PS1/2 PS2* defeated - MechaPwn

[SREGGOP]

From a CD only, but yes.

That's awesome, I made a thread asking about this like 3 weeks ago, it seems like 2021 is a great year for the PS2!

BTW just to make sure, this is running natively, not emulating, right?

 

[KleinesSinchen]

That's awesome, I made a thread asking about this like 3 weeks ago, it seems like 2021 is a great year for the PS2!

BTW just to make sure, this is running natively, not emulating, right?

It does exactly the same as when loading a legit PS1 CD – given that your CD-R are good quality and the laser is still strong.

 

[Devoidv3]

Great job everyone! So happy for this, no more swapping consoles lol

 

[driverdis]

I've got 3 Slim systems here, a PAL 90k, a NTSC-U 79k and NTSC-J 77k, i converted all 3 to Retail-DEX NTSC-U systems, all 3 ran the same as far as i could tell, interestingly tho, every system (including the stock NTSC-U 79k) all had the slight screen tear you mentioned at the top of my PS1 game (game in question is Team Buddies NTSC-U on a burnt CD), so it seems to be side-effect of the DEX firmware? i really wish i had an OSSC so i could check the Hz, cause i'm apart of the speedrunning community and this is quite massive that PAL regions no longer have to import systems to run on, but if its not running the same an a stock NTSC-U system, it wont be comparable on leaderboards

make sure to use PS1VModeNeg to launch PS1 games in their proper refresh rate. This overrides the PlayStation driver itself as it sets the wrong mode depending on which region the system is from.

https://www.psx-place.com/resources/ps1vmodeneg.853/

 

[duwen]

Shame my PS2 is a 39000X model

 

[KleinesSinchen]

Shame my PS2 is a 39000X model

Isn't that still the "Phat" model? It can have an internal HDD which is by far THE BEST way of loading games. I don't know if there are region problems though – not really into PS2 (yet; it should change).
Shouldn't be too hard to find a 75xxx or higher for a good price.

 

[duwen]

Isn't that still the "Path" model? It can have a internal HDD which is by far THE BEST way of loading games. I don't know if there are region problems though – not really into PS2 (yet; it should change).
Shouldn't be too hard to find a 75xxx or higher for a good price.

Yeah, and I use it that way... but I have a ton of original NTSC PS1 imports that won't boot natively on my PAL PS2... although the TonyHax exploit does work on my console, but unfortunately it defaults the resolution to the PAL 576i signal of the entrypoint disk which means the image of the NTSC game gets pushed up the screen with a large black border at the bottom of the screen.
I'm hoping that at some point there will be a PS2 specific variant of TonyHax that can incorporate the fixes from the PS1VModeNeg.elf.

 

[Lumstar]

Thanks, the Wikipedia entry lists a lot of them, looks worse than the list for SNES 2-chip/1-chip list. Worst of all is Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, for me personally.

Taking that at face value, Sony addressed it. 77000, 79000, and 90000 may have considerably better PS1 support than the 75000.

 

[metroid maniac]

Taking that at face value, Sony addressed it. 77000, 79000, and 90000 may have considerably better PS1 support than the 75000.

DECKARD PS2s are known to have a list of compatibility configurations for its IOP "emulation" - stored in XPARAM for PS2 games, and embedded in PS1DRV for PS1 games. XPARAM at least was updated over time.
Some effort has been made to port these configurations to older consoles.
Are there any well known PS1 titles that don't work or have very visible issues on a 75000 unit, but not a later unit?

 

[shano]

I tried this on a Phat 5000X Australian PS2 and set the Region as USA, and for some reason when I play a NTSC PS1 Backup Disc it just shows a black screen, only PAL Backup Disc worked properly. Also it no longer plays my legit PAL PS2 Disc, did I do something wrong or is that how it is?

Is it safe to restore the og backup anyone tried a restore yet?

 

[metroid maniac]

I tried this on a Phat 5000X Australian PS2 and set the Region as USA. And for some reason it will not play NTSC PS1 Backup Discs only PAL Backup Disc worked, also no longer plays legit PAL PS2 Disc. Did I do something wrong or is that how it is?

Is it safe to restore the og backup anyone done it yet?

It's normal for that to happen with PS1 games. It's not normal for that to happen for a legit PS2 disc, at least in my testing.
Region changing the mechacon on 5000x and 7000x consoles doesn't seem to be useful because it doesn't also change the BIOS. It's more useful on >= 7500x consoles because DECKARD can and does patch the BIOS on these.

I have restored the OG backup a few times and it's happily working. Just make sure you don't nuke your original backup after using the "force unlock" patch. I'd advise not using that option at all.

 

[KleinesSinchen]

I tried this on a Phat 5000X Australian PS2 and set the Region as USA, and for some reason when I play a NTSC PS1 Backup Disc it just shows a black screen, only PAL Backup Disc worked properly. Also it no longer plays my legit PAL PS2 Disc, did I do something wrong or is that how it is?

Is it safe to restore the og backup anyone tried a restore yet?

