Resource Container (RCO)

Description

Resource Container Objet (RCO) contents are loaded by XMB modules (also known as .sprx plugins), see Plugin Interfaces and VSH

• Compression types availables:
  • ZLIB
  • RLZ
  • Uncompressed

Contents

• RCO contents (See Multimedia Formats and Tools):

Text for all languages, textures, sounds (for cursor navigation, trophy unlocking, etc...) and models

RCO format	Embedded code	Text	Textures	Sounds	Models	Script
Generic	RCOXML	utf8, utf16, utf32	gim, png, jpg, tif, gif, bmp	vag, unknown0x0	gmo	PlayStation JavaScript
PS3 specific	RCOXML	utf16	gim, png, jpg	vag	n/a	n/a

Versions

RCO version	Firmware	Release date	RCO format specifications
			Toc trees	Toc compression	Other Notes
0x55	0.6.5	pre-retail	9	uncompressed	archaic rco format, header is 16 bytes smaller
0x70	1.00	2004 / 12 / 12	10	uncompressed
0x71	1.50~2.50	2005 / 3 / 24	10	uncompressed	normal toc up to this version
0x90	2.60	2005 / 11 / 29	10		zlib compressed toc implemented
0x95	2.70~2.71	2006 / 4 / 25	10		rlz compressed toc implemented
0x96	2.80~3.40	2006 / 7 / 27	10		the toc seems to be compressed in parts
0x97	1.00~1.54	2006 / 11 / 11	10
0x100	3.50~6.61	2007 / 5 / 31	10
0x102	1.60~1.70	2007 / 3 / 22	10
0x104	1.80~1.82	2007 / 5 / 24	10
0x105	1.90~1.94	2007 / 7 / 24	10
0x106	2.00~2.17	2007 / 11 / 8	10
0x107	2.20~2.80	2008 / 3 / 25	10
0x108	3.00~3.01	2009 / 9 / 1	10
0x110	3.10~3.74	2009 / 11 / 19	10
0x120	4.00~4.25	2011 / 11 / 29	10
0x130	4.30~4.76	2012 / 10 / 24	10

RCO Structure

The container structure can be represented as an XML (see RCOXML), with rcomage is posible to generate this XML when extracting, and for rebuilding the rco using the XML as a layout

Based on RCO File Format (outdated) and rcomage source

All the cells in the tables below colored in red are unknown or doubtful, and in blue are optional

Header

Offset	Length	Name	Example	Notes	Speculation
0x00	0x04	magic	FRP	In PS3 is "FRP" (big endian). In PSP is "PRF" (little endian). Playstation Resource File
0x04	0x04	version	00 00 01 30	named minFirmwareVer in Rcomage, see Discussion page
0x08	0x04	unknown	00 00 00 00	Always seems to be 0x00000000
0x0C	0x04	compress_header	00 00 00 10	0x00=uncompressed 0x10=ZLIB 0x20=RLZ	0x01=uncompressed + UMDflag 0x11=ZLIB + UMDflag 0x21=RLZ + UMDflag
0x10	0x04	info_table_offset	00 00 00 A4	usually 0xA4
0x14	0x04	vsmx_table_offset
0x18	0x04	text_table_offset
0x1C	0x04	sound_table_offset
0x20	0x04	model_table_offset
0x24	0x04	image_table_offset
0x28	0x04	unknown	FF FF FF FF	Always seems to be 0xFFFFFFFF	unknown_table_offset ?
0x2C	0x04	font_table_offset
0x30	0x04	object_table_offset
0x34	0x04	anim_table_offset

strings

Offset	Length	Name	Example	Notes	Speculation
0x38	0x04	text_table_offset
0x3C	0x04	text_table_length
0x40	0x04	label_table_offset
0x44	0x04	label_table_length
0x48	0x04	native_table_offset
0x4C	0x04	native_table_length

pointers

Offset	Length	Name	Example	Notes	Speculation
0x50	0x04	text_pointer_table_offset
0x54	0x04	text_pointer_table_length
0x58	0x04	image_pointer_table_offset
0x5C	0x04	image_pointer_table_length
0x60	0x04	model_pointer_table_offset
0x64	0x04	model_pointer_table_length
0x68	0x04	sound_pointer_table_offset
0x6C	0x04	sound_pointer_table_length
0x70	0x04	object_pointer_table_offset
0x74	0x04	object_pointer_table_length
0x78	0x04	anim_pointer_table_offset
0x7C	0x04	anim_pointer_table_length

