The BEST PlayStation 2… is an emulator?

Today we're making a video love letter to the PlayStation 2 game console and the PC Emulator PCSX2 - which has been in development for TWNETY YEARS! Here's how it holds up today and some MAJOR upcoming updates and how it compares to original hardware.

Referenced videos:

Referenced Articles:

TIMECODES:
00:00 The BEST way to play PlayStation 2 in 2022
02:29 What is PCSX2?
06:25 MAJOR UPDATES
08:26 PCSX2 Best Settings
09:15 How does PCSX2 Play on PC?
21:11 Feature Requests/Complaints
24:31 How to find PS2 Game ROMs & BIOS
25:40 Region (un)locking
25:59 HD Texture Packs!
24:46 Shaders & ReShade Support
28:05 Playing PCSX2 on a CRT!
29:01 PS1 Game Compatibility?
29:17 PCSX2 vs Real Hardware: The VERDICT

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[carsandzombies]

PCSX2 is something that I am forever grateful for being as good as it is. Now that I have an insane PC, I can finally play some more demanding games emulated in 4k with no issues. Playing the Sly Cooper trilogy and Midnight Club 3 Dub Edition Remix is a dream because the PS2 means so much more to me than just a console. I grew up with some of the best games I’ve ever played.

[slevingaius]

Hats off to the devs... It's a labour of love to code emulators ensuring they will not be forgotten.

[gregandcin]

Fun fact, the other PS2 emulator Play! has an HLE bios, so you don't need to provide your own. Though Play! still has a long ways to go before it gets to PCSX2 compatibility

[unlimitedslash]

Native PS2 fat with a freemcboot, with an ssd using a sata adapter and opl, and a HDMI adapter using fmcb to force 480p on all games, emulation is good, but the ps2 still is a a damn hell to emulate, thanks to many games using heavely customized engines that used every feature of the original hardware to the point of literal madness, ratchet and clank or jak and daxter come to my mind especially for their situation in pcsx2, other games like dirge of cerberus and many others still have some flaws or are so taxing that even high end computers have trouble running them at a somewhat stable framerate, usually with frametimes all over the place.

[nikitasmotritnarusskom]

Dunno, I can run most of the PS2 library at 6K on my computer but I still play these games on real fat PS2 with an HDD, using a Trinitron CRT that I got for 10 euros. No amount of upscaling, widescreen hacks, shaders etc. can compare to the real deal, which is absolutely magical (I am also speaking as someone who didn’t have a PS2 console as a kid, so there is no nostalgia for me; this console is THIS good!)

[ale-lp]

Per game settings would be so cool, I have a zipped portable version of PCSX2 with the basic core settings and make a copy of it for each game I want to play in order to tweak it and get the best results (or sometimes to get them to work at all!), also having a memory card per game helps keeping saves sorted and tidy.

[crestofhonor]

Honestly my biggest issue with PCSX2 from other emulators is the UI. I think it’s terrible compared to everything else out there like dolphin, duck station, RPCS3, and others. They need to update it. Still I love playing on my PC CRT and I wonder how it would look with the hdmi to composite adapter I have to connect to old SD CRTs

[StreamerSchool]

It's so funny you released this video today. I just got done tweaking my PCSX2 settings for the past two hours.

[Anthony-cnll]

One of the things I've found with emulators is that there's inconsistent input lag and so some games just don't feel right, particularly retro games reliant on frame perfect inputs. If the input lag were consistent, then we could adapt. Due to the nature of emulators though, sometimes it's 1 frame, other times it's 5. That's why I think FPGA is ultimately the future so long as the original hardware can be accurately described either by decapping or reverse engineering. In the late 2000s when LCDs took over the market and the PS3 was released, games started to lax the input windows. As such, I'd be curious to test fight games from the PS2 era to see if they started to loosen those input windows earlier. If they did, then being hardware-accurate may not matter so much.

[hugo-garcia]

Yes. Burnout 3 does run at a locked 60fps on othe PS2 3:14

[meatsafemurderer]

IMHO hardware is still the way to go. I found PCSX2 to have pretty bad input lag, especially when games are field rendered. FMCB, OPL and an adapter to use modern wireless controllers...nothing can beat it.

[BenjiDWJ]

An awesome video as per usual, Adam 😄👍👍 as ever, I appreciate you for going into such a high level of detail and througherness with your content. 🙂👌

The PlayStation 2 was also my favourite games console from my late childhood and teenage years. 😁🎮 I’ve just now bought a satin silver slimline PS2 off of eBay in order to replay some of my favourites as well as a few new games (well, new to me in terms of titles I didn’t check out back in the day)

I’ll definitely be checking out Curiosity Stream and Nebula when my next payday rolls around as I could definitely do with a more in depth video on how to convert the games that I currently have into ISO files to play them through the emulator. 🎮📀💻

Cheers to you, my man! 🥃🥃

[boxxwiition]

I CANT BELIEVE YOU SHOWED THIS GAME FIRST!ONE OF MY ALL TIME FAVORITES!

[JoelNickel]

Hey Addie, awesome video! I was wondering about how you script or prepare for your videos. How much of it is improvised or just some basic bullet-points and how much do you fully script or at least have a guideline?

[hamsterwolf]

22:12 Launch box is a good option for managing ps2 games and it is constantly updated and while I haven't explored this option myself i think it does support some per game settings as well. the interface kinda looks like steam as well.

[RAFAEL]

23:30 convert a MC save to a folder is very useful to put a save created on emulator or downloaded from the internet on real console. Just bring the folder to an USB stick, run uLanchELF on PS2 console and copy the folder to memory card and bang, you can play the save on real hardware. The backwards is valid too. You also can convert the save folder to a PS3 save file and put on PS3 (softmodded or not) using an USB stick, and play PS2/PS1 back compat games on PS3 using the save file you created

[czr.]

I’ve been thinking about setting this up to revisit some games! Thanks for the vid. Maybe I’ll try them on drums, too!

[cryptidproductions]

I remember like version 1.2 working pretty damn good with the resolution cranked up to like 2x even on my rig with a FX-8350 choking under the stock cooler and GTX-750ti back in 2014. It was impressive even before the massive reworking of the code in 1.7.

[GTArajgaming]

fun fact PCSX2 memory cards can be used on the PS3 virtual memory card (the actual one, not the one baked into PS2 classics)
make sure you have a memory card made on the PS3, rename the .PS2 virtual memory card to VM2 (if I remember off the top of my head)
then drag n drop it onto the PS3 using FTP or multiman (obviously in the correct folder)

I should note that the PS3 won't always show the memory card items.... it's just if you want to switch between PCSX2 and PS3 for gameplay or something

[ArcaneTuber]

11:24 Soul Calibur 3 is running on interlaced mode, but that game is compatible with progressive scan (480p), you just need to press Triangle + X while the game is booting, until you see a menu asking you if you wish to activate progressive mode. I think that running the game in progressive mode should get rid of the ghosting.