This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/piracy by /u/IRLTenko on 2024-06-09 03:12:01+00:00.
*A slim PS2.
*Any game on the ESR compatibility list - - is known to work. If you get an unlisted game to work, please add it to the list!
This guide is mostly based on these 2 videos by these cool people! Check them out:
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ImJecht
-
MrMario2011
I wanted to play Crash of The Titans, which I had played years ago, but the DVD vanished somewhere. Researching how to run a burnt up DVD, I was kind of startled with all the soft modding wizardry people do. I have gotten the game to work in a pretty uncomplicated way that I would like to share!
This is a relatively new development and has only become possible in the last 4 years. A cool person (CTurt) found a way to exploit the PS2's DVD movie playing capabilities to execute arbitrary code. On the technical details page for the exploit, CTurt says:
There already exists a tool (ESR patcher) which patches games to appear like DVD videos so that they'll be accepted by the 'mechacon' (security processor), and an associated loader program (ESR) that boots these patched "video discs". Chaining together this new exploit with that ESR loader would allow you to patch your backups so that they could just be burned and run on your console from boot as though they were official discs.
Such a chaining of tools is what another cool person going by "Jabu" decided to publish! Here is how you can take advantage of this tool:
Links:
ImgBurn:
FreeDVDBoot ESR Patcher:
UltraISO:
FreeDVDBoot Github page with technical details:
You need:
- A DVD - it must be a DVD and not a CD. Strong preference should be given to DVD-R, but you may get it to work with formats like DVD+RW. A random DVD from the store worked perfectly for me - this may not be the case for you depending on the condition of your PS2, in which case you might want to buy from a more fancy brand. ImJecht needed a Taiyo Yuden DVD.
- A computer with a DVD burner.
- Image burning software - ImgBurn worked for me, but if you have issues the FreeDVDBoot Github page mentions that trying a different tool like CDBurnerXP may fix them.
- FreeDVDBoot ESR Patcher by Jabu.
- If your game is CD-based, you will get UltraISO.
Step-by-step:
- Get the image file for your game - either download it from a trustworthy source like the ones listed in this subreddit's megathread or back it up from a CD/DVD you already have.
- Download your image burning software.
- Download the FreeDVDBoot ESR Patcher.
- If your game is CD-based, you will need to use UltraISO to convert whatever format your image file is using (for example, BIN/CUE) into an ISO. Open up the program, open your file, and go to File -> Properties. You will now do the following changes: First, change the media type to
4.7(3.7)GB. Second, on the "CD File System" pane, you will click the "UDF" box. You will then unclick anything else except for ISO 9660. Finally, on the "ISO 9660 FileName Format" pane, you will choose Windows/Unix(3.1). Click OK, go to File -> Save As and save it somewhere. This entire process is described by MrMario2011. - Whether you did step 4 or not, by now you have a working ISO. Simply use the FreeDVDBoot ESR Patcher to modify your ISO - it's instantaneous.
- Use your image burning software to burn that into your DVD. If you want to be on the safer side, you may choose the slowest Write Speed possible - 1x in both ImgBurn and CDBurnerXP. It seems to be controversial whether this actually achieves more safety.
- Play your game!