PS1/2 PS2 softmod

[Jiggah]

1) Buy a Memor32 mem card

2) load it with memento firmware (you only need to do this once)

3) patch ISO with memento disk patcher

4) burn image

5) play backup


Repeat from step 3 onwards whenever needed

Uh...why buy memento, when this does the same thing and does it better (ESR has better compatibility with games). It uses what you should already have with maybe the exception of the AR and all this stuff can be bought at your local game store.

memor32 can also use ESR elf files too so 100% compatability just about

+ the bonus of having a 32mb mem card that you can backup saves and transfer saves to the pc and back

Why bother when the hack will allow you use any USB flashdrive, which allows you to transfer saves as well?

 

[emirof]

Great guide =) does anyone know if it works on a ps2 slim or not?

 

[Jiggah]

Great guide =) does anyone know if it works on a ps2 slim or not?

It should work on all models.

 

[Jhongerkong]

I dont have a ps2 and am relatively new to ps2 modding but wouldnt it be easier to run cogswap once uLoader runs? Assuming you have done the whole sensor covering thing on a slim, it would be as simple as just switching it with a backup.

 

[cutterjohn]

I dont have a ps2 and am relatively new to ps2 modding but wouldnt it be easier to run cogswap once uLoader runs? Assuming you have done the whole sensor covering thing on a slim, it would be as simple as just switching it with a backup.

Point is though, with either memor32 + memento and/or some memory card plus ESR and a patched disk you can direct boot the disk w/o having to swap.

If you still need to swap, I believe that you can run a swap magic or cog swap ELF as well to get that functionality.

Take all of this with a grain of salt, as I've just gotten my memor32 and my setups going (memor32 + memento 1.2e and another card with Free MC Boot 1.6, uLE 4.25, and ESR 9a) and haven't had time to try out any backups or homebrew yet (soon). Probably the best setup would be memor32 plus memento 1.1 AND 1.2e, along with FMCB and a version of ESR, presumably 9a as I haven't seen any real compatibity comparisons for various versions of ESR recently. (Reportedly memento 1.1 is best for homebrew compatibility, plus a few games that work in 1.1 but not in 1.2e, dunno what the mix would be with ESR tossed in as well, but ESR disclaims homebrew compatibility as they tend to use the same memory space apparently (probably libraries in common that expect to be loaded at specific addresses at a guess).

USB drives are reportedly slow for use to play backups, but I'll test it once I get some larger uSDs, or find a big enough spare hd for an enclosure that I have kicking around plus time.

So anyone have any good links to PS2 homebrew sites, preferably somewhere with a forum like gbatemp with essentials, etc. beyond the basic emulators that is? (Currently still digging around psx-scene.com as it has all the info wrt ESR, FMCB, and uLE.)

 

[jesterscourt]

memor32 will work with the new slim PS2s?

 

[jinxvorheeze]

Great Guide playallday! I have swapmagic disks, but this is much simpler once it's set up!

 

[Diablo1123]

I have swap magic also, I'd do this if i had an extra memory card, but sorta don't wanna bother with patching every single game.

 

[kobykaan]

memor32 will work with the new slim PS2s?

yes it works on slims

 

[myuusmeow]

I have swap magic also, I'd do this if i had an extra memory card, but sorta don't wanna bother with patching every single game.

I've patched some of my games using the ESR patcher and it took about 5 seconds.

 

[cutterjohn]

memor32 will work with the new slim PS2s?

Yes, or at least it works on the one that I bought in April of this year.

Anyways, burned a few bum disks from an image I made(FFX), but it turned out to be the crappy disks. (2.4X and 4X booted, but froze int he game, 8X would never boot -> checked the image in a PS2 emulator and it happily went right on past the freeze -> crap media)

Bought some brand new Verbatim DVD-Rs (Taiwan, on sale 100 4 $19.99 @ Office Max), burned at 4X and bingo booted under ESR 9a AND memento 1.2e.

Moral of the story, buy only known good media and you should be ok. Still need to test burning at higher speeds yet though.

[EDIT]
Patching is trivial, and the patched image still booted in an emulator fine, so I imagine that the patched image would work with any method of running backups, although I'm not at all certain what it does.

Also note, the ESR patcher program does not unpatch properly.

Tested working/unworking disks using both memento 0.9e patcher and 0.24a windows build ESR patcher. Memento patched seem to boot under both while the ESR patcher seems to bork memento booting.

Still need a pointer to some decent homebrew/sites, anyone? anyone? Beuler? Beuler?
[/EDIT]

 

[unpaidassassin]

would a patched iso work if I use swap disk?

O have swap disks but might do this if I happen to come across an AR or something

 

[cutterjohn]

would a patched iso work if I use swap disk?

O have swap disks but might do this if I happen to come across an AR or something

Dunno, I'd guess that it would, but I'd go ask on the psx-scene forums or elsewhere where they discuss these sort of things. psx-scene.com would be your best bet though IMO.

Oh yeah, wrt to DVD media:
The crap ones that I had were, surprise, made in CHINA. According to the afterdawn forums the made in INDIA ones are also, surprise, SHIT.
Memorex seems to be generally considered bad as well.

