PS2 Mod 2016-19: USB & HDD Loading, PS1 via POPS, Emus

[Ziggy]

Glad you got it working!

[Jagosaurus]

Okay, still need to format my HDD but I do have it connected and recognized in OPL in my PS2 phat. I do have some nice progress to report on.

First, check out this beast. Looking like something out of Frakenstein


I have Grandia II .iso running via USB drive in OPL. Display out via component looks great. Game ran well & saved succesfully to memory card in slot 2 (FMCB in slot 1). Great experience & won't lie... rewarding after the effort!


Now that I have an .iso I can confirm will work in OPL. Time to get games running off the internal IDE HDD versus USB within OPL. Slow moving but progress!

[noiseredux]

I was acutally pretty impressed with the movie playback. I set SMS to 1080i and was upscaling a 720 x 480 .avi file. I watched Waiting via USB. Pretty cool novelty. My cheap little BR player via play 1080p MKVs via USB but hey, why not try it out on the PS2. Limited to 480 base resolution and 4GB .avi files but I have some movie files that meet those parameters.

in 2008 my PS2 was newest console and I had just gotten high speed internet. I remember I used to download unreleased horror movies and put it on the PS2 via a USB thumb drive and we watched a lot of weird shit that way. Curtains is the one that sticks out haha. That was fun and sort of a weird transition for me before Android blew up and there were all these easy ways to stream video files to a TV.

[Jagosaurus]

I was acutally pretty impressed with the movie playback. I set SMS to 1080i and was upscaling a 720 x 480 .avi file. I watched Waiting via USB. Pretty cool novelty. My cheap little BR player via play 1080p MKVs via USB but hey, why not try it out on the PS2. Limited to 480 base resolution and 4GB .avi files but I have some movie files that meet those parameters.

in 2008 my PS2 was newest console and I had just gotten high speed internet. I remember I used to download unreleased horror movies and put it on the PS2 via a USB thumb drive and we watched a lot of weird shit that way. Curtains is the one that sticks out haha. That was fun and sort of a weird transition for me before Android blew up and there were all these easy ways to stream video files to a TV.

Funny, I have very similar memories of the original xbox around winter of 2007. One of my buddies was big into DLing movies & we'd stream them over his home network via XBMC (which the PS2 can handle LAN playback for .avi files via SMS also). My mind was blown. I was looking for the "video in" cable from his PC across the room . Way ahead of its time. Man, 10 years later most ppl still don't do that! Idiocracy is one movie I remember watching this way.

Noise, I know we're on a similar path... We're both going mostly digital although looks like you've been moving to PC/Android & I've been going for fash carts & mods. I've been having fun with this one. Been a bit more tinkering than expected (after the ease of flash carts) but will soon have access to a library of PS2 games ready to load from the HDD (vs in small quantities via currently). If you still have that PS2 laying around, I'd suggest going for it!

[Jagosaurus]

FINALLY... Big update here:
PS2 .iso files officially running off the internal HDD via OPL.

Tonight I broke out the 250GB IDE HDD. Plugged into my Windows 7 PC.
Big Tme Saving Tips:
- Run WinHIIP as Admin
- Run in Windows "xx" compatibility mode for your OS (keep in mind folks were doing this when XP was the most common OS)
- Go into Disk Management on your PC, click the healthy partition you created, and "delete volume"
- NOW you can format your drive in WinHIIP without errors
- Then transfer over .isos to HDD
These steps should save you some time... of course chose the correct drive!


Current PS2 Fat Set Up:
FMCB Mem Card, Mem Card for Game Saves, Wireless controller receiver, USB with homebrew programs including OPL, 2nd USB has more revelant soft mode data on it (just storing here for quick USB swapping when needed), PLUS the HDD in the back bay you can't see.
Frankenstein!!!


Moment of truth:
OPL recognizing the HDD and the .iso. We're close...


GRANDIA II TIME!
Official PS2 retail game/.iso file running off HDD


Project Thoughts:
Take-aways:
- Just buy a memory card with FMBC or have a forum member send you one. Way too easy to acquire one these days that tracking down a swap magic disc!
- Ask others for help. I hit a lot of road blocks and the folks here were very helpful. THANKS ALL!
- Search the PSX Scene forums. Wealth of knowledge there across literally 100s of threads on PS2 mods
- Be ready for tinkering. A lot will depend on your PC, your OS, your drive type
- DON'T buy a Western Digital drive. Look a few pages back. It was big pain for me. I had to mod the network adapter to make it fit. Check PS2 HDD compatibility list!
- I recommend learning FMCB, ELF launcher, OPL, other apps with a USB drive first. Then dive into the HDD deep end.
- A lot is contingent on the .iso file. I DLed 4 PS2 .iso files (not ripping my own games). I know each game is compatible with OPL, but only 1 of the 4 files would boot correctly. You may be safer ripping your own .iso files here as others stated on this thread previously.
- 9/30/16 edit/update regarding bullet point above: downloading .iso files. I had previously DLed 4 .iso files and only 1 worked via USB loading. All 3 of those files that did not work via USB, I can confirm they did run via HDD loading! In fact, I put 20 .iso files on my HDD (All DLed, not ripped from my collection) and 19 of 20 of these files worked fine. The one did not fully work loaded fine but hung up after opening FMV (Cold Fear was the title). So as a whole, seem compatibility is higher on HDD, or the HDD is less touchy with files. I even just renamed a .bin file as .iso and it booted fine.

