[GUIDE/INFO] Flash Carts, ODE, and more!

[nightrnr]

I like that 4 wire board. Most of us using these ODE's (or equivalent) are just trying to make a broken drive system work with SD cards, so a minimal install is all we really need.

Im still hoping for a PSOne solution eventually. An actual drive replacement is in the works for that, so I hear.

So the PSIO install IS mostly soldering to points, but you do have to delicately expose a couple tiny via access points without damaging them (as green coats the copper). And you better have some flux to apply, because you basically get one shot for that (and the guide doesn't show any alternative points).
The other scraping I think is just for a ground point (and there is lots of room for that, at least on the board revision I have).

I will get to my Xstation install too. I'll just up and do it when I'm feeling adventurous/reckless one day (an exacto knife gets in there well enough for the leg lifting). But I think a couple other systems will take priority before that (SD NeoGeo CD and MODE Dreamcast setups for starters).

Oh, and if anyone hears of a PS1/Saturn/Dreamcast MODE all-in-one setup in a custom formed case, I want to know about it.
I know I'm dreaming, but I'd pay good money for such a beastly conglomeration.

[Jagosaurus]

Man... so much going on the ODE and mod community. While not an ODE, coming off our PISO vs XStation conversation - I had completely forgot about PS1 Tonyhax. This has now further developed into PSXFreeBoot. UniROM is no longer serial port only! You can essentially soft mod your PS1 off mem card. Thought a tool that runs off PS1 memory card, no disc swap or hard-mod needed, and plays burns & imports was worth a nod in this audience:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggpm-thuaTY

Also, pairing some extra stuff down before an upcoming planned move and only so much free time for projects. Over is BST forum, went ahead and listed my spare PS1 7501 for free if anyone wants to put in a working laser in or use for PSIO

[Ziggy]

My Fenrir came in the mail today! First impressions are that it's awesome!

The installation is super easy (no soldering required) but I did have one minor issue. It's suppose to fit around two of the 4 mounting posts that were intended for the CD drive. But it didn't fit on the posts that are in my Saturn. The holes in the Fenrir PCB aren't large enough to fit around the posts. I've seen videos of it fitting on smoothly, so I guess my revision Saturn just has uncommon posts maybe. It's a very minor thing. I kind of just snug it down and it's fine. Still, now I'm glad I didn't spring of the 3D printed enclosure for it, this issues might have conflicted with it.

There are no traces around these mounted holes, at least there doesn't appear to be with a quick inspection. If I really wanted to, I could ream the holes out larger so they fit on my posts. I probably would have if I had a reamer on hand. But again, it was such a minor thing and it really doesn't matter.

The only annoying thing about the setup is that the SD card needs to be formatted to FAT32, which you can't do in Windows without a formatting app. Luckily I have Linux on a laptop so I just formatted the card on there. edit: On 8bitmods.com it states that Fenrir supports FAT32 or exFAT. Perhaps they added exFAT support with a firmware update, but forgot to update all the website pages?

You drop two system files on the root of the SD card, then put game images in unique folders (one image per folder). The only draw back is that each game image folder has to be on the root of the card, so you can't create a folder structure to organize better. Perhaps we will get this with a future update.

I'm going to nitpick here for a second, but I don't believe the access LED works. As stupid as it is, I was kind of disappointed. The optical drive in my model 1 Saturn never worked ever since I had it. My working Saturn was a model 2. So I was kind of looking forward to seeing that activity light, in a geeky way. Well, I guess for all I know maybe the LED on my Saturn is broken. As I said, I never had it with a working drive. So, if it doesn't work on account of the Fenrir, I hope it is implemented in a future firmware update.

OK, with all this crap that doesn't matter out of the way, so far using it has been excellent. As you normally do when you get such a device, I booted up a bunch of games for 5 minutes each and they were all working perfectly.

Laser Bear Industries (LaserBear.net) was having a Black Friday sale, 15% off most items, so I decided to pick up a few things that I haven't felt like spending the dough on.

You can see in the above pic when I first installed the Fenrir, the micro SD card slot is facing the rear of the console. This makes it hard to eject and insert, and with a chance of dropping the micro SD card inside the console which would be very annoying. So I decided it would be worth it to get a 3D printed SD card mount.



And as an added bonus, it adapts from micro to full size SD card. I'd much rather handle the full size SD card than a micro, at least in a case like this when size doesn't matter. There were a few color options. I decided to go with blue instead of black to accent the 3D printed part. I figured that would make it easier to get at the SD card in low light conditions.

[Ziggy]

The flash cart info in the first post needs a massive update, but I wanted to share this device that I just came across on YouTube...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VL_1Z1ONgns

It's called "USB-NES" and it's kind of like a Retrode but only for the NES (and without controller ports). I haven't investigated it beyond watching the above video, but I just wanted to share before I forget about it.

[Anapan]

That's really cool. I was never too interested in these, but that price and needing to assemble it myself makes it attractive to me.

[Anapan]

I would have never guessed that the PS2 memory card port is faster than the USB ports and even adequate speeds to stream FMV in games. Helder makes a $20 Memory Card MicroSD adapter called the MC2SIO. Not his research, but this is far better than the DIY solutions that required you to build them yourself.
https://www.heldergametech.com/product-category/ps2/
Video review from Tito - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fqhS1QuGcs
Comment your favorite PS2 game to enter a draw to win the preview card donated to him for review.

[Ziggy]

I would have never guessed that the PS2 memory card port is faster than the USB ports and even adequate speeds to stream FMV in games. Helder makes a $20 Memory Card MicroSD adapter called the MC2SIO. Not his research, but this is far better than the DIY solutions that required you to build them yourself.
https://www.heldergametech.com/product-category/ps2/
Video review from Tito - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fqhS1QuGcs
Comment your favorite PS2 game to enter a draw to win the preview card donated to him for review.

This is cool. I've heard about it, but haven't looked deep into it yet. So one thing that sticks out is that you need to format to FAT32 which means there's a 4GB file size limit. So any game over 4GB will have to be split. Another thing is that you need a "special" version of OPL (probably a fork to make this work since regular OPL isn't set to load from the memory card). So that might be a pain in the ass down the road if the forks don't merge, you might have to choose between one or the other.

There's another new solution that I wanted to post, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. It's called RetroNAS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=earj0ga17-E

RetroNAS can run from a Raspberry Pi (or anything that can run Linux) and create a NAS for retro consoles and computers. It's a great option for the PS2. Basically, you can set RetroNAS up with a Raspberry Pi and then plug it into the ethernet port of any PS2 (get a network adapter for a phat or use the built in ethernet on slims). Then it will appear to OPL as network storage that you can use the SMB option to load games from.

https://github.com/danmons/retronas

Of course it's useful for way more than just this, but I think it's a great option for PS2. You don't have to format your SD card (or whatever storage device you use) to FAT32, so you're not limited to 4GB size images. And you don't have to worry about forked versions of OPL since it works with the SMB loading that's already part of it. And what I like about it is that after setup it essentially gives you that simple SD card interface without having to setup an actual NAS.

[chupon]

Link to Super Everdrive X6 takes you to Super Everdrive X5.

No big deal. Just letting you know.

[chupon]

Also - thank you Ziggy for this thread. Amazing work and our community is lucky to have you.

[marurun]

Also - thank you Ziggy for this thread. Amazing work and our community is lucky to have you.

Damn straight. Ziggy is an absolute gem.