The verbatims or sony's (c. $22 @ worst buy) should be checked to see that they say made in Taiwan (RoC). But, even then, apparently the very best ones were the ones made in Japan, but it seems (from afterdawn) that those are relatively rare nowadays.

(I got the made in taiwan Verbatim 100 pack from Office Max myself... still good, played an hour of FFX and no more freezes or crashing...)

 

[suppachipmunk]

What programs other than imgburn can burn the image.

I assume that it must be an ISO, you patch the ISO, then you burn it as an ISO?

I have Roxio Easy Media Creator 10, and I have clone CD / DVD2. Will any of these work to burn the ISO?

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: What about MagicISO?

 

[cutterjohn]

What programs other than imgburn can burn the image.

I assume that it must be an ISO, you patch the ISO, then you burn it as an ISO?

I have Roxio Easy Media Creator 10, and I have clone CD / DVD2. Will any of these work to burn the ISO?

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: What about MagicISO?

From what I recall of the IMGBURN docs it can handle most of the more common formats.

The patchers require an ISO, so if you made some other type of image, you'll have to convert them to ISOs AFAIK. I just dumped an ISO of mine under linux...

 

[Pizzaroo]

hmmm i have all of those materials already... Ill do it tommorow, im tired today

EDIT: great guide, btw.

 

[suppachipmunk]

cutterjohn Posted Today, 01:17 AM
QUOTE(suppachipmunk @ Aug 22 2008, 10:53 PM)
What programs other than imgburn can burn the image.

I assume that it must be an ISO, you patch the ISO, then you burn it as an ISO?

I have Roxio Easy Media Creator 10, and I have clone CD / DVD2. Will any of these work to burn the ISO?

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: What about MagicISO?

From what I recall of the IMGBURN docs it can handle most of the more common formats.

The patchers require an ISO, so if you made some other type of image, you'll have to convert them to ISOs AFAIK. I just dumped an ISO of mine under linux...

Thanks cutterjohn. After messing around with Roxio, I figured out that it can burn a disc image, (ISO). I can use CloneCD to rip the ISO from my legit PS2 disc. I will pick up a spare memory card from gamestop next week to test this out. Awesome. I have swap disc, but it makes it difficult, sometimes impossible to use action replay and I get tired of having to switch disc. This method seems to be better and has better compatibility.

Thanks for the help and thanks for this awesome guide!

 

[kobykaan]

you can both IMAGE and BURN with IMGBURN it works fine ... READ IN ISO mode and then patch and then BURN in ISO mode

and yes DVDR media does have an influence in working and none working disks ....

me personally ... only ever use disks that are RITEK G05 dye based they work flawless for everything I do games/movies/backup.....

and my personal preference is to burn only ever at 2.4x for best results sure it takes longer but least I know they will work

 

[suppachipmunk]

@ playallday

2 of your links are dead. One is for the savebuilder, and the other for the uLE 4.21

I have found there is a uLE4.25, which one is better to use? The newer one, or it 4.21 necessary?

Thanks.

EDIT: WIll my backups still work if I use Momento Patcher instead of the ESR patcher? I may get a memor32 card and use both the mem FW and the ESR FW. Just wanted to make sure that momento patcher will let the backup work on both firmwares. Thanks again.

Also, once patched, can I still use Swap Magic if necessary? or does the patch break the ability to use swap magic?

 

[cutterjohn]

Thanks cutterjohn. After messing around with Roxio, I figured out that it can burn a disc image, (ISO). I can use CloneCD to rip the ISO from my legit PS2 disc. I will pick up a spare memory card from gamestop next week to test this out. Awesome. I have swap disc, but it makes it difficult, sometimes impossible to use action replay and I get tired of having to switch disc. This method seems to be better and has better compatibility.

Thanks for the help and thanks for this awesome guide!

IMGBURN is free. Go to imgburn.com and download it if you'd rather use that. (I usually use v5 NERO myself...)

I'm up to the point now, where I'm looking at how to get one of the cheat engines going, and putting off searching for more homebrews until I get all the basic functionalities settled. (Should go buy another 100 DVD-Rs, I suppose, as I expect to make some worthless disks when I make the foray into homebrew.)

[EDIT]
I'm betting that with higher quality media that you can burn reliably at higher speeds. When I get around to making copies of the rest of my games, I'll start to experiment. Also want to look into how to make a multi-game DVD as I've got quite a few CD games and it seems a waste to put only one CD game on a DVD-R.

Memento patcher: Well, the final back up that I made of FFX with the new disks that worked was memento patched as I didn't want to bother re-ripping the DVD again and there is no quick way to unpatch the ISO.

The memento patched FFX disk is working under both ESR and memento for me.

The earlier copies that I made that booted, but froze (crap media) were ESR 0.24a windows build patched and would, of course, start when using ESR, but memento would just either hang at the memento screen or give a black screen hang. Even when memento patched and burned on the crap media memento wouldn't boot it IIRC.

So, I guess that if you're going to be using both memento and ESR it may be best to just patch with memento 0.9e patcher ATM, as who knows, memento may actually eventually cough up the v1.3 release yet...

Other notes: the FFX good disk, memento patched will boot directly with memento active, but ESR hangs with a black screen when it recognizes it after boot up. Manually starting ESR (R2) or opening the tray then running ESR from the menu works though.
[/EDIT]