Need a new PS2 HDD. Help.

[nmalinoski]

Also, wasn't 480p just becoming a thing in 2000 when the PS2 was released? IIRC, the XBOX came out a year later which would help explain the upgraded video support.

dreamcast came out before the PS2, and over 95% of its library supports 480p

Does that 95% figure include or exclude the chunk of games that require you to trick them into 480p mode?

[maxtherabbit]

Also, wasn't 480p just becoming a thing in 2000 when the PS2 was released? IIRC, the XBOX came out a year later which would help explain the upgraded video support.

dreamcast came out before the PS2, and over 95% of its library supports 480p

Does that 95% figure include or exclude the chunk of games that require you to trick them into 480p mode?

uhhh include? I completely pulled that number out of my ass BTW

[evil_ash_xero]

I got two of the same kind I had before, and was able to get things set up exactly as before.
Thanks for all the advice.

[ldeveraux]

I got two of the same kind I had before, and was able to get things set up exactly as before.
Thanks for all the advice.

So no need for this thread at all. Great

[evil_ash_xero]

I got two of the same kind I had before, and was able to get things set up exactly as before.
Thanks for all the advice.

So no need for this thread at all. Great

No, the advice helped. I didn't know how to set up the HDD. I knew I wanted the IDE, but I didn't set it up to begin with, so I didn't know exactly what to do.

And I'm sure this is taking up precious bandwith.

[ldeveraux]

I got two of the same kind I had before, and was able to get things set up exactly as before.
Thanks for all the advice.

So no need for this thread at all. Great

No, the advice helped. I didn't know how to set up the HDD. I knew I wanted the IDE, but I didn't set it up to begin with, so I didn't know exactly what to do.

And I'm sure this is taking up precious bandwith.

It's not just this thread, it's the 983484 others you start, then essentially end with "nvm, figured it out."

[evil_ash_xero]

I figure it out due to help.

The one poster's link to "how to format your PS2 HDD" helped tremendously.
I'm not brain dead. I just need a little instruction.
I don't see why this irritates you to such a massive degree.

I asked for help on getting a monitor, in another one of my "useless threads", and I bought the exact monitor that was recommended.

I'm not sure who put the bee in your bonnet.

[Xyga]

Upping this.

Did you know ?

The official Sony network adapter can come with different metal plates arrangement inside, some (like mine) have smaller ones added to the main in order to attach the IDE or SATA and power daughter boards.

Story is I've decided after considerable procrastination to finally upgrade my HDD setup, and ordered a BitFunx adapter (the purple one v2)
(yes for ages I've had a network adapter, yet still using a peasant external USB hdd with only arcade games)

Now stupidly enough the BitFunx lacks two holes to accomodate screws that are supposed to hold the addon plates.
So, for hours I've been looking around for a bit of thin metal to work or tiny washers in order to attach the BitFunx, and I can't find anything at home that'd do the job.
It's driving me mad.

*facepalm*

Some of the most irritating annoyances can come from the smallest unexpected things.


EDIT: this is completely stupid, I have managed to make washers but now the screws heads are too thick and touch the board's components so I can't finish attaching the board.
I will have to design a completely custom alternative plate. Fuck you BitFunx.

[Xyga]

Continuing on my 'going from usb to internal' experience.

Sata adapter's attached though not very well, I better not hit the console by accident as the drive in the bay is hanging precariously in the air at a weird angle, with bent cardboard under to help support it and not strain the sata connector too much.
EDIT: will definitely get short sata extension cord so the hdd can lie safely on the bay's floor with a couple adhesive strips.

Now for the games; I'm sort of appalled to witness that although of course the higher bitrate allows most games to no-longer choke on heavy data loadings and fmv's, the compatibility is actually lower.

I'm getting freezes in games that wouldn't hang before, like some big RPGs (Abyss, VP2) or what seems to be occurences of 'too fast', like DQ8 working better if I reduce the bitrate in OPL (iam using a 5400rmp 1TB drive but apparently even that is too fast on default for some games)

So unlike with my previous USB setup, now I have to research and fine-tune games individually, and the information googled around is often unclear, incomplete, outdated.

