Now imagine this in 2019. Everything is basically perfect 😁 Gamestar third party Sata adapter, a 1TB hard drive hooked up, Virtual Memory Cards for actually saving to the HDD, PopStarter for playing PS1 games, in game reset that takes you back to your games list in OPL with a button combination, third party rechargeable wireless controllers, and so on... If anyone was hesitant about jumping in on this, now is the time guys 😉😁
I really do want to get into it, like now. Is there a tutorial that teaches it the "best"? I'm limited to a Slim that I know will work. Is there an optimized usb method that you know of? The extra stuff you mentiond also sounds cool.
Tynit Atticus Installing FMCB on a slim is a bit more difficult, because you need swapmagic, and burning CDs. I have a fat, so I don't know the exact method, but I'd say the easiest way is getting a memory card, that already has FMCB on it. They're pretty cheap on eBay and other places. And all you have to do is insert it into your slim, and it's done. If you'll be using USB, be aware, that the PS2s USB port is USB 1.0, so there's no point in getting a fast flash drive or HDD. Focus on the capacity instead. Newer ones will work of course, but only in Usb 1.0 mode. And as for tutorials, I recommend you to take a look at the videos from Mr Mario 2011 and Project Phoenix Media. I used their videos to learn about all this, and they pretty much explain everything.
@@burningknuckle26 Just buy a normal PS2 slim, and a memory card that has the FMCB mod on it. You can't boot any ISOs, or even access the external hard drive or flash drive at all, until you insert that.
Just found out about this just ordered 2 fmcb and will try my best to try all this definitely looking foward to see if i can find an old hhd and everything else on here to play my games and hopefully all the back ups and isos i already had for the pc emulator that never quite worked for me 😍😍😍
I can't imagine my PS2 without FMCB. I have literally all of my games on HDD and 99% of them work perfectly and load at insane speeds. I found out about it about 3 years ago and it blew my mind. I had to install it the hard way: buy a random James Bond game, rip to iso, change a file on the iso, burn altered iso to DVD, take PS2 apart to expose the DVD drive, play first level of Bond game from retail disc and then swap retail disc for the altered disc before loading the second level where the PS2 would load the altered file (RMCB installer). It was worth it. My PS2 went from collecting dust to having almost as much usage as my PS3 and PS4.
I know, right?! I was so shocked and excited that it actually worked! And then there was fun of figuring out what mods and homebrew games to get off of PSX-Scene! Hah, good times, man!
DannyWilliamH I tried it differently. I had a ghost case for my slim PS2 with swap coder to play imports with, so I downloaded the the needed Freemcboot files, got an unused USB drive, formatted the drive, put the Freemcboot files into the USB, change the filename to swap magic so when booting up the swap magic disc, it tricks the system into booting up the program from the USB, install files to memory card, and done.
Modding PS2s for playing backups from a hard drive is easier than you think. You don't need a hard drive for the PS2 at all, you can use OPL to connect to a shared folder on your PC via ethernet cable(using your router) or directly with a crossover cable. It's a little confusing to setup, but it eliminates the need for buying another HDD and dealing with adapters and whatnot for transferring games to the HDD. It also allows you to make virtual memory cards in the shared folder, so you'll never need to buy another one. As I said, it's a little confusing, but a much cheaper alternative to installing a physical drive, and it works on the slim models as well.
***** unless you get a Chinese network adapter or use the SCPH 90000 series ps2, the Ethernet port is only e100 or something which is the same speed as off a disc.
I remember having the composite cables being ripped by my dogs, so My brother went to the store to buy new ones. He bought the Original sony Component cables. He realised he bought the wrong ones since no tv in our house supported it, at the time wasted money. I remember playing ps2 in black and white for a long time untill a friend broke his ps2 and no longer needed his composite cables. I still have component cables and it was no longer a waste of money anymore.
can can play burned and import games on your ps2 nativly by using ESR, you can go to the free mcboot config and set the ps2 to boot right to ESR. ESR Will auto boot import/burned games The one that comes preinstalled doesnt auto boot the burned/ imports you have to use a older version sksapps.com/exploit/freevast/ESR/ESR%20beta%20r9b.rar set it to boot to ESR instead of freemcboot and then it should nativly boot import/burned games
Have you tried installing a mod chip in your console? I have an epic story for you. A few months ago I had left the house and was on my way to university. The cleanup was drawing near so around this time people were leaving their old furniture and junk outside their houses. I was about halfway to the train station, when I noticed someone had thrown out a Huggies nappies box. What caught my attention was that it had plastic bags taped over the top, as if to protect its contents from the rain. I take the plastic bags off, and in it I find a fat model PS2, power and AV cords, and three controllers. Sticky taped to the top of the console was a note explaining how to use the Mod Chip built in. I grabbed the box and went back home. Some time after university I tested it to make sure it worked. I popped in a NTSC copy of Manhunt 2 that I couldn't play on my PAL PS2 console - the game booted up instantly! I was a bit torn as to whether to sell it or keep it. Ultimately I chose the latter. I have no idea who installed the mod chip or how it works or how expensive or difficult it is to install, but I do know it works and now PS2 regions is no longer an issue for me.
+Jarrah White Yeah your right he should really get it chipped if he just wants an easy plug and play experience. I chipped mine just to play burned games I'm not really into the weeaboo stuff. The mod chips themselves cost next to nothing but I found It quite time consuming to install since I'm not used to doing them. I watched some videos beforehand of people installing them but video really doesn't show just how small the points they are soldering to are.
I couldnt be happier with my FAT PS2, it has a physical modchip AND the whole HDLoader-Disc Drive method, it runs every game possible from JP to PAL to PS1 backups.
You can use Free McBoot to run GS Mode Selector (GSM), which lets you force better video output from PS2 games. I haven't tried it yet, but that's one of my main points of interest for when I install Free McBoot.
I got it working on my PS2 today. It apparently works on a game-by-game basis, and in general I've had a lot more success with 480p than any of the higher resolutions. Apparently it has something to do with the way each individual developer chose to utilize the PS2's framebuffer. It's kind of a meta-game to figure out what settings work best for each game (though some games apparently will simply not respond well to any such tinkering).
I own the silver slim model with free mcboot installed. Its so cool I didn't use swap magic I just used the james bond 007 agent under fire swap trick. You just have to block the sensors for it to work.
I have the latest version of the PS2 slim so the method I use is that I first use Swap Magic's boot function to boot a homebrew program called uLaunchELF, from there put a small piece of rolled up paper into the hole where the "dead man's switch" that tells the PS2 that the lid is closed is located. Then I put in a game from my region waits a few seconds for the PS2 to recognize it as a "PS2 DVD" the program will then stop the disc from spinning. Then I switch out the disc for then imported title I want to play and use the file browser to locate the .elf file that will launch the game. The negative about this method is you can't properly close the lid while playing games and you also need to open your PS2 in order to remove a little piece of plastic that prevents the disc from spinning while the lit is open. Also if you have a earlier version of the PS2 slim there might be some other simple modifications that you have make for it to work.
You can rip the games from any region, apply a patch to them, burn them to disc and then play them without any swapping. :) EDIT: In any case, of course the HDD is the way to go! Reminds me I gotta put together my fat PS2. >:o Hopefully I'm not missing any pieces after I moved! 2nd EDIT: The patch will most likely get you around that region lock. 3rd EDIT: IIRC it's called ESR patcher or something.
***** What you can do is purchase a "disposable" PS2, a cheap one, and then rip your PS2 games, apply patch and then burn them. This way you can allow your PS2 games to rest instead of running the risk of ruining them. The downside to this is the DVD reader in the PS2 will much faster get teared, but if you use the right DVDs brands, DVD types and do decent burnings to these DVDs etc, the PS2 will last longer. In any case, this truly does allow you to just download a game from any region, patch it, burn it to disc and use it to play. :)
Question for this older vid. Could you put the games on a usb stick and then transfer it to the ps2 harddrive with a ps2 with freemc? So i dont need the extra pc software/accessories
I have, unfortunately, run into a similar problem with my Wii's USB Loader similar to my issues playing PAL games off my PS2 hard drive. A very strange one, I'm just wondering your take on it is, Adam. I got the Homebrew Channel and the USB Loader app, allowing me to play Wii isos off a usb device (It seems to smooth the rough edges a bit compared to playing off the disc, I dare say it looks smoother than playing a Wii disc on the Wii U), however, one game has done something inexplicable to me. I ripped my copy of Prince of Persia: Forgotten Sands to the flash drive, like normal, but when I tried to play it, the screen went black, and my TV's display said it was trying to play the game at 576i, which my American HDTV doesn't do. I have no idea why this happens, because when I play the disc normally, it certainly says 480p, and the picture comes through. But there's an interesting point, it's one of the only Wii games I can think of that has a notable amount of scan lines, the other being Skyward Sword, but that game has nowhere near the amount as PoP: FS. And when I look at the iso's info in WBFS (the Wii equivalent of WinHiip) it says RF in place of NTSC in the region section. Keep in mind, it is an American copy, the ESRB rating is on both the box and disc. For being a rather standard size game, 4.37gb, my Wii does seem to be constantly trying to re-read almost everything, sometimes causing slowdown, which doesn't happen even in larger games. I'm almost wondering if its just a PAL game with a NTSC forcer loaded on the disc, or something, because I've never heard of this happening before.
