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

[nightrnr]

PSP is great for most PS1 games. I think DWVII even works with it, which suits a portable quite well (I plan to make an eboot rather than get the 3DS port).
I think images requiring a cue file lack music though (or I am ignorant of how to convert them properly; that means that you can make some games a lot smaller though).

I've been meaning to get a couple PSP translations running. They have a different patching process, I think. I have all the files I need, but since I'm not near ready to actually play the games, it's not a priority right now. My 32gb memory cards await the day I get back into exploring the PSP library.
Right now, it's Nintendo portables for me.

[liquid]

Really grateful for this thread, not least as a gathering-together of useful PS2 modding info. I'm following the steps in order to play the excellent Sega Rally 1995 Japanese port on my UK PS2. Also I want to take it on our next lads' weekend away, crammed with games.

Sega Rally 1995 - It doesn't work from the CD.
It works beautifully from a USB drive.
On the HDD it loads really quick but (along with a few other games) suffers from intermittent stuttering. I can accept it on a turn based RPG like Persona4 but it is game-destroying on a driving game.

I suspect either my Chinese SATA HDD adaptor or the hard disk itself, and plan to replace both. If anyone else has had this can they shed some light?

[harper]

I've realized a lot of guides have a bit of overkill with how to make these things work. I found a pops quickstarter thing and downloaded it. Literally all I had to do was drag the game file to cue2pops, put the flash drive in my ps2 and run the elf file.

Also, with OPL, I'm using a flash drive since I don't have an HDD (well I do but I'm using a slim ps2) and all you have to do is use the program USBulti to convert the game and the games show right up on the OPL menu once you load your device. So far I've tested Ico and Shadow of the Colossus with no issues at all, other than perhaps the actual loading time maybe being a little slower than usual. But no problems with the game lagging or anything.

[Jagosaurus]

Really grateful for this thread, not least as a gathering-together of useful PS2 modding info. I'm following the steps in order to play the excellent Sega Rally 1995 Japanese port on my UK PS2. Also I want to take it on our next lads' weekend away, crammed with games.

Sega Rally 1995 - It doesn't work from the CD.
It works beautifully from a USB drive.
On the HDD it loads really quick but (along with a few other games) suffers from intermittent stuttering. I can accept it on a turn based RPG like Persona4 but it is game-destroying on a driving game.

I suspect either my Chinese SATA HDD adaptor or the hard disk itself, and plan to replace both. If anyone else has had this can they shed some light?

Happy to hear it was helpful. I need to replace all the pics in the main thread which I think are also nice for a visual. Luckily I still have the originals on my drive. Photobucket went to a paid hosting model .

Sega Rally is on my list of imports to try. Thanks for reminding me. Any PAL exclusives for me to try? I know Michigan: Report from Hell got a JPN and EUR release. Not sure if language is JPN or English though in both versions. Messing with settings in OPL, I did find out my TV support 576i which is interesting. I want to try out some PAL games running at that (versus our 480i).

The shutter could be your SATA adapter. We're all using IDE drives on our end as far as I know. You can nab a new (old stock) 250GB IDE drive for under $20 on ebay.

Did you try with different modes? Explanations for them all are listed below. I recommend trying mode 1, if that doesn't fix the stuttering, try mode 1 + mode 6, then mode 6 stand alone.

That fixed the only issues within gameplay I've ran into. Gun is a game that did this. It also hung up in a cut scene. Also a cold boot may help as well. This fixed the issues I ran into with Dark Stalkers Collection which wouldn't go past the menus. We talk about that a couple pages back.

More information on Modes - Link:
http://www.ps2-home.com/forum/app.php/page/opl_modes

I've realized a lot of guides have a bit of overkill with how to make these things work. I found a pops quickstarter thing and downloaded it. Literally all I had to do was drag the game file to cue2pops, put the flash drive in my ps2 and run the elf file.

Also, with OPL, I'm using a flash drive since I don't have an HDD (well I do but I'm using a slim ps2) and all you have to do is use the program USBulti to convert the game and the games show right up on the OPL menu once you load your device. So far I've tested Ico and Shadow of the Colossus with no issues at all, other than perhaps the actual loading time maybe being a little slower than usual. But no problems with the game lagging or anything.

Compatibility is actually a nudge higher on USB from the list I've seen. But certain titles such as Duke Nukem Total Melthdown only work on the HDD.

So what does USBulti accomplish, naming the files correctly? I feel like I heard someone else mention this recently for naming the PS2 USB titles correctly as well. I don't have any experience with that program.

I had to use a combination of guides for CUE2POPS to work correctly on my tinkering machine which is running Windows 8. There's a ton of OPL info out there, but POPs is extremely limited but growing. I think it is an extremely important aspect of PS1 preservation. PS2 consoles were made up until a few years ago. This is huge. We can be playing PS1 on real hardware decades from now.