In short: it's and upgrade, but not one that makes everything better.

EDIT: there's really a FUCKTON of things to consider http://www.ps2-home.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=176
Ugh...though that ages-old USB setup I was using wasn't ideal, at least it was considerably more straightforward.
Since I had not looked into ps2 hdd stuff in maybe over 10 years, I wasn't aware of how much material has accumulated on the internet since then, and it's complete chaos; you'll find a hundred different takes, opinions and advice, all different, often radically so. whew. The worst part of all that is probably the many among those who confidently show off 'no problem! perfect, no issues! easy!' experience, yet of course most of what they say is essentially noise that will lose most newcomers as in practice it's like 99% certain you'll hit a complex blurry wall almost immediately.

[ZellSF]

Compatibility shouldn't be lower than USB.

With a SATA adapter and a modern drive you definitely need to occasionally change the DMA setting though (is it still called that in the latest OPL revisions?).

EDIT: there's really a FUCKTON of things to consider http://www.ps2-home.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=176
Ugh...though that ages-old USB setup I was using wasn't ideal, at least it was considerably more straightforward.

Um, a lot in the topic you linked to is USB specific. It isn't really that straightforward. You're just more used to it.

[Xyga]

I'm not asking for your opinion nor help on this, because:
1) you're wrong, you don't know the context, about a decade ago I just used usbloader and winhiip, and practically none of what's in that linked thread applied, it just worked, albeit slowly of course. and yes staight away what i'm experiencing is lower compatibility and much, much greater complexity.
2) i'm not interested in reading more random bits of individual takes on the matter, even less so if it's people just dropping yet more random opinions or terms i don't know and aren't even defined out there, that just adds to the general clusterfuck confusion the whole ps2 hdd topic obviously is, and that's exactly what all forums are filled with.
3) i know you, you will methodically just contradict everything i say because you think your version of reality is better/right, even though every time i can well verify it's just your nagging biased BS.

And I'm generally not asking for help anyway. Just stating a fact: today the ps2 hdd thing is a massive clusterfuck with tons of contradicting and outdated info.
It's just a warning for anyone who hasn't taken a peek at it for a very long time, or who's new at this: get ready for migraine.

[fernan1234]

It's too bad that you haven't had a smooth PS2 HDD experience. It's definitely not the easiest thing to set up, but hopefully anyone who encounters this thread will not be scared away from it, as it's, in the end, by far the best thing you can do with your PS2.

Back when I set it up I remember that it helped using an official network adapter modified for a SATA drive, along with brackets to keep the 3.5'' hdd in place, because the third party one I tried first worked but had to be seated just right. But once the console is set in place and is never moved around, even a third party one should be fine. I'd still recommend using brackets either way.

Luckily after heavy use I haven't needed to modify settings for specific games, except for some where the game stream is read too fast leading to crashes during some loading areas. It was never necessary to search info for individual games though, as the safest bet is simply to use MDMA-0 (4MB/s) as the transfer mode, since it's almost the same as real drive's transfer rate. At least for me this always solved the problems, and loading doesn't feel slow at all anyway.

This page contains good and easier to understand info on this subject: http://psx-scene.com/forums/f150/compat ... der-63344/

[Xyga]

It's too bad that you haven't had a smooth PS2 HDD experience. It's definitely not the easiest thing to set up, but hopefully anyone who encounters this thread will not be scared away from it, as it's, in the end, by far the best thing you can do with your PS2.

Yeah it's just that I didn't expect that amount of annoyance nor to discover the ocean of so-so information and mountains of contradiction scattered around the internet.
So many people drop around 'no hassle' comments so casually it's just fishy. Stuff like that never is (like I hope I never said 'GroovyMAME is easy', seeing how many people struggle, I apologize if I ever did)
Anyway I need to take my time with all that.

brackets to keep the 3.5'' hdd in place

Probably the best solution but I'd have to be sure of what I get fits, plus as my adapter is attached (terribly) I'm not sure that's a choice for me yet anyway.
First I have to find a better solution for that steel plates issue (issue mentioned absolutely nowhere on the internet you will note)

as the safest bet is simply to use MDMA-0 (4MB/s) as the transfer mode, since it's almost the same as real drive's transfer rate. At least for me this always solved the problems, and loading doesn't feel slow at all anyway.

