Thinking of getting a PS2

[wisnoskij]

Hello,

I am thinking of getting a PS2 some time in the future and was looking for a the hardware requirements of Free MC Boot and some suggestions.
If it matters I live in Canada.

First off, Free MC Boot will not work on the latest PS2? does that mean I have absolutely no hope at getting a new PS2 that is of a old enough version?
What does anyone suggestion for buying a PS2? what version is the best, do I look for one at a corner store/Walmart/ebay?
And for installing Free MC Boot (might be hard in Canada), do I look to buy a pre installed Free MC on ebay or what are the other alternatives for starting from scratch?

Less important questions:
So when you have a installed Free MC, does it just install onto the memory card and you need that plugged in or does it actually place it on the hard drive so that the MC is no longer needed?

[yoshi314]

Hello,

I am thinking of getting a PS2 some time in the future and was looking for a the hardware requirements of Free MC Boot and some suggestions.
If it matters I live in Canada.

First off, Free MC Boot will not work on the latest PS2? does that mean I have absolutely no hope at getting a new PS2 that is of a old enough version?

What does anyone suggestion for buying a PS2? what version is the best, do I look for one at a corner store/Walmart/ebay?

personally i'd recommend getting a ps2 slim that's scph-7700* or lower. you can use it with SMB method (sharing a windows directory or some NAS box).

you could get an old fat ps2 (scph-5000* or lower), but you will need a network adaptor to attach network or hdd to it, which is pretty hard to get.

And for installing Free MC Boot (might be hard in Canada), do I look to buy a pre installed Free MC on ebay or what are the other alternatives for starting from scratch?

you could get a proper (original) usb memory card adapter that was sold for people with ps3s that could play ps2 games, to transfer their saves.

if you get one you could use ps3mca tool to install FMCB on it from your PC. you just need to get the right adapter, some 3rd party ones do not work with the tool (but they work with ps3). it's pretty much hit and miss. also ps3mca tool has been taken offline by sony, so you will have to ask around to get a copy from someone.

Less important questions:
So when you have a installed Free MC, does it just install onto the memory card and you need that plugged in or does it actually place it on the hard drive so that the MC is no longer needed?

it installs on memcard, and it has to be plugged in any time you power on the ps2.

you also need either an original 8MB sony memcard, or the datel memcard (some of the later models). fakes have varied compatibility and most of them do not work. since OPL has VMC (virtual memcard) feature, you won't need a big memory card for your saves - with VMC most games will be able to save to the same medium you will run games from (usb/smb/hdd).

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most cost effective method is to get scph-7700* ps2 slim (or scph-7000* ps2 slim) , original 8mb memorycard or 64mb max memory datel memcard , and a original dualshock 2 pad (it has to have a sony logo on it, otherwise it's fake. with memory cards it's not that easy). the * denotes the region of the console, in europe it's 4, for US it's 1.

so in your case it's either 77001 or 70001 model.

edit: actually there are also 70011 and 75001 models. ( http://www.ps2cover.com/pages/PS2-Mo...l-Numbers.html )

anything under scph-9000* will do.

ps1 controller will also work for some games, but most games will require dualshock2 controller and refuse to start without one.

[spud42]

on the bottom of the PS2 slims there is a sticker with the model number on it , SCPH7701 etc.... next to this model number or close by on the sticker is also a small square with a number and a letter in it. you want this to be 8b or less. 8 is the year ie 2008 and b is the quarter of the year . so you have abcd for the quarters . the reason for this is that after 2008c ie third quarter 2008 SONY ubdated the BIOS in the slims to stop FMCB from booting.
You can still softmod a MC for one of these systems however you will either need a chip or the best way is to get SWAPMAGIC 3.6 or SWAPMAGIC Coder 3.8 . you use this disk to boot the PS2 and then auto launch uLE from a USB stick, from there you could run any homebrew. this is the only way with the newest slims.

[wisnoskij]

Thanks for both of the replies.
I has far more of an idea of what I can getting into now.