PS1/2 How do I make OPL load games from USB Hard Drive on slim PS2?

[Zookstar]

Hey. I have a problem.
My PS2 is a slimline console and my usb hard drive is 2TB. OPL v.1957 (1.1.0) is not loading the games from the usb portable hard drive.

I don’t know what to do to fix the issue.

 

[Deleted member 323844]

Is it in MBR FAT32? OPL does not support NTFS or exFAT.

 

[Zookstar]

Is it in MBR FAT32? OPL does not support NTFS or exFAT.

It was NTFS but I converted it to FAT32. I don’t remember if it’s MBR but I don’t want my usb portable hard drive to be formatted otherwise I’ll lose all of my PS2 and Wii files.

 

[zfreeman]

A 2TB HDD will require more power. You might need a Y cable to power it using a wall outlet.

Another possibility: you might have to redo your USButil files if they're messed up for whatever reason.

 

[Zookstar]

A 2TB HDD will require more power. You might need a Y cable to power it using a wall outlet.

Another possibility: you might have to redo your USButil files if they're messed up for whatever reason.

What Y cable? What are you talking about?

 

[zfreeman]

One USB goes into the PS2, the other USB can go into the other PS2 USB or a wall charger.

 

[Zookstar]

One USB goes into the PS2, the other USB can go into the other PS2 USB or a wall charger.

Woah, all that?! This is harder. How am I supposed to fix the USB Hard Drive not loading games in OPL easier than that?

 

[Deleted member 668561]

You'll have to format any USB drive to fat32 for ps2, there is no way around that, other than using ext (Linux)

 

[Hayato213]

You might want to go the SMB route or get a Phat PS2, you just going to struggle to get stuffs to load with that usb 1.1 interface on the PS2.

• HDD ATA interface: ATA-66 (Roughly 66MB/s).
• Ethernet interface: 100Mbit (Or 12.5MB/s).
• USB 1.1 interface: 12Mbit (~1.5 MB/s).
• CD/DVD drive: 24x speed CD-ROM [3.6 MB/s], 4x speed DVD-ROM [5.28 MB/s].

 

[Deleted member 668561]

You might want to go the SMB route or get a Phat PS2, you just going to struggle to get stuffs to load with that usb 1.1 interface on the PS2.

• HDD ATA interface: ATA-66 (Roughly 66MB/s).
• Ethernet interface: 100Mbit (Or 12.5MB/s).
• USB 1.1 interface: 12Mbit (~1.5 MB/s).
• CD/DVD drive: 24x speed CD-ROM [3.6 MB/s], 4x speed DVD-ROM [5.28 MB/s].

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

There is a new experiment, using the ps2 memcard port to access SD cards, only works with homebrew though, since its using spi

https://www.trisaster.de/page/index.php?topic=575

 

[zfreeman]

I think it's still too early for MX4SIO to be a viable option. Compatibility seems to be sub-par right now.

 

[chrisrlink]

load times can be painfully slow on v1.1 usb either use an SMB share (ethernet) as suggested or get a fat ps2 and a SATA converted network adapter (if you have the ide/oem sony adapter you can buy the sata board for like $13 on ebay and just transplant that into the oem adapter, plus you keep the ethernet port which will allow you to install isos through ethernet, so no need to take out the drive to transfer more games

 

[Hayato213]

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

There is a new experiment, using the ps2 memcard port to access SD cards, only works with homebrew though, since its using spi

https://www.trisaster.de/page/index.php?topic=575

Well your example is a game that doesn't have FMV stutter from USB port HDD, Games like Gran Turismo: 4, Ratchet and Clank 1 you would encounter stutter from cutscene due to that USB 1.1 12Mbit (~1.5 MB/s).

https://gbatemp.net/threads/no-fmv-studdering-with-games-running-on-usb-in-ps2-slims.533095/
https://www.ps2-home.com/forum/page/opl-game-compatibility-list-G

 

[Deleted member 668561]

Well your example is a game that doesn't have FMV stutter from USB port HDD, Games like Gran Turismo: 4, Ratchet and Clank 1 you would encounter stutter from cutscene due to that USB 1.1 12Mbit (~1.5 MB/s).

https://gbatemp.net/threads/no-fmv-studdering-with-games-running-on-usb-in-ps2-slims.533095/
https://www.ps2-home.com/forum/page/opl-game-compatibility-list-G

Most of that also depends what you are using for USB storage, and how much overhead it has from getting data in and out of your device, you are definitely going to have loading issues with a cheap USB drive, less likely with a usb 3.0 based sata adapter, higher end devices have small buffers, so less overhead, less time it takes for the data to be loaded from the hdd, and spat over USB

 

[Hayato213]

Most of that also depends what you are using for USB storage, and how much overhead it has from getting data in and out of your device, you are definitely going to have loading issues with a cheap USB drive, less likely with a usb 3.0 based sata adapter, higher end devices have small buffers, so less overhead, less time it takes for the data to be loaded from the hdd, and spat over USB

The port on the PS2 is USB 1.1 so it doesn't matter if you use an USB 3.0 based sata adapter you are still getting that 12Mbit (~1.5 MB/s). speed.

 

[Deleted member 668561]

The port on the PS2 is USB 1.1 so it doesn't matter if you use an USB 3.0 based sata adapter you are still getting that 12Mbit (~1.5 MB/s). speed.

Still if you use a shitty USB device, you won't get even 1MB/s

Like 500-700kbytes a sec


From vice city, San Andreas, sly Cooper

All play flawlessly, I have to test the ones mentioned above, but that's what you have to worry most about with usb loading, some devices, cheaper ones add some internal overhead and have slow transfer speeds, thus making bad for such purposes

I get around 30MB/s on USB 2.0 on my pc, Id have to force a transfer at 1.1 and see what speed it gets

 

[esmith13]

best way hands down (IMHO) is to buy a mini-router with Samba support and plug that into your ethernet port and plug the portable HDD into the mini-router. This way you get to use OPL in Ethernet mode (about 10-12MB/s - faster than DVD), your HDD can be NTFS or exFAT so you don't need to split 4GB+ games & everything is direct to the PS2 (no home network or internet needed.
As a bonus, if your portable HDD is relatively new, you can power both the mini-router and portable drive via a single PS2 usb port - no external power or on/off switch needed!

This is how my setup currently is. I'm using a Seagate 2TB USB3 HDD I bought about 2-3 years ago and a GL.iNet Mango router.
I have a single micro USB cable going from the PS2 to the Mango router and the Seagate drive is pluged into the router's USB-A port. I also have a 6" ethernet cable going from the router's LAN port to the PS2 Ethernet jack. The router takes about 10 seconds longer to boot up than it takes the PS2 to boot and run OPL, so you either wait the 10 seconds before launching OPL or you set OPL's ethernet mode to manual and once in OPL you wait a few seconds longer before pressing 'X' to start Ethernet.

Here's an Amazon US link to the mini router I use: [Linky]
It cost $30. You do have to hook it up to a PC with internet to set it up initially (5min) and activate file sharing (you need internet this one time to download Samba software to the router via the web configuration page).

If you decide to go this route and need help, feel free to hit me up.

 

[jamess1977]

use winhiip to add games to the drive and assuming you have opl on your system go into it and the games that will run with op l should work if you are referring to ps2 games, that was an easy set up