Yeah i'll give that a try, transfer speed is the only thing I've touched that actually began to make a difference when I play anyway.
The various modes are a bit of a black box, the compatibility list is outdated, so you go looking for answers and there is the beginning of Hell, as it's all scattered, people have 10 different opinions on how to solve an issue, up to telling you to redo everything from scratch. Ugh.
PCSX2 is a walk in the park in comparison lol.

This page contains good and easier to understand info on this subject: http://psx-scene.com/forums/f150/compat ... der-63344/

And there they tell you setting the transfer speed only concerns IDE HDDs...
The many different tutorials etc I find are filled with incomplete or confusing statements like that lol.

Apparently some have it better with test/beta builds, and this is probably where the more up-to-date information is, as well as latest compatibility settings info sharing.
Most of the guides etc are very old and haven't been updated with that (the common plague of the niche tech stuff on the internet) so I guess one must always be where the 'people' are at and talk to find out.

[ldeveraux]

I'm not asking for your opinion nor help on this, because:
1) you're wrong, you don't know the context, about a decade ago I just used usbloader and winhiip, and practically none of what's in that linked thread applied, it just worked, albeit slowly of course. and yes staight away what i'm experiencing is lower compatibility and much, much greater complexity.
2) i'm not interested in reading more random bits of individual takes on the matter, even less so if it's people just dropping yet more random opinions or terms i don't know and aren't even defined out there, that just adds to the general clusterfuck confusion the whole ps2 hdd topic obviously is, and that's exactly what all forums are filled with.
3) i know you, you will methodically just contradict everything i say because you think your version of reality is better/right, even though every time i can well verify it's just your nagging biased BS.

And I'm generally not asking for help anyway. Just stating a fact: today the ps2 hdd thing is a massive clusterfuck with tons of contradicting and outdated info.
It's just a warning for anyone who hasn't taken a peek at it for a very long time, or who's new at this: get ready for migraine.

This was a thread asking for advice on a PS2 HDD which you turned into your personal soapbox. What result were you expecting?

[maxtherabbit]

idek why anyone uses anything but real IDE drives, surely you have an old working one lying around right?

[Xyga]

This was a thread asking for advice on a PS2 HDD which you turned into your personal soapbox. What result were you expecting?

My beef with ZellSF is old topic, and although off-topic - of which I apologize to readers - is nothing of your concern.

What I wrote before though wasn't soap but on-topic, just sharing experience that might be useful to some.
So for that part of your comment i'll just say...if you have no interest then mind you own business?

idek why anyone uses anything but real IDE drives, surely you have an old working one lying around right?

I don't remember the last time I had one and the too few I find online are either old/used af or too small capacity and overpriced.

Combine that with the tons of people being like "a Sata adapter is perfectly fine" and you may understand why people don't feel like bothering with IDE.

Anyway compatibility-wise I'm not sure that's the issue I'm having right now, there can be many other reasons, identifying them and fixing is the hard part. :/
Could be bad adapter or hdd yes, could be a bad rip, or wrong settings but the right ones aren't known, wrong naming, wrong opl version, wrong whatever, for now i'm investigating, and that might take a long while. ^^

[nmalinoski]

idek why anyone uses anything but real IDE drives, surely you have an old working one lying around right?

The short of it for me is that IDE drives, compared to SATA, are slower, louder, and no longer manufactured.

