How to Play PS2 Games from USB Using OPL | 4GB+ Games, Cover Art, & More! 

Thanks for the tutorial, MrMario. I'm not exactly the main target for this video, given that I'm on a FAT 39001+PS2 network adapter+IDE hard drive. Even so, knowing there are alternative solutions for times when you can't rely on your favorites/most used ones is always better than not having alternatives at all. Now all that's left is a proper tutorial about how to play your PS1 games using the best emulators and/or alternatives for your PS2. Again, thanks!

Great tutorial! But, a few tips from a PS2 USB "veteran" if you will XD: first, choose the biggest allocation size allowed when formatting a USB drive for PS2 games. Every PS2 loader that I've tested boots games much faster with a that way, specially with 64KB. Second: it's best to create the OPL folder structure *first* inside the USB root, before adding games and *then* create other folders. Even though it's common knowledge that flash devices won't have fragmentation issues, the PS2 *will* mind fragmentation on those devices for some reason, making load times and FMVs slower than they're supposed to be (but it's still slow regardless XD). Since folders are considered unmovable "files", they can become sort of stuck in the middle of the file structure, specially on small storage devices, so when moving a big file to it, Windows will surely fragment the file for it to fit if a folder is in its way, and OPL will have problems with it. So, it's also better to add the bigger games *last* on a small USB device, because if you want to add another game to the drive later, you'll just need to replace the last game you had, which will help on not fragmenting the structure. You can see what I'm talking about when using a disk defrag software and looking at the colored blocks (I recommend Auslogics Disk Defrag). Third: it seems the OPL devs had removed modes 7 and 8 from the code, because now, they were either always enabled, or redundant. Also, Jak and Daxter 1 has the same issues as Jak 2 when booting over USB. But, as of yet, those are actually unplayable games on OPL over USB, because the first one 100% crashes while saving the game, and the second one crashes towards the end of the game. Those games are playable over USB only with PS2ESDL, using the same modes as OPL to "unhook syscalls" and "disable IGR". TL;DR, the PS2's USB *is* a viable way of playing games, if you initially don't have any other options, and is a *reeally* patient person XD. I've struggled with it for more than 8 months, trying to play heavy FMV games by compressing them, but discovering that many games are extremely difficult to get into the files for doing so, and also that they might not work quite so well after the compression. I then migrated to playing over SMB using a cheap Android Box, and I'll say, it's just so much better XD. It's actually possible to make games load too fast over that method, so there's OPL mode "1" for limiting the read speeds to the DVD drive's speed (Gran Turismo 3's initial FMV comes to mind). It's also possible to load games from a smartphone, or even directly from a router with a USB port, so I think it's better to look for other options rather than struggle with those old ports...

Just a heads up, USButil doesn't like long game names so if you get stuck try shortening game title.

What I really like about OPL is you can batch update all the ART via the Batch Actions menu. Not sure if this was part of 2.16 but it is in 2.17!

Much thanks bro. Spent all day yesterday trying to get games working with opl. Came across your video this morning and it works 100% now. Many thanks!!

Is there a chance you can make a tutorial on playing ps2 games over a network? Heard its more faster than usb .

Incredibly well made guide. Very dense in information but easy to follow and beginner friendly. Keep up the great videos!!

Dude, i gotta say - you make the best tutorial videos! i was able to mod a ps2 and a ps1 in a couple hours on a worknight with no problem. Your work is much appreciated!!

This was the first way I tried to play rips on my Fat PS2, since it required almost nothing (already had a FMCB mem card) but a flash drive. First game I tried was Kingdom Hearts, and I think it almost died just trying to get through the opening FMV. Immediately went and bought a SATA drive and the Network Adapter with SATA connector, lol.

Mode 7 and 8 were actually removed from later daily builds as far as I know.

the intro saved my ass!! really i was about to install free mcboot and opl just for playing games using usb flash drive!

I am playing thru smb but still gonna like cuz I know this is good content

Your video gave me everything I needed to get my PS2 setup to its greatest potential; thank you very much! Amazing production!

