I wish I had an original style PS2.

[Kitsunexus]

I bought Street Fighter Alpha Anthology today (like new with manual and original cover) and I'm reading the manual and it says that you can install the game to the hard drive, that would be so awesome!

Can you mod a slimline style PS2 to access an external HD over Ethernet? If so, lemme know because this is something that would be truly great.

[NecroPhile]

Can you mod a slimline style PS2 to access an external HD over Ethernet? If so, lemme know because this is something that would be truly great.

You can either mod the slim PS2 to connect directly to a HD (Link), or you can use various methods of getting a slim PS2 to recognize a USB attached HD (though it's via 1.1 ports, so it's just as slow as off the disc).

[MissaFX]

Necromancer is right, you need to buy that adaptor or you need to buy an old PS2.

[SignOfZeta]

This game already has zero load times. Why bother?

[MissaFX]

This game already has zero load times. Why bother?

Because it's much cooler to play games off a HD

[Joe Redifer]

I have two 80GB hard drives full of games for the PS2.  It's the only way I can play Japanese games.  The hard drives slide in and out of the system and you need a spare nickle to tighten the two screws.  I had to do unspeakable things to earn that nickle.

[Keranu]

This game already has zero load times. Why bother?

Because it's much cooler to play games off a HD

It's also a lot like running games off your computer .

[SignOfZeta]

Well believe me. The PS2's load times are so fucking horrible that I'd love to play games from the HD. Eventually I'll be doing this with a mod and install all my PS2 games to HD so that I won't go crazy looking at Now Loading screens.

I just find it odd that SFA Collection of all games will install to the HD when its unlikely you'll even see any difference. It loads as fast as the CPS2 as it is. Its a fucking incredible collection. I'm so used to crappy ports of fighters on Sony systems that this really took me by surprise.

Maybe it will go fast just because it will be also writing its save data to the HD. Saving and Loading are such tedious things on PS systems. Then again, Xbox games save to the HD and it still takes forever compared to a Saturn or PC Engine.

[Joe Redifer]

Keep in mind that not all games will work running from the hard drive.  For example, Downhill Damnation will load up the title screen, options, etc, but when you get to the first loading screen it freezes... FOREVER!  Other games simply won't boot at all.  PS3 saves files pretty fast.

[Kitsunexus]

I just find it odd that SFA Collection of all games will install to the HD when its unlikely you'll even see any difference. It loads as fast as the CPS2 as it is. Its a fucking incredible collection

Truth.

[Seldane]

I have a 250GB hard drive in my PS2 and I play everything off it, even though I have a modchip. Load times are almost non-existant, and pretty much every game works. At least with the latest HD Loader (not the retail HD Advance rip off discs). In fact, I have never encountered a game that doesn't work. Sometimes you have to patch an ISO before you install it in order for it to work (FF XII, for example), but that's not a problem.

http://www.ps2hd.com/list/

Go there for compatibility info.

Oh, IS possible to use a hard drive with some slim PS2 models after some heavy modification (solder an IDE connector to the motherboard - around 40 soldering points, all super tiny). You can only do it if your system has the model number SCPH-7000X. That's v12 and v13 of the machine, sold back in 2004. Newer machines cannot be modified.

[Joe Redifer]

Ys 6 loads slower off of the HD than it does off of the disc, at least it did with HD Loader.  I have no clue if they have fixed this with some sort of patch.

[Seldane]

Ys 6 loads slower off of the HD than it does off of the disc, at least it did with HD Loader.  I have no clue if they have fixed this with some sort of patch.

Yeah I know. It's really strange, but it is a very poorly programmed port. Done by some crappy studio that got shut down shorly after its release.