Retro games and emulation - Discuss retro shit in case you're stuck in the past or a hipster

[Finder of Games]

The PS2 has to be the saddest thing in long term gaming upkeep
Every system around it is getting an ODE which is encouraging a new burst of homebrewing activity, and here's the PS2 thinking it's hot shit for being able to finally easily run DVD backups in a day and age when most people can't be fucked to use a DVD burner or even own one. Worst part is the laser opening in the slim's drive tray is the perfect width for a SD card and yet the default advice anyone gives you for PS2 modding is still "fat w/ hard drive" or even more embarassingly "load it over the ethernet port" because the PS2 community has some allergy to solid state.

Now, I'm speaking a little out of my wheelhouse here, most of my knowledge on hardware modifications and emulation development stops in early-mid gen 6. But, I know a little about this, at least.
The reason for that is more that the PS2 uses USB1.1, and it's transfer speeds are shit though you can play games through it. A lot of slims are absolute garbage and have no simple in to modification for adding proper storage. The main exceptions to this are the 7000x (and maybe 700xx, I've never done them myself) series, avoid 75000+. The fat has a literal hard drive slot, that is very easily modified to be SATA if you'd rather, so it's naturally the first recommendation as it requires no real fuckery or soldering, just an unscrewing, popping out the IDE connector, and replacing a SATA connector (Or using an IDE to SD converter and playing with SD cards that way, which, yes, has been a thing since 2015 or even earlier.)

Since you seem so interested in the slim mod though, I'll help ya out if you somehow haven't been able to find this stuff on your own. I'm curious what sites you were looking at that didn't have this info, though, internal SD mods while not popular, are not exactly tough or rare to find. Here are the schematics for the 70000 line, or here is a nice guide on which pins to solder your IDE-SD adapter to more specifically (though that information is also in the schematics). If simply seeing the amount of microsoldering and fucking wires you have to deal with doesn't inform you as to why slim mods aren't more common and most people say "lol just buy a fat with an hdd", then I don't know what else to tell you.
Good luck if you do actually undertake it though! You'll find speeds are pretty much the same as HDD, maybe a little bit faster, on par with SATA-SSD modded fats. Use under 2TB size cards/HDDs/SSDs, that seems to be the biggest size it can handle.

Edit: On the topic of ODE because I seem to have blanked over it, yeah it sucks PS2 hasn't gotten one, but I attribute that more to the stupid revisions sony pumped out than the community. Also the lack of real... Need. Flash options were less than suitable for GC. It was a necessity to avoid keying and jailbreaking more modern systems like the PS3, but PS2 has been able to run games full speed with the HDD mods and SMB since forever. What does an ODE actually provide to the system that can't be done through other means? It would mostly be for early early fats or late late slims with no network adapter or IDE connections, at a significantly higher cost than buying a cheap chinese network adapter and IDE-SD adapter (Like 20euro).

 

[Indian J.C denton]

Now, I'm speaking a little out of my wheelhouse here, most of my knowledge on hardware modifications and emulation development stops in early-mid gen 6. But, I know a little about this, at least.
The reason for that is more that the PS2 uses USB1.1, and it's transfer speeds are shit though you can play games through it. A lot of slims are absolute garbage and have no simple in to modification for adding proper storage. The main exceptions to this are the 7000x (and maybe 700xx, I've never done them myself) series, avoid 75000+. The fat has a literal hard drive slot, that is very easily modified to be SATA if you'd rather, so it's naturally the first recommendation as it requires no real fuckery or soldering, just an unscrewing, popping out the IDE connector, and replacing a SATA connector (Or using an IDE to SD converter and playing with SD cards that way, which, yes, has been a thing since 2015 or even earlier.)

Since you seem so interested in the slim mod though, I'll help ya out if you somehow haven't been able to find this stuff on your own. I'm curious what sites you were looking at that didn't have this info, though, internal SD mods while not popular, are not exactly tough or rare to find. Here are the schematics for the 70000 line, or here is a nice guide on which pins to solder your IDE-SD adapter to more specifically (though that information is also in the schematics). If simply seeing the amount of microsoldering and fucking wires you have to deal with doesn't inform you as to why slim mods aren't more common and most people say "lol just buy a fat with an hdd", then I don't know what else to tell you.
Good luck if you do actually undertake it though! You'll find speeds are pretty much the same as HDD, maybe a little bit faster, on par with SATA-SSD modded fats. Use under 2TB size cards/HDDs/SSDs, that seems to be the biggest size it can handle.

Edit: On the topic of ODE because I seem to have blanked over it, yeah it sucks PS2 hasn't gotten one, but I attribute that more to the stupid revisions sony pumped out than the community. Also the lack of real... Need. Flash options were less than suitable for GC. It was a necessity to avoid keying and jailbreaking more modern systems like the PS3, but PS2 has been able to run games full speed with the HDD mods and SMB since forever. What does an ODE actually provide to the system that can't be done through other means? It would mostly be for early early fats or late late slims with no network adapter or IDE connections, at a significantly higher cost than buying a cheap chinese network adapter and IDE-SD adapter (Like 20euro).

