What options do I have for my hard-modded PS2 going forward?

[Cyber Akuma]

I still have my old V9/V10 PS2 from back in the day that was hard-modded with an Matrix Infinity chip.

I know it was an official chip and not a bootleg, and that I used to check vigorously for firmware updates for it back in the day. I don't remember what firmware version it was on now but it was whatever the latest official update was before they stopped releasing them.

Anyway, the homebrew on this thing is very out of date, it was last still using a very hacked up version of HDDLoader. I know that OPL has long since replaced that, but some of the newer features that I want to use would conflict with my old modchip.

I had my modchip setup so that it auto-launches ulaunchelf from the HDD (sadly, there was no way for me to also have the configuration file load from the HDD back then so I had to have a copy of it on each of my memorycards... is that different now?). One big annoyance I had with HDDLoader is when you had a lot of games on it that it would take forever to add/delete/rename a game due to the mess that was how the proprietary PS2 HDD filesystem worked, and you would also need proprietary software to read/write to the disk on a PC. I had over 100 PS2 games back then (well, still have, just that they are in storage now) and it took over a week to rip every disk onto my HDD with how slow it would start to get as it filled up.

From my understanding though, OPL supports NTFS and I think even recently added support to exFat? I believe this is now even the preferred method to do it so that I can just load the isos onto a partition/folder like any normal drive instead of have to deal with the proprietary programs and filesystems?

But that's the problem I have with having a modchip that will auto-launch ulaunchelf (or anything really) for me.... it's firmware was last updated around 20 or so years ago, it does not support NTFS, and exFat wasn't even invented yet. If I reformat my drive to NTFS or exFat my modchip will no longer be able to access it.

I know that with the softmods that have appeared as of late there is very very little interest in PS2 hardmods anymore, but by any chance has anyone been working on custom/homebrew firmware updates for these chips? I recall seeing a few intended to let the clone/bootleg ones get some updates, but I don't know if any were ever made for official chips to give them new features or updates past the last official firmware update, especially if there was any that would give them NTFS and/or exFat support so I can format my drive in NTFS/exFat and still have the chip auto-boot ulaunchelf... or whatever would be the modern replacement/equivalent for ulaunchelf these days.

Ideally I want to be able to turn on the PS2 and have it without requiring a memorycard (mostly because I have several and don't want to have to clone any homebrew files on every one, especially have to update every one if I want to make change) boot up a homebrew menu that will let me launch OPL along with any other homebrew, and if possible do this with a HDD formatted in either NTFS or exFat.

 

[Ryccardo]

You don't need a chip to boot from memory card or HDD, now that Memento→Vast→FreeVast→FMCB (of which FHDB is a variant) showed the world unofficial console updates are possible

The standard for PS2 hard drives is still the APA partition "table" containing PFS (native filesystem), HDLoader style disc images, or Linux partitions;
the "exfat support" in OPL (and pretty much nothing else) is primarily related to BDM (block device manager - an abstraction layer for disks allowing for a new SD Gecko like gadget called MX2SIO and a revival of the OPL mod with firewire disk support) which does also work for the properly said internal HDD, but of course if you use MBR+wahtever then it's not a valid PS2 HDD anymore

The concept of an "APA jail" (using an extended partition as a container for a virtual APA disk, or the inverse) is long lived but I don't think there are any implementations yet, and (despite some differences) has too many parallels to the "hybrid MBR" (dual MBR+GPT partitioning), which sucks hard!

This is nice for transferring your backups to an APA disk: https://gbatemp.net/threads/hdlbatch-a-batch-installer-for-adding-games-onto-a-ps2-hdd.551102/

Never heard anything about interesting innovations in chips (last one was either the Modbo with HD Pro [which, by the way, sucks] or someone realizing that you can use a 3-wire PS1 chip on a PS2), maybe @SylverReZ will make one?

 

[SylverReZ]

Never heard anything about interesting innovations in chips (last one was either the Modbo with HD Pro [which, by the way, sucks] or someone realizing that you can use a 3-wire PS1 chip on a PS2), maybe @SylverReZ will make one?

It would only be a good time to make a PS2 modchip IF somehow there was at least source code for one which supports later revisions and also much stable. Earlier chips like the Origa, Magic 3 and Messiah 2 chips only supported the phat models before the slim, the source code for those are readily available here: https://github.com/m4x10187/ps2-modchip-files. Who knows, maybe in the near future we could have an open-source version of the DMS.