files

Offset	Length	Name	Example	Notes	Speculation
0x80	0x04	image_data_section_offset
0x84	0x04	image_data_section_length
0x88	0x04	sound_data_section_offset
0x8C	0x04	sound_data_section_length
0x90	0x04	model_data_section_offset
0x94	0x04	model_data_section_length
0x98	0x04	unknown		Always seems to be 0xFFFFFFFF	unknown_data_section_offset ?
0x9C	0x04	unknown		Always seems to be 0xFFFFFFFF	unknown_data_section_length ?
0xA0	0x04	unknown		Always seems to be 0xFFFFFFFF

info/main/xml table

This area works as an index of all the .rco contents, when the area is compressed there are 12 bytes at the beginning with info about this compression, after it starts the info composed by entries that follows a hierarchy of parent/children/brother, every entry defines an element with its attributes. All this info can be represented as an xml file (this is what rcomage names an RCOXML)

Compression methods

When the table is compressed at beginning there are 3 values related with the compression (otherway if the table is not compressed this 3 values doesnt exists)

Offset	Length	Name	Example	Notes	Speculation
0x00	0x04	lenPacked		Packed size of all the table sections
0x04	0x04	lenUnpacked		Unpacked size of all the table sections
0x08	0x04	lenLongestText		length of the longest language's text data (unpacked) if the compressed area doesn't contains any language text the value is 0

Info entry

Common area

Each entry starts with the entries, every entry has an area at beginning that is common, in it is specifyed the entry_type, the values that comes after this area are dependant of the entry_type

Offset	Length	Name	Example	Notes	Speculation
0x00	0x01	hierarchy_depth		main table uses 0x01, may be used as a current entry depth value
0x01	0x01	entry_type		0x1=MainTree 0x2=ScriptTree 0x3=TextTree 0x4=ImageTree 0x5=ModelTree 0x6=SoundTree 0x7=FontTree 0x8=ObjectTree 0x9=AnimTree
0x02	0x02	unknown		Always seems to be 0x0000
0x04	0x04	entry_label_offset		Offset to the label (relative to the label table). 0xFFFFFFFF means the label doesn't exist for this entry
0x08	0x04	entry_header_size		sizeof(RCOEntry) = 0x28 [ only used for entries with extra info (ie not "main" entries) ]	entry_common_area_size
0x0C	0x04	entry_size		main tables (main/img etc) uses 0x28 here, or is this the length of current entry (not including subentries)?	entry_whole_size
0x10	0x04	children_number
0x14	0x04	next_entry_offset			next_brother_entry_size
0x18	0x04	previous_entry_offset		this is usually 0x0 however (does make writing RCOs easier though :P I guess Sony's tools do something similar...)	previous_brother_entry_size
0x1C	0x04	parent_offset		offset of this entry from parent table 0x20
0x20	0x04	unknown		Always seems to be 0x00000000
0x24	0x04	unknown		Always seems to be 0x00000000

After the area common for all entries it starts the info specific for each entry_type explained below

(0x1) MainTree

Main tree doesnt uses specific attributes, only uses the default ones explained above that indicates his position at top of the RCOXML Structure hierarchy and gives it a "label" name

(0x2) ScriptTree

This is named "ScriptTree" for simplification purposes, but is not actually a tree, only one VSMX file can be stored inside an RCO

Offset	Length	Name	Example	Notes	Speculation
0x00	0x04	file_offset		VSMX file offset, relative to the start offset of the vsmx data table (always 0)
0x04	0x04	file_size		VSMX file length

(0x3) TextTree

"TextTree" could be renamed to LanguageTree, is more intuitive, the point is every entry here is the "parent" of several string texts, but the entry itself is not a text (is the parent of a group of texts), so is better to use a name more abstract like "LanguageTree"

For a Language first are specified the language_id and the number of "children" text strings