Issue is for me is the ps2 fat is straight up impossible to find one for cheap ( in the country I live in anyway ) so either your gonna get one that 110$ and over

 

[Marissa Moira]

So here's something that will fuck game preservation.

A fuckload of Gypsies have apparently acquired a shitload of Console ID's for the playstation 3. You see hackers will usually get their consoles banned and will need to spoof a new console ID until it gets banned again. Now the list they have may be from the 2011 leaks however it also may not and it may be every PS3 ID. Most hackers tend to have programs that will automate the console ID switch if a ban happens. This may amount to a whole lot of nothing, especially since GTA online is shutting down for PS3 this year and that would take away a big draw for hacking. Mind you if your console ID gets banned, this does not ban your PSN account, it's two separate things.

The thing is this isn't a unique case to the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii-U, Switch, Xbox One, Series X, and Playstation 5 all use a similar console ID system. You could in theory trash all the systems with an automated program that autobans the systems by having them do things that break the TOS. Effectively neutering 3 whole console generations. Every console manufacturer has a means of getting a console banned remotely.

Once your console is banned it can't access online and I don't think any of them allow you to use the store to download games.

 

[Finder of Games]

Issue is for me is the ps2 fat is straight up impossible to find one for cheap ( in the country I live in anyway ) so either your gonna get one that 110$ and over

Unfortunately, an ODE wouldn't really fix that, they trend from $80 if you find a cheap PS1 one on sale, about $100 for GC up to $150 for Cobras for PS3. I'm not entirely certain on the production of ODEs, but they may even need different models depending on fat and slim since I think their disc drives were different? Again, not entirely sure. And you still need the base hardware to begin with as you're just gutting the existing drive and replacing it usually. Maybe someone will eventually make one for slims, though. Who knows.
People will shit on it (rightfully so in many regards), but PCSX2 is making huge strides lately, the biggest barrier to entry for most people seems to be having to manually re-configure every game you play if you want the optimal experience, and there are slightly tedious but functional methods to rectify that, until they finish baking in the current plugin lineup soon™ which will hopefully come with more tools for automating this (or at least making it so you only need to copy one or two inis instead of 10 for every single game). Seems like it'd be a better option for you.

 

[Pissmaster]

The PS2 has to be the saddest thing in long term gaming upkeep
Every system around it is getting an ODE which is encouraging a new burst of homebrewing activity, and here's the PS2 thinking it's hot shit for being able to finally easily run DVD backups in a day and age when most people can't be fucked to use a DVD burner or even own one. Worst part is the laser opening in the slim's drive tray is the perfect width for a SD card and yet the default advice anyone gives you for PS2 modding is still "fat w/ hard drive" or even more embarassingly "load it over the ethernet port" because the PS2 community has some allergy to solid state.

DVD backups have been around for a hot minute. There was something called "ESR patching" that you could run in tandem with FreeMcBoot, just patch your ISO before you burn it and it ran fine. Only limitations I ever saw were how it didn't work with CD-ROMs and dual layer DVD games, but there weren't too many of either of those. I found out about it like at least a decade ago. Runs great on any PS2, even slims. There were a few games I wanted to play on CD, so I just used some software that boots from the USB. It's too slow and unstable for most games, but CD-ROMs are so slow themselves that it really wasn't too bad. Loading did take longer, though. The PS2 only had USB 1.1 ports, after all.

 

[Dom Cruise]

Is there such a thing as a Gizmondo emulator? lol

 

[Indian J.C denton]

Honestly been considering getting a Wii to use it as a souped up GameCube and some nice Wii games to play along with them but from what I've read about @Pissmaster post about most of the wii library being shovelware I am kinda worried about the wii is it good on the emulation front

 

[Trashfire Garbagefuck]

Honestly been considering getting a Wii to use it as a souped up GameCube and some nice Wii games to play along with them but from what I've read about @Pissmaster post about most of the wii library being shovelware I am kinda worried about the wii is it good on the emulation front

The library is mostly shovelware but only due to it's extreme casual popularity causing a gold rush for hack devs, there's a large library of good games. Not just the obvious first party titles either. There's all these third party exclusives and best versions of games time forgot but you only ever hear about Mario Galaxy (which is still good) and the shovelware (somehow surpassed the PS2 for its sheer amount of shovelware and the ratio to real games). Look out for the eshop exclusives too there's some good ones that will might never get rereleased.

Emulation is fine up through the 16 bit era iirc though sometimes the virtual console version of the game might run better. You can do all of this with a Wii U as well but you only get access to a few worthwhile exclusives for the extra cost.

 

[raider of the lost wifi]

Honestly been considering getting a Wii to use it as a souped up GameCube and some nice Wii games to play along with them but from what I've read about @Pissmaster post about most of the wii library being shovelware I am kinda worried about the wii is it good on the emulation front

It is excellent as a suped up gamecube with a handful of excellent wii titles.


Dolphin does the same thing and emulates both.
The Metroid prime trilogy and other specific games are tweaked in Dolphin to look and run better and run at higher resolutions.
though most of the titles are shovelware from hack devs but most have been lost to time fortunately while the actual games more or less are preserved in some form.