What service/servers does it use?
It uses the servers/services from here. To sum it up quickly the Japanese version of the game used a different service for it’s online and because of that they were able to reverse engineer it and host their own.
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Love it. Vive la résistance!
Good luck! My only niggle with the 90000 series’ new design is the eject button is significantly harder to operate than the older model. It has a lot less travel and is also less springy. I’m already worried the black text paint will come off since you basically have to use your nails to use it.
Thanks for letting me know! The 90000 seems to struggle as much, or more, with Rage Racer which is a shame. The slowdown is super distracting.
Hey, it works!
…but now I’m more confused. It plays NTSC-U/C games. I don’t have any NTSC-J ps1 or ps2 games to test. This is weird. Maybe it’s modded? I haven’t opened it. I’ve never used a modded ps2 but I didn’t notice anything different in the boot or browser/menu screen. It did come with a couple memory cards, maybe I should check those more thoroughly. I think I only checked one and didn’t see anything unusual on it. The only language options in the system config menu are English and Traditional Chinese.
[edit, I didn’t have any memory cards in while testing. I thought they were needed unless there is an internal mod? Swapped sticker on the outside?]
Almost certainly an internal mod.
Try burning a disc if you can.
Try holding circle and triangle at boot. If it’s modded you’ll probably be brought to the modchip menu. I’ve bought a few ps2s over the years at thrift stores and most of them were modded with Matrix mod chips. This is an easy way to check what’s in there before you open it up.
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Ha, I’ll have to check it out tonight. I might have a modded ps2 that’s been sitting in storage for almost 2 years without using it, lol.
My understanding is that starting with the 75000x series slims replaced the original PS1 MIPS processor with an IBM Power Pc chip that would emulate the behavior of the IOP.
This led to quite a few compatibility and slowdown issues with PS1 games, and some select problems with PS2 games. The 7000x series slims are the sweet spot as they still have hardware BC on the CPU side.
edit fixed model number 
That actually started with the 75000 series. If you want a slim with full compatibility only the 70000 revision would work, but I’ve heard that rev runs hotter.
My mistake!, I knew I should have checked 
What is the fat model that “everybody” says is the best PS2?
I wrote some stuff here if you care to dig into it.
Usual recommendation is the SCPH-3900x line but if you don’t plan on using burned discs the SCPH-5000x runs cooler, as long as you can find one of the earlier revisions in that model before they changed the drive tray design to be kinda flimsy.
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Yeah, I’ve gotta agree on the 3900x line especially on the PSone side as the clock synthesiser on the board can be switched over via homebrew allowing for true NTSC output for PSone titles on a PAL PS2. The earlier models had a crystal oscillator that would need to be changed out on PAL consoles for proper 59.82hz NTSC output.
I’ve got a stack of Taiyo Yuden CD-Rs that work magnificently for PSone backups.
Hmm, no dice on holding circle & triangle or combos.
I bought an ntsc-j ps1 game (Wangan Trial) and it won’t boot. It’s a 2 disc game, disc 1 gives “There is no data.” Disc 2 is on an endless “There is no data” but saying “Reading disc” at the bottom. Both disks look good. I cleaned the laser lens with some IPA too. ntsc-u/c games work fine.
I saw many cheap MGS and Gran Turismo ntsc-j games today. I should have bought a couple just to test out.
Edit, I may be an idiot in buying a ps1 jpn game. US ps2 games work but US ps1 games don’t. So, perhaps the mod is only for jpn ps2 games.
PS2 lasers love to stop reading PS1 discs, so it could also be that (though that’ll usually give a “Disc Read Error”)
Yeah, my 75000 NTSC PS2 has the same slowdown in Rage Racer. Shame the 70000 model I have is PAL, but having four is enough PS2s for now!
As far as I know ps2 modchips only works for ps2 games. None of my modded ps2s can boot burnt PS1 games but I get the " please insert a PlayStation 2 disc" screen
With fmcb a modchip isn’t really needed anymore anyway
Yeah it’s kind of odd. I’m very uninformed when it comes to ps1/2 modding. I’ve never looked into it.
I haven’t tried burned discs, only an OEM ntsc-j game and some ntsc-u/c ps1 games. The shop I got the ps1 game had a couple ntsc-j ps2 games for ~$2 so I may grab one today to check it out.