So I bought a ps2 fat model, got freemcboot 1.996 on a memory card, use verbatim DVD-R disks, tried to burn them AWS, 1x, 2, 4x, 8x & Max. I patched the games with ESR patcher, reinstalled older version of FreeMcboot, tried different ESR versions, tried the direct off, direct version of ESR, and nothing seems to fix the games not launching, the only way i can launch the games is through Ulaunch, every single game works fine when I launch ESR through Ulaunch/mc0/BOOT/ESR. Original games work...
ESR / FMCB
ESR / FMCB