Offset	Length	Name	Example	Notes	Speculation
0x00	0x02	language_id		0x00=Japanese 0x01=English (United States) 0x02=French 0x03=Spanish (Spain) 0x04=German 0x05=Italian 0x06=Dutch 0x07=Portuguese (Portugal) 0x08=Russian 0x09=Korean 0x0A=Chinese (Traditional) 0x0B=Chinese (Simplified) 0x0C=Finnish 0x0D=Swedish 0x0E=Danish 0x0F=Norwegian 0x10=Polish 0x11=Portuguese (Brazil) 0x12=English (United Kingdom) 0x13=Turkish
0x02	0x02	strings_format		0x00=UTF8 0x01=UTF16 0x02=UTF32
0x04	0x04	strings_number		number of text strings for this language_id

Now for every strings_number are repeated 12 bytes to define every string that are references to other tables

Offset	Length	Name	Example	Notes	Speculation
0x00	0x04	label_offset		Offset to label, relative of the label table
0x04	0x04	string_length		Length of the text
0x08	0x04	string_offset		Offset of the text, relative to the text data start address

(0x4) ImageTree

The values marked in red are optional, the presence of the unknown specific for PS3 can be deduced based on the "rco version" in the rco header, only exists in PS3 RCO's (PSP doesnt uses it). See rcomage talk page. The presence of the other optional value file_uncompressed_size can be deduced by reading the entry itself

The file_compression feature adds a compression layer over the file format (pointless for image formats that are nativelly compressed like GIM or JPG)

Offset	Length	Name	Example	Notes	Speculation
0x00	0x02	file_format		0x0=PNG 0x1=JPEG 0x2=TIFF 0x3=GIF 0x4=BMP 0x5=GIM
0x02	0x02	file_compression		0x0=NONE 0x1=ZLIB 0x2=RLZ
0x04	0x04	file_size		either compressed or uncompressed, this is the final size of the file stored inside the rco
0x08	0x04	file_offset
0x0C	0x04	unknown		PS3 RCOs seem to have this extra value - probably something to do with planes/frames?? usually 0x1
0x10	0x04	file_uncompressed_size		Doesn't exist if file_compression = NONE, for PSP is located 4 bytes before because the previous value doesn't exists

(0x5) ModelTree

ModelTree uses the same values than ImageTree with a couple of differences, the table is repeated here for comparison purposes

The presence of the unknown (specific for PS3) is completlly speculative because never has been found a GMO file used on PS3 official firmware, is not even known if PS3 firmware has some function able to manage GMO files

Offset	Length	Name	Example	Notes	Speculation
0x00	0x02	file_format		0x0=GMO
0x02	0x02	file_compression		0x0=NONE 0x1=ZLIB 0x2=RLZ
0x04	0x04	file_size		either compressed or uncompressed, this is the final size of the file stored inside the rco
0x08	0x04	file_offset		Offset of data relative to the beginning of the image data section
0x0C	0x04	unknown		PS3 RCOs seem to have this extra value - probably something to do with planes/frames?? usually 0x1
0x10	0x04	file_uncompressed_size		Doesn't exist if file_compression = NONE, for PSP is located 4 bytes before because the previous value doesn't exists

(0x6) SoundTree

Offset	Length	Name	Example	Notes	Speculation
0x00	0x02	file_format		0x0=unknown 0x1=VAG
0x02	0x02	audio_channels		0x1=MONO 0x2=STEREO
0x04	0x04	file_size		either one or two channels, this is the final size of the file stored inside the rco
0x08	0x04	file_offset		Offset of the sound data to the beginning of the sound data section
0x0C	0x04	left_channel_size		This is the size of left channel file
0x10	0x04	left_channel_offset		Offset of left channel VAG to the beginning of the sound data section
0x0C	0x04	right_channel_size		Only exists if audio_channels = STEREO
0x10	0x04	right_channel_offset		Only exists if audio_channels = STEREO

(0x7) FontTree

Offset	Length	Name	Example	Notes	Speculation
0x00	0x02	file_format		0x1=?
0x02	0x02	file_compression		0x0=NONE ? 0x1=ZLIB ? 0x2=RLZ ?
0x04	0x04	unknown			file_size ?
0x08	0x04	unknown			file_offset ?