Linking two PS2 Slims?

[atarilovesyou]

Alright, so I guess I assumed some assumptions once upon a time and I can't find a definitive answer on google.

 

Years ago, I bought all the PS2 Guncom games I could get my hands on, I love gun games. I always wanted to play Time Crisis 2 with the dual player, two linked tvs option. As I linked an original Playstation way back when with little issue (Doom), I figured this would also be a no-brainer. I had one Slim PS2, and after getting all the Guncons and such, tracked down another PS2 Slim just so I could have that dual tv option. I never bothered to check at the time if it worked, just went to storage more or less.

 

So today I got to thinking, I'm going to need two discs to play split tv games...and I don't have any extras. I also needed to get a PS2 link cable, which I just kept seeing on ebay as a firewire cable, more or less.

 

It never occurred to me that the Slim PS2 systems could not be linked together. D'oh.

 

I did some researching on google but it doesn't appear conclusive, although most signs lead to 'nope'. The Fat Playstations (early ones) had a port for the connector cable, but apparently even some fatboys don't have them.

 

I thought the LAN cable port on the back of the Slim PS2 'was' the port for connecting two PS2. But...it's looking like that's not the case.

 

Can any Sony experts here please weigh in? I'm nutty enough to track down two Fat PS2s with the right ports, but dang, that's a lot of space to take up just for a few games. But you know how this game goes.

 

Thanks!

[derFunkenstein]

It's most likely going to require the Firewire connection. The PS2 port came out in 2001, and the network adapter wasn't released until Final Fantasy XI came out, which was sometime in 2002 IIRC.

 

I have a SCPH-39001 with the i.Link port (which is Sony's name for Firewire, labeled S400 on the front of the unit) but my SCPH-50001 does not. Wikipedia has a list of games that are supported, but here's a copy-paste version:

 

Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings (PAL regions)
Armored Core 2
Armored Core 2: Another Age
Armored Core 3
Armored Core: Last Raven
Armored Core: Nexus
Armored Core: Nine Breaker
ATV Offroad Fury 2 (North America only)
Battle Gear 2 (Japan only, same game as Tokyo Road Race)
Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec
Gran Turismo Concept 2002 Tokyo-Geneva
Lethal Skies II
Silent Line: Armored Core
Silent Scope 2: Dark Silhouette
TimeSplitters 2
Time Crisis II
Time Crisis 3
Tokyo Road Race (PAL regions same game as Battle Gear 2)
Unreal Tournament (North America only)
Wangan Midnight

 

Attached a pic for those who aren't familiar.

Edited June 20, 2018 by derFunkenstein

[atarilovesyou]

Thanks, I'm trying to catch up on this now. Finding early model PS2 Fats that have the Firewire ports will be...tricky. Went to a local shop and asked, none of theirs had them (nor did they know what I was talking about).

 

I guess there are some games that work via network cable (which would mean they 'could' or at least 'should' work on a Slim PS2), such as Gran Turismo 4. But the Firewire would cover GT3 and Time Crisis 2 and 3. Armored Core apparently uses a mixture of both.

 

I realize it's a throw back, and the logistics of getting this to work will be goofy...but now I'm intrigued. At the very least, going to try to track down two Firewire Fats.

 

Does anybody have any experience first-hand from playing these games with two TVs from back in the day? Most reviews I've read so far say it's awesome. Considering the ports were dropped in like early 2000s, though, there must not be that many of them out there.

[KeeperofLindblum]

Huh. I didn't know about this until I saw this thread. I just checked and turns out I have two PS2s with this port on them.

I wonder how long those Firewire cables are...

 

EDIT - I now have a plan to do this so I can discuss it once it's done, but I'll have to buy the cable. It will be a few days. Gonna test it with Armored Core.

Edited June 21, 2018 by KeeperofLindblum

[Azathoth]

I have a rubbish Deer Hunting arcade cabinet I bought a few years ago and use it for PC/Wii/PS2 gun games. I bought a FireWire cable specifically to run from the PS2 in the cab to another PS2 hooked to a TV next to the cab for some Time Crisis action. Those are the only titles I used on it and it worked great.