Excellent tutorial! If you can, please consider a tutorial for HDD based storage for emulators and their games. I'd really like to wrap my head around it.

Two tips: 1. If you’re playing a game on the usb and have another usb plugged into the other port some of the FMV’s will stutter heavily like Persona 3 FES because apparently it’s still trying to read the other port as well. 2. If the .iso’s you put in the usb are fragmented take all the root files/folder transfer them somewhere else, format the usb with quick format/default allocation size and it should work and it goes for every other iso you put in so make sure the isos you want are already in the folder before transferring back to USB

Had no problems with that tutorial. Everything worked for me 100%.

Great tutorial! Modded my first PS2 using your videos. Next up is SMB!

I find that OPL via network is very cool and works perfectly! Strange how I just recently done this and you're starting to talk about the PS2. Probably because of the new hack. Love you videos :)

I ended up using usb to store OPL files so can easily update to latest build by plugging it to my computer and replace elf with newer one. Then built my mini NAS out of Raspberry PI to SMB and 500gb wd elements hdd formatted in ext4. Used samba on it to smb share, made chassis to whole thing and plugged short cable directly between PS2 and now got portable ps2 hdd with lot of games.

Just wanted to shout out awesome job man you helped me go from two scratched copies of KH2 and a PS2 with a laser data ribbon that scratches all my games to a reliable way to save and play all my favorite games without having to worry about them being ruined forever! I thought that my PS2 was done for, little did I know its life had only just begun!

This video is still worth. Thank you

you forgot to mention to defrag the games but great tutorial also i modified my ps2, ps3, psp by using your tutorials keep it up man!

There is an error message everytime i try to start a game that is over 4gb but every game under 4gb works fine i dont know why the over 4gb games dont work for me

Thanks for the wonderful video But I have a problem with USB when I put into the games according to the explanation it did not appear in the PlayStation 2 opl And the usb it is fat32

opl don't show any game in game menu!!! i dunno what must I do!

If I were to start playing a ps2 game from usb, and then later continued playing it from the actual disc, would i be able to continue my save from the usb over on the disc?

When I click circle to open my games list, nothing happens? how do I fix this?

thank you it took me 3 day to figured this out but thank god I found this video! and I was running spider-man 2 and DBZ budokai tenkaichi 3

Too hard to follow, accidentally overthrew the Bosnian government...

Okay i have the split files but the iso still doesent show in my DVD folder and nothing shows in my OPL loader

Thanks for sharing! We all know USB is the worst way to play our games, but, since there's still a lot of Online games working nowadays, the USB method becomes necessary for 9000x owners.

Thanks for the disclaimer at the beginning. I tried OPL over USB a little while ago because it seemed more convenient than my current method, but yeah, it was terribly slow with long boot times. Thankfully, I replaced my PS2 Slim laser after my first one died, and now I use ESR to run my game backups that are too scratched to read anymore. Nice tutorial!

I'm not using any of these but I subscribed for the ASTONISHING METHOD used in this tutorial.

When i start the ps2 what if i dont see the "Open ps2 loader"?

Most informative video about USB + OPL setup and configuration: "The video provides a detailed guide on setting up and configuring USB with OPL.

Thanks man this is a VERY in depth tutorial love the content.Are you planning on doing a tutorial using the Adapter and HDD than the USB..actually doing this now for a friend he loves it despite the lag in the cutscenes.Again BIG thanks

There were times that I have encountered an error, where the game is fragmented. I have converted 2 bin games into isos, but when I tried to launch it via OPL, it gives me an error where the game is fragmented. Any ideas on how to fix the issue on fragmented games.

I personally never used USB for PS2 since I do remember how slow a lot of my games would play, or even struggle going through the very first FMV of the game in general. I use SMB, but sometimes, I do wish I had the fat PS2 instead of the slim one, just to have a hard drive of its own. At least one that can hold up to 250GB or more. Plus, I heard that it's way easier to play RE Outbreak online, if it ran through a fat PS2 console on an internal HDD. I managed to get around through playing the game online with a burnt JP DVD copy, put down my internet settings on my memory card, and have the internet connected through ethernet via my PC (since the router is fairly far away from my room). Though the loading times in between door sequences are tad big and it's not ideal to play online with others who have internal HDDs or emulating the game since it'll draw them back to the same speed as the player who have the slowest loading sequences.

