Running Xenosaga episode 1 on OPL (Open Ps2 Loader 0.9.3) [Solved]

[Istenyou Faria]

I'm creating this post to relate an issue and describe how to fix it. Since I was often redirected to this forum when searching how to solve the problem, I hope this post could help anyone.

The problem:
So, the game was glitching at some points, leaving me in a black screen with only map and cursor or playing the initial cutscene when supposed to play another ones.
The glitch occurs mainly when you travel to Miltia sector after the captain's street fight.


Solving it:
To solve it you must put all the roms(or isos) of the 3 discs (Xenosaga is a 3 disc game) in you flash drive. When in OPL menu, enable compatibility mode No. 5 for both discs 1 and 2. Run the game from disc 1 or disc 2, and it should run with no problem.

Explanation:
Looks like Xenosaga episode 1 was realeased as a single disc with two layers (dual layer - DVD9). If yours is a 3 disc game, chances are that it was ripped from this DVD9 and divided into three discs. That's why you need to put them together when playing the game.

Also, since the game is originally a dual-layer disc, you need to enable Compatibility mode 5 in the OPL menu. This option disable the "DVD DL" support, because to handle DVD9 it read after last ISO sector, to see if it find a 2nd layer.
With the eventuality the last sector of the ISO is also the last physical sector of the disk it could freeze.

Cheers!