Best PS2 Emulator for PC & How to Setup PCSX2 on PC :- hey everyone. Today, we will be going over the best PlayStation 2 emulator on PC, PCSX2. let’s get started. So now just a few months ago PCSX2 released a brand new version of the emulator. So in this article we will be looking into latest version of this application. Disclaimer, the performance of this emulator will vary from computer to computer. If you are running an outdated system, you may struggle to run PlayStation 2 games.
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Cut to the Chase
How to Install PCSX2 on PC?
First of all, you’ll need to download the setup of PCSX2. Click Here to go to the home page of PCSX2.
From there, head over to the Download tab and download it for the system of your choice.
After that, click the Windows button and then click on the pcsx2 1.6.0 installer. This is the file that we need, no need to go for the portable.
How to Setup PCSX2 on PC?
After the download from the website, open the Installer. You have two options here. I recommend selecting Normal installation.
While opening pcsx2 for the first time, there are two incredibly helpful links on this page. The first one is the Configuration Guide. I do recommend checking it out, there is a ton of good information. Secondly, there is a Readme and FAQ with more great information. Both of these links will be incredibly helpful especially if you’re having trouble setting things up.
As soon as you click Next. you will be greeted with a ton of different options. Try not to be overwhelmed here, because there really isn’t a whole lot you can actually do. A lot of these dropdowns are kind of just locked in there’s only one option to choose from so really I recommend at this point just hit Next.
As soon as you hit Next, you’ll be greeted with this screen above. This screen says select a BIOS ROM. You will have to provide your own BIOS. This is not included in the package now. To get a ps2 BIOS you will have to use your existing ps2 for reference as to what a BIOS looks like. This is a really good link, click here to get it. Alternatively, you could just enter ps2 BIOS into Google and do a little bit of a research.
Here, once you’ve placed your BIOS files in the appropriate folder, just click refresh list. It should pop up on the list above. And then click Finish. Now your pcsx2 is up and running.
PCSX2 Settings
Speed Hacks
The first thing we are going to do is to go into Emulation Settings.
From here, we will select the Speed Hacks tab and then select this option where there cursor is in above picture (MTVU). It’s a good speed up hack. Works great with 8 cores. select it if you have more than 3 or more cores, don’t select this option unless it fits requirements.
GS Loading
Now, if for some reason you run into GS loading issues, it may say GS plug-in issue (it may say some sort of GS issue). For that, we can go into the Config Menu, after that go into the Plug-in / BIOS selector and then just change the setting here.
So here we have three different GS settings. If the first one doesn’t work for you you can try the second one. If the second one doesn’t work for you you can try the third one. Hopefully at least one of them works. For most people the default one that is selected at the beginning of setup should be good enough.
GSdx Settings
Next up, if you are running into graphical issues or want to improve graphics or want to tinker with things, go into the Configuration Menu. Here, go to Video GS and then go into Plug-in settings.
This menu here will greatly change how each game performs on your computer.
For the first menu option here, in Renderer, OpenGL hardware is selected by default. This option here, I highly recommend playing around with and seeing what works best on your system. Different systems may work better on Direct3d 11 Hardware. Don’t worry about breaking PCSX2, you’re not going to. If the game doesn’t play, we’ll just change it back to where it was. This is an option where I would recommend changing it up tinkering around with. Get to See what works best for you. It will vary on a system to system basis.
The next item on the your list that it would recommend checking out is the Internal Resolution. Here you’re going to have to play around as well to see what works best on your system. But this is where you can really make those PS2 games shine. You can crank it up to 4k to 5k. Even if you want to see the games at an incredibly good resolution, it will require a lot more processing power. So that is just a heads up you can definitely play around here though and see what works best for you. Recommended will be Native or 2x Native.
Lastly on this menu, you can play around with the in Isotropic Filtering. So this will also make your game look a little more pretty. You can crank it up all the way to 16 times but again it will vary performance wise from PC to PC. Keeping it on off or 2x wont hurt. But you can definitely try stepping up one by one to get absolute best output.
So you can definitely play around with these three options. We just went over that are recommended changing at a very basic level.
Audio Settings
If you’re having audio issues or want to configure your audio or maybe the audio doesn’t sound just right. Go into the Configuration Menu, afterwards go into the Audio menu. Here, go into a Plug-in settings.
We recommend the default settings, those are usually pretty good. But for example if you do have some audio slowdowns or audio issues, you can just easily Disable effects processing, it will make the game sound considerably worse but will also help speed things up. Not recommended.
Controller Settings
If you want to configure your controller, go into the Configuration menu go into Controllers and then click Plug-in settings.
From here, you can click Pad 1 and map your controller manually.
CDVD / Start Game
To load a game, go into CDVD, then go into the ISO selector and then click Browse. From here, you want to select your ISO file for your PS2 game.
Once you have selected your ISO file of your game, go into CDVD again, go to ISO selector and double check to make sure it is showing up. This is a quick way to switch between ISOs as well switch between games when you want to play different games.
Then go to your System tab and go to Boot ISO (full) and you’re on your way.
So this is Capcom vs. SNK 2, up and running at full speed and using native PS2 graphics. We didn’t change anything on that GS plug-in settings page. But if I want to increase the graphics, if you remember when we said change it from native ps2, you can crank it all way up to 4k or 5K.
Tips on Best PS2 Emulator
If you want to know. how well the game is running on your PC? It’s a really easy and quick check. All you have to do is check the top bar of the game itself. So it will tell you the game is running at a 100% speed, at about 60 FPS, which is full speed for the game. What you might see on this top bar if you do crank up the graphics a little bit, or frames dropping during key moments in the game.
That is all we have for today. PCSX2 is a great emulator it’s fairly simple, fairly straightforward and hopefully now you have it up and running on your computer. If you have any questions, do let me know in the comments below.