In my experience, it is far easier to get a newly-manufactured SATA disk and a replacement interface board for the official network adapter; and I've found a SATA disk initializes quicker and is far quieter than an IDE disk, including both models of official Sony PS2 HDD that I've come across (A thicker one that came with the PS2 Linux kit and a slimmer one that came with FFXI). SATA also gives you the chance to use an SSD, which will be more power-efficient, will make no noise at all, and, even though you wouldn't be getting anywhere near the throughput of the drive, I would think it would perform slightly better than a SATA disk due to effectively-zero seek times.

[maxtherabbit]

idek why anyone uses anything but real IDE drives, surely you have an old working one lying around right?

The short of it for me is that IDE drives, compared to SATA, are slower, louder, and no longer manufactured.

In my experience, it is far easier to get a newly-manufactured SATA disk and a replacement interface board for the official network adapter; and I've found a SATA disk initializes quicker and is far quieter than an IDE disk, including both models of official Sony PS2 HDD that I've come across (A thicker one that came with the PS2 Linux kit and a slimmer one that came with FFXI). SATA also gives you the chance to use an SSD, which will be more power-efficient, will make no noise at all, and, even though you wouldn't be getting anywhere near the throughput of the drive, I would think it would perform slightly better than a SATA disk due to effectively-zero seek times.

if an ST-225 could hold a PS2 game and be made to work in the system I'd use it

I love HDD noise, it's an essential part of the retro experience for me

[fernan1234]

For me the real advantage of the SATA drive is that it can hold A LOT more games than any IDE drive. I use a 2TB drive on my PS2.

Both types of drives will perform the same way relative to compatibility modes and transfer speed settings, so there's really no good reason not to use a SATA drive other than already feeling comfortable with an old IDE setup and not feeling the need to play a lot of games on it.

I have zero experience with using an SSD on a PS2 but I imagine it would be fine too, though kind of overkill and a waste of an SSD drive. In terms of noise, the console's fan will be making more noise than any drive would anyway.

[Classicgamer]

The advantage of an SSD is that it has no moving parts like regular hard drives. Anything mechanical will one day fail. SSDs are smaller and lighter too.

On a PC, an SSD is meant to load faster but I'm not sure if a PS2 could take advantage of this. I'm not even sure I can see much difference on my PCs.

[ZellSF]

Xyga: if you don't want to talk to me, just ignore me. I will say though, the situation you're complaining about: you're not helping.

This page contains good and easier to understand info on this subject: http://psx-scene.com/forums/f150/compat ... der-63344/

And there they tell you setting the transfer speed only concerns IDE HDDs...

You're using an adapter. You're using a IDE HDD as far as the PS2 is concerned.

Both types of drives will perform the same way relative to compatibility modes and transfer speed settings

Not quite, when I switched from a IDE HDDs to a SATA SSD, I noticed a lot of games would not boot unless I specified a slower DMA transfer speed, that would boot previously and I didn't use especially slow/old IDE drives.

the console's fan will be making more noise than any drive would anyway.

Most of my IDE hard drives are noisier than my V9 PS2, but with an older PS2 I could see that point. I literally get headaches from the noise level of old PS2s.

SATA also gives you the chance to use an SSD, which will be more power-efficient, will make no noise at all, and, even though you wouldn't be getting anywhere near the throughput of the drive, I would think it would perform slightly better than a SATA disk due to effectively-zero seek times.

Haven't noticed a single performance difference since switching from an IDE drive. OPL might start slightly quicker, but games don't seem to care.

[fernan1234]

Not quite, when I switched from a IDE HDDs to a SATA SSD, I noticed a lot of games would not boot unless I specified a slower DMA transfer speed, that would boot previously and I didn't use especially slow/old IDE drives.

Yeah I've encountered this too with a SATA HDD, so that could be the only "downside" of not going IDE, but it literally takes two seconds to change the DMA setting. It's a no-brainer that SATA is the way to go.

[Xyga]

@Zell, no it's you not following anything I say and you do this in every thread where we two accidentaly cross. You immedately gave another example here so it's you not helping. It's me here asking you to ignore me, please.



--- moving on ---



So in the outdated compatibility list, when there's something in the CBT column (which I now know is not short for 'ciabatta'), well in 0.9.3 it means Mode 1, and there's no value to adjust. Took me awhile to come across that information, their forum's really a mess.

