IIDX 5th Style HDD Support Question

[Valkrinos]

I had a question about 5th style. I read on IIDXIcon that it's the only style to allow the PS2 hard drive to cache game data, leading to shorter load times, as well as being what will unlock Endless Mode for you.

I'm a person who likes to unlock everything. However, I did not anticipate something like this, as I had bought a Japanese Slim PS2 a while ago.

Would anyone have any idea if there's any certain way to get the Slim PS2 to recognize any external hard drive or anything, or if I had wanted those functions, that I would need an older, larger PS2.

[The Deep Striker]

Originally Posted by Valkrinos

I had a question about 5th style. I read on IIDXIcon that it's the only style to allow the PS2 hard drive to cache game data, leading to shorter load times, as well as being what will unlock Endless Mode for you.

I'm a person who likes to unlock everything. However, I did not anticipate something like this, as I had bought a Japanese Slim PS2 a while ago.

Would anyone have any idea if there's any certain way to get the Slim PS2 to recognize any external hard drive or anything, or if I had wanted those functions, that I would need an older, larger PS2.

i believe you need an official japanese ps2 hdd for it to work. you could try using one of those internal to external converters, but i doubt it would work.

[aroomwithaview]

the loading difference is negligible at best

in fact sometimes if you sit at the song roster too long before choosing a song it takes a bit longer for a song to load because the hd has to reactivate

if you want to know what the so called endless mode is like hold start while selecting an expert course in sixth style since it does the exact same thing despite not needing the hard drive

in doing so youll realize that endless mode does not live up to its name since all it does is bypass the result screen between the songs of an expert course

thats it

you arent missing anything

[Valkrinos]

Originally Posted by aroomwithaview

the loading difference is negligible at best

in fact sometimes if you sit at the song roster too long before choosing a song it takes a bit longer for a song to load because the hd has to reactivate

if you want to know what the so called endless mode is like hold start while selecting an expert course in sixth style since it does the exact same thing despite not needing the hard drive

in doing so youll realize that endless mode does not live up to its name since all it does is bypass the result screen between the songs of an expert course

thats it

you arent missing anything

I understand that it might not be the most necessary thing (as I believe I've only used the Endless Mode on DDR once.), but if I was to want to have everything unlocked, it would be nice to do. The thing is (and not to alert any mods because of talking of PS2 mods, although maybe they wouldn't care, and it's not my function to talk about pirating stuff anyways here) I have seen people with external harddrives working on PS2s, but they have to buy some program and they use it to load games from the harddrive, not just have a game detect that it's there. So, chances are those probably wouldn't help in this case.

[aroomwithaview]

theres nothing to unlock though

you still have to access the endless mode in the same way as you do in sixth style

the game looks exactly the same with or without the installation

[Jeff Paine]

Well from what aroomwithaview described, it sounds like it's not something that's actually "unlocked," rather something that will only appear with the HDD. I'm guessing that without the HDD, the game uses the result screens to load the next song from the disc, and the only thing Endless Mode does is skip the result screens to play the songs faster.

[Valkrinos]

Originally Posted by aroomwithaview

theres nothing to unlock though

you still have to access the endless mode in the same way as you do in sixth style

the game looks exactly the same with or without the installation

If it's what you guys describe...then you can use Endless Mode without the HDD on 5th style? Is this correct? IIDXIcon is wrong then, since it seems to say that you need it to use Endless Mode. The faster loading would still be nice, but, yeah.

Does anyone possibly have an idea if they can get any kind of USB HDD to be recognized as a normal hard drive in a slim PS2?

[aroomwithaview]

for whatever reason fifth style requires the hd installation to use endless mode while sixth does not and both games handle the function in the exact same way

and i reiterate that the difference in song loading times between having the hd installation and not is a fraction of a second

if you absolutely must refer to it as an unlock then you have unlocked endless mode in sixth style by booting the game

meanwhile for your question of if one can use an external hard drive on a new model ps2 for purposes of games which utilize it the answer is no

case one
case two

you can use an external hard drive on a new style ps2 for backup or hdloader purposes and such

but the system will not recognize it as an official hard drive for purposes of games which support or require it such as final fantasy eleven and fifth style

you are not missing anything of importance by playing fifth style without the hd installation

if you insist on finding this out personally i hope your buyers remorse isnt too strong or that you manage to convince a friend to try it for you

[Deca]

I really wouldn't sweat it. I have it installed and haven't really noticed any difference at all between it on my console and on my friends without the hdd.