How to: Playstation2 games on m17x using PCSX2

Recently, I signed up for Final Fantasy XIV Online only to find that the game has been quite disappointing - opinions shared by many players and reviewers. Anyway, it made me want to go back to a Final Fantasy game (12) that I had enjoyed in the past. So I did a quick search for a PS2 emulator and came across PCSX2 - and now I'm back to playing some of my old PS2 games on my Alienware m17x.

This 'quick and dirty' guide is for anyone here who may also be interested in giving their old PS2 games a new lease on life on their m17x. I will try not to double up on information and only cover the important parts and specific settings that worked well for me on my m17x.

If you do give this a go, let us know what settings worked best for you.

PCSX2:

First, the emulator itself. There are a few other PS2 emulators out there but this one appeared to be the pick of the bunch and my experience with it has been good. The most recent public beta can be downloaded at the following location:

DOWNLOAD: PCSX2 Playstation 2 emulator​

• The package from the above link includes all the most recent plug-ins so you you're almost ready to go after downloading.

• I found most of it self explanatory and the Configuration Guide filled in the gaps.

• Make sure you read information about the BIOS.

• To reiterate the point made in the BIOS link above, do not ask where to obtain a BIOS or where to download games.

• You can configure PCSX2 to use your DVD-ROM drive or you can create an ISO using Imgburn which makes things a bit faster.

• You can check the game compatibility list to see which games will play as not all games will play by searching or choosing the first letter of the game title.

​

PCSX2 Settings & Performance on m17x:

It is important to recognise that PCSX2 emulation will not always be as 100% issue free / smooth when performance is compared to an actual PS2. My performance has been between 30FPS and 60FPS with the resolution upscaled and has resulted in only rare FPS dips below this while playing Final Fantasy 12.

I am by no means an expert on the best settings to use so I did have to fiddle to find out what worked best for me - most notably, I had issues with audio skipping in FFXII FMVs (movie sequences at the start of the game) which seem to be resolved now for the most part. There is also a bug in the emulator which flashes a black image every few seconds on only the FMVs - this is a known issue and is not specific to any particular video card.

It seems the better your processor, the better your performance. PCSX2 is optimised for dual core processors so does not seem to take advantage of quad core systems. As a general rule, I do not multi-task while running PCSX2. Also, I'm not sure how much ATI CCC settings would impact performance. After some random tweaking, these are the settings that have worked the best for me so far:

My m17x specs for reference:

m17xR2; i7 820QM, 4GB RAM, 5870 Crossfire, 80GB Intel SSD + 500GB.​

Emulation Settings

In PCSX2, go to:

Config, Emulation Settings and adjust the values as shown, here.

Config, Plugin/BIOS Selector choose the following plugins.

Config, Video (GS), Plugin Settings...and change the settings as shown here.

Config, Audio (SPU2), Plugin Settings... and change the settings as shown here.
​

Using a PS3 Controller

You can definitely use a PS3 controller with your m17x using MotionInJoy.
This applies not just to PCSX2 but any PC game you can use a controller with.

There is a great YouTube clip of how to go about getting that working using both wired and bluetooth modes. I have had some trouble with Bluetooth however, with the WiFi connection on my m17x being affected. I currently use my PS3 controller wired but I'm going to pick up a cheap bluetooth dongle for MIJ so that it doesn't exclusively tie up the internal Bluetooth module for the PS3 controller.

Once you have it set up, ensure you map the buttons within PCSX2.​

Sample:
Finally, here is a sample of image/performance with my settings in windowed mode:

 

+1 for the guide, once my system gets back fromt he Depot, I may have to do this. Then I can rock out to some Socom like I did in my college years

 

Nice one chiefs! I will have to try this out as well. Looks great.

Any chance of ps3 or 360 emulators lol?

Cheers.

 

Yes I would like a PS3/360 emulator <3

 

Cool. I'm a huge retrogamer myself and have collected and updated many emulators for various systems since 1990. I'm currently playing Shining the Holy Ark on the Saturn emulator and it runs well on the M17R2. Been waiting on the PCSX2 to be more compatible before giving it a try. There are plenty of great RPG's on the platform for sure.

The PS3/360 is a no no at this point hahaha.

 

ah yes this is old, but nice guide. Just make sure you get the latest plugins and revisions. Many come out every day to better the performance

 

Killiandros (similar to a DragonLance dragon name?),

Why not give FF11 a shot if you aren't already on it? I've been preoccupied so deactivated my account. I left all jobs at level 80 except for Blue Mage so I'm tempted to go back and get level 85 on all jobs I just love level grinding hahaha

If not, here are two funny games to burn some time away,

Shank
Deathspank

Both are new and pretty fun. You can grab them on Steam for $15 each.

