What started with :
SwapMagic 3.3
fat PS2 with controller
2 memory cards. 1 I know was used to load the games from usb drive I remembered.
What I know I used to have that I can't find now.
Gameshark usb adapter to edit/backup memory card files. Luckily there is more than one way to skin a cat.
The first thing I did was start googleing like crazy trying to find what the latest PS2 softmods were and which setup looked the best for me. After a little searching I found that I no longer needed to use my swapmagic to play backups or load ELF files from the memory which it turns out is what I was doing before. Boot PS2>Load SwapMagic>Load USBadvance>Load Game. That was the process to getting a game up via USB. It required the Swapmagic disc to be working and the PS2 laser to be able to read the disc. These 2 items are wear items. The disc will get scratched and the lasers fail.
After a lot of reading I settled on having this as a final process after installation:
Boot to MC(memory card)>launch USB or Firewire app>launch game
I choose a few different software packages to test.
- Free Mcboot http://freemcboot.info/ This is the Softmod that boots from the memory card after you have it installed. The website has several install guides that are great.
- UlaunchELF http://psx-scene.com/forums/official-ulaunchelf-forums/ File browser and ELF file launcher for PS2. The free Mcboot guides have you install this :)
- PS2ESDL http://ichiba.geocities.jp/ysai187/projects.htm This is an app that has a plugin support for firewire as well as USB as a standard. The additional speed that firewire has over the PS2s USB 1.1 seems like a plus to me.
- Open PS2 Loader http://openps2loader.info/8/usb_install.html This is an open source version of USBadvance. Has support for loading games from USB, SMB(samba share on network) and Internal HDD
...to be continued
Update 11/11/11
I started out by with the swapmagic guide to installation @ http://freemcboot.info/swapmagic.html. After 2 failed attempts I noticed what my problem was. This method requires SwapMagic 3.6+/3.8. So my Swapmagic 3.3 disc will not work. I got lucky at this point because I found out I had installed 3.6+ as an elf file to my memory card years ago. So I was able to boot SM 3.3 disc>load SM 3.6+ from MC>load USB drive to install the files I want. If you have SM 3.3 you most likely will have to either get SM3.6+ disc or get on of the USB adapters like the Sharkport.
I did some testing with the external HDDs that I have now to see how the two game loader programs worked over USB. I started with just using a 16GB flash drive I have made by OCZ called a DIESEL. That worked well so I moved to testing with the other external HDDs I have. I was thinking that it would be great if I could use a 2.5" external HDD that operated from USB power only. I had a 2.5" external 250GB Seagate Freeagent Go that I used to test with.
The first thing I found was that Windows 7 will not format a drive larger than 32GB to FAT32. So I had to find a program that would do the job for me. I searched for a bit and found SwissKnife this can format larger discs to FAT32. I believe the max size that can be used with a PS2 is 2TB but, I am not 100% sure about that.
Right now I am not sure how to get PS2ESDL and OPL to read from the same files installed to the HDD. They each have there own game to HDD installers that might be cross compatible with some work but I'm still working on that. They both can play from ISO files when the file name is setup in a specific fashion. See the instructions here http://openps2loader.info/8/usb_install.html. There is a good tool for auto naming the files for you on that page. The draw back is that FAT32 has a 4GB file size limit so any game over 4GB can not use this method and I have read that the native game install formats may work in some case when an ISO file does not play right.
That aside the 2.5" USB powered HDD worked great for the game I tested. I am at the point that I have to decide whether to get a 2.5" external HDD for the PS2 or use a network SMB share to play the game. OPL is the only one of the two I am testing that has SMB support. Going the SMB route limits me there but I have a Linux server that hosts all my files to the whole house so I am torn. PS2ESDL has the possibility of using Firewire so that would be a speed advantage. There is a catch though. The PS2 has a 4 wire firewire port which means its not powered. A hacked/spliced cable that got power only from the PS2s USB ports and data transfer from FW might be a workaround so you do not have to use a wall powered FW HDD.
Network adapters are the less expensive solution for me since I already have a file server. I just have to ad more storage if the performance is good enough over my network.
...more later
Update 11/11/11
I started out by with the swapmagic guide to installation @ http://freemcboot.info/swapmagic.html. After 2 failed attempts I noticed what my problem was. This method requires SwapMagic 3.6+/3.8. So my Swapmagic 3.3 disc will not work. I got lucky at this point because I found out I had installed 3.6+ as an elf file to my memory card years ago. So I was able to boot SM 3.3 disc>load SM 3.6+ from MC>load USB drive to install the files I want. If you have SM 3.3 you most likely will have to either get SM3.6+ disc or get on of the USB adapters like the Sharkport.
I did some testing with the external HDDs that I have now to see how the two game loader programs worked over USB. I started with just using a 16GB flash drive I have made by OCZ called a DIESEL. That worked well so I moved to testing with the other external HDDs I have. I was thinking that it would be great if I could use a 2.5" external HDD that operated from USB power only. I had a 2.5" external 250GB Seagate Freeagent Go that I used to test with.
The first thing I found was that Windows 7 will not format a drive larger than 32GB to FAT32. So I had to find a program that would do the job for me. I searched for a bit and found SwissKnife this can format larger discs to FAT32. I believe the max size that can be used with a PS2 is 2TB but, I am not 100% sure about that.
Right now I am not sure how to get PS2ESDL and OPL to read from the same files installed to the HDD. They each have there own game to HDD installers that might be cross compatible with some work but I'm still working on that. They both can play from ISO files when the file name is setup in a specific fashion. See the instructions here http://openps2loader.info/8/usb_install.html. There is a good tool for auto naming the files for you on that page. The draw back is that FAT32 has a 4GB file size limit so any game over 4GB can not use this method and I have read that the native game install formats may work in some case when an ISO file does not play right.
That aside the 2.5" USB powered HDD worked great for the game I tested. I am at the point that I have to decide whether to get a 2.5" external HDD for the PS2 or use a network SMB share to play the game. OPL is the only one of the two I am testing that has SMB support. Going the SMB route limits me there but I have a Linux server that hosts all my files to the whole house so I am torn. PS2ESDL has the possibility of using Firewire so that would be a speed advantage. There is a catch though. The PS2 has a 4 wire firewire port which means its not powered. A hacked/spliced cable that got power only from the PS2s USB ports and data transfer from FW might be a workaround so you do not have to use a wall powered FW HDD.
Network adapters are the less expensive solution for me since I already have a file server. I just have to ad more storage if the performance is good enough over my network.
...more later
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