GUIDE PS2 Tool The Basics

As long as linux runs on it, it should work.
There are two SBC PCI boards on ebay at the moment...

 

The MMX card is more expensive then the Celeron/PIII one FYI.

$479 vs 395

I guess this is the actual card you 233MMX'ers have in your TOOL?

http://www.circuitspecialists.com/prod.itml/icOid/3859

 

It's not that exact model, the one I (and others) have is the PCI-586HVE-S.
You can find it here for less than 60€:
http://www.windowsce.com.cn/Productweb/hardware/mainboard.asp

The one you linked actually supports more cpu models (amd and cyrix clones) but with frequency from 75 to 200MHz only.

 

60 now thats a nice price no more big worries with testing upgrades for you guys :020:

Here is another probably a good upgrade for the 233MMX owners out there:

http://www.ipc2u.com/catalog/P/PP/34977.html

180 euro *120 UK* shipping from Germany

But you will be able to supply it with the following sweet specs:

Intel Pentium M clockspeeds: 1.5 up to 2.26GHz cpu's
and 1GB of internal mem.

Even I am thinking about purchasing one, but still thinking about it as it should work fine but who knows lol maybe it doesn't

 

As of next week (or the one after) we'll have a new Tool member on AG. I traded my PS2 Tool with an AG user in Germany, who shall quite possibly introduce himself as time goes on.

In the meantime I am really busy pre-exams when I return to college at the end of the month, so will be trying to keep up with you guys and the on-going discoveries!

 

Just a quick note to say thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread. As a new TOOL owner it has been worth it weight in gold! :thumbsup:

 

Hey, congratulations! :thumbsup:

 

:thumbsup:

 

No matter what I try I always get

"
Unexpected Reply - type=BREAKR result=EXCEPTION
target program stopped. check the location by dr command
"
Same end result with burned games and retail ps2 US launch games. Any ideas?

 

I never owned a japanese tool, but if I remember correctly these were region locked (correct me if i am wrong) so maybe you should test a japanese master patched or original game if you own a japanese tool.
That or the software has been removed/damaged from your tool and you will need to have it replaced/reinstall it.

 

Jap.. i got a japanese tool.. its region locked.. so you need japanese or japanese Master Disc Patched games...

 

You are right. Japanese TOOLs recognize master disks for all regions, but only retail disks for japan. On the other hand, american and european TOOLs recognize all master and all retail disks.

Do you get any output from the PS2 side, like the network information screen when the TOOL boots?
Does it crash at the same address for all games?

You might have some luck by fiddling with the debug options. Some flag combinations you could try:

2 180 (2MB IOP)
f0002 100 (disable EE kernel parameter/context checking)

If this still doesn't help, you can disable DSEDB completely. Instead of using dsedb/"reset", call "dsreset f0102 170" (disable EE kernel checking, no ELOADP, disk start, IOP in test mode, no DECI2 over SIF, no host file access, no TTY).

 

Been thinking about getting some tool action myself, thanks for the thread its a good pile of info to help out!

 

oopsies!!!

its a celeron 533

 

From the posts in this thread, I see two ways to reset the PlayStation 2 side of a TOOL, which are to either invoke the RESET command or to press the physical RESET button.

But what happens if the RESET command is issued from dsedb while an EE program is running? Can another EE program be run without a hard reset?

It appears that the retail (and debugstation) console does not ever reset the software SIF registers of the EE kernel during a target reset, which results in the SIF implementations on both the EE and IOP entering mismatched states. The next EE program run will then wait for all eternity for the IOP side of the SIF to respond during a SIF RPC binding operation, since it thinks that the IOP side has already been initialized (but it really isn't).

If the TOOL has an EE kernel that has a similar design... then I suppose that the only way to debug another program properly would be to perform a hard reset. But that's just weird! D:

EDIT: The answer is that the TOOL's DECI2 implementation is different from the one used in the TDB startup card; the DSDB RESET command will trigger a hard reset of the PS2 side via the MRP.
The TDB Startup Card running on a DEX seems to have a special mechanism to re-initialize EE kernel, when DECI2 has to be reset; the IOP side will send a RESET DCMP packet to the EE and wait for the EE to complete its reboot, before rebooting itself.

Therefore, the only console that has no mechanism to reset both the EE and IOP sides when DECI2 is used, is the CEX console. It has no hard-reset function that can be triggered via software and its EE kernel has no mechanism to get reset from the IOP side via DECI2.

 

Hello guys...

Does anybody knows where you can find the "performance analyser" for ps2?

http://rdwest.playstation.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/PerformanceAnalyser.pdf

Theres a bit of development kits out there for ps2, the TOOL, the TEST "fat model" ps2, and then there's the "Linux Enviroment" which was "affordable sdk" for the ps2.

From my readings, I understand it's pretty much a must have tool (along with the VU command line) to ps2 dev. ¿Anybody knows anything about this thing? I do suspect you need a TOOL to run it properly and extract some useful data, but anyway...

edit: nvm I found this: http://assemblergames.com/l/threads/sony-playstation-2-pa-t15k.16565/

edit2: i cannot find any info on what the TOOL is supposed to do. ¿Does anybody here have it and knows what is up to?

 

will the tool output component via the multi AV

 

This is an old post, but in case people end up reading and still don't get the answer:

It refers to the DTL-T15000, which is another TOOL model. This is not something that can be downloaded.

This (the DEX consoles with "TEST" on them) was not for actual coding, but just to test whether the game worked properly on retail-like hardware. It does not actually have any proper debugging capabilities.
There exists the TDB Startup Card that supported the late DEX models, but the actual console is not really different from the CEX (retail) consoles.

Also the only official SDK for unlicensed developers.

And hence, this is the only real development kit. The TOOL is meant to aid the developer with developing, debugging and testing PlayStation 2 software, before they are sent for mastering.
Software is developed over the network, from another PC. Hence the TOOL can be seen as a really expensive PlayStation 2 console, with much more memory.

Yes, it will.