As it so happens I bought a transparent green PS2 with an HDD and free McBoot last year. It was a great deal as it had many games loaded onto it that I had wanted to play including a translated and patched copy of capcom X namco. It was great that it was all set up and ready to go. The seller even threw in the scuffed up silver shell that used to originally house that PS2 which was successfully converted into a custom arcade stick.
Not long after this video came out, I started on a journey to do this whole process you described to be able to play the English patched version of Namco X Capcom, being a big fan of the 3DS Spiritual Successor Project X Zone. I managed to get a memory card with Free McBoot pre-installed on eBay as well, but I never went beyond that. Now, almost 7 years later and well into College, I've recently decided to resurrect that plan. I'm betting I'll be able to play it real soon with Free McBoot. Regardless, I still have you to thank for giving me the idea of an avenue to play Namco X Capcom!
I only started playing with FMCB in 2018 sound don’t know if this was true when the vid was made but there are a lot of options if you have OPL and a broadband adapter. Even without a hard disk. I know he was talking about just putting the disk in and having it work but what I did before getting a reliable IDE disk was use a shitty old netbook to stream the games over Ethernet. If you have a compatible slim you wouldn’t even need the adapter.
Hey Adam, i've been using Free Mcboot for over a year now (i installed it myself on my memory card using Swap Magic and it was tricky, but once you get a hold on it its actually easy to do it) and along with the ESR exploit it has been doing wonders to my Ps2. If you burn a copy of your foreign games and patch the ISO's with ESR, then your Ps2 will read them without having to swap discs or any shit, just pop the burned disc in your Ps2 drive and it runs. I speak for self experience because i have a PAL/European Ps2 and i play NTSC and Japanese games with just Free Mcboot and the ESR exploit. I hope that i helped. Keep up with the great videos!!
How large is one of those ripped games on your harddrive? I'm guessing like any other single or dual layer dvd? Up to about 8.5 GB? I was considering getting Free McBoot a while ago since a fan site did an installable English translation of the Japan only Dragon Quest 5 game for PS2, and it required Free McBoot to do so. Now that I know I can get an old hard drive to keep such games on with better load times, I might make the effort to get it.
Is it possible that you could do me a small favor and see how large something like FFX, Kingdom Hearts or Dragon Quest 8, or any other JRPG might be on the hard drive? Because most of my PS2 games are JRPGs, I would probably store those first and foremost on mine. If you can't, do worry about it.
I was glad to install this just so that I could play NTSC games (I'm in PAL region). So many NTSC games have progressive scan support due to you guys getting having component as standard before we did. PAL versions often had this option removed bar a few exceptions. There's also the fact that 60Hz gets better framerates than 50Hz, so even your interlaced games are faster.
Couple of notes: Not all hard drives will require the jumper to be on the drive in the PS2. The WD drive I have doesn't require the jumper at all.. Which is good because I lost it YEARS ago. ALSO and MORE IMPORTANT, not all drives will easily fit without some modification to the Ethernet expansion port. Maxtor drives USUALLY fit. But other drives will not fit properly because the IDE cable and power cable ports are spaced too far apart on the drive. Removing the metal shield and unscrewing the power port usually is enough to make the drive fit. (My point is, if you're going out to BUY a drive, get a Maxtor. If you plan on using an old drive you already own, prepare to do some doctoring if it doesn't fit right)
Bro, been loving Freemcboot. And thank god for your video on this. Every video is how to install, at least you tell me the pro's about it and not how to install it. Thank god. I had your same attitude. I can do it, no problem, but F it, Im lazy. I spent the money on ebay less than 5 bucks. And I didn't have a normal HDD laying around so I used a SSD. I know, it does no good, but why not had a spare laying around. Works good. Right now Ive been playing around with my jailbroken Fat PS3. Loving it so far.
I completely ditched consoles to invest only in PC when the 8th gen consoles rolled around. Recently though PC gaming has felt really watered down for me and I've slowly lost interest to the point where I don't play games for a week. But I've been yearning to go back to my childhood days where my cousins and friends all had 6th gen and 5th gen consoles and play all the exclusives I missed out on. Started with OG Xbox and making my way down. Basically I've gotten into collecting. But along with this I have grown an obsession for modding, fixing and making old consoles perform better. The OG Xbox in particular I love to softmod (which is pretty easy) and have considered mod chipping one of them (I have 3). But now I've seen this...time to mod PS2.
Buttery Toast I'm basically doing the same. I recently started collecting for the ps3 , adding to my 360 collection and now I have a renewed interest in the ps2 and og xbox. On the pc side, in recent times Iv only played doom 2016, re7 and prey. Im quite obsessed right now to play silent hill 2 on the ps2 :)
A neat way to preserve PS2 games without taking the console modification or emulation route. Good video, but I would have loved a speed comparison between the HDD and DVD, but that's just me being greedy.
Ah, this is just what I needed to know. I friend of mine needed a way to boot games from a HD and this looks like the way to go. The best of all is that, a guy from my country that goes by the name of "guxtabo" in the PSX-Scene forum mods or install this thing to any Memory Card. Thanks a lot for the info and video, Adam! :D
If you're interested, you can use an IDE to SATA adapter and then use an SSD. The load times are even quicker, and there is no noise from the drive as SSDs don't have any moving parts. I've ripped basically every game I have to it, as it's basically a library on the drive now. With some more advanced tweaking, you can install custom themes, box art, descriptions, all sorts.
+C G0R3Z An SSD would just be held back by the ps2 I don't think they can even make full use of a 5400rpm hdd.+ modern HDDs are near silent. An SSD would be a really good mod for a slim ps2 though, would probably fit inside the case.
I recently picked up another fat PS2 with free mcboot and a 60GB drive installed. This new softmod method is so much easier than back in the day. I remember having to have a specific PS1 game in the system at all times and a file on my PS2 memory card with the PS1 game's SLUS in that file. A real pain in the ass to find a PS1 game that worked. Now to find that 500 GB IDE drive I have lying around.
Awesome Video. Few quick questions: What size HDD do you need? Can you use a sandard ps2 network adapter? Whats the compatability if you use a standard usb drive with it?
As long as it's IDE and fits, it should work just fine. It will need to be properly formatted though. There are some formats that cap it at 120 GBs. There's another that allows for bigger drives. Yes, standard PS2 network adapter. USB drive, not nearly as high because it's using USB 1.1.
Hey Adam, so if I buy a memory card with Free McBoot, will it work right away when I put it in the memory port?? I really want to play games of the usb port!!
You can play imports with Free McBoot, you need to burn them, and patch them with ESR. That way you won't need to swap discs, just put your burnt import in the ps2, start it up. This way you don't ruin your original imports, and it works on every console without disc swapping.
I wish i could pick up PS2 adaptors cheap at a bookstore, or any bookstore in the UK for that matter. Is that an American thing where you can get like video game stuff at bookstores?
when i play imports i burn my original japanese game like capcom x namco on my computer and patch whit ESR patcher put on the ps2 slim and play direct on the ESR menu
@@angelinesupetran5789 instal ImgBurn for create the iso of your game and google ESR disc patcher GUI v0.24a.rar for the download and the instructions you can burn it the final image on a cd and played or copy on a usb with all the necessary files so that free mc boot played from there
You can transfer games to the HDD via network cables. HDL Game Installer, which you can also use on the PS2 to directly rip your games, comes with a PC client. So you can rip the game on your PC and transfer it that way. Works great, takes me about 15 minutes to transfer a full DVD game, no need to take the HDD out and no need for the USB-IDE adapter. You can set it up as a batch send, so you can rip a stack of games, set it up to transfer and go do something else.
And another thing to note is -- it can do more things than you mentioned, as others have commented. Emulators, media players, games, all sorts of goodies. I think you'd like GS Mode Selector. The main forum of FMCB and other app devs is psx-scene, which you should check out now and then for software updates. However, region coding can only be unlocked by directly accessing the BIOS code, which is what modchips do, so nothing for unlocking the regions directly. The closest thing that can be done is ESR, but that requires software patching and burning, so nothing for that either.
