Free Software PS2 Emulator PCSX2 Hits 1.0

An anonymous reader writes with an excerpt from geek.net on the release of PCSX2, a GPLed emulator for the PS2: "PCSX2 is a free PS2 emulator for the PC that has been in development since the year 2000 and managed to reach version 1.0 last week. As an emulator it's an impressive piece of work, boasting compatibility with over 73 percent of games, which is some 1,697 titles. It can offer up graphics beyond what the original hardware was capable of, achieving resolutions up to 4096 x 4096 with anti-aliasing and texture filtering. You can save games, record video as you play, use a range of controllers, and even adjust game speed if you so wish. Of course, you'll need a fast machine to run PS2 games at a decent speed, but the spec is still reasonable. It's recommended you have at least a Core 2 Duo running at 3.2GHz, or a Core i5 at 2.66GHz+. As for graphics cards, a GeForce 9600GT or Radeon HD 4750 is desirable." Grab it while it's hot (official binaries and source). Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be packaged for any GNU/Linux distros (Debian has packages of the predecessor to PCSX2, PCSX: Reloaded which, naturally, emulated the Playstation).

Comments

Unfortunately, the GL plugin sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

PCSX2 is only really usable with the GSDX GPU plugin, which as the name implies, uses DirectX. Although it can run under Linux in software rendering mode.

On Linux and Mac, you're stuck with either poor graphics emulation (bad emulation quality, breakage, glitches, poor performance) with the GL plugin, or good but non-accelerated graphics emulation with GSDX.

It's also a 32-bit only app and they don't even support building it in 64-bit distros (even though it'd only take a few buildsystem fixes to actually make it build in 32-bit mode fine, much like Wine). This is why distros don't ship it.

Re:Unfortunately, the GL plugin sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Whining is bad, but what is wrong with informing other people about the limitations of the software, before they waste time on trying to use it?

Re:Unfortunately, the GL plugin sucks

[AmazingRuss]

But it's open! It's free! You want it to WORK too? Ingrate!

Re:Unfortunately, the GL plugin sucks

[LordLimecat]

He wasnt whining, he was posting what looked to be very constructive criticism.

Or is the new FOSS thing that you are simply not allowed anything other than worship of any project you have not contributed to? Perhaps we should all pretend that Thunderbird is the best mail client ever made, since the majority of us have never contributed it it?

Honestly, with no bugs (complaints!) opened by the users, Im not sure how these projects would improve, but who am I to comment.

Re:Took yer time

[DarwinSurvivor]

Yeah, but NASA didn't have to deal with Sony's BS.

Re:Can it play from the disc?

[marcansoft]

Yes, it can (because PS2 disks, thankfully and unlike e.g. Wii ones, are readable as-is on a PC).

Making an image is probably a good plan though, if only for the reduced seek times.

Re:Can it play from the disc?

[JDG1980]

Yes, PCSX2 can play from the original disc and you do not need any special hardware to do that. However, ripping your disc to an ISO is a better choice because this pretty much does away with access times.

Gonna check it out again

[gman003]

I tried using it on my old computer (Core 2 Duo @ 2.26GHz, GeForce 9600), and it didn't run at all well. Primarily seemed to be the sound - sound disabled, it ran at about full speed, but with sound it ran around 5fps. Changing video settings didn't seem to affect it - I got 5fps at 16x MSAA and 5fps at 0x AA.

That computer died a while back, and I'm on a new, more powerful one now (Core i7 @ 2.3GHz, GeForce 660), so I might try this out sometime, see if I can handle it now.

Re:Gonna check it out again

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you. Please keep us updated.

Re:Gonna check it out again

[X0563511]

Check your sound sync settings. You've got it slaved to the GPU or CPU. While that keeps things perfectly timed, it really eats performance as you know.

I've always admired peoples' commitment

[Anonymous Coward]

I've always admired peoples' commitment to creating emulators for gaming platforms. Years down the track they're often the only platform left to play, unless of course the game publisher decides to 're-release' an old title with an inbuilt emulator for a nominal fee.

As time goes on and as subsequent generations of consoles become more complicated in both their hardware and embedded operating systems, emulating them will become increasingly difficult. I don't know how long it can last.

Hopefully console manufacturers will shy away from overcomplicated designs as they have been quite costly for them in the current generation of consoles, but this is probably wishful thinking.

Re:I've always admired peoples' commitment

[Hatta]

As time goes on and as subsequent generations of consoles become more complicated in both their hardware and embedded operating systems, emulating them will become increasingly difficult. I don't know how long it can last.

I think it's already happened. There's not a decent Xbox emulator yet, and it's based on pretty typical x86 hardware.

Re:I've always admired peoples' commitment

[marcansoft]

There's one upside to newer console generations though: as consoles get more complicated, developers stick to APIs and don't do as much register-level fiddling or depending on things like hardware timing. That means that it's easier to perform higher-level emulation of newer consoles (as opposed to the cycle-accurate emulation often required to get good results for older 8-bit and 16-bit machines) and still have things work. Newer consoles are also more similar to a PC, which simplifies emulation.

For example, the Dolphin GC/Wii emulator managed to get pretty accurate graphics emulation in less time than PCSX2 because the GC/Wii's GPU is a lot saner and has a model that is relatively easy to map to OpenGL/DX, unlike the PS2's GPU and vector units which are horribly painful to emulate. The 360's and PS3's and WiiU's GPUs are pretty much bog-standard PC GPUs (which does mean they will be more complex to implement full emulation for, but at least it will map more easily onto standard graphics APIs). The higher-level software frameworks also make it easier to use high-level emulation for chunks of the system - e.g. Dolphin doesn't emulate the Starlet ARM CPU of the Wii, but instead performs high-level emulation of its APIs. Therefore, it gets away without emulating the USB, SD, WiFi, flash, and other hardware, which greatly simplifies the implementation and makes it more user-friendly.

It'll be challenging, but it's not an entirely dark future.

Re:i prefer my *real* PS2.

[Megane]

For one thing, good luck keeping that DVD drive working. Yeah, I know, WinHIIP, etc. But mostly it's a fiddling mess of hardware for which the only real advantage is that a PS2 with a 500 GB hard drive and FreeMCBoot is a lot more portable than a desktop PC. But that desktop PC is going to hook up to a modern TV set a lot more easily, too.

I just got tired of keeping a PS2 running.

And then there's save states. Very nice when you're playing RPGs.

PCSX2 is my computing timeline.

[gallondr00nk]

Going back to about 2001, every couple of years when I've upgraded, I've tried to see if I can actually run a game on the fucker.

I've tried it on a Pentium II 350mhz, a Duron 1.3ghz, a Celeron 2.6ghz, a P4 3ghz with a x1950 radeon. Tried it today on my old dual xeon and its still nowhere near smooth with Gt4.

Oh well, sometime in the next decade, maybe.