Hacking Help me buy a FAT PS3 in 2020!

almmiron · Jan 13, 2020

I'm new to ps3 homebrew, and about to buy a fat ps3 for real Backwards compatibility for ps1 and ps2 games from HDD and have some doubts.

1. Any model recommendation or to avoid? Whats the newest methods for softmodding for my purposes.

2. Any HDD recommendation?

3. Reliable Tool to dump my original ps1 and ps2 discs directly on the ps3 hd?

4. Ps1 and ps2 games running off hdd on fat ps3 is emulation or real thing happening like running from original discs?

Thanks in advance.

[just realized posted in ps4 and not ps3 section, please move to ps3 section, and sorry for the mistake]

Shady Guy Jose · Jan 13, 2020

I can answer 1 and 3. You're looking for the original 60GB model. The 20GB version was gimped, and the later 40GB and 80GB models might not have backwards compatibility (same as the later Slim models). Since you're in an NTSC region, there are some backwards-compatible 80GB models, but I would avoid those, since it's hit-or-miss, and you're going to be swapping the HDD anyway. MultiMAN is a good all-purpose tool, and I believe it can dump discs to the HDD. I'm not sure if this means PS2 games are emulated instead of run the native way, though. PS1 games are always emulated, I think, but the official emulator is more than good enough.

stinger101mg · Jan 19, 2020

ive got a ceche for sale if ur interested. consoles in great shape i stripped it down put arctic silver ceramique therm paste on her set auto temps for webman at 60c max shes running well. its on rebug 4.82.2(always liked this one least amount of issues with artemis and tmapi) i can update the hdd to 250gb or 500 for a few extra clams no problem its got 4 usn ports and the card reader on the front all work swimmingly, ps2 discs read great as does anything u put in it its got a 120gbhdd in it right now, also has petitboot for linux loading.

Ryccardo · Jan 19, 2020

almmiron said:
Any model recommendation or to avoid?

If you want a fat, go for CECH-A or CECH-B (which include PS2 CPU and memory) - if you don't care about PS2, get a 21xx slim or even a superslim

Avoid early NOR models (CECH-H and on up to approximately -L ) - famous for spontaneous corruption
Some of them also have a buggy syscon and will boot with 100% fan speed if you are going to use automatic fan control (which is recommended)

almmiron said:
Any HDD recommendation?

Anything 1 TB or less with 512 byte sectors (= not "advanced format"), these are not hard requirements but if you respect them compatibility is guaranteed

almmiron said:
Reliable Tool to dump my original ps1 and ps2 discs directly on the ps3 hd?

None, use a PC and ImgBurn (or equivalent) for those

Preferred formats: single .bin + .cue for CDs, .iso for DVDs

almmiron said:
Ps1 and ps2 games running off hdd on fat ps3 is emulation or real thing happening like running from original discs?

Even original discs are emulated

PS1 - software emulation on all consoles (discs use ps1_emu, packages use ps1_netemu, backups use the one of your choice)
PS2 - packages use ps2_netemu (100% software emulation), discs use ps2_emu (IOP is emulated, other parts use hardware) or ps2_gxemu (everything except GPU emulated) depending on model, backups on CFW use the one of your choice, backups on HEN (why bother with that if you can use CFW?) use ps2_netemu

Hacking Help me buy a FAT PS3 in 2020!

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