Hacking PS3 game backup installation questions

[Urbanshadow]

I have downloaded 3 or 4 different versions of The Last of Us. approx. 35GB's for each download. Can't get any of them to work. They all hang on a black screen with "The Last of Us" graphic in the lower right portion of the screen. If you can get it to launch successfully, I want to know how you did it. I'm on a 120GB CECH 2001A Slim with Rebug 4.81. I upgraded the internal hdd to 500GB, and have tried installing TLoU to the internal, and 1TB external drive. No success. From what I have read, that game is notorious for having a lot of glitchy problems. There are a lot of forums out there with people experiencing the same black screen hanging issues I have seen. And a lot of others who have experienced this loading issue have OFW and a purchased copy of the game.

First try and it works, dlc included. There's a little bit of drama on the net because it has a 10GB file which obviously doesn't fit using fat32 filesystem. Many try to split this file with multiple splitting programs with little success. Few guys like me took the long road and wrote the files to the hdd of the ps3 directly via web/multiman's FTP. It's really slow but it has a way higher success rate. Also I am using the original EBOOT.BIN of the game, not that cracktro bs.

The menu loads perfectly. I'm gonna try to play a little bit and all. Like I said above, I used a 500GB hdd on my ps3, so space is not a problem right now.

Edit: My system is a Slim CECH-2004b, so I highly doubt there's any difference between us. I am able to play the game, but the load times are long and complex scenes sometimes lose objects due to slow transfer speeds. I'll try to get my way around that, but the game works for me.

 

[purrell]

So it seems like I'll need a bigger hard drive, but I'm still confused about whether I should use an external or upgrade the internal. I guess the internal is easy enough to upgrade, I'd just have to pick up a 2.5" laptop drive for about $50, since I don't have one. Then FTP'ing in through Filezilla/Multiman will allow me to transfer large PKGs from PSNStuffX and install to internal hard drive.

What I don't know how to do though, is install games to external hard drives. Do I transfer via FTP to internal drive and install the game to the external drive? Or does it have to be vice versa? Or is there a way just to do the transfer and not have to "install" to any particular target drive.

I understand the concept of why FAT32 has file size limitations, but I don't understand what the FTP process is circumventing if either the internal or the external hard drive are both formatted in FAT32, which is what Sony requires you do. Is the PS3 just splitting them in the background?

 

[purrell]

Okay I think what's throwing me off is the PKG files from PSNStuffX. I'm guessing most of you have moved on from this process as those files install to the internal hard drive only (if I'm wrong please correct me).

So the newer/better way is to copy ISO format or "file format" from other sources online. I'll see if I can find some games in that format and copy them over to an external USB drive formatted as FAT32. Since it won't be one large 12-15GB PKG file from PSNStuffX, I'm guessing that once extracted those individual files are less than 4GB and hence not a problem. I think I was going through unnecessary complications by installing PKG files to a hard drive (and a very small hard drive at that).

I'm mostly interested in GTA 4 and 5 and L.A. Noire and it's doubtful I can fit all those on a 60GB PS3.

The appealing thing about installing PKG files to Internal was running them from the default XMB. I presume in order to run these file-format games (or ISOs) off an external hard drive is to launch MultiMan every time? Not a big deal I guess, just a little less elegant.

 

[Urbanshadow]

I'm mostly interested in GTA 4 and 5 and L.A. Noire and it's doubtful I can fit all those on a 60GB PS3.

You could fit two of those games if the drive is completely empty. Just put a 256GB ssd there by merely 80 to 100 usd and get the three to load at godly speeds.

 

[Ryccardo]

the internal [...] hard drive [...] formatted in FAT32

It's not, it uses UFS (as seen in older Mac OS X and some other BSD operating systems) (with an outer encryption layer, a separate cache partition, and vflash partitions for the PS3 operating system itself if you have a NOR console) - it doesn't have the 4GB limit

I presume in order to run these file-format games (or ISOs) off an external hard drive is to launch MultiMan every time?

Webman + Cobra is an option, for PS1/PS3 isos (no PS2), create GAMES or PS*ISO folders on the root of a fat32 disk and enable the appropriate port in webman configuration

I'm guessing most of you have moved on from this process as those files install to the internal hard drive only

Not at all, I want everything on internal (it's not a Wii/U where there's no realistic alternative), I would prefer having everything as iso for Webman and it's possible to convert a PS3 game from pkg to folder/iso but the compatibility is inferior... and of course the 2 main games I care about don't work this way

Similiarly the "External Gamedata" option of your favorite *man program allows pkg files to be installed to a fat32 external drive, but compatibility is questionable again