 

As an aside, both of the the older PS2's I'm using were in a box of junk from a thrift store and have defective disc drives. A cheap $5 HDD adapter turns them into a handy little outfit.

[atarilovesyou]

Huh. I didn't know about this until I saw this thread. I just checked and turns out I have two PS2s with this port on them.

 

I wonder how long those Firewire cables are...

 

EDIT - I now have a plan to do this so I can discuss it once it's done, but I'll have to buy the cable. It will be a few days. Gonna test it with Armored Core.

What's funny is an article from Google about 14 years ago, where someone listed up how much it would cost to get a multiple PS2 setup to play LAN Gran Turismo...it was around $3000. Now I'm sure it could be done for less than $300 (for four consoles).

 

From my research, it seems indeed that you need the Firewire on the fatty PS2 console for a bunch of games, but you can use the LAN connections (found on later Slims and some later Fatties) to play a bunch of other games, like Armoured Core.

 

I just want to get Time Crisis 2, really. How I love that damn game! I actually bought a Playstation some twenty years ago because I was certain it was going to be released on that system. Well...I was wroooong.

 

The only problem now is after doing all this reading, I'm hankering to pick up both PS1 and PS2 consoles. The boundaries of my 'retro gaming' systems keeps moving forward...bad news, but at least they're quasi-affordable. Now time to research what kind of maintenance those machines need. Laser assemblies, for sure...and I've read that some of those Firewire jacks were wonky.

 

Please let us know how it turns out when you try this!..are you going to use CRTs?

[KeeperofLindblum]

Please let us know how it turns out when you try this!..are you going to use CRTs?

 

I just ordered the cable! I'll have to get a couple copies of Armored Core and maybe another cheap title and see how well it works. (Cheap as I'll need two copies of each game.)

 

No CRTs or otherwise I would consider Time Crisis instead. Course the bigger problem there is finding the Guncons...

[Azathoth]

Being that original PS2 models are required for the FireWire cable, it takes little expense and effort to install an IDE HDD to load games from.

 

On the LCD monitor I use an Aimtrak that I have installed into a PS1 Real Arcade Gun (aka Super Jolt Gun) for recoil/slide action and a foot pedal. On the CRT I'm using a generic Yobo gun that supports both the Justifier and GunCon 1/2 mode along with a Rock Band bass drum pedal.

 

I'm unsure about the Guitar Hero ones, but the Rock Band pedals are great for these 3rd party guns with a 3.5mm jack on the bottom. They're built like a tank and really make an arcade Time Crisis experience.

[derFunkenstein]

Are fat PS2's in some sort of short supply? Should I be selling my SCPH-39000 and Sony-branded IDE network adapter?

[KeeperofLindblum]

So I'm a step closer! I picked up Armored Core 2, ATV Offroad Fury 2, and Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec.

 

Just gotta wait for the cable to come in now...

[KeeperofLindblum]

For all 2 or 3 of you who cared, I finally got the cable in!

 

I hooked everything up, and it's actually pretty cool. It was all very quick and pretty painless.

 

I will say though... the cable I found was super short and kinda hard to plug in. The shape of the plug is weird and a weirdly tight fit. On top of that, I think it's only like 3-4 feet long, so I had to place the units almost right next to each other.

 

The only setup I could do for this was my HDTV with one PS2 on component and an odd security monitor CRT with composite. (Despite what it is, it's got a good picture.)

 

All of the games worked well enough, and it's a pretty cool experience. However... It's incredibly impractical. The best case scenario is two decent CRTs, Time Crisis 2/3 with Guncons, and the space plus plugins that will fit it all.

 

I'm kinda glad I only used like $50 to try this all out (mostly the cost of buying two copies each of three games).

 

If you have the space and games AND consoles, it's pretty cool. However, I can't see dedicating an entire setup to this.