 

I thought about FF11 a while ago but I think it's a little late to get into now.
Besides, I think I'll wait for SW:TOR and/or Tera, Guild Wars 2 to get my MMO fix.
Pity about FFXIV. Oh well.


Cheers for the suggestions on the games, I might check them out when I've finished with what I'm currently playing!


(The name is something original I came up with when playing City of Heroes as most 'cool' Hero names I wanted to use were taken.)

 

I had a PS2 itch that needed scratching this summer. Every game I tried with this emulator ran like crap though. I spent hours mulling through supposed performance tweaks, etc. Instead I just found one of the old PS3s that is backwards compatible. I can, for some reason, get the Wii emulator to run at 60fps at 1920x1200. This is in all of the games I've tried, which are Mario Kart, New Super Mario Bros, and Metroid Other M.

 

Nope, not too late to get into FFXI. The thing is they've made it easier to get end game gears now, especially with the level cap going to 99 and all. The problem is that they have little in terms of gear for the new levels and people have yet to find those that are released. SE is screwing up bigtime, IMO, not just in FFXIV but also in the changes for FFXI. Talk about being lazy and/or greedy!

 

SE have indeed made some bad decisions lately...

TurbodTalon, which Wii emulator do you use? (I didn't even know there was one)
Any limitations on it?

Agree re: PCSX2's inconsistent performance - I haven't tested many titles but performance was rubbish on Shadow of the Colossus (awesome game) but it's been almost perfect with FFXII and the settings I listed above.

 

5947 rev for wii I use. And for ps2 depends on some games. Tales series run perfectly, as well as kingdom hearts series. Also it depends on what plugins you utilize, you have to use ones that will help with your graphics.

For wii, with my config Brawl runs full speed as well as new super mario bros, and zelda.


If you want some settings/links i can post here. Probably not legal>

If so just PM me

 

It's called Dolphin. It loves CPU Ghz, and it chooses to lock up at the most inconvenient times. It's not perfect by any means, but it works so well that I sold my Wii the next day.

 

I just found my Socom: Combined Assault game (PS2). I love the Socom series and can't wait to get off my lazy kick, and ship my M17x R2 so that I can play some Socom on the go

 

I hope it works for you, dude. I couldn't get it to do much. Best O' luck!

 

I love the PCSX2 emulator; with the graphics settings right it looks better than original PS2! I have FFXIII running at a smooth frame rate and AA+other stuff and it looks a helluva lot better than on my PS2 (yes, I evened fired up the old bird just to check). Load times are better, only thing is it took me a bit to get the controls mapped right to my game pad (which is strange since i used a Dual Shock 2 and the Radioshack PS2-to-USB adapter).

 

PCSX2 is awesome if you have dual cores with 4GHz+ and a mainstream GPU. Not so awesome for the m17x though. I'm forced to use speed hacks and scale 2X for most games to get consistent 60 FPS. Anything bellow 60 fps plays like rubbish.

Some games are impossible to play without speed hacks (God of War 2 for example).

I only wish the PCSX2 dev team improved the emu to utilize more than 2 cores.

 

Thanks mate, working very well on the 2 games I've tested so far !

From what I've read, the biggest bottleneck with PCSX2 will be your CPU - browsing their forums seems to indicate that the GPU doesn't make a huge amount of difference. I think they recommend at ~3.0Ghz as a minimum?

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like there is a lot of momentum to release regularly updated versions of the emulator/plug-ins lately though, which is a shame.

 

Thanks for the guide Killiandros!

 

Exactly. 3.0 GHz is the reccommended minimum. Though I suppose if the emu took advantage of more cores minimum could be something like 1.8 GHZ, or maybe even lower than that.

 

Good stuff. Subscribed

 

Thank You for the guide and links!

 

I'm all about the SNES emulators.



Chrono Trigger is still one of my all time favourite games. Plus I find it irritating to play games that were designed for use with an analogue stick on a keyboard. If you have a controller it's much more fun. Good find though, didn't realise there was a decent PS2 emulator out there!

 

Hmm...
FF12 looks a LOT better on this emu than on PS2/PS3

 

That's what I thought too. PS3 didn't do as good of a job up-scaling as this did I guess.

 

Im going.to have to try this. Been meaning too but no time. Working three jobs and just moved to a new apt. Oh, and benchmarking lol.

My bro and friend were huge into Chrono Trigger. Im more into socom and ace combat.

 

So I was reading a bit more of the OP and was wondering, you can really use your own game discs to play with? I didn't think PS2 discs were readable by regular drives. It'd also be kinda nice to be able to rip iso's of all my old PS2 games for backup because most of my favorite rpgs were on PS2.