IMPORTANT! Need a Dev's input on CF card use with PS2

So recently the idea of using a CF card (compact flash) came up when discussing the use of a SATA drive with the portable that I'm hopefully going to build (this was over at the modretro forums). Basically the idea is that since there are adapters for IDE -> CF, they should be compatible. In theory you should be able to take an adapter, hook it up to the PS2's IDE, and then use a CF slot/card to replace an IDE drive.

The benefits would be reduced power consumption, size/weight in the portable, and it wouldn't be slow like USB since CF can get read/write speeds up to 60/90 MBps. I'm not really sure how feasible this would be, and I don't think the guy who suggested it over at modretro really knows either, so I figured I'd ask here and hopefully get the input of someone more familiar with how HDLoader and the like works; would there be format issues, are CF and IDE simply too different, etc. Thanks for any input.

Just a slight update here. I came across something interesting while googling "PS2 HDD DMA". I got a result for the HDLoader wiki, and upon looking at it, I found this section: "0.7c - fix for Suikoden V, patches for 48bit HDDs (up to 2 Terabytes), DMA modes (UDMA/MDMA) and DVD9 fix to allow dual layer games to be played were added,". The question is, how many UDMA modes exactly? Perhaps someone here knows?

Another update is that I went ahead and ordered a CF card as well as an IDE - CF adapter. I'd post links, but frankly this posting system is idiotic (discards your whole message just for posting links before your 30th post, wtf?) Anyways, I'll wire the CF adapter unto my PS2 network adapter, and power the CF - IDE adapter with a berg connector off a spare PSU. My main concern is whether the UDMA mode will play nicely. We'll see.

It should work - provided that your CF disk to IDE adaptor does follow the ATA-4 standards fully, and can operate at UDMA mode 4 (ATA-66) and MDMA mode 0.

I think that OPL allows you to select the data transfer type and mode, but HDLoader will run the disk at it's "normal" (maximum for the PS2) speed - UDMA mode 4.

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Originally Posted by Ragdim

Just a slight update here. I came across something interesting while googling "PS2 HDD DMA". I got a result for the HDLoader wiki, and upon looking at it, I found this section: "0.7c - fix for Suikoden V, patches for 48bit HDDs (up to 2 Terabytes), DMA modes (UDMA/MDMA) and DVD9 fix to allow dual layer games to be played were added,". The question is, how many UDMA modes exactly? Perhaps someone here knows?

Another update is that I went ahead and ordered a CF card as well as an IDE - CF adapter. I'd post links, but frankly this posting system is idiotic (discards your whole message just for posting links before your 30th post, wtf?) Anyways, I'll wire the CF adapter unto my PS2 network adapter, and power the CF - IDE adapter with a berg connector off a spare PSU. My main concern is whether the UDMA mode will play nicely. We'll see.

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PhotoFast GM-7300 SD/SDHC/SDXC to CF Adapter

check this mob out.... they have a few different CF adaptors and other cadr adaptors as well.... i use a cr5400 in my PSP i have a SDHC to CF adaptor and some SD to CF adaptors as well. they have some interesting microSDHC to CF adaptors as well

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Originally Posted by SP193

It should work - provided that your CF disk to IDE adaptor does follow the ATA-4 standards fully, and can operate at UDMA mode 4 (ATA-66) and MDMA mode 0.

I think that OPL allows you to select the data transfer type and mode, but HDLoader will run the disk at it's "normal" (maximum for the PS2) speed - UDMA mode 4.

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I'm not sure why the CF card would need multiword dma if it's running in UDMA, or even if the one I bought can do so. I do know that the CF card I bought goes up to UDMA mode 4, so I hit it right on the spot with that one. As for the adapter, there shouldn't be any issues since to my knowledge all they did was reroute all 40 wires through the traces. Here's the card and CF adapter I bought, just add neweggdotcom to the beginning and remove spaces:

/ Product / Product .aspx?Item = N82E16820208389
/ Product / Product .aspx?Item = N82E16822998003

If you could iterate on why I would need multiword dma 0 to work, that'd be great. Thanks for your insights so far!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ragdim

I'm not sure why the CF card would need multiword dma if it's running in UDMA, or even if the one I bought can do so. I do know that the CF card I bought goes up to UDMA mode 4, so I hit it right on the spot with that one. As for the adapter, there shouldn't be any issues since to my knowledge all they did was reroute all 40 wires through the traces. Here's the card and CF adapter I bought, just add neweggdotcom to the beginning and remove spaces:

/ Product / Product .aspx?Item = N82E16820208389
/ Product / Product .aspx?Item = N82E16822998003

If you could iterate on why I would need multiword dma 0 to work, that'd be great. Thanks for your insights so far!

