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

[Jagosaurus]

Strangely enough, playing Halo 2 online has got me paying attention to my modded PS2 again.

Seeing so many folks play PS2 SOCOM II online via Xlink Kai (when logging into Halo 2) inspired me to dust off the PS2 slim & play online... which will now have me breaking out the HDD Phat this weekend.

Primary
1. Get my Phat online (via Xlink) for the heck of it. Been playing slim online a lot lately.
2. RIP SOCOM II to PC/transfer to Phat HDD
3. Test SOCOM II off HDD (no current listing in compatibility charts)
4. Test SOCOM II online off HDD
- Something about playing this online, 15 years later, on real hardware, fully off the HDD is awesome.
- Also, nice for LAN parties, only needing 1 game copy

Secondary
1. Move over additional games to PS2 HDD
- Including rip/move the great Metal Slug Anthology
2. Sort through OPL & POPS drama on forums
3. Likely set up a dedicated POPS HDD (versus USB)
- I have 5+ IDE drives I saved from work

Any updates on POPS/OPL drama?

Look forward to updating yall on testing SOCOM II via HDD!

Question... once a HDD is modded, can you install offical material? There was a SOCOM II DLC map pack stored on HDD but I don't want to accidentally erase a modded HDD in process

[Jagosaurus]

Okay... could be the quickest progress I've ever had on tinkering project... same morning!

Decided rather than breaking out PC and USB to IDE cabling I'd rip right from PS2 in HDL. Let's do this! ....



Okay........................................ . . . 28 minutes later done.



You can rip in HDL and OPL will recognize. No need for folder management, etc:



I disabled IGR (mode 6 - In Game Reset ) as a safe measure and game ran great! Good news. 2 other users in lobby confirmed they're also using HDD loading. Awesome!

Will put up my PS2 slim and save the disc drive time.... if I can get my controller extension to play nice with my Phat. For some reason it was acting odd unless I went dual shock directly into system. Going to clean that guy.

All in all... productive morning while watching football. Will test extensively tonight but don't foresee any issues based upon testing thus far and recent comments of other 2 players. This also means I could LAN together multiple consoles with 1 copy of game. Nice wins all around.

Something so cool about playing a 15 year old game... online... on real hardware... right off modded system HDD, no disc.

[Jagosaurus]

Okay... been doing some research...

Lots of drama between 2 OPL groups and POPS creator confirmed. Then I found out that WinHIIP for PS2 game transfers (which I do versus LAN methods) can sometimes erase the POPS partition on a shared OPL/POPS HDD. I have 4 spare IDE drives laying around so I'm going to dedicate one to POPS versus sharing them. Instead of WinHIIP, to transfer PS1 games you can use USB via PS2 (which I'll be doing here, at least at first) or a separate program called PFSshell.

I am going to transfer over 11 more PS2 games to my HDD (for a total of 60 games now on the 250GB HDD). Then drive into POPS on HDD. Updates to follow on how this goes ...

Also, small win... alcohol and cleaning of controller and controller extension seemed to help my dual shock issues. Good! Happy it isn't my controller port itself.

[Jagosaurus]

Well.... almost 1am here but GOOD NEWS... PS1 GAMES 100% OFF PS2 HDD WORKING!

Overall, happy with my decision to keep the PS2 OPL HDD and PS1 POPS HDD separate. I tend to avoid drama and didn't want to deal with their patches to combat each other's efforts against each other.

I only have about a dozen PS1 images, so I will slowly move those over this week to the POPS HDD and add to the selection. I'll have to look back in this thread to find some testing nightrnr had done on the HDD. There were a couple games that worked on HDD but not USB (Duke being one IIRC).

Moved over more games than I thought I would to PS2 HDD, now have 75 playable games on 1 250GB HDD via OPL. My POPS HDD is a 80GB which will easily hold 115+ PS1 games. Few more spare HDDs I'll convert over time as well if needed...

More to come... will post some helpful links, edit OP, and share some photos tomorrow... well, guess today technically with the time ...

[Jagosaurus]

OPL Update Progress:

75 Games! WinHIIP in action:


For anyone interested, my IDE to USB adapter is a Sabrent model number: USB-DSC5

Okay.... got my OPL updated this morning to PS2 Home Daily Build 1313:
http://www.ps2-home.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=3

Visual of the interface now in this build:


POPS Off HDD Progress:
Example is Crash Bandicoot in pics, currently adding: Alundra, Gex, Tempest X3, & Vanark

POPS Partition - Formatted Within HDD Manager
Press R1 to format and create partitions
Make sure you create the __.POPS directory


Now Viewing HDD0
Place .ELFS here
You will boot this to start games


Place .POPS and IOPRP252 files here
Crash directory you see is the virtual memory card automatically created


Place game .VCD image here
Ensure .ELF and .VCD are named exactly the same

[Jagosaurus]

Alright.... I can confirm the following 8 PS1 games (digital images) work via POPS off a PS2 HDD:

Crash Bandicoot
Alundra
Gex
Gex Enter the Gecko
Tempest X3
Tomb Raider
Tomba!
Vanark (don't press pause, freezes both USB & HDD)

Overall a successful outing of testing thus far. I was rotating them off a USB before. Cool to have on a single 80GB HDD. Next steps I'll be trying:

Multiple BIN Files:
I don't really have many more PSX images. My Jet Moto and Alien Trilogy files both have multiple .BINS which does not work with CUE2POPS. But PS2 Home has a solution... will be trying this:
[BACKUPS] Convert multiple PS1 BINs to a single BIN using CDMAGE or ISOBUSTER
http://www.ps2-home.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=41

