[Tutorial]Load from USB On PS2

Let's talk of this console that has been forgotten on time
Well, after trying to show a way to do this for a friend on his ps2, i stumbled in a lot of misleading tutorials for the Usb game loading on Ps2, seeing even some people who still thinks that those usb connectors are useless
So, seeing that, and using this since Ps3 and Xbox 360 wasn't even a thing yet, i decided to write a tutorial on how to take that ps2 and play your games without even needing a dvd (mostly)

This needs a mod-chip, and will be Matrix mod-chip only, since i don't own any Ps2 that has another mod-chip

• Starters:

First, you'll need to launch homebrew (UlaunchELF and OpenPs2Loader) on the ps2
I've made a ISO with UlaunchELF and OPL already packed and ready to load on a ps2
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5YjFHrEIseIV2NQR2tJMGZkbnM
Burn the iso on a cd with speed 4x on any program (i recommend Ultraiso) and load in the ps2

This screen will appear, so here, you'll press circle to enter the file browser

Here, you'll go to cdfs:/

This screen will appear (ignore the path, my ps2 doesn't have a DVD reader)
If you go into apps, there will be a ELF file

From here, you can already open OPL, and play your games from usb (explained better as the tutorial goes on) if you wanna to have the CD ready when playing, but i'll teach how to copy the programs to the memory card, and have it as a second boot alternative

• Boot from Memory Card:

On cdfs:/ you'll need to press R1 on the BOOT.ELF file, and select copy

When you press circle to select copy, a little green square will appear on the upper right corner signaling that you copied the ELF

Press triangle to go back to the file manager hub, and select Mc0:/

Here, you have your memory card, all those folders represent a game save
Now press R1 and select New dir

Here, as seen on the image, name the folder BOOT, on capitals, and select ok
Go into the folder, press R1 again, and paste the BOOT.ELF file

And it's done, from now on, when you turn the ps2 on holding the R1 button, uLE will launch

I Highly recommend to copy OPL elf as well, since that will make the CD totally unnecessary

• Loading games from USB

Now, what everyone was expecting, loading games from USB on Ps2!

First, you'll need your Ps2 ISO(s) (Google is your friend), you can put more than one, as much that your Drive can handle, for the tutorial, I'll be using Megaman X Collection

Create a DVD folder on your Usb drive(formatted in FAT32) and paste your ISO(s) into the folder

(My Pc is in Portuguese, if that is a problem, I'm really sorry)
Name the ISO(s) whatever you like and place here (As the FAT32 won't support games bigger than 4gb, later in the tutorial, I'll explain how to solve this problem with bigger games)
And, while still on the PC, defragment your usb drive, as OPL won't read a fragmented game
With that out of the way, insert your Usb drive on the ps2 and open OPL
On the first loading of OPL, some things have to be configured, so this screens will appear:


Press Cross to select Settings, And go to Usb device start mode, and change it to Auto

And, on Default menu, change it to USB Games and select OK and on the menu, Select Save Changes

And, with that out of the way, press Circle twice and your game(s) should appear

Select your game and Have Fun! (Some colors will flash, but that's completely normal, and can be deactivated in Disable Debug Colors in the Settings menu)

• Games bigger than 4 GB

Fat32 has a restriction on it's file system that doesn't allow files bigger than 4 GB to be copied, and, as some bigger games (Gta San Andreas for a Example) pass the 4 GB mark, those games have to be cut in parts to work using USB, so i'll show how to do it

First, Download USB Util from here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B5YjFHrEIseIeEt4OUNXVUV6RzA

Extract all files and Open Usb Util


When open, go into file menu and click on Create Game from ISO (you can do it by copying a DVD too, just click the other option)
Select the directory of the game in the left box, and the destination on the right one (recommended the usb drive), choose the iso on the inferior left box, and rename it to your heart's content on the text box



Done that, click in create and wait for it to load



When completed, (if you didn't pointed the conversion directly to the USB Drive) Just copy the "ul." files to the ROOT of the USB Drive and the game should appear on the game menu on the ps2 when you plug the USB Drive

• OPL Features

OPL has a lot of neat features other than loading games from usb, and i shall explain some of it now

Starting with IGR (In-game Reset), this feature allows you to just exit OPL without even pressing a button on the console

Pressing L1 + R1 + L2 + R2 + Start + Select in-game will exit to the PS2 Browser (The screen that appears when you turn on PS2 without a DVD), It can be changed by going into "Settings > IGR Path" and typing the path to OPL or uLE or any other elf anyway (to make it easier, you can plug a keyboard to the other USB port on the PS2)

Pressing L1 + R1 + L2 + R2 + L3 + R3 (the analog buttons) in-game will turn off the console

Another cool feature included on OPL is the Video Mode Selector, which let's you choose the video mode on your games (Example, PAL games in NTSC and vice versa)
To activate it, just go in Display settings on the main menu, and choose your video mode on the video mode option
(DO NOT TRY THE HDTV OPTIONS WITHOUT A COMPONENT CABLE, OR OPL TURNS INTO A BLACK SCREEN AND YOU WOULD HAVE TO RESET ALL THE SETTINGS)

• Cover Arts

Well, now let's begin making the Game List more beautiful and organized shall we?
First, Let's put covers on our games
And to do that, we'll have to pick the cover for our game.
I recommend to keep it small, around 140 x 200, because bigger images cause this effect:


You can make your own covers too, just be creative!