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Some "buggy" games are sensitive to the speed that data gets read in from the CD/DVD drive (Which Sony was against in their Technical Requirements Checklist), and hence will malfunction if data was read at UDMA mode 4.

MDMA mode 0 is slower, and is almost as slow as the rate that data gets transferred from the CD/DVD drive. It serves as a compatibility mode to better emulate the traits of the CD/DVD drive.

Hence, if your CF disk to IDE adaptor cannot operate at MDMA mode 0, you will probably lose some games to incompatibility issues.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SP193

Some "buggy" games are sensitive to the speed that data gets read in from the CD/DVD drive (Which Sony was against in their Technical Requirements Checklist), and hence will malfunction if data was read at UDMA mode 4.

MDMA mode 0 is slower, and is almost as slow as the rate that data gets transferred from the CD/DVD drive. It serves as a compatibility mode to better emulate the traits of the CD/DVD drive.

Hence, if your CF disk to IDE adaptor cannot operate at MDMA mode 0, you will probably lose some games to incompatibility issues.

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I see... I wasn't even aware something could do multiple modes like that (I guess it makes sense considering that people buy newer drives and install them in old computers).

In reference to what you said about MDMA 0 being almost as slow as the data throughput of a PS2 game, is it correct to say that the CD drive basically tansfers data at a rate slower than 4.2 MB/s? If that is the case, what is the point of even having

UDMA capabilities within HDLoader?


Moving on, there's nothing in the details of the transcend CF card that I ordered saying specifically whether or not it can do MDMA. I also scoured the comments section on the newegg page, but no one has even commented about data modes

(mostly photographers and people using it to replace iPod hdd's).

I suppose I'll have to wait for the card to get here, hook it up to my computer, and check it out under device manager to see what modes it can do. I really appreciate your input SP193, it's been the must useful I've received anywhere thus far.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ragdim

I see... I wasn't even aware something could do multiple modes like that (I guess it makes sense considering that people buy newer drives and install them in old computers).

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Yes, all ATA devices should be backwards compatible.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ragdim

In reference to what you said about MDMA 0 being almost as slow as the data throughput of a PS2 game, is it correct to say that the CD drive basically tansfers data at a rate slower than 4.2 MB/s? If that is the case, what is the point of even having

UDMA capabilities within HDLoader?

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That's true.

Although the theoretical speeds of the CD/DVD drive are as follows:

4x DVD - 5540KB/s
24x CD-ROM - 3600KB/s

These are the maximum theoretical speeds that the drive will ever be capable of reaching. The speed of the drive is approximately halved when the inner half of the disc is being read, because of the way the drive functions.

Of course, the drive *never* really reaches those theoretical speeds anyway, hence you can see why we do occasionally come across a few games that run faultlessly from USB devices too. :wow:

As I mentioned earlier, only a handful of "buggy" games will break when data is fed to them faster than they expect. The number of such games is very low, but you might occasionally run into one or two of them.

I had deliberately enclosed the word "buggy" within a pair of double quotes because those games are not exactly buggy, since they function and don't crash. They are considered buggy because they don't follow Sony's Technical Requirements Checklist (TRC).

On the other hand, most games (~95%) will run properly when run with UDMA mode 4. :)

Don't worry about incompatible games because they are few and most of them will run with improved performance with UDMA mode 4.

(So go on, enjoy your games when the CF disk adaptor arrives :D).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ragdim

Moving on, there's nothing in the details of the transcend CF card that I ordered saying specifically whether or not it can do MDMA. I also scoured the comments section on the newegg page, but no one has even commented about data modes

(mostly photographers and people using it to replace iPod hdd's).

I suppose I'll have to wait for the card to get here, hook it up to my computer, and check it out under device manager to see what modes it can do. I really appreciate your input SP193, it's been the must useful I've received anywhere thus far.

