PXSX2 - PS2 Emulator

[Flack]

Has anyone tried this yet? I'm at work with no access to my PS2 games at the moment.

http://www.pcsx2.net

[badinsults]

From the website:

The PCSX2 project attempts to allow PS2 code to be executed on your computer, thus meaning you can put a PS2 DVD or CD into your computers drive, and boot it up!

The project has been running for a little over four years now, and since it's initial release has grown in compatibility. From initially just being able to run a few public domain demos, it's current state enables many games to boot and actually go in game, such as the 'famous' Final Fantasy X or Devil May Cry 3.

PS2 Emulation is a complex task, far worse than emulating a console from the previous generation (PlayStation1, N64, Saturn), simply due to the CPU power required to get 'playable' speeds from a PS2 game under emulation. Whilst speed can be improved via various 'recompilers' (eeREC and vuREC, Emotion Engine recompiler and Vector Unit CPU recompiler respectively), you will still need the latest and most powerfull machine you can get your hands on to even break the 30 FPS mark.

So in summary, it is unlikely you will get to the point of it being playable.

[Flack]

I read that too, which is why I was surprised that, with the latest release, games are starting to be ranked as "playable."

[s1lence]

Interesting, I'll have to try that out.

[Reid]

It works pretty good now-

Over half the PS2 games are playable now

Works in Linux and windoze

[roushimsx]

Virtua Racing still doesn't work past the attract mode, unfortunately. It's still been getting pretty solid in the last few releases (especially with the major improvements to the speed). Some of the Nippon Ichi stuff has been working well for a while, though... I didn't have any problems farting around with Disgaea, though I didn't play through the game or do any real extensive testing other than playing it for an hour or so.

Something fun to see was the performance increase in Monster Hunter from my old Athlon 2500+ / Radeon 9500 Pro to my C2D E6600 / GeForce 7600GT back when I upgraded in November.

Hopefully the plugin-based system gets cleaned up a bit and becomes more intuitive/user friendly.