Interesting. New Action Replay to play Megadrive ROMs...

[SilverBolt]

Yeah, I too don't want to mess with modchips, because they do drasticly shorten the life of your system, plus since my soldering skills are awful (let's just say I don't have the hands of a surgeon) I'd have to pay to ship the thing to and from some modding company and trust that they do it right.... no thanks. The current fliptop case I have isn't bad, except when I replace my PS2 I'm going to have to void the warranty to install the thing. So you guys say the slide key is a decent solution? How does this work without stressing your door motor?

Well it does stress your door motor and can actually break it if you use it 24/7 but even if the drive motor breaks down you can still play games by closing the door with the slidecard manualy

[Greatsaintlouis]

Hmm, I don't like the sound of that - looks like for right now, the fliptop is the thing that I'd feel most comfortable with using. I guess I'll just have to be very careful when I get the new PS2 not to damage it in a way that the warranty could have fixed... :smt043

And madhatter, I would get a J-PS2, but then I'd be SOL with the amount of American games I have. Oh, for the days when playing Japanese imports meant only inhaling plastic fumes for a half-hour as you melted away the lockout tabs.... :smt009

[wombat]

about the playstation 2:

Its incorrect that modchips destroy your playstation 2. The reason that many people think that it does destroy your playstation 2 is becouse of the many modchip users who only use it to boot copys.

Its commenly known that the playstation 2's arent' that well build Sony used 'cheapbastard' laser-units. (especially in the latest series, 5K) When combining the lousy laser-units and a bunch of backups on cheap media.... Well you probally already see it comming: that destroy's your playstation 2, not the mod chip.

[Johnny]

You will destroy your PS2 way more using Swap and Slide Card stuff.

Modchips like Messiah2 and DMS3 run on the same voltage as the cpu clock, so they don't force the system. Older modchips did that, and with bad installation "killed" the system. Plus these modchips go to a sleep mode (they turn themselves OFF) after recognizing the import disc. So they don't don anything else. Older modchips had to be ON all time, because it kept misrecognizing the disc all time, forcing the drive motor, the lens,...

I had my PS2 modded with Messiah for more than 2 years and it still works flawlessly. I'll only replace it because there's a newer one that has more features.

Find a good place to install it, try asking friends how the service is, and if there's at least some guarantee.

[Greatsaintlouis]

Well, thanks for the good words guys, but I've seen enough professionally installed modchips screw up hardware that I really don't want to waste money on something that's going to burn out in half the time a stock model will. And yeah, I'm aware that a slide card isn't the best alternative if you're looking to preserve your PS2, which is why I'm sticking with my fliptop case right now - aside from the fact that it voids the warranty, it seems to be the safest import solution for the life of the system. I just wish there was something with less hassle... of course, no region lockouts would be a nice idea.. :smt043