PS2 Modding/Softmod tips?

[blazingwolf]

I've been thinking about getting a PS2 and enabling it to run back ups. I originally thought a modchip was my only option, but I've heard a lot of about softmods.

If I were to go to the store and buy a brand new PS2 right now, what would my softmodding options be? Will I still be able to run back ups, through an external HDD, burnt through a disc? Can I play backed up PS1 games?

A few important things to note:

1. I want to be able to play PS1 back ups too.
2. I want to be able to play games from an HDD.
3. Playing from burnt disc would be nice.

Can any of these be done to a new PS2 model and softmods, or are modchips my only option?

If I just went out and bought a new PS2, what options would I have in terms of sofmods? There is so much info floating around not sure what to make of it all.

[spud42]

Ok, lets see if i can be of help here.
A brand new PS2 slim will have a bios version that will not allow FMCB to boot .However that does not mean that you cant use soft mods anyway. What you would need is a copy of Swapmagic 3.6 or Swapmagic coder 3.8 . These disks will boot an .ELF file from a USB key IF the ELF is renamed to SWAPMAGIC.ELF( in capitals) and is placed in a folder SWAPMAGIC . If you can get the disk and rename uLE to SWAPMAGIC.ELF and place it in the folder you can then run homebrew etc from either the MC or USB. Now once you can get to uLE this way you can then launch OPL which can then play your backups from either a network share in .ISO format or from a USB HDD. Also you can run SMS for media streaming from USB or network and ESR for patched PS2 games.
About how to play PS1 backups I am not sure. There is an emulator being developed but only an alpha is available and it has no sound.
hope this long winded explanation helps.

[blazingwolf]

This was indeed very helpful, thank you. Though will losing FMBC be a bad thing, what will I have lost by not being able to use FMBC...what is FMBC? Haha.

[spud42]

FMCB not FMBC . . . lol
free memory card boot.. in a nut shell it allows you to run homebrew by using an update feature in the older bios . it also modifies the original OnScreenDisplay to add extra options that can be configured to start homebrew ELF's . it is the soft mod...lol
but you can still do a soft option as i said before. that way you only use the laser when you boot the console the rest of the time you can use OPL to play games from USB HDD or over your network or from a NAS....( Network Attached Storage) .

[dlanor]

I would say that the greatest loss due to not having FMCB is one you shouldn't suffer from for several years, as it is the ability to continue using the console after its CDVD drive has died of old age (or other reasons).

For an older PSTwo console this is no big deal, especially not for someone like me who plays nearly all games over LAN using OPL to run games stored on a PC. A console used that way and booting FMCB has no reason ever to use the CDVD drive, and that has two consequences.

1: Since it is never used that CDVD drive can live many times longer than normal.
2: Since it is never used death of that CDVD drive would not matter at all.

But for the latest PSTwo models which are unable to boot FMCB, death of the CDVD drive means death of the console (unless you have a DEVx-capable modchip to boot homebrew).

However, that is really not as bad as it sounds, when you use SwapMagic sensibly.

By this I mean that you should use SwapMagic only for its ability to boot a homebrew elf from either a USB drive or from a PS2 MC. But never use it to run backups by disc-swap, since that is a method which speeds up the CDVD aging process.

And if you use the console like I do (I have one console of this type), using the CDVD drive only for booting the SwapMagic disc once per power-on, and not for anything else, then you again have a situation similar to that of a console using FMCB, in that the CDVD drive will live longer than normal. And then the dependency on the CDVD drive for booting doesn't matter very much.

Best regards: dlanor

[TnA]

Another thing is, that you can try FMCB on almost all PS2-Consoles... and if you 'want more', you can install amodchip.
But tobe honest,... There isn't so much more, you can gather with a modchip.

Vice versa, FMCB extends the 'functionality' of a PS2 in various ways, regardless if a Modchip is installed.
A few features are very similar to those of modchips, like the DEV.1-Booting.
A few other features of FMCB are quite unique, like configureable button-launch, or the hacked OSDSYS.

For old modchips which have no DEV.-Mode at all, FMCB is an even better extention, because those chips still rely on booting from cdvd-drive.

...and the hacked OSDSYS, is something only FMCB offers (or a few test-elfs ).