PAL PS2 NTSC Games (MechaPWN)

[bradwiggo]

I'm looking to buy a PS2, and I live in the UK, so it will be a PAL model, and I'm a bit confused about whether I can play NTSC games or not.

So far I think any model of PS2 can play NTSC games at 60hz if you load the games via OPL (SMB share, HDD etc). Is this correct?

What I'm not sure about is 1:
Can you use burned NTSC games using MechaPWN? Looking on the GitHub: https://github.com/MechaResearch/MechaPwn, it says this:

• Deckard¹ only: force NTSC-U region and video mode for PS2/PS1 titles

Does this only Deckard models will play NTSC games at 60hz when loading from a disc?

I'm also confused about PS1 games. Will they play at 60Hz on any model of PS2, or does that always require a modchip?

[egparadigm]

I’m not familiar with MechaPWN but my general understanding is that a modchip is required for PS2 to play out of region games from an optical disc. You are correct that you can play any PS2 game running via OPL, e.g. from a hard disk. Also, PlayStations tend to run software at its intended refresh rate, so whichever way you play NTSC games they will be in 60Hz.

[speedlolita]

So, if you boot NTSC PS2 software on a PAL PS2 it will play at 60Hz (or NTSC, no PAL60 for the PS2) and vice versa. This applies to any model I believe yes.

The Deckard revisions of the PS2 emulate the PS1 CPU so it may be that you can tell a PAL unit to behave exactly like an NTSC one (including the emulated PS1 CPU), but I'm speculating.

What I can say though is that the PS1 side should be treated seperately on the PS2.

A PAL PS2 (with MechaPwn, and without a modchip or some other kind of fix) will play PS1 games only at 50Hz. An NTSC (with MechaPwn, and without a modchip or some other kind of fix) PS2 will play PS1 games only at 60Hz.

Modchips address this, although even then they're not to spec (video frequency) when trying to display the opposite video standard so you may encounter issue with upscalers.