SCPH-90000 Ps2 without powerbrick

[pizza]

Hi, I'm new here and I was wondering what would be the best method for simply playing international games. I don't care to play back ups but I get that anyway then I don't mind. I have the very latest Slim ps2 SCPH-90000 with no power brick. I've been looking around the site and it seems like there are a ton of different hard and softmods out there to use and a lot of them are used together. Thanks.

[dlanor]

Hi, I'm new here and I was wondering what would be the best method for simply playing international games. I don't care to play back ups but I get that anyway then I don't mind. I have the very latest Slim ps2 SCPH-90000 with no power brick. I've been looking around the site and it seems like there are a ton of different hard and softmods out there to use and a lot of them are used together. Thanks.

If your SCPH-90000 console is of fairly new manufacture, then it will not be able to use any existing pure softmods.

Use of such softmods was made impossible by a bios update to v2.30, which was done during the production of consoles with datecode 8C (third quarter 2008. All with older datecode can use softmods, and all with later datecode can not do so. And among those with datecode 8C it varies, as some have bios v2.20 while some have bios v2.30.

For those capable of using a softmod, the best one available is FMCB (== Free MC Boot). This is normally installed together with a set of other homebrew tools, and some of these are useful for playing import and backup games. But in all such cases you must play the imports in the form of a backup, either burned to DVD-R and using the ESR backup driver, or installed for playing through a game loader like "OPL" from other media, such as USB, LAN (SMB fileshares) or a PS2 HDD (but your console doesn't have that interface).

For consoles having bios v2.30, and thus incapable of using FMCB, it is still possible to use a semi-soft mod, in the form of 'SwapMagic' boot discs. These allow booting of homebrews from MC or USB drives, after the boot program on the disc has been booted. This allows launch of the same homebrew tools as used with FMCB to the same effect. Again you will have to run import games as backups, not just booting the original imported discs.

For all console models you can also choose to install (or have installed) a real modchip, which will normally allow both burned backups and imported original discs to boot without support of any homebrew software. But if you want to use the USB and LAN methods for running games you will still need the same homebrews as mentioned above.

Best regards: dlanor