Gaming Has anyone tried pcsx2?

[granville]

PCSX2 has gotten very good actually. A great many games are playable. How fast they go is largely dependent on your system though. Though just recently, pcsx2 team added support for more than two cpu cores, speeding up emulation a lot (for me). A 2D game with primitive 3D elements like Disgaea won't require a fast CPU at all (nor a decent GPU). Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy X work really well on fairly low end specs. But for games like Metal Gear Solid 3, you might need some more oomph to your rig.

I personally have a laptop, specs-
Core i7 740qm 1.7ghz (turbo boost up to 2.8ghz)
6GB DDR3 ram
Radeon 5730 1GB

Games that run really well or at very playable speeds for me-
- Kingdom Hearts 1/2 (and RE:Chain of Memories)
- Final Fantasy X
- Final Fantasy XII
- Dragon Quest VIII (with some tweaking)
- Crash Bandicoot Wrath of Cortex
- Ape Escape 2/3 (3 has more graphical glitches, but both play well)
- Ico
- Shadow of the Colossus
- Maximo
- Jak & Daxter (the first, 2 and 3 are still pretty glitchy and unoptimized)
- Sly Cooper (first one, not tested 2 or 3)
- Okami
- Rayman 2 Revolution (some minor lag on the overworld, but otherwise it's good)

Play around with speedhacks, they're a godsend. They can break games, but many of them seems to be completely safe much of the time.

 

[Satangel]

Yeah, i recommend everyone to read tutorials on how to set it up properly before using it as it is quite advanced compared to the standard emulators like the GBA/NDS and maybe the P64(Only if you intend to use other plugins not included in the emulator like the HD plugin from some dude).

I recommend everyone that has a PS2/PS3/Xbox360/Xbox controller to use the program MotionJoy as it offers easy configuartion for your controller and supports all the functions of a xbox360/ps3 controller like the sixaxis and the joysticks and those L2/R2 triggers on the PS3. And you pretty much DO NOT have to bind the controlls to a keyboard button, but instead you can just directly bind it to your PS3 controller with the program via PCSX2.

Really? Why would I use MotionJoy, my 360 controller has worked perfectly with PCSX2 alone. Is there any other reason next to the fact I don't have to configure the controller in PCSX2, to use MotionJoy?

 

[Rydian]

Hm, might give the automated builds a try if I run into a game that's too slow with 0.9.8.

 

[ThatDudeWithTheFood]

It works really well even if your computer isn't new I used a 2007 20inch iMac and got no lag except during one or two parts in each game if there are no other programs running.I was using bootcamp btw.

 

[-K1-]

works great for me, plays everything at 60fps on my newly built comp
i5 2500
4gbs ram
radeon hd 5750

 

[Ikki]

Just a while ago, I finished KHII Final Mix on PCSX2 0.9.7.3113, absolutely flawless except for occasional slowdown which I assume to be emulation issues (since they don't happen in situations that one would think are more intense than the ones in which they do happen).

But yeah, constant 60fps 99% of the time. I also played some Fatal Frame and it ran perfectly fine too.

 

[pgimps]

Not to be rude or anything, but I have intel HD graphics that came with 2500k, but I don't know if his i7 is 2nd gen but I can play all of my games at 1920x1080 and still get 80 FPS. Granted I got 8GB of RAM(free my friend

) and mine OC's it self.

i7 2500K (which is second gen, by the way) has the HD3000, which is quite powerful. The other Intel IGD graphics are quite lackluster.

i7's are 26xx series not 25xx, those are for i5's

 

[exangel]

Just a while ago, I finished KHII Final Mix on PCSX2 0.9.7.3113, absolutely flawless except for occasional slowdown which I assume to be emulation issues (since they don't happen in situations that one would think are more intense than the ones in which they do happen).

But yeah, constant 60fps 99% of the time. I also played some Fatal Frame and it ran perfectly fine too.

I read some of the recent blog articles on the official site and they do a pretty good job of explaining why the parts that tend to suffer slowdowns happen to be unexpected things more often than not (like with me having sound slowdowns in the Persona 3's in-game Save Menu which has no 3d graphics at all..).

You're right, it's emulation issues oftentimes, and better hardware doesn't always instantly solve it. I would liken it to primitive "data packet scheduling" not yet being perfected.

In some games the 3d engines themselves are especially difficult for hardware though, the only one where I've had consistent trouble no matter what I threw it at was Digital Devil Saga (SMT Avatar Tuner #1).
Even on an i7 2600K with SSE 4.1 plugin, MTVU enabled on a build from late August, many 3d non-combat "outdoor" scenes had severe slowdown including the first time you exit the base after the opening sequence. (Though I didn't have the time to try lowering it all the way down to Native resolution).
On my Phenom II x6 @3.8 GHz, with a Radeon 6950 card and a SATA III 6GB/s SSD drive to serve it up, that is the only game I couldn't find a satisfactory solution to get it close to a natural playback. This is a game where I've seen people distressed on their official forums that they couldn't get it to a completely playable state at the settings all their other games run at flawlessly. (I won't have access to my x6 computer for a few more weeks T_T)

edit: confusing spelling error

 

[Nujui]

I've played some games on there pretty nicely. Since PCSX2 now added Quad Core use, my speed took a big jump. I had a Intel Quad Core.

The only thing that maybe setting me back is my graphics card. ATI 2600 HD XT.

 

[raulpica]

Not to be rude or anything, but I have intel HD graphics that came with 2500k, but I don't know if his i7 is 2nd gen but I can play all of my games at 1920x1080 and still get 80 FPS. Granted I got 8GB of RAM(free my friend

) and mine OC's it self.

i7 2500K (which is second gen, by the way) has the HD3000, which is quite powerful. The other Intel IGD graphics are quite lackluster.

i7's are 26xx series not 25xx, those are for i5's

Uh, yeah. A lil typo. It still has an HD3000, though.

 

[pgimps]

Not to be rude or anything, but I have intel HD graphics that came with 2500k, but I don't know if his i7 is 2nd gen but I can play all of my games at 1920x1080 and still get 80 FPS. Granted I got 8GB of RAM(free my friend

) and mine OC's it self.

i7 2500K (which is second gen, by the way) has the HD3000, which is quite powerful. The other Intel IGD graphics are quite lackluster.

i7's are 26xx series not 25xx, those are for i5's

Uh, yeah. A lil typo. It still has an HD3000, though.

Sorry didn't want others to get confused hope I didn't offend you in any way

 

[Deleted User]

Can't wait to try it out on my Sager 8150 that's coming soon

. 1920x1080 will be fun. =D

 

[LeonArkadius]

Right now the best processor for pcsx2 is the i5 2500k. IMO the i7 2600k isn't worth it if your only going to be playing emulators and pc gaming since the i5 2500k can still easily be overclocked over 4 ghz. Right now i got mine at 4.2 ghz since I don't need anymore speed unless I'm going to play even more CPU hungry games like MGS3 (if i'm going to watch cutscenes). But an overclocked dual core processor at 3.6 ghz or more can handle most games out there.

 

[Costello]

I have exactly that processor (i5 2500) on my machine as well as an upgraded graphics card.
Games run great indeed, however there are certain scenes where elements make the emulator lag no matter what.
For example the first playable scene in MGS2, I have a feeling that the rain is causing the emulator to lag. It's running like half the speed.
However other parts play just fine. They've done a fantastic work with this emulator.
Someone should post a tutorial about this...

 

[exangel]

I can give it a try. Most of the information I can provide is based off AMD though. Hopefully others with Intel systems can add to it.