Apparently that got Valkyrie Profile 2 to work fine for me.

For the reading speeds though I wonder which are considered overall safe.

I've noticed the differences in behaviour, it's all benefit in DQ8, but with MDMA-0 you still lose some of the advantages of the faster loadings in some games.
So I've tried a bit higher until I see at least a bit of improvement live, like the world map in Tales of the Abyss which rotates a bit better from 16MB/s.
However what's the difference between MDMA-2 and UDMA-0 ?

For now that game still hangs here and there, after some time you start noticing some slower loadings, then for instance the world map's music's gone, and that means you're close to a freeze.
Still one of the problematic games I guess, but I don't know how it fares with the beta builds.

I've also read someone implying that forcing that game to 480p with GSM actually fixes it ??? I will try that as soon as I manage to find my component cable lol.

^ it works ! can't comprehend why but Tales of the Abyss forced to 480p with GSM basically fixes the compatibility (and it looks better), I have Mode 1 on too but dunno if still required.
found that by googling, why that trick isn't in the compatibility list is beyond me, I wonder if anyone's maintaining a better one somewhere else, for now all i've found suck

[fernan1234]

However what's the difference between MDMA-2 and UDMA-0 ?

In effect, nothing. They're both the same speed (16MB/s), just using two different methods (multiword vs. ultra direct memory access) to communicate with the drive. 16MB/s is as high/low as MDMA/UDMA goes. If you want to optimize a problematic game, you could just go down the speed rate one by one until you find the sweet spot of max speed sans the freezing. To me the lowest MDMA already feels fast enough, when needed. It's still better than the DVD drive and more consistent.

That's really weird that forcing 480p on that game fixes the freezing problem! It shouldn't make a difference. The only thing I can think of is that the extra processing gives just enough additional time for things to run as expected.

[Xyga]

That's right af far as I've seen so far there's no real perceptible benefit in going higher, maybe MDMA-1 13MB/s for comfort and that's it, ToA's map isn't smoother with 16 I believe.

As for that 480p trick I dunno, is this the only game that requires it? could it be beneficial to compatibility in general? in any case I'll remember it.

[tongshadow]

Original Network Adapter+300GB IDE HD here (yes, I managed to find one that large).

0 issues apart from random back blocks that makes some games freeze once in a while, but hey, it works 99% of the time for the other games.

[ZellSF]

Xyga: I'll send you a PM about the off-topic stuff you started here.

Not addressing Xyga here, just talking generally: As for 480p forcing games increasing compatibility, I can't say I've ever run into it. I'm not saying never try it. Just don't make it the first, second or even third thing you try. If you do end up trying it and it for some reason works, please submit it to the compatibility list so others don't have to experiment.

[fernan1234]

Figures that a couple of days after saying that I haven't needed to use special settings on OPL I started a game that does (Shadow Hearts II). But it didn't take much Googling to find out it just needs modes 1 and 6 on to run without issues.

Apparently you can download default settings on OPL for games that sort of automates this discovery process, but I don't know if that function still works. I haven't bothered to hook up my PS2 to my router, especially since I mostly play NTSC-J games which are probably not on the database anyway.

[Xyga]

Today I've found that DQ8's hiccups during loadings were not due to too fast transfer speeds, it's Mode 1 (accurate reads) that actually fixed the issue, now it's perfectly smooth.
Got that same problem with the GTA games so I will try that too.

TotA: played 10+hrs without any issues, that 480p trick is really bizarre but heh, for that game it works.

VP Silmeria: no issues since I've activated Mode 1 along 3 & 6.

Got tons more games to try of course, but at least for those three 'big' RPGs looks like I'm done.

[tongshadow]

I think its important to mention that forced 480p can display wrong aspect ratios on most titles, it makes them look like 8:7 or something. This can be corrected by your display (or scaler) if you set it to fill the whole screen, so you still get black bars on both sides but on 4:3.