 

EDIT - Attached a couple pics just to show it. Not much footage just showing the setup. (Sorry for dark room)

 

EDIT 2 - Oh yeah! I figured I should mention. I bought the cable on eBay, and there was someone selling an extender device for this, but that means you'd have to buy two cables and the extender, so you're putting quite an investment in for like 20 games or so.

 

 

Edited June 28, 2018 by KeeperofLindblum

[+wongojack]

I tried this once upon a time with Time Crisis & PS2 fats and wasn't able to get it to work. I assumed that I bought the wrong cable. It fit into the ports, but it wouldn't actually link.

[atarilovesyou]

Wow! Totally impressed! You are absolutely right, quite impractible today...probably even moreso yesteryear! But perhaps the developers assumed that each gamer qould already own a copy of the game, console...just having to add a cable would be a minor quip. But I hear that cable was quite pricey back then...and not long. Imagine linking six of these for some Gran Turismo action! Zero lag, independent screens...awesome. With the right crowd, of course. Kudos to you for giving it a go. I will still try, as its a bit of a personal mission to get Time Crisis 2 going. Two CRTs...ugh! I have that angle covered. I have no idea how the PS2 hard drive works, but maybe will allow for one game to be copied to each console. Still, Fat PS2 consoles refurbished cost around 80 CDN in these parts, with the HDD costing marginally more.

 

Thanks for the pics!

[KeeperofLindblum]

Still, Fat PS2 consoles refurbished cost around 80 CDN in these parts, with the HDD costing marginally more.

 

Thanks for the pics!

 

No problem on the pics! I was interested to see how well it works. It's pretty cool stuff.

 

How badly would you want this PS2? I'm up for an odd trade (IE flat trade plus cost of shipping). PM me if you want to discuss options.

[TheRealOC]

@atarilovesyou @KeeperofLindblum @derFunkenstein @Azathoth

 

apologies for bumping an old thread - but does anyone if you can use two PS2s connected via iLink/FireWire to emulate the original PlayStation 1 link cable that used the PS1 serial port?

 

So the example I’m thinking of would be - you have two fat PS2s linked by iLink (and hooked up to two CRTs) but instead of a PS2 game - you have two copies of something like Twisted Metal 3 (either on original PS1 discs or backup ROMs on some homebrew PS2 launcher installed on the PS2s’ hard drives)

 

would this work, or do you just need to have PS1s and the original link cable?

 

thanks ? 

[DragonGrafx-16]

I don't think my PS1 even has a serial port. It is weird that they added features like this and then removed them later.

 

Actually it does have one... it doesn't have the older style one that worked with Action Replays.

Edited May 21, 2022 by DragonGrafx-16

[KeeperofLindblum]

I'd be happy to test, but I don't have my big fancy setup like I used to. I got rid of the extra PS2 and the iLink cable.

 

Something tells me no though because this feature was barely supported, and I almost can't see the PS1 emulation (via PS2) seeing that port as a serial port. 

 

I could be wrong though ?‍♂️

[DragonGrafx-16]

PS1s aren't that expensive so it would just be easier to buy two of them. Though I don't know how easy the cable would be to get.

[Cecil Bradford]

I don't know if this will help any at all, but back during the PS one era I actually had a friend in game publishing

that informed me about the yet unreleased link feature on the original PS one model.  There was a hidden 

menu in several games that only showed up if you had two PS ones connected with the link cable.  One of them

was destruction derby.  I believe that I found 7 total games that I owned that used the feature.

Then when the PS 2 came out I started trying to figure out how to link it and which games would work on day one.

Back then firewire was new and there were not the several IEE standards we have now.  You just needed an iLink 

cable which was an IEE 1394 4 pin to 4 pin cable, also called firewire to link two consoles.  BUT, I purchased a Firewire

hub (switches were way too expensive then) but the hub worked great; and we connected four consoles for some

games that supported it.  I don't have the list of games handy that we played but I do remember playing Fire Warrior,

and Grand Turismo 3 & 4, we mostly played Grand Turismo till we passed out.

If atarilovesyou is still attempting to connect PS2s for light gun games - here is a link on how to do it exactly....