PS3 [HELP] CECHA00 – Permanently change disc region for PS2 games (PAL)?

[jw0710]

Hey everyone,

I've been googling and searching like crazy, but couldn't find a clear answer or thread about this – maybe I'm just searching with the wrong keywords (I'm from Germany and not a native English speaker), so if anyone can even just link me to the right thread, I'd be super grateful.

Here's the situation:
I recently imported a CECHA00 from Japan – my first one ever – because I really wanted the full PS2 hardware compatibility. I'm in Germany, and over here we only had the CECHC back in the day, which was region-matching (PAL), so we never had to deal with this kind of thing. The CECHA00 works fine, Evilnat 4.9 CFW is installed, and I can play PAL PS2 discs if I set the disc region to "Europe" manually before launching. But I have to do this every single time, and honestly, it's driving me nuts

So my question:
Is there any known way to permanently change the PS2 disc region (for physical discs, not ISOs) on a CECHA00 with CFW?

Maybe a patch, a boot plugin, a registry mod, marrying a PAL drive, or anything like that?
Would really appreciate any info or tips – even a "no, not possible" is better than being stuck in limbo.

Thanks in advance!

 

[kadorna2]

cobra should boot any ps1/ps2/ps3 regardless of region. here's a couple of things you can try
a) using the modded emu files by kozzarov
b) disable cobra and try using mamba, report back how it works
c) try a burned disc instead of a legit one, both for ps1 and ps2
d) maybe a bug? @Evilnat

 

[remlei]

AFAIK, REBUG firmware can do this, just set the country in QA debug menu and that should set everything in your console on whatever region you set it to, even the Composite output change to PAL/NTSC based on region what you set. yes this setting will stick on reboots and can be change back anytime you want.

 

[Evilnat]

Can you tell me what steps do you do to set disc region to Europe? xai_plugin, webMAN MOD or Debug Menu? In my CFW you can do it in xai and Debug Menu

 

[Joonie]

Can you tell me what steps do you do to set disc region to Europe? xai_plugin, webMAN MOD or Debug Menu? In my CFW you can do it in xai and Debug Menu

it has to be DEX Debug Settings but IIRC it wasn't really permanent, it only writes the region value to registry (dev_flash2)

 

[jw0710]

Can you tell me what steps do you do to set disc region to Europe? xai_plugin, webMAN MOD or Debug Menu? In my CFW you can do it in xai and Debug Menu

Situation:
I power on the console with a PAL PS2 game already inside. At first, the disc doesn't even show up.
Once I change the region via xRegistry and eject/reinsert the disc, it suddenly works.
If I just eject and insert the disc again without switching the region, nothing happens – it won't be recognized.
I'm using xRegistry to change the BD/DVD region, but the change is only temporary. It resets after every reboot.
Sidenote: The internal battery is currently dead, but the PS3 is always connected to power – date and time stay correct even after reboots. So I doubt that's the battery is an issue here.

Updated to Evilnat 4.92 (CEX) - still the same.

Step 1 No Disc shown

Step 1.1 BD Disc Info:

Step 2 Change via XRegistry

Step 2.1 BD Disc Info after Change

Step 3 Disc shows up now

Link if Pictures are not displayed: https://imgur.com/a/VhzTY8X

However: Ill take a look on how to do it with xai_plugin or the Debug Menu; im still not that familiar with all the options giving to be honest.

 

[fdm]

I think that "Custom Firmware Tools" menu is the xai_plugin.

I know you can use IDPSet to permanently change your current target ID to the region of your choice. This will for sure solve your issue and is exactly the method I would personally use.

Under Custom Firmware Tools -> PSN Tools there is an IDPS spoofing option that might work, maybe try that first. It also has TargetID spoofing but idk how spoofing from EID5 would be useful so it's probably for something else.

The only other option I can think of would be Rebug. Region spoofing is a basic feature of development firmware so I bet it'd work well there.

Edit: after checking, spoofing won't work and I do not think the dex spoof options are persistent

 

[B-0ne]

CECHA00 works fine, Evilnat 4.9 CFW is installed, and I can play PAL PS2 discs if I set the disc region to "Europe" manually before launching.

I have a japanese CECHB00. Tried it with xRegistry and that doesnt work for me. The disc isn't detected.

Edit: after switching to a different PS2 game it did show up as a PS2 format disc. However, it doesn't load. It goes to a black screen and the system needed a hard reset…

Edit 2: tried two additional games. Both aren't detected.

 

[Kevstah2004]

Isn't the ps2 bios region locked on hardware emulation? wouldn't you have to patch the EE chip itself rather than the emulator?