Free Software PS2 Emulator PCSX2 Hits 1.0 202
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).
Unfortunately, the GL plugin sucks (Score:4, Informative)
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:Can it play from the disc? (Score:5, Informative)
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? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
PCSX2 is my computing timeline. (Score:5, Informative)
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.