First question: What’s the cheapest and most effective way of modding a PSTwo (cause there are a couple of imports I’d like to own)?
Second Question: I have an out of warranty PS2 that works fairly well that could get the Magic Slide Card treatment. Would it be better to go for that over mutilating my white hot PSTwo?
I’d definitely go with a HDD and a boot disc, instead of having a chip installed. The fat PS2 has the easiest accessible hardware, all you need is a PS2 Network Adapter, a HDD that’s compatible and last but not least a boot program. There’s one which is free and another one which costs some dough. The only downside is that some SNK games aren’t compatible when booted from your HDD.
If you decide to use a HDD, you should definitely get a USB-to-IDE adapter and the program named WinHiip, this means you can transfer your ISOs into your HDD without wearing the PS2 laser and it takes about 3~5 minutes oppose to 15~25 minutes.
Be warned, some games don’t work with HDLoader. Most will work fine (and have improved loading times to boot) but there ARE some that don’t like it. The only one that comes to mind right now is NeoGeo Battle Coliseum.
Unfortunately I haven’t gotten KOF’98UM to work either, I even tried switching around in the option menu; simple loading, 2d backgrounds etc. The game still crashes randomly within minutes, too bad.
The games that don’t work, that I can think of right now: Street Fighter Alpha Anthology and Vampire DarkStalkers Collection, aswell as the other ones mentioned.
Flip-top plus a PS2Slim is what I use, haven’t had issues with anything I wanted to play.
Try ESR beta, you only need a memory card to do this mod, and works whit all PS2 consoles, and also have the option to launch any aplication pressing a button, and you can also configure multiple launching buttons.
Send me a MP for more info.
i fliptopped my slim with swap magic and it boots everything i burn.