015 roster. You can only use this updated roster in Quick Play and Exhibition Mode. You could still create 5 players from scratch.

A post here on the NLSC Forum was made for this mod, but while JEDL still seem active, Easypig vanished.

The Antdroid mod:

It's a modified ISO of 2k13 with 2k16 rosters. Playable on Association and Season mode. From the info I could gather, he used the Easypig/JEDL Mod as a base to update the roster a little to 2015-2016, and modded the ISO itself to make this the default roster. There were already 5 players created on this one (Karl-Anthony Towns, Hezonja, D'angelo Russel, Porzingis and Okafor). He made a diary on his personal blog about his 2k13 modding journey. From his blog we can see that after messing around with the Easypig/JEDL modded roster, he used Watto Game Extractor to explore the ISO itself, and Hex Editing to make the modded roster, the main one. He also made experiments on changing team names in order to convert Bobcates and Hornets to Hornets and Pelicans, but this is not on the realeased modded ISO for some reason. Besides his old blog posts and some old topics on the subject in some other forums and facebook pages, it's clear that he's already moved on and it's not working on any 2k mods anymore.


The DankKenny Mod:

Claiming to have added cyberfaces, updated logos, new textures for courts, shoes and jerseys, another image on main menus and more. Released the link for the modded ISO and Save Data, but apparently no one (including myself) could get it to work. Some files inside the game data were related to team logos, courts and jerseys, but those .rar files are to this day locked with a password he never gave, claiming that it was not needed to mess with them, just throw them in the save data folder. Did not explained how he created the mod. Made a post in this very forum releasing the mod, and vanished completely after.


Extra: The PPSSPP Philippines Mod

While the rest of them works on the PSP itself (or at least claim to work, like the DankKenny Mod), this one only works on the PPSSPP (PSP emulator for PC and android). They changed almost everything they could, updated rosters, cyberfaces, new textures for everything, you name it. But the method they used works exclusively on the PPSSPP, and won't work on an actual PSP system. They are quite active in their facebook group and page, but it's hard to get info and reach out, since it seems that they mainly speak tagalog, and very little english, the only thing I could grasp is that the use some Hex Editing mixed with emulator features to get the job done.


POSSIBILITIES:

So based on those cases, we can be sure that:

- It is possible to update rosters using CheatMaster Fusion without messing with the created players limit.
- It is possible to make a modded roster the main one, in order to play with them in any game mode, by modding the ISO itself.
- It is possible to modify textures and have them work in game, but this only happened succesfully using an emulator.


MODDING ITSELF:

Okay, so if we break it down the steps in order to reach our goal, we would need to use CMF to update roster, then use the Antdoird method to modify ISO.

Easypig original post stated that he made his update using CMF, but never explained how he did it. When user JEDL picked up the project, he stated on the topic that he had no knowledge in creating new players or edit existing ones using CMF, which led me to believe that he updated Easypig rosters ingame, like Antdroid apparently did.

So the first question is what exactly Easypig did? There are a lot of players in his modded roster without a portrait photo, similar to what user created players look like on menu screens. So I have 3 main theories:

1. He used CMF to ignore the created player limit and created them ingame.
2. He used CMF to edit already existing players, giving them another name, position and stats.
3. He used CMF to clone players (be them existing ou user created), and edited them one by one later.

I have very little knowledge on how CMF works exactly, and have yet to find a good tutorial online on how to actually do stuff with it, so if anyone with a little bit more knowledge on this can help me out with some pointers or info, it would really help. I also couldn't find any existing cheat database ou table that could help out with this.

Now regarding Antdroid, he basically registered what he did on his blog, so you can check it out in a little bit of detail (yes, a little bit, it was not a tutorial, it was a diary, so don't expect a step by step).

The main method here seems to use hex editing, CMF, Watto Game Extractor and UMDGEN, but there are little info on how and what to do exactly with this tools, so maybe another modders from different systems can help me out here with some info, so I can keep going with the project.


CONCLUSION:

We already know that this is possible. It already has been done on the past. I gathered info and narrowed it down to some plausible paths to take, but still need a little bit of help understanding it before taking the next step. I hope this long post helps people who are looking for the same thing as I am, a close experience to 2k19 / 2k20, playable on the PSP. If you have any info on this subject, feel free to comment. If PM or e-mail won't do it, you can google my username and find me with no problem, we can talk.

And if you read it until here, thank you very very very much, I appreciate it.


SOURCES:

The Easypig/JEDL Mod: https://forums.nba-live.com/viewtopic.php?f=149&t=94218
The DankKenny Mod: https://forums.nba-live.com/viewtopic.php?f=149&t=103604#
The AntDroid Mod - Before: https://forums.operationsports.com/forums/nba-2k-last-gen-rosters/881345-nba-2k13-psp-2015-16-roster.html
The AntDroid Mod - Modding Diary: https://www.antdroid.dev/2016/05/nba-2k13-psp-to-nba-2k16-conversion.html
The AntDroid Mod - How to apply his patch and a download link for the patch itslef, and the patched ISO: https://www.antdroid.dev/2016/05/tutorial-how-to-mod-nba-2k13-to-nba.html
The PPSSPP Philippines Mod Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Ppsspp-Nba2kmods-127111981381327/