Hii i followed every step but when i open opl mine one is not showing usb games option any solutions??

Thank you so much man now I am able to play my childhood games. Tbh I dont really mind the loading time it's just delayed for about 10-20 secs sometimes

This is very useful... I still use a PS2 Fat model with FreeMCBoot... Can this run PS1 games??

Thanks Mr.Mario I’m Tech Guy Myself! But I Needed Your Help! You Modded My Ps3 I’m Grateful I Can Finally Play All The Classicals I cant Find!!

life saver, i spent 4 hours messing with this dam thing. with the help of this vid i got it working no prob. thanks!

Very useful video and very well explained, your are a monster. :D

Lol I use to do this but gran Turismo always freezing on me and I had a 1TB hard drive connected to it btw it was the (slim ps2 )

Hi! Is there a way to put more than 1 game in the root of the USB stick? Beacause , when I tried, the ul.cfg file is replaced.

found a ps2 in a thrift store that had a burnt disk in it and so i flipped it over knowing it shouldn't have a burnt disk and seen "duo 3" on it so i bought it for 15 dollars and two brand new ps2 controller with a extender 8 feet for length for 5$ so 20 bucks with 2 controllers and all cords for burnt ps2 brought it home it boots games my other ps2 couldn't the lazer or something is alot better and it boots so fast. and than i burnt silent hill 3 and used a program to make it a master disk and it booted pretty damn cool.

You sir are a legend Thank you, my childhood is back

You could do a proper video on OPL via network if you have a good network knowledge: like IP reservation via router, still using DHCP on the PS2 and configuring a user with password for the shared folder. This solution works very well with every model using FMC. I use it for my PS2 Slim connecting to my server.

Classic mr Mario. A great, informing video that helped me loads!

I hope you never change your desktop background.

Hey. Great video. Quick question. What's the biggest hard drive that can be supported for any method using OPL? (Ethernet, internal, usb) Thanks.

Thanks Mario, I was finally able to play Contra Scattered soldier. That's the only game I could never get to play off a burnt disc because I kept on getting a black screen.

What's the largest USB flash drive it will support?

Hey Mr mario great tutorial!!! I currently own a ps2 slim and a fat one ( Modd with a idei adapter and using a 750 gb hard drive) ....here's my question how do I add the games covers and get them to show up every time try to play my games off the hard drive.... Thank you.

700mb or lower is always either a CD or ripped DVD (most capcom figthers can be trimmed down to lower than that even though the clean image is usually close to max DVD5 capacity)

Why is it that two ps2 with large files like gta and god of war not showing up on OPL...like one showing up while the other is not ...or it's impossible to add two large games

Games fragmented with USButil aren't recognized in ps2 opl .. why ? after process in usbutil says a error

Is it possible to put games on a USB drive and then move them to the HDD through uLaunchElf or or some other program on the PS2 to run them from there? Or is WinHiip the only way to add games to your HDD?

In the newest version of OPL "USB device start" is called "BDM device start"

What I can say is F usb drives, SMB on a Raspberry Pi for the win! :D

It’s important to note and I wish this was mentioned at the beginning of the video. You only need to do this if you don’t have a HDD

I'm so glad I have original games and working PS2. Nuclear science degree to play PS2 games from USB -.-

I know that usb is the slowest but i just got my fmcb memory card with all the other apps installed (OPL.... ETC) and im using USB to test while i wait for my net drive to arrive for my PS2 slim thats in my car connected to the NAV screen, instead of changing the disc i want all my games on 1 device. 1st i tested it on my PS2 fat that wont read disc even after changing the laser, then my ps2 slim n the car, works perfectly on both, after i used ur video for setup guidance, i was going to get a hard drive for the ps2 fat, but the cost of a second drive, sata conversion, ill just use the net drive on both ps2 fat in house and slim in car, also got ps1/ps2 emulation to work on my computer after avoiding it for 10 years

Thank you so much! This was really helpful.