I'm not recommending them either per se, just noting that they exist. I just use my PC for emulators, or my laptop on TV for that matter. I must say though, Picodrive is MUCH better than PGEN on the PS2. Because PS2SDK has evolved quite a bit, some homebrew devs actually can do more with the PS2 than they used to. I know what you mean, though. I (foolishly) tried to play an h264 video file and it got stuck on loading. I think that h264 could be barely pulled off on the PS2, though it'd need some helluva good coded decoder for the EE. (probably decoding it to something like MPEG2 and passing it to EE's motion decoder should work fine) But seriously, who's going to use a PS2 to watch movies? Most people are either going to watch them on their PCs or laptops/phones connected to a TV through HDMI.
I installed FMCB myself with my brother one day after he got inspired by reading about it (I had read about it many months earlier but didn't have the money to go out and get the necessary things to do it). I used the 007 Agent Under Fire exploit to do it (which was hilariously awkward to go into Gamestop and ask for that game specifically) and it worked like a charm. Since then I've made a bunch of burned games and when I upgraded my PC I used my old 80gb hd to install most of the games onto using your exact method, something that everyone who had FMCB should do.
Thanks for the video. Yours was one of the more concise and clear ones talking about the benefits of FMCB. I just unexpectedly scored a cheap network adapter today, so I'll probably be using it to play some import games directly off the hard drive (Katamari Damacy at least, which was never released in Europe).
Thanks. It was in a bundle with EyeToy Chat, so it came with the now-useless Skype-wannabe and the little USB webcam, all for 5 euros. Can't beat that for value. :D
oh this definitely looks worth doing. the load times perk is a real seller. adding this vid to faves to try and remind myself to sort this out some time soon. great vid, thanks for the info adam.
AdamKoralik You should just install a matrix infinity modchip into your console, that's pretty much the only way you will get "native" support for region unlocking and playing backups.
+norge696 Hardmod is always better than freemcboot. If you have voultar/jinn level soldering skills to pull it off nicely.
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+Calvin “Vault Dweller” Hall It doesn’t even have to be a an official card. I am using mine off a 64mb card. But I need to get a 128mb card. My 64 is getting full.
Not all Ps2 fats will work, only the early models will. 39xxx and 35xxx. But you are right it is awesome and load times are quick. But sorry to say, you cant play the imports straight up. Also the CD games will have to be converted to DVD format to be saved onto the HD as well.
AdamKoralik theoretically speaking, could you connect the hdd to a pc and install games straight from an emulation/rom website, then slam it back into the ps2 and play away? I no longer have a ps2 but I'm interested to see if it would work. Ps a friend of mine had an original xbox with a hdd installed and the games loaded ridiculously fast too. Could you maybe show a video of a game that takes a long time to load from disc and compare it to the load times from the hdd?
my ps2 stopped working a lot of time ago. It would not read any "recent" game, such as Dragonball z budokai tenkaichi 3 and on, or very "heavy games". Dunno why... Maybe the dvd is broken? And another question: does i need the broadband adapter to install the hard drive or i can install it with some wire? Thanks
I have, unfortunately, run into an issue with installing PAL games using winhiip. I can install them, and boot them just fine using hd loader, but since most of those games only support 50hz, my hdtv can't display them as it is 60hz only. I can get 50hz to work on my crt tv with s-video, but only in black and white. Do you have this problem Adam? Do you know of any North American hdtv that can support 50hz without issues?
Are you running it through component? There are some apps on the PS2 that allow you to change the output and the placement of the image. It's sloppy unfortunately.
ShogunGin0 Yeah, exactly, like I said, it's sloppy. I think HD Loader has an option to always output NTSC. It will fix the color issue. But will not fix the framing issue.
There is a program called PAL2NTSC which lets you patch the game to work on 60Hz televisions... Patch the ISO of the game before downloading it onto your HDD.
I believe you can play games in .ISO format from the PC to the PS2 using an ethernet cable. That way you don't have to buy a dedicated hard-drive for loading games.
You could probably use a SADA to IDE converter along with a laptop HDD if you don't have an IDE drive. That is what a some of people with original Xbox's do. Although seeing as the original XBOX has HDD that is locked to the console its a little harder to use a different drive.
Hey Adam, I've seen a few different methods that the HDD can work, and getting mixed instructions. Did FreeMcBoot format the HDD when you insert into PS2, or did you format through WinHiip? Thanks.
the swap magic for the fat model was to take out the front part of the DVD and in the slim you had to put a little bit of black tape to cover the sensor when the DVD thing is up.
at least for burnt games ESR loader does not care at all about the region but you may need RGB cables as the colors can be effed up especially playing a NTSC game on a PAL tv or viceversa.
One useful application to check out is GS Mode Selector. It allows you to force the video resolution of a game. Useful if you own one of roughly half of the HDTVs on the market that will not accept a 240p signal over component (PSX games and ICO, etc), Or doing some internal upscaling. Some PS2 games were actually rendering in a higher resolution and then downscaling in the framebuffer or something, so those should look much improved.
Question: I will be getting a quite rare ps2 from Japan soon and am leery about cutting the sticker to open it (more for aesthetic reasons obviously) and replace with my North American PS2 internals. Do you know if loading the import program to the memory card with Free McBoot would work the same on a PAL system to play NA games?
Oh wow, old video I'm just discovering! But I'm glad I did! If I happen to find an old PS2, I will try this! Also the piece of plastic you talked about on the IDE hard drive is called a jumper. Inside the plastic is a piece of metal that basically just shorts out two pins on the connector. That's how a PC knows if it's the master or slave. All IDE drives have this. CD and Floppy drives were like this as well. The master is for using as a boot device and slave is as a secondary device on old IDE based PC's. :)
Sean Ryan True, but Floppy-drives did not had that (well, maybe in it's first iteration)... This is something quite exclusive to 'Parallel ATA' a.k.a. (E)IDE.
Sean Ryan That's why I put the E in brackets, which CLEARLY shows the intention of naming both and not only EIDE... That's obvious, because I excluded the 'E' in brackets, which would make absolutely NO SENSE, if I intended to only say 'EIDE'! I could have used a dash for it as well ('EIDE/IDE')... I also wrote (correctly) 'Parallel ATA' and wrote 'a.k.a.' in front of the '(E)IDE' (just for clarification, what I mean by 'PATA') which is accurate, isn't it? Indeed, I have a SCSI-Floppy too (which obviously doesn't need any jumper)! I have never seen an EIDE/IDE-Version though... If I would have written only 'IDE', would you have complained about it, because I would have missed 'EIDE'? You must be kidding... You must be 'searching for a supposed error'. So my statement, that it is quite exclusive to 'Parallel ATA' is wrong? You might think twice about that...
Hey Adam there is a way to bypass the region encoding. Its not an app but its something useful. You can install a mod chip on your PS2. However it does require soldering. If you're good at soldering or if you know someone that is a professional at modding. That's the recommended way of doing it.
A little extra info for you. The reason imports wont work isnt down to the console but the actual dvd drive being region locked. The drive just refuses to load anything from the wrong region.Hence why the disc swap is required. The console will play anything that can be loaded into it's memory. I would think it is possible to change the firmware of the dvd drive somehow(similar to 360's)
I spent $74 13 years ago for a solderless mod chip which is ultimate rare now because its banned in the USA now. That thing was great and I used it non-stop on my Fat PS2 7th version. It played any legit or burned region PS1 and 2 games. It also ripped games to the hard drive and would load them without no issues. I loved that thing but I gave it to me brother When I got my PS3 in 2007. Still works to this day.
did it plug into the blue area in the fat ps2 ? if so I remember my dad had something very very similar (maybe the same) and you would choose what you wanted to boot up by flipping the switch left or right haha good memories
+Blan Blackman No switch was involved. In order to play a game the wasn't modded or a backup you just booted the system. To play a regular game with network capability you held I think the R1 button upon boot up to disable the hard drive. You had to choose if you wanted to boot from the hard drive by a certain button upon boot up also. The hard drive plugged into the back using a network adapter, but you could boot using USB in the front.
+PSN Deaofly Sorry meant if you wanted to play a modded game just boot the system. A regular or network game you had to hold the R2 button upon boot up.
Yeah might not have been the same thing then but my dad had a chip you would plug into the front of the ps2 fat and it had a black little switch that could go left or right I'm not sure if he had to do other hdd related stuff for it to work but haha I remember them days of endless burn games.
@@danielpindell1267 - DMS4 chip running ToxicOS? I have a few of these that I need to install. Has anyone seen the installation diagrams? I could really use them.
Hey I appreciate the video, I'm looking into modding my old fat ps2 to play a bunch of old games i used to love as a kid that are hard to find nowadays. Just wondering if you know anything about its ability to play ps1 games on the hard drive? Also, I was wondering if you knew about any other ways to install the IDE hard drive into the ps2 without that online piece for the back.
