I use a Raspberry Pi to stream PlayStation 2 backups over SMB by networking the onboard Ethernet port of the Pi to allow access to a Samba Share service running on the Pi. This allows for seamless playback of games with heavy Full Motion Video sequences as the Ethernet transmission is faster than the max throughput of the USB2.0 ports provided on the PlayStation 2. It -also supports auto mounting and sharing of external drives to allow for seamless drive swapping if you have a large library.
Using the same technique, games can also be streamed to PlayStation 3 and original Xbox.
I added some additional support for Xlink Kai so that you can play LAN enabled games over the Pi’s WiFi connection by plugging a compatible game console into the Ethernet port of the Pi or by connecting to an access point that is auto created when a secondary WiFi dongle is attached to the Pi.
I learned that there are usually a hundred or so people in South America who play Halo 2 using Xlink Kai and this makes it very easy to connect to them for lag free multiplayer on original hardware. This feature also works on Nintendo Switch and PSP with a bit of extra work.
Youtuber VersatileNinja recently published a detailed video on [how to get started with the project](https://youtu.be/Ilx5NYoUkNA) if anyone is interested in taking it for a spin.
How fast is streaming cut-scene heavy games like MGS4 to the PS3 using this setup?
Also, for the PS2, how does it compare with HDDLoader and an internal HDD. Relevant for games like Fatal Frame, where you have to open doors a lot, and on the DVD, it takes like 5-10 seconds, but on the HDD, it takes <1 second.
I didn't know we could steam to the Xbox OG, sounds pretty useful compared with the 1hr process to open it up and upgrade the HDD...
In my tests using iftop, speed on PS3 seems to top out around 60 MB/s which is slower than HDD but should be sufficient for most games.
On PS2, the speed to access SMB is also slower than HDD at around 6 MB/s, however, this is nearly 6x the speed of the USB. Although it is slower than HDD access, it allows for playback of most games without stuttering.
Good point on calling attention to the OG Xbox, as I should have been more specific there. OG Xbox games can only be played back via HDD or Disc due to a limitation in the system itself, however, a number of emulators support SMB paths for playing backups.
I'd probably do the same if my PS2 was a slim model, but I have the fat, and used an older hard drive for it.
I'd love it if modern consoles like the Xbox One and PS4 supported any sort of network share hosting for games. They do support USB drives and I thought about using Linux Gadget USB to emulate a USB drive and store the backing file on the network share. Previously that wouldn't have really worked with the Raspberry Pis as the full sized models did not support USB OTG. It does look like the new Pi4 supports USB OTG over the USB-C power port.
Using the same technique, games can also be streamed to PlayStation 3 and original Xbox.
I added some additional support for Xlink Kai so that you can play LAN enabled games over the Pi’s WiFi connection by plugging a compatible game console into the Ethernet port of the Pi or by connecting to an access point that is auto created when a secondary WiFi dongle is attached to the Pi.
I learned that there are usually a hundred or so people in South America who play Halo 2 using Xlink Kai and this makes it very easy to connect to them for lag free multiplayer on original hardware. This feature also works on Nintendo Switch and PSP with a bit of extra work.
The project is open source and [available as a flashable SD image on Github](https://github.com/toolboc/psx-pi-smbshare).
Youtuber VersatileNinja recently published a detailed video on [how to get started with the project](https://youtu.be/Ilx5NYoUkNA) if anyone is interested in taking it for a spin.