HD Loader

Post by **Jubal** » Sat Nov 10, 2007 6:17 pm

does anybody have any experience with HD Loader or HD Advance with the PS2?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_Loader
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_Advance
http://www.hdadvance.com/

how about with USBeXtreme

it almost seems too easy to actually work =)

is HD Advance the way to go?

=Jubal=

Post by **mason** » Sat Nov 10, 2007 6:47 pm

nooooooooooooo whatever you do don't buy HD advance, its a rip off, they're charging you for something thatis free!! and the same;: get hdloader not hdadvance

Post by **Mozgus** » Sat Nov 10, 2007 6:57 pm

I've heard terrible things about all the methods involving playing games from USB drives. The simple fact is that PS2's USB ports are v1.1 and not v2.0, which means that cant come close to comparing to the much superior read speeds of the DVD drive. That means games over USB usually dont work, and if they do, have problems.

Post by **ImportBoy** » Sat Nov 10, 2007 7:16 pm

I have HD Advance (the latest version) along with an Seagate 80GB hard disk for my PS2. I use it mostly to play imports, have not had any issues with it thus far. A few games will need to have various switches enabled to work, but you can find this information easily online.

Oh - I should mention you can't rip imports directly. You need to rip them on your PC then FTP them over to your PS2 using the provided software.

Never used USB Extreme, though I've heard a lot of negative stuff about it.

Post by **diehllane** » Sat Nov 10, 2007 11:41 pm

A while back I bought HD Xtreme (combination of USB xTreme and HD Advance). Very few games are actually compatible with the USB play. Another bad thing with going USB is it requires a different format type of your harddrive--meaning you can't switch your hard drive from internal in the PS2 to external of the PS2 and expect it to work (I believe, someone correct me if I am wrong).

I highly recommend HDLoader with a softmod to boot it off a memory card (mem card exploit). If you know someone who has HDLoader or HDAdvance, you can have them set up a memory card for you (simplest way is if they use the exploit themselves, copy the system configuration file off the mem card and then make sure you use the same PSX disc they do, simple and efficient).

At all costs, avoid USB. It's just plain awful for the PS2.

HDLoader is very nice and isn't complicated. For me, it takes about 20-30 minutes usually to copy a game directly onto the harddrive, sometimes up to 45 or so. Same amount of time for me to send one over the network via a crossover cable.

Post by **Mozgus** » Sun Nov 11, 2007 12:17 am

I really wish my ps2 slim supported a hard drive. There's only one option, and it clamps onto certain pins on the board and leaves an ide cable sticking out, and it requires a DMS4 mod chip to function. Altogether thats a $110 investment, assuming it works.

Post by **executioner** » Sun Nov 11, 2007 12:13 pm

HD loader is the best way to go! If you have a modchip just get the iso for the lastest 0.8b patched version, copy to a cd. If not, it still is a good investment if you have to buy it. If you have a slim version then you're out of luck because USB extreme has low compatibility with games and slow loading speed. In my testing with a friend's ps2 about 6 out of 10 games didn't work, specially newer ones.

In a slim ps2 using swap magic you can auto load usbextreme to run games on your hdd withouth swapping out discs. With usbextreme copied to the hdd in a certain way. That's the only good thing I can say about usbextreme.

Post by **mistuhmojo** » Sun Nov 11, 2007 12:26 pm

I've had HD Advance for about 2-3 years and while it's good food, it has been a lot of trouble. The discs were a pain in the ass to get to load for some reason on my old ps2, and when it went out and I got a different (not new, I wasn't going to be forced to deal with USB) one, the discs load first try but half the time it doesn't recognize that there's a HD installed. What's more, a couple of days ago while I was playing Persona 3, the game glitched up and from that point on the discs refused to load as well. I don't know how to explain it at all, they just suddenly don't boot. One second fine, next second kaput. And BOTH discs refuse to load! It's so bizarre.

...

Even after all that, though, I think I'll probably end up buying another copy. The convenience of having what amounts to a ps2 jukebox is too great to give up, and the load times are reduced significantly.

Also, while you CAN conceivably get HDLoader for free (I assume whoever mentioned that was referring to the memory card exploit) I've read that the compatibility is worse in that version. I only read it once, though, so maybe that's a load. Don't you have to have a gameshark to make that work anyway, or something, so you can transfer the exploit from your pc onto your memory card? If you don't already have one, that kind of negates the 'free' aspect, if so. Now that my HD Advance has suddenly died, I'd be curious to know if anyone is using the exploit, and if the compatibility is as good as the disc version. It might be nice to just pay for the gameshark instead, if they are priced reasonably similar.

Post by **prophet138** » Sun Nov 11, 2007 12:29 pm

Go to ps2scene and exploitstation.com. The best thing to do in my opinion is just to make a mc exploit. Those two sites explain everything, and exploitstation has a download for the hdloader.elf. You basically put hd loader on your memory card instead of burning a cd.

Post by **RadarScope1** » Sun Nov 11, 2007 1:01 pm

I have a fullsized PS2 and I've been thinking of doing this for a while. PS2 jukebox .... that sounds nice.