Free. Memory Card boot, also plays video (digital) in dvix/xvid modes and a very simple mp3 player and can read from either usb or from fat hdd. Doesnt work on latest ps2 slim models ways to know certain, model numbers, shiny black on top or has power cord like saturn, xbox etc. I think it plays emulators with roms however, I dont know how to do this, the xbmc on original xbox is a thousand times more powerful and in my opinion the best soft modification ever, thanx again Adam peace!
Another obvious benefit to this is that if you have a fat PS2 with a failing laser, this would allow you to extend its life w/o having to spend a lot of money on a new laser and/or repair. I have a fat PS2 in my basement gathering dust, and this kind of thing would be fantastic for that. I have sevearl IDE HDD's from days of yore, some at least 80GB in size, so I could easily use this to put some of my favorite PS2 titles onto a HDD and play them that way. As quickly as PS2 lasers seem to die (at least in my experience), that becomes an obvious way to preserve the system somewhat, just like modding an original Xbox.
Hi, I have a problem. I bought the memory card with freemcboot, I follow the procedure very well but when I start the ps2 starts directly opl making me select games from usb / hdd and then does not start the DVD that I entered. How can I solve? Thanks so much
Get an empty MemoryCard (at best original Sony, or a MaxMemory), download the newest 'Noobie-Package', put that on your USB-Stick and install it. Bought cards are often somehow 'crippled'...
The owners of Free McBoot have stated in their license agreement that it is a violation to sell FMCB in any form. The person you bought that memory card from was in violation of that agreement. Some people did start a forum thread on psx-scene offering to install it for people for free provided they pay shipping both ways. For more information check out my "DO NOT BUY FMCB" video on my channel where I have provided a link to said thread in the description. Sorry to sound like I'm advertising my channel but with my knowledge of FMCB and the fact that I have had a couple conversations with the developers it really bugs me when people sell or buy a memory card with FMCB preinstalled. Note that the sale of said memory card is also a violation of eBay's rules against selling mod chips.
There is an update for dreamcast bios to allow the dreamcast to display more colors using a puyo puyo save file? How the hell did you just barely mention this? I want details man! Seriously, just never heard of it, if someone could elaborate?
I'm just going to note, you can install Free McBoot to the hard drive, as well as other stuff, and enable large format drives. You just have to image the drive on your PC.
PSA - there is a modded version of the broadband adapter, still available through deal extreme I believe, that will allow you to use SATA hard drives. This will easily allow you to use 500 GB drives (for cheaper storage - those old IDE hard drives are getting more expensive to buy) and load plenty of games. Be aware however, that HD loader has a limit of 256 games that can be in the menu. You can even use SATA laptop drives, however, you might fabricate some kind of support ledge for it to sit on.
Adam can you please clear up this confusion...in order to install Free Mcboot, must your PS2, whether Fat ps2 or Slim PS2,.. does it have to be modded first already,...or not modded already ...as I thought the purpose of putting Free Mcboot on a PS2 memory card, was so you wouldn't have to hard mod your PS2? I'm seeing conflicting statements about this...can you end the confusion? Thanks
It's been years since I tinkered with this. At the time, the console itself did not need to be modded. However, at the time, it only worked on fat PS2s. I assume things have changed since, but I don't know.
@@AdamKoralik like you, all I want is a way to bypass the region lock. I have swap magic, but the issue is, the disk are starting to wear out. I want to get new disk, but today's prices are way over board, I even seen them selling for over $300! That's more than a ps2! Crazy! Therefore, looking for a better options to play the same Transformer game, that you've shown in the video. People have been saying, you can play imports off a drive or USB drive, is that true, that you know of, thanks!
FMCB has to be installed using custom settings during card install to be compatible for regions your MC probably came installed normal options during the installation.
i ordered action max evo to do the install can you tell me any good apps or anything you could point out to me that's worth putting on my flash drive I have a collection of Gameboy games so I wouldn't be doing piracy idk how to install apps yet
Man im just basically smiling from cheek to cheek, when you say jumpers for IDE HDs was a hard information to find. you got a normally pretty obvious diagram on the back but shure you have to know that there was somthing like master and slave. But for me as a hardware-guy pretty much a given.
I know this video is old but have you ever heard of the Sata version of the PS2 network adapter? I’m curious on if it makes a difference wether I use IDE or Sata.
Enable to play imports do I need to hook up my HDD to my computer? I initially set up my HDD by just inserting it into the ps2 and it reformatted it automatically. Is that good enough or do I need that adapter? Thanks Adam!
I just got this like 2 months ago and it's pretty sweet. I got like a handful of import games in it. The one that surprised me was that it was loaded with the Code Veronica Survivor game.
You can actually play PAL games from disc beyond of course swap magic. First you will need a homebrew called "HDTV xploder" ( it can runs ESR patched discs also) . It also allow you to force 480p in any game or just run at 480i NTSC and also 576i (PAL) or even 576P. Pretty cool stuff indeed. About 80% games are compatible with 480p/576p modes
6 years later, Jan 2020, and this is still valid for retro gamers, Thank You :D
6 months later (the time this comment was posted) and FreeDVDBoot exploit was released
1 year later and the world has gone to shit 😭
r/retrogaming mods: PS2 IS NOT RETRO!!!!! xD
@@hhectorlector yes it is at least in my opinion because it does not support widescreen and HDMI 🤷♂️ hate to break it to you that is the consensus
@@bricethompson1922 Actually, the PS2 has widescreen. It just wasn't taken advantage of in every game.
Now imagine this in 2019. Everything is basically perfect 😁 Gamestar third party Sata adapter, a 1TB hard drive hooked up, Virtual Memory Cards for actually saving to the HDD, PopStarter for playing PS1 games, in game reset that takes you back to your games list in OPL with a button combination, third party rechargeable wireless controllers, and so on... If anyone was hesitant about jumping in on this, now is the time guys 😉😁
I really do want to get into it, like now. Is there a tutorial that teaches it the "best"? I'm limited to a Slim that I know will work. Is there an optimized usb method that you know of? The extra stuff you mentiond also sounds cool.
Tynit Atticus Installing FMCB on a slim is a bit more difficult, because you need swapmagic, and burning CDs. I have a fat, so I don't know the exact method, but I'd say the easiest way is getting a memory card, that already has FMCB on it. They're pretty cheap on eBay and other places. And all you have to do is insert it into your slim, and it's done. If you'll be using USB, be aware, that the PS2s USB port is USB 1.0, so there's no point in getting a fast flash drive or HDD. Focus on the capacity instead. Newer ones will work of course, but only in Usb 1.0 mode. And as for tutorials, I recommend you to take a look at the videos from Mr Mario 2011 and Project Phoenix Media. I used their videos to learn about all this, and they pretty much explain everything.
Im totally new to this. Dont understand much but i guess ill start with buying a modded ps2 slim and download iso online
@@burningknuckle26 Just buy a normal PS2 slim, and a memory card that has the FMCB mod on it. You can't boot any ISOs, or even access the external hard drive or flash drive at all, until you insert that.
Just found out about this just ordered 2 fmcb and will try my best to try all this definitely looking foward to see if i can find an old hhd and everything else on here to play my games and hopefully all the back ups and isos i already had for the pc emulator that never quite worked for me 😍😍😍
The plastic thing on your HD is called a jumper
Wasn't there a movie "Jumper"? :P
I almost forgot about those things, i'm glad we have come so far in technology
Welp, this vid just filled up my shopping list
I can't imagine my PS2 without FMCB. I have literally all of my games on HDD and 99% of them work perfectly and load at insane speeds.
I found out about it about 3 years ago and it blew my mind. I had to install it the hard way: buy a random James Bond game, rip to iso, change a file on the iso, burn altered iso to DVD, take PS2 apart to expose the DVD drive, play first level of Bond game from retail disc and then swap retail disc for the altered disc before loading the second level where the PS2 would load the altered file (RMCB installer).
It was worth it. My PS2 went from collecting dust to having almost as much usage as my PS3 and PS4.
Hey! That's how I did it. It was a lot a fun to do!
+indePLASTIC It actually was! It was pretty hardcore but east and the entire time I felt this strange sense of "OMG THIS CAN'T BE REAL" haha
I know, right?! I was so shocked and excited that it actually worked! And then there was fun of figuring out what mods and homebrew games to get off of PSX-Scene! Hah, good times, man!
DannyWilliamH I tried it differently. I had a ghost case for my slim PS2 with swap coder to play imports with, so I downloaded the the needed Freemcboot files, got an unused USB drive, formatted the drive, put the Freemcboot files into the USB, change the filename to swap magic so when booting up the swap magic disc, it tricks the system into booting up the program from the USB, install files to memory card, and done.
