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  1. #71
    Player RAIST's Avatar
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    Think I remember reading somewhere back with all the homebrew stuff that the PS2 uses a 28 bit LBA system in the firmware (in other words, can only read up to 128GB of a hard drive partition at a time). In order to get it to work with larger drives there had to be a sort of BIOS extension to allow it to read 48bit partitions on larger drives to run more advanced homebrew stuff. So, it is pretty advanced, even though it is outdated.

    I think the bigger problem stems from how it puts games on the drive. It doesn't copy flat files to the drive--it puts an image of the game's disc on it. Sort of like an ISO image you make when ripping a disc to burn to CD/DVD. I don't know the exact size of the partition, so I may be wrong on this thinking--but that image size may have a hardcoded size limit of around 8.5 to 9GB--the standard size of a DVD9. This would make sense as it is more or less making an ISO style image of your game that it mounts and runs as if it was loading a DVD-9 game. There could be some trickery with an encoding method that allows for compression to squeeze more data in that image, but the physical limitation on the disk would still be the 8.5-9GB as it is determined by the number of sectors used.

    If this is indeed how it is setup to run, then that cannot be changed without a firmware update to the PS2 itself, which would be something Sony would indeed need to fix first--so that would also mean there is a hard limit on how much they can store in the FFXI partition (ie, image). The only way to get around it without Sony changing the firware would be to somehow set up a Disc 2 image. To access that content, you would probably have to use a menu option to create a save file, exit the game, and boot the FFXI-2 game and load that save file--like when you switched discs in a multi-disc game.
    (2)
    Last edited by RAIST; 04-11-2011 at 04:07 PM.
    {DISCLAIMER} Posts may contain opinions based on personal experiences that are not be meant to be taken as facts. What may appear as fact with no source reference may be recollection of information with no source, and may be subject to scrutiny without source reference. Any debate over validity of said facts without source references may be considered conjecture of all parties in that debate. Player comments may not be the expressed position/consent of SE, their affiliates, or any employees of said organizations. Please take these posts with a grain of salt if you are offended by the views of the player and understand that opinions are like assholes... everyone has one, not everyone wants to hear it.

  2. #72
    Player rog's Avatar
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    The ps2's bios is read only, and so can't be updated.
    (1)

  3. #73
    Player RAIST's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by rog View Post
    The ps2's bios is read only, and so can't be updated.
    Yeah, knowing Sony they went the cheap route and didn't use flashable chips. A very boneheaded move on their part.
    (0)
    {DISCLAIMER} Posts may contain opinions based on personal experiences that are not be meant to be taken as facts. What may appear as fact with no source reference may be recollection of information with no source, and may be subject to scrutiny without source reference. Any debate over validity of said facts without source references may be considered conjecture of all parties in that debate. Player comments may not be the expressed position/consent of SE, their affiliates, or any employees of said organizations. Please take these posts with a grain of salt if you are offended by the views of the player and understand that opinions are like assholes... everyone has one, not everyone wants to hear it.

  4. #74
    Player thefinalrune's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RAIST View Post
    If this is indeed how it is setup to run, then that cannot be changed without a firmware update to the PS2 itself, which would be something Sony would indeed need to fix first...
    Raist is spot on with this point. Yes, the PS2 HDD has a capacity of 40GBs, however the firmware designed by Sony only allows a set amount of space a game can utilize on the disk. This being proprietary of Sony is not something SE can adjust, thus PS2 users are forever stuck with the preset limits on the system. And, since Sony has officially dropped all support for the PS2HDD they actively refuse to even address the issue leaving us all with the tag line of "PS2 Limitations".

    This is the main reason new content is so incredibly hard to work into the game. Despite the size of the HDD the partition FFXI uses can and will never be increased. The only solution to allow increased content is for SE to follow Sony's lead and drop all support for the PS2HDD.
    (1)

    10 years ago Squaresoft was great. 10 years ago Hironobu Sakaguchi left Squaresoft. 10 years ago Square's profits were at an all time high. In the last 10 years their profits have done nothing but decline. Coincidence, I think not. Do yourself and the fans a favor SE, bring back Sakaguchi. Bring back the awesome you once had.

  5. #75
    Player Juri_Licious's Avatar
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    Well, it looks like it's finally out there.

    Thanks to Raist and others all the evidence of the PS2 Limitations is finally had.
    I suggest remembering these posts so we don't have to have duplicate threads on this subject again.
    (0)

  6. #76
    Player Swords's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RAIST View Post
    Yeah, knowing Sony they went the cheap route and didn't use flashable chips. A very boneheaded move on their part.
    I don't think any console until this generation of consoles utilized flash memory, well maybe the original Xbox but I never owned one to really find out.
    (0)

  7. #77
    Player rog's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RAIST View Post
    Yeah, knowing Sony they went the cheap route and didn't use flashable chips. A very boneheaded move on their part.
    Or maybe they chose to use a read only bios because they did not intend to update firmware, and being able to write to it brings issues, such as corruption, hackers being able to modify it, etc.
    (2)

  8. #78
    Player Pofo's Avatar
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    I'm not very savvy at this sort of stuff so this might be a stupid question, but is it possible for a program to be made that would allow a PS2 to recognize an external Hard drive once the program is on the HD?
    (1)

  9. #79
    Player rog's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pofo View Post
    I'm not very savvy at this sort of stuff so this might be a stupid question, but is it possible for a program to be made that would allow a PS2 to recognize an external Hard drive once the program is on the HD?
    Yes, i play games off an external hdd on my ps2 all the time.
    (2)

  10. #80
    Player Pofo's Avatar
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    That being said, then why can't SE just host a download on playonline that you place into an external HD allowing PS2 consoles to recognize it; to expand their space availability.. Or is it easier said then done?
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