[tryphon]

Concerning our beta-version of the English translation of Phantasy Star Generation: 2, people have reported random crashes (impossible to reproduce).

But they only occur with a burnt CD played on a modded PS2. Up to now, here are the different scenarii :

1) translation played with PCSX2 : no crash

2) translation played with a Playstation 2, on a USB key with software mod : no crash

3) translation played with a hardmodded Playstation 2, on a burnt disc : random crash

4) original game with a hardmodded Playstation 2, burnt disc : no crash

Scenarii 1, 2 and 3 share the same ISO file.

I'm still waiting for more data, but these results shows there's no problem with the game code (scenario 2), but there seems to be a problem with the translated ISO or the mod used.

So :

* are the mods used on Playstation 2 known to have some incompatibilities ?

* or are there particular specifications on how the ISO is generated for the result to be playable ?

* and if you don't know, do you know a board where specialists of the Playstation 2 could have an idea ?

[obscurumlux01]

I'd suggest checking the PCSX2 forums.  They have tons of PS2-specific technical documentation and programming information in various sections of their forums.

[mziab]

I'm one of the people who reported the crash on the pscave forums. I'm playing from an SMB share using Open PS2 Loader on a soft-modded PS2 slim. The original game seems to play just fine using this setup (played the Japanese version somewhere near 2 hours with no crashes), but with the translation I got the crash every once in a while after battles. Seeing how the crashes only happen woth the patched version and the original game seems to be running fine on a variety of setups, I'd say mods are not at fault here. Well, unless someone can reproduce crashes with the Japanese version, thereby disproving this theory.

[Isao Kronos]

What's the word on OPL off a hard drive? I'm interested in checking this out down the road.

[mziab]

What's the word on OPL off a hard drive? I'm interested in checking this out down the road.

Apparently, it suffers from crashes, too.

[Hiei-]

If you use uLauncherElf, it should work fine (but it seems no one tried this method yet, so can't say if I was lucky or not).

I played with FreeMCBoot/uLauncherElf from an USB Key and didn't got any crashs (a hard drive should work the same as an USB Key), playing on an European PS2 slim (no hardmod).

For people who have crash, it also seem the rythm of crashs are different depending of the serial of the PS2 so it's pretty weird (someone reported to have tried two PS2 and one had a lot of crashs when the other one had only a few).

[mziab]

How are you using ulaunchelf to run games off an USB key? I was under the impression you could only run ELF files with that.

[tryphon]

There's an elf in this game (as, I suppose, in every PS2 game).

[mziab]

Well, yes, but I wouldn't expect running the game's ELF file from USB to magically work. Unless there's another step involved.

The whole point of something like Open PS2 Loader is to trick games into thinking they're running off a disc, while feeding the data from USB/HDD/SMB.

Anyway, I'd like Hiei- to elaborate on the exact process.