I just took a fat, ran a img of a HDD of an already softmodded PS2, and then plugged it into my phat PS2. Way easier imo.
Modding PS2s for playing backups from a hard drive is easier than you think. You don't need a hard drive for the PS2 at all, you can use OPL to connect to a shared folder on your PC via ethernet cable(using your router) or directly with a crossover cable. It's a little confusing to setup, but it eliminates the need for buying another HDD and dealing with adapters and whatnot for transferring games to the HDD. It also allows you to make virtual memory cards in the shared folder, so you'll never need to buy another one. As I said, it's a little confusing, but a much cheaper alternative to installing a physical drive, and it works on the slim models as well.
***** unless you get a Chinese network adapter or use the SCPH 90000 series ps2, the Ethernet port is only e100 or something which is the same speed as off a disc.
Kwyjibo O_o thats what i am doing with my slim. I got a crystal chip but its broken and my drive is starting to fail :/
Kwyjibo O_o that's amazing thanks for the information
I remember having the composite cables being ripped by my dogs, so My brother went to the store to buy new ones. He bought the Original sony Component cables. He realised he bought the wrong ones since no tv in our house supported it, at the time wasted money. I remember playing ps2 in black and white for a long time untill a friend broke his ps2 and no longer needed his composite cables. I still have component cables and it was no longer a waste of money anymore.
James I mean... ur not wrong. But we were able to still use the cables to play games in black and white for a time. Now That was a Struggle!!
@@ErickGoDude I remember on wwe 2006 I couldn't tell what I was pressing in the menus while it was balck and white
hard drive port lol i used to keep my weed in there when i was a kid ....lol
+Joseph Atnip I still do
i will be now
+Joseph Atnip Yeah I always pop open the expansion bay whenever im looking at a PS2 in stores, sometimes old sacks of weed or some money in there.
yea it only went in there when going abroad/boarders, worked everytime, i am not posting this comment from prison either hahaha
Joseph Atnip I hide my money there XD
can can play burned and import games on your ps2 nativly by using ESR, you can go to the free mcboot config and set the ps2 to boot right to ESR.
ESR Will auto boot import/burned games
The one that comes preinstalled doesnt auto boot the burned/ imports
you have to use a older version
sksapps.com/exploit/freevast/ESR/ESR%20beta%20r9b.rar
set it to boot to ESR instead of freemcboot and then it should nativly boot import/burned games
Have you tried installing a mod chip in your console?
I have an epic story for you. A few months ago I had left the house and was on my way to university. The cleanup was drawing near so around this time people were leaving their old furniture and junk outside their houses. I was about halfway to the train station, when I noticed someone had thrown out a Huggies nappies box. What caught my attention was that it had plastic bags taped over the top, as if to protect its contents from the rain. I take the plastic bags off, and in it I find a fat model PS2, power and AV cords, and three controllers. Sticky taped to the top of the console was a note explaining how to use the Mod Chip built in.
I grabbed the box and went back home. Some time after university I tested it to make sure it worked. I popped in a NTSC copy of Manhunt 2 that I couldn't play on my PAL PS2 console - the game booted up instantly! I was a bit torn as to whether to sell it or keep it. Ultimately I chose the latter. I have no idea who installed the mod chip or how it works or how expensive or difficult it is to install, but I do know it works and now PS2 regions is no longer an issue for me.
+Jarrah White Yeah your right he should really get it chipped if he just wants an easy plug and play experience. I chipped mine just to play burned games I'm not really into the weeaboo stuff.
The mod chips themselves cost next to nothing but I found It quite time consuming to install since I'm not used to doing them. I watched some videos beforehand of people installing them but video really doesn't show just how small the points they are soldering to are.
PS2 was used to fake the Moon landings. Look at the teraflop shadows, dood!
La-Li-Lu-Le-Lo
Confirmed
I couldnt be happier with my FAT PS2, it has a physical modchip AND the whole HDLoader-Disc Drive method, it runs every game possible from JP to PAL to PS1 backups.
A+ for MGS reference
Jarrah White doesn't that wear the laser faster? Is it true chipped ps2s don't last as long?
Got my Ps2 on Christmas of 2002. Ah, the memories.
My PS2 comes in the mail today. Im now the proud owner of all 5 Playstations. And poor now.
Fantastic video btw. Kind of video I was looking for to see what I was getting myself into. Keep em coming!
all the free mcboot cards sold out on eBay shortly after this video. true story
I guess I'm glad I helped make some money for some people.
buy one for $10 ... easy
You can find plenty now
OPL, ESDL, ESR works, only your TV must support all modes. They all need some knowledge but they work!
You can use Free McBoot to run GS Mode Selector (GSM), which lets you force better video output from PS2 games. I haven't tried it yet, but that's one of my main points of interest for when I install Free McBoot.
I've tried, most games never seem to run stable with it. :(
I got it working on my PS2 today. It apparently works on a game-by-game basis, and in general I've had a lot more success with 480p than any of the higher resolutions. Apparently it has something to do with the way each individual developer chose to utilize the PS2's framebuffer. It's kind of a meta-game to figure out what settings work best for each game (though some games apparently will simply not respond well to any such tinkering).
Does it actually increase input lag? I recall getting bad results with MGS3: S and Xploder HDTV in that respect.
I own the silver slim model with free mcboot installed. Its so cool I didn't use swap magic I just used the james bond 007 agent under fire swap trick. You just have to block the sensors for it to work.
I have the latest version of the PS2 slim so the method I use is that I first use Swap Magic's boot function to boot a homebrew program called uLaunchELF, from there put a small piece of rolled up paper into the hole where the "dead man's switch" that tells the PS2 that the lid is closed is located.
Then I put in a game from my region waits a few seconds for the PS2 to recognize it as a "PS2 DVD" the program will then stop the disc from spinning.
Then I switch out the disc for then imported title I want to play and use the file browser to locate the .elf file that will launch the game.
The negative about this method is you can't properly close the lid while playing games and you also need to open your PS2 in order to remove a little piece of plastic that prevents the disc from spinning while the lit is open. Also if you have a earlier version of the PS2 slim there might be some other simple modifications that you have make for it to work.
You can rip the games from any region, apply a patch to them, burn them to disc and then play them without any swapping. :) EDIT: In any case, of course the HDD is the way to go! Reminds me I gotta put together my fat PS2. >:o Hopefully I'm not missing any pieces after I moved! 2nd EDIT: The patch will most likely get you around that region lock. 3rd EDIT: IIRC it's called ESR patcher or something.
***** What you can do is purchase a "disposable" PS2, a cheap one, and then rip your PS2 games, apply patch and then burn them. This way you can allow your PS2 games to rest instead of running the risk of ruining them. The downside to this is the DVD reader in the PS2 will much faster get teared, but if you use the right DVDs brands, DVD types and do decent burnings to these DVDs etc, the PS2 will last longer.
In any case, this truly does allow you to just download a game from any region, patch it, burn it to disc and use it to play. :)
MMDE does that mean you don't need freemcboot and or swap magic
Question for this older vid. Could you put the games on a usb stick and then transfer it to the ps2 harddrive with a ps2 with freemc? So i dont need the extra pc software/accessories
I have, unfortunately, run into a similar problem with my Wii's USB Loader similar to my issues playing PAL games off my PS2 hard drive. A very strange one, I'm just wondering your take on it is, Adam.
I got the Homebrew Channel and the USB Loader app, allowing me to play Wii isos off a usb device (It seems to smooth the rough edges a bit compared to playing off the disc, I dare say it looks smoother than playing a Wii disc on the Wii U), however, one game has done something inexplicable to me.
I ripped my copy of Prince of Persia: Forgotten Sands to the flash drive, like normal, but when I tried to play it, the screen went black, and my TV's display said it was trying to play the game at 576i, which my American HDTV doesn't do. I have no idea why this happens, because when I play the disc normally, it certainly says 480p, and the picture comes through. But there's an interesting point, it's one of the only Wii games I can think of that has a notable amount of scan lines, the other being Skyward Sword, but that game has nowhere near the amount as PoP: FS. And when I look at the iso's info in WBFS (the Wii equivalent of WinHiip) it says RF in place of NTSC in the region section. Keep in mind, it is an American copy, the ESRB rating is on both the box and disc. For being a rather standard size game, 4.37gb, my Wii does seem to be constantly trying to re-read almost everything, sometimes causing slowdown, which doesn't happen even in larger games.
I'm almost wondering if its just a PAL game with a NTSC forcer loaded on the disc, or something, because I've never heard of this happening before.