The Assemblers Games thread was my main source of info but it went down for a considerable amount of time (back up now). Luckily PS2 Home forum has picked up some of the slack. They have an entire subforum dedicated to POPS:
http://www.ps2-home.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=19

I need to join over there. 202 threads on that subforum so far.

[harper]

Compatibility is actually a nudge higher on USB from the list I've seen. But certain titles such as Duke Nukem Total Melthdown only work on the HDD.

So what does USBulti accomplish, naming the files correctly? I feel like I heard someone else mention this recently for naming the PS2 USB titles correctly as well. I don't have any experience with that program.

I had to use a combination of guides for CUE2POPS to work correctly on my tinkering machine which is running Windows 8. There's a ton of OPL info out there, but POPs is extremely limited but growing. I think it is an extremely important aspect of PS1 preservation. PS2 consoles were made up until a few years ago. This is huge. We can be playing PS1 on real hardware decades from now.

The Assemblers Games thread was my main source of info but it went down for a considerable amount of time (back up now). Luckily PS2 Home forum has picked up some of the slack. They have an entire subforum dedicated to POPS:
http://www.ps2-home.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=19

I need to join over there. 202 threads on that subforum so far.

Yeah I think that's basically all USBulti does. Except it seems that you can name the game however you like, it just sort of formats it in a way that OPL will recognize it.

Only downside for me with POPS is the lack of light gun support.

[liquid]

Sega Rally is on my list of imports to try. Thanks for reminding me. Any PAL exclusives for me to try?

I don't know of many that are worth playing unless you're a big SingStar or Buzz! fan... Lots of iffy sports+racing games including cricket, snooker, rugby league and rugby union. Very few are that great. The quality "exclusives" are japanese games localised for PAL and just not US-released. Demolition Girl is good for a laugh. Global Defense Force is great fun. Gregory Horror Show is meant to be really good but I've not got round to that yet. Colin McRae 2005 is a good one that might well be a genuine exclusive. May he rest in peace!

The shutter could be your SATA adapter. We're all using IDE drives on our end as far as I know. You can nab a new (old stock) 250GB IDE drive for under $20 on ebay.

I did try modes and nothing helped so I think it's hardware. I've bought a Sony Network Adapter online today and already have 2 IDE hard drives knocking about. Obviously the official adapter has working ethernet... Nice not to have to disassemble everything to transfer games across.

[liquid]

A quick update. The games work much better with the Sony network adaptor and IDE drive.

Very happy with my silky smooth Sega Rally '95.

I didn't check beforehand but both my IDE drives were WD... so snip-snip to the metal on the right and now it fits nicely.

Transferring games by network was a challenge but eventually I got that working too. Very happy indeed!

[Jagosaurus]

A quick update. The games work much better with the Sony network adaptor and IDE drive.

Very happy with my silky smooth Sega Rally '95.

I didn't check beforehand but both my IDE drives were WD... so snip-snip to the metal on the right and now it fits nicely.

Transferring games by network was a challenge but eventually I got that working too. Very happy indeed!

Happy to hear it is working. I also had to snip the pcb to get my drive to fit.

I still haven't dove into FTP over the network for PS2. I am typically transferring over a large batch of games so I don't mind the IDE to USB to PC. FTP would be nice for moving a single game over here and there. What method/app did you use? I know we discussed it a few pages back if you went that route. Seems to be couple. Have any links to guides, etc on that? On my list to eventually look at! It is really convenient for my oXbox set up.

[liquid]

What method/app did you use? I know we discussed it a few pages back if you went that route. Seems to be couple. Have any links to guides, etc on that?

To be honest I dove in without reading up, went around the houses, and ended up almost exactly where Ziggy did. That's to say the built-in OPL HD server did not work reliably and so I had to use a standalone server elf. As Ziggy also said there are lots of versions of servers and I think he/she landed on 0.8.6. But I eventually had success with this download:
http://theisozone.com/downloads/playsta ... tp-pack-2/
Nb. The windows app HDLDump Helper Gui needs the Java runtime installed which I know is a dealbreaker for some.

So I put hdl_svr_093.elf somewhere handy on MC1.
In ULaunchElf Network Settings I set up the IP, mask and gateway and saved to mc0.
In ULaunchElf I went to Browser --> MISC/ --> PS2Net. This loads up the network modules and you have to do it every time.
In ULaunchElf I then load up the above hdl_svr_093.elf and am greeted with a blank screen because my telly won't do 240 over component. It doesn't matter because you can't do anything in that server app anyway. And you have to hard reset to get out anyway.

With the server elf running on the PS2, I go to Windows and load up HDLD Helper Gui with admin privileges. Give it the IP address and it should connect. OPL Manager V20 also worked for me at this stage.

The only reason I did this was because I've no means of connecting an IDE drive to my PC. With an IDE controller I would be using WinHIIP because it'd be super fast. I imagine it's a bit slower through USB but maybe easier than playing with networks.

[Jagosaurus]

Thanks for the tip & link!