With your image at hand, rename it to Codeofthegame_COV (You can find the Code of the game with a Google Search, Opening the game's ISO and looking at the SLUS/SLES file on it or looking at the inferior right corner on OPL), The image can be either .Png or .Jpg

Example: Megaman X Collection's code is SLUS_213.70, so i renamed my image to SLUS_213.70.PNG

With that done, put the image on the folder ART on your USB Drive


Plug your Drive on the PS2, open OPL, and voilá


(way better, isn't it?)

To add backgrounds, it's mostly the same drill, pick a image on 640 x 480, rename it to Codeofthegame_BG and put it on the ART folder on the USB Drive

• Themes

Still with me after all this? Good! Let's continue

So, now let's make the OPL look nicer, I've packed some themes on here, so download it and just copy the THM folder on the USB Drive
And on OPL, just go on the display settings and select your theme on the menu and select OK.
Done. (Please note that not all themes are compatible with backgrounds)

• The Return of the lazy OP...

Wow, one year and something to update this, that's some laziness... however, i had waaaay more time in my hands last year, and now that i should be studying for the college finals, i'll finish this so there's no loose ends

OKAY, LET'S DO THIS

• SMB Loading

Ever looked at the Ethernet plug at the back of your ps2 slim anytime after 2006 and thought: "That's a useless thing"?

Think again, here's OPL with it's helpful features to make it usable again

It's been already said in this thread, but this tutorial is way more useful for the Slim variations of the ps2, since you could just insert a hdd on ps2 phat and do the same with faster loading and reading

With that said, this is the best method (other than dvd) to play games in the ps2 slim with fmvs or atrocious loading and the advantage of no fat32 iso size restriction, you can put any game with any size, but enough rambling and lets go to the tutorial

So, reading the tutorial until here, it's the same things you needed to do for the usb



This is my shared folder for Smb on the moment, with my DVD folder looking like this:



And my OPL on the ps2 looking like this:



Now, to Setup that, first we need to make a Shared Folder

With the prepared OPL folder with the games inside, Right Click on your folder and open Properties:



(again, Portuguese language pc, but stick with me here...)

Go to Sharing Tab and Click Share:





In this Window, you would want to check "Everyone" to Read/Write and Click Share

Disclaimer: DO NOT DO THIS IN PUBLIC NETWORKS, IT'S UNSAFE, DO IT ONLY ON YOUR HOME OR TRUSTED ROUTERS

Sidenote: My Share name is different than my Folder name because i did the advance sharing tweaking to my settings, if you want a simpler name for your share, Rename the Folder.

Now, with that done, let's setup the ps2

Connect an Ethernet Cable on your router and ps2 and open OPL

Press Start to Enter Settings and go to Network Config:



On that Screen, a lot of information appears, but skip to the "SMB Server" part



If you understand this, it's pretty straightforward, put your pc ip there, name of the share(the folder in the Pc), user and password (of your pc) and click ok, save settings on the previous screen and go to the "start mode" part

Now, if you don't know your pc ip address, go on the pc and press the windows button + R, type cmd in the text box and press enter


on this screen, type: ipconfig



Now, in the wall of text that appears, look for the connection you use, either ethernet or wireless

My case being Wireless



Now, Write down the IPv4, Subnet Mask and Default Gateway fields on the ps2 settings, put the share name (the folder's name) and user/password on your computer and select ok

With all of that done, go to Settings this time


Set ETH device start mode to "Auto":

Click OK, Save settings and Press Circle



Voilá, now you can play games directly on your Shared Network

The advantages of this method over the Usb one is the faster loading times, and you are enable to play fmv cutcene games with less stuttering overall (just don't expect to stop entirely on some games, Kingdom Hearts 1 for example, it's intro and ending movie played smoothly, but experienced some stuttering, but the rest of the game and it's cutscenes played like a charm)

And that wraps up this tutorial, and i'm truly sorry for the delay on updating it, college burns me out like a candle and i didn't had too much time to update this, but i'm ending it here

For the OPL features, i truly recommend that you experiment with it for yourselfs, it's an awesome tool and a great console reviver
I also recommend the PS2-HOME foruns, they have been keeping OPL alive and updating it's features like crazy the last few years, i even heard that they made a way for the opl to run ps1 games in usb/smb, so go there and say hi

and that's it, good gaming people, have fun

 

Yep, just a blank dvd and some programs, nothing more, I'll still complete the tutorial for how to straight up make the DVD drive on the ps2 useless, so stay tuned!

Yes, it's a blessing for us, little slim mortals and yes, they are 1.1 but it don't affect gameplay in anyway, nor loading times, which on God Of War, when i played, was kinda faster than DVD

 

I disagree , OPL has gotten the loading times much better over the years, and yet, i shall say of other methods, that are a lot better than even USB

And i said this on the beginning of the tutorial

 

I've never had problems myself, as i already said, there were times when the games loaded faster on the USB then the DVD itself

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Modchips, Like matrix for example

 

Basically, yes, but it's very cheap actually, and even pirated chips work with this tutorial

 

It's kinda not, Mcboot method uses the same core idea, but it has a little nicey menu (and all the games MUST be converted using usb util, which i don't find practical at all)

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Eventually, I will put the other OPL builds (Childproof, VMC, GSM) and show a little about them, this tutorial is kinda on it's middle actually lol

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https://www.mod-chip.com/en/playstation/ps2/183/matrix-infinity-1.99-modchip-compatible-with-ps2
I'm not familiar with the canadian currency, but i know that is roughly 30 USD
and yes, would have to open the ps2 and install the mod-chip

 

Freemcboot needs a modchip as well, and yea, matrix can make burned ps1 games run without swapping, there's a emulator to run from usb as well, but i'll not cover it here