As it so happens I bought a transparent green PS2 with an HDD and free McBoot last year. It was a great deal as it had many games loaded onto it that I had wanted to play including a translated and patched copy of capcom X namco. It was great that it was all set up and ready to go. The seller even threw in the scuffed up silver shell that used to originally house that PS2 which was successfully converted into a custom arcade stick.
Not long after this video came out, I started on a journey to do this whole process you described to be able to play the English patched version of Namco X Capcom, being a big fan of the 3DS Spiritual Successor Project X Zone. I managed to get a memory card with Free McBoot pre-installed on eBay as well, but I never went beyond that. Now, almost 7 years later and well into College, I've recently decided to resurrect that plan. I'm betting I'll be able to play it real soon with Free McBoot. Regardless, I still have you to thank for giving me the idea of an avenue to play Namco X Capcom!
Looked through ps2 games and sure enough, I found my 2 disc set of swap magic purchased a few years ago.
: High five. :
God, I love SwapMagic.
Btw: SwapMagic's 3.8 version allows you to run MGS3 Online servers again.
Do I see "EDF 2017" in the background?
... Maybe? I don't know what that is.
@2:41 That happy face adorns all of my PlayStation accessories. RIP PSM :'(
I only started playing with FMCB in 2018 sound don’t know if this was true when the vid was made but there are a lot of options if you have OPL and a broadband adapter. Even without a hard disk. I know he was talking about just putting the disk in and having it work but what I did before getting a reliable IDE disk was use a shitty old netbook to stream the games over Ethernet. If you have a compatible slim you wouldn’t even need the adapter.
Jan 2021 and this is still valid for retro gamers
Will Free MC Boot allow me to transfer my memory card into an usb drive so i can transfer it to a pc?
***** Yes I copied my saves from Mc to Usb :)
Hey Adam, i've been using Free Mcboot for over a year now (i installed it myself on my memory card using Swap Magic and it was tricky, but once you get a hold on it its actually easy to do it) and along with the ESR exploit it has been doing wonders to my Ps2. If you burn a copy of your foreign games and patch the ISO's with ESR, then your Ps2 will read them without having to swap discs or any shit, just pop the burned disc in your Ps2 drive and it runs.
I speak for self experience because i have a PAL/European Ps2 and i play NTSC and Japanese games with just Free Mcboot and the ESR exploit.
I hope that i helped.
Keep up with the great videos!!
please explain the ESR thing, I have a NTSC-J pink PS2 and I want it to be able to play American/USA games natively
How large is one of those ripped games on your harddrive? I'm guessing like any other single or dual layer dvd? Up to about 8.5 GB?
I was considering getting Free McBoot a while ago since a fan site did an installable English translation of the Japan only Dragon Quest 5 game for PS2, and it required Free McBoot to do so. Now that I know I can get an old hard drive to keep such games on with better load times, I might make the effort to get it.
The maximum is 8.5, but most games are in the ball park of 1 to 3 GBs.
Is it possible that you could do me a small favor and see how large something like FFX, Kingdom Hearts or Dragon Quest 8, or any other JRPG might be on the hard drive? Because most of my PS2 games are JRPGs, I would probably store those first and foremost on mine.
If you can't, do worry about it.
I was glad to install this just so that I could play NTSC games (I'm in PAL region).
So many NTSC games have progressive scan support due to you guys getting having component as standard before we did. PAL versions often had this option removed bar a few exceptions. There's also the fact that 60Hz gets better framerates than 50Hz, so even your interlaced games are faster.
The little white thing on the back of the HDD is a Jumper.
Couple of notes: Not all hard drives will require the jumper to be on the drive in the PS2. The WD drive I have doesn't require the jumper at all.. Which is good because I lost it YEARS ago.
ALSO and MORE IMPORTANT, not all drives will easily fit without some modification to the Ethernet expansion port. Maxtor drives USUALLY fit. But other drives will not fit properly because the IDE cable and power cable ports are spaced too far apart on the drive. Removing the metal shield and unscrewing the power port usually is enough to make the drive fit. (My point is, if you're going out to BUY a drive, get a Maxtor. If you plan on using an old drive you already own, prepare to do some doctoring if it doesn't fit right)
I managed to pick up a memory card with FreeMcBoot on it, and I plopped in a HDD into my Fat PS2, Thank god. The loading is so much faster.
Bro, been loving Freemcboot. And thank god for your video on this. Every video is how to install, at least you tell me the pro's about it and not how to install it. Thank god. I had your same attitude. I can do it, no problem, but F it, Im lazy. I spent the money on ebay less than 5 bucks. And I didn't have a normal HDD laying around so I used a SSD. I know, it does no good, but why not had a spare laying around. Works good. Right now Ive been playing around with my jailbroken Fat PS3. Loving it so far.
I completely ditched consoles to invest only in PC when the 8th gen consoles rolled around. Recently though PC gaming has felt really watered down for me and I've slowly lost interest to the point where I don't play games for a week. But I've been yearning to go back to my childhood days where my cousins and friends all had 6th gen and 5th gen consoles and play all the exclusives I missed out on. Started with OG Xbox and making my way down. Basically I've gotten into collecting.
But along with this I have grown an obsession for modding, fixing and making old consoles perform better. The OG Xbox in particular I love to softmod (which is pretty easy) and have considered mod chipping one of them (I have 3). But now I've seen this...time to mod PS2.
And for your sake, it makes it easier to burn rare games on DVD to play without having to spend $100+ to obtain a legit game.
Buttery Toast I'm basically doing the same. I recently started collecting for the ps3 , adding to my 360 collection and now I have a renewed interest in the ps2 and og xbox. On the pc side, in recent times Iv only played doom 2016, re7 and prey. Im quite obsessed right now to play silent hill 2 on the ps2 :)
A neat way to preserve PS2 games without taking the console modification or emulation route.
Good video, but I would have loved a speed comparison between the HDD and DVD, but that's just me being greedy.
Ah, this is just what I needed to know.
I friend of mine needed a way to boot games from a HD and this looks like the way to go.
The best of all is that, a guy from my country that goes by the name of "guxtabo" in the PSX-Scene forum mods or install this thing to any Memory Card.
Thanks a lot for the info and video, Adam! :D
Happy to help, thanks for watching.
Bruh...this video was mind-blowing for me. Apparently, I'm late to the party when it comes to modding. Thanks!
If you're interested, you can use an IDE to SATA adapter and then use an SSD. The load times are even quicker, and there is no noise from the drive as SSDs don't have any moving parts. I've ripped basically every game I have to it, as it's basically a library on the drive now. With some more advanced tweaking, you can install custom themes, box art, descriptions, all sorts.
+C G0R3Z An SSD would just be held back by the ps2 I don't think they can even make full use of a 5400rpm hdd.+ modern HDDs are near silent.
An SSD would be a really good mod for a slim ps2 though, would probably fit inside the case.
I recently picked up another fat PS2 with free mcboot and a 60GB drive installed. This new softmod method is so much easier than back in the day. I remember having to have a specific PS1 game in the system at all times and a file on my PS2 memory card with the PS1 game's SLUS in that file. A real pain in the ass to find a PS1 game that worked. Now to find that 500 GB IDE drive I have lying around.
Ive just orderd mine looking forward to found my dusty old ps2 looking forward to using it.
Awesome Video. Few quick questions: What size HDD do you need? Can you use a sandard ps2 network adapter? Whats the compatability if you use a standard usb drive with it?
As long as it's IDE and fits, it should work just fine. It will need to be properly formatted though. There are some formats that cap it at 120 GBs. There's another that allows for bigger drives.
Yes, standard PS2 network adapter.
USB drive, not nearly as high because it's using USB 1.1.
Hey Adam, so if I buy a memory card with Free McBoot, will it work right away when I put it in the memory port?? I really want to play games of the usb port!!
You can play imports with Free McBoot, you need to burn them, and patch them with ESR. That way you won't need to swap discs, just put your burnt import in the ps2, start it up. This way you don't ruin your original imports, and it works on every console without disc swapping.
I wish i could pick up PS2 adaptors cheap at a bookstore, or any bookstore in the UK for that matter. Is that an American thing where you can get like video game stuff at bookstores?
when i play imports i burn my original japanese game like capcom x namco on my computer and patch whit ESR patcher put on the ps2 slim and play direct on the ESR menu
Can you tell me how??
@@angelinesupetran5789 instal ImgBurn for create the iso of your game and google ESR disc patcher GUI v0.24a.rar for the download and the instructions you can burn it the final image on a cd and played or copy on a usb
with all the necessary files so that free mc boot played from there
You can transfer games to the HDD via network cables. HDL Game Installer, which you can also use on the PS2 to directly rip your games, comes with a PC client. So you can rip the game on your PC and transfer it that way. Works great, takes me about 15 minutes to transfer a full DVD game, no need to take the HDD out and no need for the USB-IDE adapter. You can set it up as a batch send, so you can rip a stack of games, set it up to transfer and go do something else.