Compatibility Modes:
Also, regarding compatibility modes needed for certain games, check out below. For example, nightrnr found Mode 7 is needed in VMC directory for Duke Nukem Total Meltdown to run properly. For anyone who needs those compatibility files:
https://bitbucket.org/ShaolinAssassin/p ... patibility

FYI - If looking for POPS compatibility charts (list of tested games in POPS), use the ZIP files here for Excel DL file. The Google docs out there apparently don't like the second NTSC tab:
http://www.ps2-home.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=173

[Jagosaurus]

Score! For PS1 via POPS, I was successfully able to combine multiple .bins into a single file via CDMAge (free software below). You then convert to VCD via CUE2POP.
Use this version (had trouble with newer) > Download CDMage 1.02.1 Beta
https://www.videohelp.com/software/CDMage

I tested Jet Moto after this conversion. Up & running! Unfortunately my Alien Trilogy DL with multiple .bins seemed to be corrupt. CUE2POPS doesn't see the .cue as a valid file. Boo.

I went kind of nuts and also set up a second HDD for OPL for a total of 96 PS2 games across 2 drives, and I now have 3 active drives in action total. Check out that sexy gear in the pic ... Done tinkering for awhile... time to play some games!

250GB IDE - OPL Drive 1
80GB IDE - OPL Drive 2
80GB IDE - POPS


9 PS1 games I currently having installed & running off HDD

[nightrnr]

Hmm, I had to combine a multi-bin game, I think Mortal Kombat 3, to play on PSIO.
I used an image mounting software (not sure what, daemon tools lite, virtual clonedrive, not sure) to mount the cue and then recopied it to a single bin/cue with other software (I can't remember). I had to try a few combinations until I found one that worked. But it did, maybe not perfect as the audio/speech is a little delayed in gameplay, but that could just be compatibility issues and/or an old firmware (haven't tried it recently). Really I use several programs and what doesn't work on one, I use another. No reason not to have options, as nothing seems to do it all.

Oh, so I did finally try loading PS1 games through OPL (only from USB, not recommended for HDD). There are different ways to get it working depending on your OPL version (yes, we can blame the drama on that). But I think the one I settled on... um... "1005_DB" I think. Also required making a text file. Oh gosh, I don't even know how I get into these things anymore. It's not just a rabbit hole, it's a giant beehive/honeycomb of links and trials and error.

I'll try and be more helpful later (some day ).

One thing though, I finally got Samurai Shodown 6 and World Heroes Perfect from their respective PS2 collections to load on OPL. Apparently, those 2 don't work on older OPL versions (but always worked on HD Loader).

I have a good amount of HDDs saved for older systems (PS2 and Xbox mostly, maybe an older PC too). Odd though, I find myself distrustful of them, so I really don't want to put everything on them, only what I'm ready to try or play. I have 2 PS2's with 250GB HDDs, one filled up with 80+ games, one with a couple dozen (and that HDD is a little noisy, hence part of the trust issues). Yet another PS2 has a 30GB drive and has mostly CD PS2 games and a few rips I DL'ed from long ago. Fit a surprising amount of games on there, given the small size.

If any of them die, my project will be a 500GB drive that I'll fill to the brim with all I've got. But that will be through Winhiip and connected directly to PC (no USB adapter). Been curious how fast files would copy that way.

[Jagosaurus]

Okay, have these 11 PS1 games now running off PS2 HDD. New are bold

Alundra
Cool Boarders
Crash Bandicoot
Gex (original)
Gex Enter the Gecko
Jet Moto
Rayman
Tempest X3
Tomba!
Tomb Raider
Vanark

Unfortunately.... lots of bad rips out there. I know Resident Evil works but the file I DLed locks up. Same with a couple other. I recommend ripping retail discs when possible. This seems to be a lot more common for disc based games than cart ROM dumps.

@nightrnr, I never did get the PS2 Doom running. Do you mind telling me what your file structure looks like?

I have "Original Dooms.elf" and "ps2doom.config" files. I believe that is all I DLed a couple years back. I then planed some .wad files within the root. Nothing every happened when I tried to boot .elf. Any tips?

Edit: Looks like I may have to edit config file in notepad. I only see HDD options within my notepad file. Do you have it running off USB? Structure via PS2 Home:
mass:/ps2doom/ps2doom.elf

mass:/ps2doom/ps2doom.config

mass:/ps2doom/doomu.wad

It's not just a rabbit hole, it's a giant beehive/honeycomb of links and trials and error.

You nailed it.... HAHA! It's all a rabbit hole. I think I am satisfied knowing the large portion of PS1 games will work via POPs (say 75% to 80%). I can always try downloading multiple .bin/.cues and firing up in an emu if needed to ensure the rip is clean. For those other 25% or so... I can purchase if it is something I really must play on real hardware or emu. I am still tempted to get a chipped PS1... bc we've established we need 3+ ways to play these games

[nightrnr]

PS2doom is a little tricky, and sometimes it just doesn't like the partition you put it in. I have this working on one PS2's HDD, but not another.
USB has better success though, and you don't have to edit the file when using it. It will run right where you put it. I would try USB first, that always works.

HDD, you totally need to edit the file, and even when you have it right, sometimes it has issues and won't find the partition. I won't be much help here yet, but I'll try to share how I have it set if/when I get a chance (later this week). My access to that PS2 and time is limited until after the month is over.

So yeah, I'm always looking for new ways to get things running (although I tend to dedicate systems to specific purposes). The way I see it, the more options you have, the more ways you can get around compatibility issues. And the more classics you can have handy on a given system.

A PS2 port of retroarch is supposedly coming. Curious to know if it will add any emulators that are better or currently hard to use on PS2.