PS2 Perfect solution for archiving games?

G

GudetamaLazyEgg

Member
Hi everybody!

I have done some research here on the forum but I'm still not sure about one thing so I hope you guys can help me by clarifying regarding the following. I have archived all my once purchased PS2 games as ISOs on my PC as an attempt to digitalise them and save them in case my games should ever get damaged from disc rot, get lost or whatever. So now I am wondering is there any perfect solution yet to go all digital? Does any of the existing methods work perfectly for all ISOs/games?

Will all the ISOs of my digitalised games work perfectly fine if I buy one of those modded PS2 consoles from Ebay that come with a HDD?
 
Internal HDD in PS2 isn't trustworthy media because APA is fragile. Keep them on PC, compressed to CHD (if You want play them on PCSX2 emulator) or to ZSO (if You want play on PS2), eventually just as archive eg. in 7z compressed by LZMA2.

Be sure that after decompressing You will get the same data (by comparing checksums before compression and after decompression from compressed form). And of course use some solution for validity of data like checksums, par, snaphots on filesystem etc. so You will be know if data gets corrupted by data rot came from HDD, SSD etc. ;)
 
Berion said:
Internal HDD in PS2 isn't trustworthy media because APA is fragile. Keep them on PC, compressed to CHD (if You want play them on PCSX2 emulator) or to ZSO (if You want play on PS2), eventually just as archive eg. in 7z compressed by LZMA2.

Be sure that after decompressing You will get the same data (by comparing checksums before compression and after decompression from compressed form). And of course use some solution for validity of data like checksums, par, snaphots on filesystem etc. so You will be know if data gets corrupted by data rot came from HDD, SSD etc. ;)
Click to expand...

Sweet, thank you! But what about playing my ISOs/BIN+CUEs? Just storing the files on my PC is not a problem. But what if I don't want to play via emulator? I would like to have them all on a PS2 with HDD so I won't have to swap discs anymore. So my question is will they all work just as well as the original discs if I play them on a PS2 with HDD? With no exceptions, no crashes, no videos stuttering, etc?
 
You can play games from internal HDD but not all. Game compatibility isn't 100%, is far less, and some have problems. Besides that, disc images are written as partitions, they doesn't lie on any filesystem. As I said, PS2 HDD is bad idea for archival purpose. It is just a media from which i.e You can playing games but that's all.

If You want know more about logic structure and possibilities came from internal HDD in PS2:
https://www.psx-place.com/threads/a...thing-you-should-know-about-hdd-in-ps2.30912/

Here is the program to launching games:
https://github.com/ps2homebrew/Open-PS2-Loader/releases

And if You don't have hacked PS2, here is the roadmap with options:
https://www.psx-place.com/threads/how-to-hack-playstation-2-in-2022-roadmap.37271/
 
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Again, thank you for your reply! Archiving doesn't really matter, I don't plan to sell my original games once I have them as ISO/BIN+CUE on my PC (so I can always convert them into a file again).
But my main question is: Is there really no solution at all yet where compatibility is close to 100% of the PS2 library?
You are saying internal HDDs support far less then all of the games available, same is true for MX4SIO with Free McBoot. Is there really no way? It is possible with so many other consoles like Xbox360, Wii, etc., why not with the PS2? I really like the library of the PS2, there are still so many games I want to play, so it would be just great to have them all on a HDD or something like that, so I won't have to change discs anymore and can just leave my original games stored away.
 
I get what you're saying, and I think you've got it figured out the best way already. A backup stored away on a hdd (or two if you really want to save them) and then you can play them from the hdd in the ps2, or any other way you can manage, even emulation. There is no perfect way to play backups as far as I know, but playing them and storing them are two different things, and you'll want to do both.
 
So let's say I get one of those pre modded PS2 consoles from Ebay that come with a HDD for ISOs, and I put my games on it, only 50% or whatever of the games would work?
 
First, do not buy pre-modded console. In best scenario You will get outdated software and You need again mod it. ;) Not worth the additional money. Second, if You buy PS2 with NA (Network Adaptor) and HDD, You can exploit it in few minutes for none technical people (but You need a way to connect it to PC via USB/PATA/SATA). It is not rocket science, You know? :P Also be sure to not have modchip soldered because most of them conflicting with FHDB.

Oh no, not 50%. Around 80% without issues, let's say rest 15% have minor issues (like problems with VMC and/or PADEMU) and the rest are totally unplayable (eg. freezing somewehre). HDD have the highest compatibility. Alternatively, You can stream games via SMB or UDP from PC.

X360 have internal mechanism to load disc images from HDD. I'm not familiar with this console but I put bet that it is in use for game backups somehow. XC needs patching all games, some quite intensively, You just don't see it because apps like Evox, UX, XBMC, Xbox2DVD doing it during copying, and for this reason, those games aren't candidates for archiving (besides loosing regions before and after XDFS, and LBA order). But yeah, Xbox Classic haven't problems with games from HDD mainly because there is enough RAM for that, while in PS2 case isn't. I don't know anything about Wii either.
 
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Berion said:
let's say rest 15% have minor issues (like problems with VMC and/or PADEMU
Click to expand...

Can I not just use a real memory card then and also turn off pademu? I am happy to play with the normal PS2 controller and use a real memory card. Would that solve the issue of those 15% of the games?

Berion said:
Alternatively, You can stream games via SMB or UDP from PC.
Click to expand...
I want it to be just like 20 years ago. Play with the real console, on a CRT TV, with the real PS2 controller. Just without swapping discs, that's the only part I don't like ^^"
 
if your just want to dump your games to a Hard Drive and your fine with redumping them in case of hard drive failure, you can just buy any hdd that your ps2 can support and be done with it. Hard drives are also vulnerable to bit-rot as well.

if you want a proper archival, get a NAS and a bunch of drives (3 or more) install Truenas, configure the drive as raidz1 (or raidz2). Since this is NAS, you have the ability to stream this game backups over the network so something like using OPL to load game stored on a NAS or ps3netsrv for ps3 to stream the ps3 iso files over the network. with this streaming capability, you dont have to store 2 copies of the data and multiple consoles (if you have more than 1 console used at the same time) can access the same drive at the same time.
 
*.chd of course. LZMA2 results smaller file than LZ4. And as I said some few posts above, *.zso can be used also on PS2 while in case of *.chd, You will never be able to.
 
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