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Don't worry. Most ATA-4 compatible disks should support all modes that you will probably ever need. It's probably more likely to find a disk that doesn't support a faster UDMA transfer mode than finding one that lacks a slower transfer mode.

Just giving a quick update since this thread will be quiet for the next while. I received my CF card/adapter on tuesday, but as it turns out I need a new soldering iron, so I ordered one offa amazon. . . it'll take 5-8 days shipping. ;(

As an aside, I got my hands on a 70012 slim and checked out the solder points for myself. It's freaking crazy how small they are. . . pictures can't do it justice. Definitely need to look up some guides on how to

solder really small, lol.

It's been a while, but I'm back with an update of sorts. So I tried my hand at this once -- slowly doing things with it over the course of 3 months -- and failed (destroying a fuse and a trace in the process) without getting a chance to actually test it.

After doing nothing with it for the next 3 months (too many things IRL), I'm now working on this again. I ordered another 700xx off of ebay and took about a day and a half to wire the thing up, and did some "preliminary" tests.

Giving a brief outline on my setup, I took the adapter mentioned earlier in this thread, soldered wires from it to the IDE points on the PS2, plugged up a spare computer PSU berg to the adapter (for power), and used the CF card mentioned earlier. I'd post links, but ya...

I'll do this a bit backwards by listing the results first and then the procedures taken:

Tried to boot an ISO from CF card - failed

• -shorted the PSU green/black wire with paper clip
• -set CF adapter to 3.3V, external power source, and Master setting
• -hooked up berg connector from PSU to CF adapter
• -hooked up computer PSU to power strip
• -hooked up PS2 to powerstrip
• -hooked up AV from TV to PS2
• -turned on power strip (CF adapter LEDs are now lit red (activity light) and yellow (slave light))
• -flipped PS2 power switch
• -still red and yellow lights on CF adapter
• -open HDloader and get a message: couldn't detect hard disk drive

I then realized I had had the special v12 0.8c HDL on my computer for months, but never bothered to install. I installed that and still the same situation. I then tried a specially patched v12 HDL that northbear linked in another thread (I'd link this as well, but I can't) and OPL, but same thing.

I tried switching around the steps mentioned above in every configurable order, but that did nothing. When I gave up for the night and went to put away everything, I noticed the last wire I had soldered was undone. I soldered this up and instantly the PS2 saw the CF card.

A new issue cropped up, however, wherein every version of HDL I have (normal 0.8c, 0.8c v12 and northbear's 0.8c v12) all wanted to format the card even though it was formatted with winhiip. All of these (except for northbear's) failed at formatting and gave a fatal error.

The problem with northbear's HDL was it formatted, but it wouldn't install games via disc drive (I have yet to format it via northbears HDL *and then* trying to install a game via winhiip). I would initiate the install, the disc was detected, but then it said the game was too big (it was only 4GB).

The only troubleshooting options left to me (barring what I'm about to ask) is to format via northbear's HDL and then install a game via winhiip, recheck all of my wiring, contact the HDL devs (not sure if this is even possible), or to solder an IDE connector and then test a normal HDD (to confirm it isn't the wiring itself).

I'll try everything mentioned above (resoldering is the *very last thing I'll resort to, it takes an inordinate amount of time for me to solder things this small), but I'd like to ask 2 things: one, is there any 1 specific thing that causes this type of problem, and 2, does my situation call for a specially patched HDL?

Mind you, I'm a noob trying to do some 'semi-advanced' things here, so I've no clue how to go about making a patch for HDL, or what types of situations call for it. Can anyone inform me if I need one, and would anyone be kind enough to help me out in doing so? (no programming knowledge)

Edit: I went back to test things and still no luck. I noticed that northbear's HDL v12 patch only formatted 13GB out of 32GB, and it did it in the toxicos format -- winhiip also detected partition errors and said something about a checksum, but when I clicked to correct it winhiip crashed.

I reformatted the card in both toxicos and HDL 28 bit formats with winhiip and put a game on the CF card, but nothing changed: HDL 0.8c and 0.8c v12 want to reformat while northbear's reformats but doesn't actually work; OPL doesn't detect any games.