Thanks for explanation. This is what I needed !

This video helped me a lot, thank you :)

So how do i put the artwork on my internal harddrive?for the games that i play on my internal hd?

I had a ps2 sitting around and now im playing silent hill 4 for the first time. Super cool game. Works pretty much flawlessly on usb. Do you have a video for using burned dvd-rw discs? I want to get the best performance possible

Thank u , now i can play my favourite games on my ps2 🥰

Hands down A1 explanation

Are there any alternative utilities for mac?

Is there a way to then put the ISO's on a HDD instead while getting the cover art in the menu? I used hdldumb to put the iso's onto a HDD but even when enabling cover art and saving that, the art doesn't show up in the games list for me

If i understand correctly, games that are bigger than 700 megabytes go to dvd because 700 mb is the limit of cd

Is there a way to go back to the main OPL menu. When you're in a game? Or is the only option to reset your PS2

I just got a free mcboot and it doesn’t let me see the apps in the title screen. like 0:39. How can I fix this?

Thanks Mr.Mario! Always quality content! went ahead and just removed the cd drive from the trashed silver slim im working on and soldered a usb to the back of port 1 so that i can keep my usb in the cd drive bay area lol works good, maybe ill do the same with the fmcb memcard i have and bondo over the second mem card port on the front.

MrMario2011, I have a question. I did the same exact thing as you except on an hdd. I noticed that my background images were cut off and ran off screen. Your backgrounds do the same thing. Is there any way to shrink those backgrounds down to fit in that window? Should I download a compatible theme? Would that fix it?

Thank you its really working for me for large file can play ,its usful tutorial .

Thanks!! Was confused for a bit why my drive wasn't showing (even went so far as to try on a different console), but it turned out because OPL and uLaunchELF only accept drives formatted as FAT32

Hello, I have a problem after extracting my games of more than 4gb via usbutil, the games show 0b on opl manager. For the others below 4gb they work very well. What should be done in this case?

14:32 When I transfer larger than 4 GB to USB through USBUTIL, the mess of files is shown in the usb, but when I go to the DVD folder, the iso file isn't there.

The USB device start mode option isn't showing up in the settings. Help?

Great tutorial i'm using Western Digital Blue 1 TB Sata HDD already formatted the Drive with Unlaunchelf now its time to follow this tutorial i'm sure its the same process thanks

Fun fact: you can install burned PS2 discs to an attached hard drive on the PS2 if you do the swap tray trick in HD loader. HD loader typically blocks burned games but if you load an official copy then swap it before you do the install process, it will install the burned copy.

Man my usb file system is on fat32 but games lower than 4gb is not working (most of them) i dont know why

When i try to play my games from USB it just shows a black screen. This happens with every game. How do i fix this? I've read somewhere to try and set it to modes 2 and 6 and disable VMC, but that does not help either.

I cannot find my game in the OPL DVD file for some reason but it is in CFG does that matter or no?

Hey Mario my ps2 doesn't copy and paste anything in ulaunch ,so,what I can do please help me!!!!!

Thank you very much now i can play my old game bcs my ps2 optic is broken this is the only way to played it

Thanks! This helped out alot

Excuse me, I'm running into an issue, when I try to launch any game I just get a black screen. I did everything like the tutorial and everything worked, I guess I didn't try the compality modes, could it be that ?

That was so helpful ... Thank you man

Really great tutorials,got my FMCB installed and OPL but my OPL does not give me the option in settings to use from USB.Want to play Monster Lab and is in .iso format(using peazip and I can unpack whole folder) but cant seem to find it in game library on OPL.Do mind helping me get this up and running?

Thank you so much! This worked perfectly!

Can someone please help me? At 22:16, When i try to get in "Games list" nothing happens at all, the circle button works fine but i dont know why it doesnt work when i try to enter games list.

All of my games load black screen no matter what

thanks bro my ps2 slim is coming out the cupboard now!!!!

Hi bro what is the fastest method to play games in opl

Do i need to have a external usb-harddrive or will a usb-stick with a size like 128 GB also work?