And another thing to note is -- it can do more things than you mentioned, as others have commented. Emulators, media players, games, all sorts of goodies. I think you'd like GS Mode Selector. The main forum of FMCB and other app devs is psx-scene, which you should check out now and then for software updates.
However, region coding can only be unlocked by directly accessing the BIOS code, which is what modchips do, so nothing for unlocking the regions directly. The closest thing that can be done is ESR, but that requires software patching and burning, so nothing for that either.
I'm not recommending them either per se, just noting that they exist.
I just use my PC for emulators, or my laptop on TV for that matter. I must say though, Picodrive is MUCH better than PGEN on the PS2. Because PS2SDK has evolved quite a bit, some homebrew devs actually can do more with the PS2 than they used to.
I know what you mean, though. I (foolishly) tried to play an h264 video file and it got stuck on loading. I think that h264 could be barely pulled off on the PS2, though it'd need some helluva good coded decoder for the EE. (probably decoding it to something like MPEG2 and passing it to EE's motion decoder should work fine)
But seriously, who's going to use a PS2 to watch movies? Most people are either going to watch them on their PCs or laptops/phones connected to a TV through HDMI.
Damn I had this issues a few years ago, I got impatient and just bought a Japanese slim ps2, I love it dearly.
I installed FMCB myself with my brother one day after he got inspired by reading about it (I had read about it many months earlier but didn't have the money to go out and get the necessary things to do it). I used the 007 Agent Under Fire exploit to do it (which was hilariously awkward to go into Gamestop and ask for that game specifically) and it worked like a charm.
Since then I've made a bunch of burned games and when I upgraded my PC I used my old 80gb hd to install most of the games onto using your exact method, something that everyone who had FMCB should do.
Thanks for the video. Yours was one of the more concise and clear ones talking about the benefits of FMCB. I just unexpectedly scored a cheap network adapter today, so I'll probably be using it to play some import games directly off the hard drive (Katamari Damacy at least, which was never released in Europe).
Happy to help. Congratulations on the network adapter.
Thanks. It was in a bundle with EyeToy Chat, so it came with the now-useless Skype-wannabe and the little USB webcam, all for 5 euros. Can't beat that for value. :D
I finally got the thing set up and configured, getting a copy of the game and so on. Worth it! :D
oh this definitely looks worth doing. the load times perk is a real seller. adding this vid to faves to try and remind myself to sort this out some time soon. great vid, thanks for the info adam.
My pleasure, Ben.
+macmmich You need to enable replies bud. If you do see this, the answer is no. It can't play PS1 games that way, and you need the broadband adapter.
AdamKoralik You should just install a matrix infinity modchip into your console, that's pretty much the only way you will get "native" support for region unlocking and playing backups.
+norge696 and where can we buy this " infinity chip"
+norge696 Hardmod is always better than freemcboot. If you have voultar/jinn level soldering skills to pull it off nicely.
+Calvin “Vault Dweller” Hall It doesn’t even have to be a an official card. I am using mine off a 64mb card. But I need to get a 128mb card. My 64 is getting full.
Hey Adam. Can I get a copy of your free mcboot?
Not all Ps2 fats will work, only the early models will. 39xxx and 35xxx. But you are right it is awesome and load times are quick. But sorry to say, you cant play the imports straight up. Also the CD games will have to be converted to DVD format to be saved onto the HD as well.
AdamKoralik theoretically speaking, could you connect the hdd to a pc and install games straight from an emulation/rom website, then slam it back into the ps2 and play away? I no longer have a ps2 but I'm interested to see if it would work.
Ps a friend of mine had an original xbox with a hdd installed and the games loaded ridiculously fast too. Could you maybe show a video of a game that takes a long time to load from disc and compare it to the load times from the hdd?
so the built in swap disc uses a north American disk as the swap disk correct
my ps2 stopped working a lot of time ago.
It would not read any "recent" game, such as Dragonball z budokai tenkaichi 3 and on, or very "heavy games".
Dunno why...
Maybe the dvd is broken?
And another question: does i need the broadband adapter to install the hard drive or i can install it with some wire?
Thanks
Seems likely.
Yes, you need the broadband adapter.
Just so you know Adam, you can also transfer games to the HDD inside the PS2 without removing it via an FTP client and uLaunch in the Free MCboot menu
I tried that with an FTP client. I got network connectivity but any time I attempted to move a file the console froze.
I have, unfortunately, run into an issue with installing PAL games using winhiip. I can install them, and boot them just fine using hd loader, but since most of those games only support 50hz, my hdtv can't display them as it is 60hz only. I can get 50hz to work on my crt tv with s-video, but only in black and white.
Do you have this problem Adam? Do you know of any North American hdtv that can support 50hz without issues?
Are you running it through component?
There are some apps on the PS2 that allow you to change the output and the placement of the image.
It's sloppy unfortunately.
AdamKoralik
Yes, I am running it through component. I am trying to look into the gsm app, but it is very confusing to understand.
ShogunGin0 Yeah, exactly, like I said, it's sloppy. I think HD Loader has an option to always output NTSC. It will fix the color issue. But will not fix the framing issue.
There is a program called PAL2NTSC which lets you patch the game to work on 60Hz televisions... Patch the ISO of the game before downloading it onto your HDD.
I believe you can play games in .ISO format from the PC to the PS2 using an ethernet cable. That way you don't have to buy a dedicated hard-drive for loading games.
You could probably use a SADA to IDE converter along with a laptop HDD if you don't have an IDE drive. That is what a some of people with original Xbox's do. Although seeing as the original XBOX has HDD that is locked to the console its a little harder to use a different drive.
Hey Adam, I've seen a few different methods that the HDD can work, and getting mixed instructions. Did FreeMcBoot format the HDD when you insert into PS2, or did you format through WinHiip? Thanks.
What's winhiip?
the swap magic for the fat model was to take out the front part of the DVD and in the slim you had to put a little bit of black tape to cover the sensor when the DVD thing is up.
at least for burnt games ESR loader does not care at all about the region but you may need RGB cables as the colors can be effed up especially playing a NTSC game on a PAL tv or viceversa.
One useful application to check out is GS Mode Selector. It allows you to force the video resolution of a game. Useful if you own one of roughly half of the HDTVs on the market that will not accept a 240p signal over component (PSX games and ICO, etc), Or doing some internal upscaling.
Some PS2 games were actually rendering in a higher resolution and then downscaling in the framebuffer or something, so those should look much improved.
I tried it a lot, seemed to make every game look worse...it they booted at all. Bad luck maybe?
Question: I will be getting a quite rare ps2 from Japan soon and am leery about cutting the sticker to open it (more for aesthetic reasons obviously) and replace with my North American PS2 internals. Do you know if loading the import program to the memory card with Free McBoot would work the same on a PAL system to play NA games?
Oh wow, old video I'm just discovering! But I'm glad I did! If I happen to find an old PS2, I will try this! Also the piece of plastic you talked about on the IDE hard drive is called a jumper. Inside the plastic is a piece of metal that basically just shorts out two pins on the connector. That's how a PC knows if it's the master or slave. All IDE drives have this. CD and Floppy drives were like this as well. The master is for using as a boot device and slave is as a secondary device on old IDE based PC's. :)
Sean Ryan
True, but Floppy-drives did not had that (well, maybe in it's first iteration)... This is something quite exclusive to 'Parallel ATA' a.k.a. (E)IDE.
Nope, Not just EIDE, IDE in general was this way. Also I had an IDE floppy drive. The first drives were not IDE either, they were SCSI.
Sean Ryan
That's why I put the E in brackets, which CLEARLY shows the intention of naming both and not only EIDE... That's obvious, because I excluded the 'E' in brackets, which would make absolutely NO SENSE, if I intended to only say 'EIDE'! I could have used a dash for it as well ('EIDE/IDE')... I also wrote (correctly) 'Parallel ATA' and wrote 'a.k.a.' in front of the '(E)IDE' (just for clarification, what I mean by 'PATA') which is accurate, isn't it?
Indeed, I have a SCSI-Floppy too (which obviously doesn't need any jumper)! I have never seen an EIDE/IDE-Version though... If I would have written only 'IDE', would you have complained about it, because I would have missed 'EIDE'? You must be kidding... You must be 'searching for a supposed error'.
So my statement, that it is quite exclusive to 'Parallel ATA' is wrong? You might think twice about that...
Hey Adam there is a way to bypass the region encoding. Its not an app but its something useful. You can install a mod chip on your PS2. However it does require soldering. If you're good at soldering or if you know someone that is a professional at modding. That's the recommended way of doing it.
Yeah, I was hoping to avoid that. But everyone says that's impossible.