Still left to do:
- I'd like to create HDD partitions and have everything running off the HDD. Currently only PS2 .isos are running of the HDD. Movies, music, emulators, retro ROMS are all on USB. Not a necessity but over time, I'd like to get this going.
- Eventually dive into creating game covers/importing artwork. There is a full blown GUI for OPL but it does look like some work. Fine with text menu for now.
- Eventually rip my own .iso files from disc I own. As mentioned above, DLing .isos seems spotty. (See 9-30-16 edit above regarding .isos and HDD vs USB)
- After thought: The virtual memory card save via the HDD would be cool but I'm no where near filling my current memory card lol.

One more question for you all: if ripping my own PS2 games onto my PC (don't want use PS2 laser and HDL). What method/PC program do you recommend in 2016?

Thanks all! This has been a fun project!!! Some small tweaks reamining but overall a big success... now it is really time to play some games, both retro games emulated on the PS2 and retail PS2 games via OPL!!!

[nightrnr]

Man, there's still stuff even I need to do with my PS2 setup(s), and I've had it for years now. Like for one, I want to dedicate a system to arcade ports and peripheral gaming (Guitar Hero, DDR, Guncon, eye-toy, etc).
I don't even have all my games ripped yet (about half?, and several I still want to obtain).
I used to use isobuster a lot, and still do on occasion, But it didn't copy a couple games right, and I can't remember what else I tried.
I really need to consolidate my emulators for it as well. Most of what I put on my flash drives, I was still experimenting with.

Still need to get you that pc-engine emulator sometime. I think I'm still just disappointed in that one. It's clunky and glitchy, but runs a few games well enough I guess.

[Sarge]

Loading off of HDD is absolutely the way to go. I've had this setup for years, and it's really, really nice. The only difference now is that I don't need a trigger disc to boot the exploit, now that Free McBoot is around.

[Ziggy]

- Search the PSX Scene forums. Wealth of knowledge there across literally 100s of threads on PS2 mods

The problem I have when doing this is you never know if the info is up to date or not. Some PS2 scene stuff hasn't been updated in ages. So when you're viewing a post that's several years old, you don't know if it's still relevant or not.

One more question for you all: if ripping my own PS2 games onto my PC (don't want use PS2 laser and HDL). What method/PC program do you recommend in 2016?

ImgBurn. Creating an ISO using ImgBurn should be pretty self explanatory, but you can read through this guide if you want (the first two posts also have some tips and tricks): viewtopic.php?f=52&t=23524

- After thought: The virtual memory card save via the HDD would be cool but I'm no where near filling my current memory card lol.

Also note that you can use the FMCB file explorer to copy save files to/from a memory card (PS1 or PS2) and a USB stick. This is how I back up my important save files to a PC (in case the memory card ever gets effed up) but you can also do this to move save files around if you ever run out of room.

You can put save files on your FMCB card as well.

[noiseredux]

Noise, I know we're on a similar path... We're both going mostly digital although looks like you've been moving to PC/Android & I've been going for fash carts & mods. I've been having fun with this one. Been a bit more tinkering than expected (after the ease of flash carts) but will soon have access to a library of PS2 games ready to load from the HDD (vs in small quantities via currently). If you still have that PS2 laying around, I'd suggest going for it!

actually if anyone is interested in doing something like this, I do have a fat PS2, w/ HDD adapter, Free MCBoot cart, and even spare HDD's around if they want to take them off my hands!

[Jagosaurus]

@Ziggy: True, a lot on PSX was outdated but at least got me headed down the correct rabbit hole

Thanks, I'll check out Imgburn and the thread!!!

True regarding the USB to PC for save files. I hadn't really thought about it yet for PS2 game saves. I'd only used that to transfer and map emulator save states. Good tip.

@Noise: I could have sworn I saw a recent thread Dave/dsh started asking about ROM set sizes and it lead to PS2 and Xbox emu discussions. Can't find it. I believe he was looking at going mostly ROMs/.isos. If he's patient enough (assuming I'm remembering who started the thread, he might've just chimed in), this mod & thread might be worth bringing it up to him... and noting that this is possible to do from scratch in 2016 using a modern OS.