The possibilities on models lower than 7500x are a bit more limited, especially for PAL models. Have a close look at the readme section about the older models:

On SCPH-500xx and SCPH-700xx:

• Disable disc region checks (ps1 and ps2 discs from all region as well as masterdiscs mount with data accessible)
• Change the region the console reports as, as well as change the disc/kelf region that mechacon allows
• BOOT original PS2 discs from NTSC-J and NTSC-U regions directly from the OSD (NTSC-J units only)
• BOOT original PS2 discs all regions directly from the OSD (NTSC-U and ASIA (non NTSC-J) units only)
• BOOT original PS2 discs all regions as well as PS2 Masterdiscs from all region by skipping the logo check (for example by loading a disc using ulaunchelf)
• NTSC-J and PAL consoles: BOOT PS1 disc originals from the console's original region
• NTSC-U and ASIA (non NTSC-J) consoles: BOOT PS1 disc originals from all regions

 

[shano]

It's normal for that to happen with PS1 games. It's not normal for that to happen for a legit PS2 disc, at least in my testing.
Region changing the mechacon on 5000x and 7000x consoles doesn't seem to be useful because it doesn't also change the BIOS. It's more useful on >= 7500x consoles because DECKARD can and does patch the BIOS on these.

I have restored the OG backup a few times and it's happily working. Just make sure you don't nuke your original backup after using the "force unlock" patch. I'd advise not using that option at all.

Damn that is a shame hey.
I only have PAL PHAT 5000X & PAL SLIM 7000X PS2's.
Yeah no interest in the Force Unlock patch.
Edit: I tried with PS2 Blue Disc think that's the PS2 CD. Will try later when I can with PAL PS2 Legit DVD's.

The possibilities on models lower than 7500x are a bit more limited, especially for PAL models. Have a close look at the readme section about the older models:

Hopefully they can improve on it in later versions.

 

[shano]

Why is my PS2 doesn't play DVDs anymore / FreeDVDBoot stopped working?
"The DVD Player KELF inside the BootROM (BIOS) is region locked on non-deckard (pre SCPH-750XX). Since you changed the region of the console it can't run that file. To fix that you need to install a DVD Player update to your memory card."

Anyone know which DVD Player update I need to get? And does it render FreeDVDBoot useless if I update?

 

[metroid maniac]

Why is my PS2 doesn't play DVDs anymore / FreeDVDBoot stopped working?
"The DVD Player KELF inside the BootROM (BIOS) is region locked on non-deckard (pre SCPH-750XX). Since you changed the region of the console it can't run that file. To fix that you need to install a DVD Player update to your memory card."

Anyone know which DVD Player update I need to get? And does it render FreeDVDBoot useless if I update?

Yes, FreeDVDBoot will not work without a working DVD player. I haven't tried it, but at a guess, this one should work.

 

[driverdis]

So, I found out that PS2 systems with modchips that fail PS1 AntiMod checks (looking at you Modbo 750) can pass AntiMod checks when set to the equivalent DEX model. Spyro 3 NTSC, both original and copy work and pass AntiMod whereas before, both would fail AntiMod and not allow me to play.

 

[shano]

Yes, FreeDVDBoot will not work without a working DVD player. I haven't tried it, but at a guess, this one should work.

Thanks, so this doesn't install/update the DVD system version but rather just adds an update stored on usb or mc? If so that sounds better as it's temporary.

 

[metroid maniac]

Thanks, so this doesn't install/update the DVD system version but rather just adds an update stored on usb or mc? If so that sounds better as it's temporary.

It's impossible to update the DVD player in the console itself since it's stored in a ROM. Official and unofficial DVD player updates are installed to the memory card and the console automatically searches for them there.

 

[KleinesSinchen]

It's impossible to update the DVD player in the console itself since it's stored in a ROM. Official and unofficial DVD player updates are installed to the memory card and the console automatically searches for them there.

My SCPH-77004 set to DTL-H77004 has lost the DVD player ability (and FreeDVDBoot) as well.

Just a thought: Does this mean FreeDVDBoot will not work on newest 9000x systems when set to DTL? I know that some don't accept updates for the system and hence FreeMCBoot does not work. What about the DVD Player updates? Do they work on latest consoles?

In any case it sounds like a good idea to me to have Fortuna on a memory card as well – just in case.

 

[metroid maniac]

My SCPH-77004 set to DTL-77004 has lost the DVD player ability (and FreeDVDBoot) as well.

Just a thought: Does this mean FreeDVDBoot will not work on newest 9000x systems when set to DTL? I know that some don't accept updates for the system and hence FreeMCBoot does not work. What about the DVD Player updates? Do they work on latest consoles?

In any case it sounds like a good idea to me to have Fortuna on a memory card as well – just in case.

I have an SCPH-75003 which I converted to DTL-H75001. It still supports FreeDVDBoot.
(Embarrassingly I had to rely on this to reinstall FreeMCBoot - because it disabled my FreeMCBoot installation, which was not a multi-region install)
As for playing DVD videos - I don't have any American DVDs to check. But it seems to at least say that the disc region is not supported when I insert a European DVD, which suggests the DVD player is working on some level.
On my other console (SCPH-50003 -> DTL-H50003) trying to use any DVD video returns to the OSD immediately.
The ROM in DECKARD consoles is supposed to be region free but not on earlier consoles so this behavior makes sense to me.

I'm not sure if the very latest consoles - the v2.30 bios which shipped with SCPH-9000x consoles with date code 8C or later and which do not support FreeMCBoot - support DVD player updates.