A little extra info for you. The reason imports wont work isnt down to the console but the actual dvd drive being region locked. The drive just refuses to load anything from the wrong region.Hence why the disc swap is required. The console will play anything that can be loaded into it's memory. I would think it is possible to change the firmware of the dvd drive somehow(similar to 360's)
+shinasura777 The DVD drive being part of the console, so it is down to the console.
I spent $74 13 years ago for a solderless mod chip which is ultimate rare now because its banned in the USA now. That thing was great and I used it non-stop on my Fat PS2 7th version. It played any legit or burned region PS1 and 2 games. It also ripped games to the hard drive and would load them without no issues. I loved that thing but I gave it to me brother When I got my PS3 in 2007. Still works to this day.
did it plug into the blue area in the fat ps2 ? if so I remember my dad had something very very similar (maybe the same) and you would choose what you wanted to boot up by flipping the switch left or right haha
good memories
+Blan Blackman No switch was involved. In order to play a game the wasn't modded or a backup you just booted the system. To play a regular game with network capability you held I think the R1 button upon boot up to disable the hard drive. You had to choose if you wanted to boot from the hard drive by a certain button upon boot up also. The hard drive plugged into the back using a network adapter, but you could boot using USB in the front.
+PSN Deaofly Sorry meant if you wanted to play a modded game just boot the system. A regular or network game you had to hold the R2 button upon boot up.
Yeah might not have been the same thing then but my dad had a chip you would plug into the front of the ps2 fat and it had a black little switch that could go left or right
I'm not sure if he had to do other hdd related stuff for it to work but haha I remember them days of endless burn games.
@@danielpindell1267 - DMS4 chip running ToxicOS? I have a few of these that I need to install. Has anyone seen the installation diagrams? I could really use them.
Hey I appreciate the video, I'm looking into modding my old fat ps2 to play a bunch of old games i used to love as a kid that are hard to find nowadays. Just wondering if you know anything about its ability to play ps1 games on the hard drive? Also, I was wondering if you knew about any other ways to install the IDE hard drive into the ps2 without that online piece for the back.
Free. Memory Card boot, also plays video (digital) in dvix/xvid modes and a very simple mp3 player and can read from either usb or from fat hdd. Doesnt work on latest ps2 slim models ways to know certain, model numbers, shiny black on top or has power cord like saturn, xbox etc. I think it plays emulators with roms however, I dont know how to do this, the xbmc on original xbox is a thousand times more powerful and in my opinion the best soft modification ever, thanx again Adam peace!
Thanks for watching!
Another obvious benefit to this is that if you have a fat PS2 with a failing laser, this would allow you to extend its life w/o having to spend a lot of money on a new laser and/or repair. I have a fat PS2 in my basement gathering dust, and this kind of thing would be fantastic for that. I have sevearl IDE HDD's from days of yore, some at least 80GB in size, so I could easily use this to put some of my favorite PS2 titles onto a HDD and play them that way. As quickly as PS2 lasers seem to die (at least in my experience), that becomes an obvious way to preserve the system somewhat, just like modding an original Xbox.
Hi, I have a problem.
I bought the memory card with freemcboot, I follow the procedure very well but when I start the ps2 starts directly opl making me select games from usb / hdd and then does not start the DVD that I entered.
How can I solve? Thanks so much
Get an empty MemoryCard (at best original Sony, or a MaxMemory), download the newest 'Noobie-Package', put that on your USB-Stick and install it.
Bought cards are often somehow 'crippled'...
The owners of Free McBoot have stated in their license agreement that it is a violation to sell FMCB in any form. The person you bought that memory card from was in violation of that agreement. Some people did start a forum thread on psx-scene offering to install it for people for free provided they pay shipping both ways. For more information check out my "DO NOT BUY FMCB" video on my channel where I have provided a link to said thread in the description. Sorry to sound like I'm advertising my channel but with my knowledge of FMCB and the fact that I have had a couple conversations with the developers it really bugs me when people sell or buy a memory card with FMCB preinstalled. Note that the sale of said memory card is also a violation of eBay's rules against selling mod chips.
Oh well.
There is an update for dreamcast bios to allow the dreamcast to display more colors using a puyo puyo save file? How the hell did you just barely mention this? I want details man! Seriously, just never heard of it, if someone could elaborate?
Google it, it was Sega's last gift to the Dreamcast.
It's not as cool as you're thinking.
It's just like a screen saver thing hack.
The plastic bit is a jumper. Does auto-detect work? (Slave/master make the drive listen to different channels, as there where two per interface)
I'm just going to note, you can install Free McBoot to the hard drive, as well as other stuff, and enable large format drives. You just have to image the drive on your PC.
I’m glad my PS2 is a Phat model
PSA - there is a modded version of the broadband adapter, still available through deal extreme I believe, that will allow you to use SATA hard drives. This will easily allow you to use 500 GB drives (for cheaper storage - those old IDE hard drives are getting more expensive to buy) and load plenty of games. Be aware however, that HD loader has a limit of 256 games that can be in the menu. You can even use SATA laptop drives, however, you might fabricate some kind of support ledge for it to sit on.
I was wondering if you know anything about the HD pro and HD combo for the slim ps2. iv been looking into it and I can't find to much on the subject.
Basically the hard drive addons for the V7 slim models work exactly the same as they do for the phat models of PS2.
So how would I burn games and play them on my ps2? I could buy the games but there very hard to find.
Adam, with Free mc Boot I can play Original PAL games displayed properly on an NTSC-U console? ( I mean even those that doesnt have a Pal 60hz option)
Not that I recall.
@@AdamKoralik :( It seems I would have to add a modchip for my PS2 fat anyway.
I just got freemcboot, and when using the file browser is the only way to back out to the main menu by resetting the console?
adam i have the free mc boot but it is on the memory card , i have to get those peices to get net on the ps2? or it has another way ?
Adam can you please clear up this confusion...in order to install Free Mcboot, must your PS2, whether Fat ps2 or Slim PS2,.. does it have to be modded first already,...or not modded already ...as I thought the purpose of putting Free Mcboot on a PS2 memory card, was so you wouldn't have to hard mod your PS2? I'm seeing conflicting statements about this...can you end the confusion? Thanks
It's been years since I tinkered with this. At the time, the console itself did not need to be modded. However, at the time, it only worked on fat PS2s. I assume things have changed since, but I don't know.
@@AdamKoralik like you, all I want is a way to bypass the region lock. I have swap magic, but the issue is, the disk are starting to wear out. I want to get new disk, but today's prices are way over board, I even seen them selling for over $300! That's more than a ps2! Crazy! Therefore, looking for a better options to play the same Transformer game, that you've shown in the video. People have been saying, you can play imports off a drive or USB drive, is that true, that you know of, thanks!
FMCB has to be installed using custom settings during card install to be compatible for regions your MC probably came installed normal options during the installation.
what do you know about the "Action Replay" discs, do they allow you to play zoned games?? I know it allows you to play zoned DVDs.
As far as I know, that doesn't work with games.
i ordered action max evo to do the install can you tell me any good apps or anything you could point out to me that's worth putting on my flash drive I have a collection of Gameboy games so I wouldn't be doing piracy idk how to install apps yet
That space in the back was where you stashed your weed from your parents 👌
Why don't you say that you can just install a modchip that takes away all the hassle to play imports or copies?
Because I lack the skill to do it.
Man im just basically smiling from cheek to cheek, when you say jumpers for IDE HDs was a hard information to find. you got a normally pretty obvious diagram on the back but shure you have to know that there was somthing like master and slave. But for me as a hardware-guy pretty much a given.
I know this video is old but have you ever heard of the Sata version of the PS2 network adapter? I’m curious on if it makes a difference wether I use IDE or Sata.
It exists, it's mostly for convenience.
I honestly did not know about that Nights release! Thanks!
Can you help me format a 128 mb memory card iv used some program to format it and now is 8 mb instead 128 can u help me pls ?
Dang... So what is the best/cheapest route to play imports? I like fighting games and shumps, so I really want to be able to play imported ps2 games
What is Shumps?
Enable to play imports do I need to hook up my HDD to my computer? I initially set up my HDD by just inserting it into the ps2 and it reformatted it automatically. Is that good enough or do I need that adapter? Thanks Adam!
I just got this like 2 months ago and it's pretty sweet. I got like a handful of import games in it. The one that surprised me was that it was loaded with the Code Veronica Survivor game.
You can actually play PAL games from disc beyond of course swap magic. First you will need a homebrew called "HDTV xploder" ( it can runs ESR patched discs also) . It also allow you to force 480p in any game or just run at 480i NTSC and also 576i (PAL) or even 576P. Pretty cool stuff indeed. About 80% games are compatible with 480p/576p modes