What are /r/PCSX2's favorite Products & Services?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

this is the official site and it is 1.5. http://pcsx2.net/download/development/git.html

for whatever reason, the PCSX2 people decided to have the worst website design on the net and make it difficult to find 1.5. and then also labeling it as "unstable" doesnt help. 1.6 should be released soon and maybe they'll put a little better effort into their website.

You didn't even look at the PCSX2 website, the Guide/Configuration Guide is right at the top center of the page. It breaks everything down to fairly simple terms on what each setting does and the descriptions can tell you which setting would work best in most cases.

What /u/nobbs66 was trying to say about Presets, is that there is a slider under Config > Emulation Settings menu, located at the bottom left corner (see here).

If you don't want to read through the guide, then stick to using that slider, the more you move it to the right the more hacks are applied to the emulator to potentially enhance the performance, but can also become unstable.

If you have at least a Quad-Core Processor, then the one option I would recommend you check out is MTVU (Multi-Threaded microVU1) found under Config > Emulation Settings > Speedhacks. For most games this will give you a great speed boost.

Go into Config > Video > Window to set your aspect ratio, and window size. You may want to change the Graphics Plugin, found under Config > Video > Plugin Settings. Depending on your graphics card, you can turn up or down the visual settings in here.

I recommend setting your Renderer to the highest Direct3D ## (Hardware) your card supports, I usually leave Interlacing (F5) off, you'll want Resolution to be at least 2x, I don't have the horse power to support Shade Booster/FXAA/FX Shader, but if you got it try turning them on. You can change the MSAA value under the Enable HW Hacks Configure... button, CRC Hack Level you'll want to set to Aggressive if you're using DirectX, otherwise if you're using OpenGL set it to Full.

That's mostly all I change, but read through the guide. It will answer what the other settings do.

Your processor has an STR of 1397, we usually wanna see a bare minimum of 1500 and something closer to 1800+. That might be why your game is not running at full speed.

Do you happen to own any of the games on the list of games that are easy to emulate? I'm curious to see if you get full speed on one of the games from that list. Because if not, there might be something else going on.

Yeah that Core i7 has an STR of 1575 which is definitely better than the Core i3 on the other laptop, but I'm afraid it's still not good enough for Kingdom Hearts II: Final Mix. You'll still run into slow downs. :-\

Unfortunately your laptop's CPU is way too under-powered to run this game (or mostly any PS2 game) at full speed. We recommend a bare minimum STR of 1500, and we like to see CPUs in the 1800+ range for full compatibility in most games. Your CPU has an STR of 819.

try pcsx2 1.5. http://pcsx2.net/download/development/git.html

..and Gt3 in particular does not like high resolution settings. probably shouldnt go past 3x with that GPU regardless of what your percentage graph shows

use pcsx2 1.5, use 3X resolution. use dx11 or openGL hardware mode... and do not use any of the MSAA options with that GPU. it will just needlessly slow it down http://pcsx2.net/download/development/git.html

Download dev build here: http://pcsx2.net/download/development/git.html and turn on hardware mipmapping in GSDX settings. At least when I last played those games on dev builds they worked pretty much flawlessly.

You need to install the Visual C++ 2015 redist to run these builds. go back http://pcsx2.net/download/development/git.html and make sure you click the link in the sentence "You need to install the Visual C++ 2015 redist to run these builds." at the top.

No worries, I forget to include things all the time in my messages lol.

Alright so I see that your PCSX2 folder says 'OMAR's PACK'. Would you mind trying an official version of PCSX2 to see if that fixes your issue? You can either try the latest stable version, which is 1.2.1, or you could try one of the newer development builds. I recommend development builds since that's what I personally use, as do a lot of other people, and have never ran into problems. I've been told that the stable versions run better since they're more optimized so if your game doesn't stay at a stable 60FPS with a development build, maybe consider trying 1.2.1. I will note however that the unofficial version you were using was a development build, since it was 1.3.0. So if that was performing fine, I'd definitely say go for a development build.

You can get the latest development builds here: http://pcsx2.net/download/development/git.html

You can get 1.2.1 stable here: http://pcsx2.net/download/releases/windows.html

Once you download and unzip the .7z file (I recommend using 7-Zip, it's a great open-source compression/decompression program), go ahead and open up the emulator and go to the 'Speedhacks' tab in the Emulation Settings window and turn on MTVU, that helps to speed games up quite a bit, especially Kingdom Hearts II.

Hope that helps. Let me know! And hey if you find that the game plays just fine, I would recommend changing from native resolution to something like 2x or 3x, so you can play the game with better-looking graphics. :)

That CPU has an STR of 1853 which is pretty good, but it might not be good enough for the GTA games since those are pretty CPU-intensive. Which version of PCSX2 are you using and what are you settings?

>If you are making a post asking for support, please include the following information:

>* Your computer's specs - CPU, graphics card, memory and operating system. * The version of PCSX2 you are using and where you downloaded it. * Any non-default settings you are using. (screenshots preferred) * What games you are trying to play and if you are playing them from an ISO or DVD.

>Don't forget to thank the users that help you by upvoting their helpful comments!

Emulation is mostly about single-thread performance, depending on the game you could need an STR (Single Thread Rating) of 1300 to anywhere north of 2100. According to PassMark, your CPU's STR at 1326. More than likely you won't be able to play many games at full speed but it's worth a shot. What games do you own?

> i7 was good for gaming

Ehh....sort of. Nowadays it's becoming more useful for gaming since more games are taking advantage of the higher thread count on an i7 but honestly i5s are still a better bang for your buck. That's strictly talking about PC gaming though...emulation is its own beast.

For emulation, specially modern emulation, you want the highest single-threaded performance you can afford, which usually means getting a CPU from the newest CPU architecture and getting the highest clock speed CPU. In your case, the i7-640M your laptop has is a 7-year-old CPU who's STR is 1310 which is not that great. I'd say try using the speed hacks to see if that helps you get full speed in the games.

Hm...I'm actually not sure how CPU-intensive Budokai Tenkaichi 3 is. I looked at your CPU on PassMark and it has an STR of 1599, which is not bad; not close enough to our recommended STR but still not bad.

If you could give me some more information on this, that would help out. Namely which version of PCSX2 you're using and what settings you've changed. (custom resolutions and stuff like that)

Your issue is your CPU, it's far too weak for modern emulation. The STR on that CPU is 920, whereas we like to see a bare minimum STR of 1500, and we recommend 1800+ to play most games (not all) at full speed.

The problem is your processor. It's way too weak in the single-threaded performance department. The problem is even worse than usual for this game in particular since you have to run it using a software renderer, which doesn't leverage the power of your GPU at all, it puts all the work on the CPU. You could try giving the software renderer more threads by going to Config > Video (GS) > Plugin Settings and adjusting the number next to "Extra rendering threads" (towards the bottom of the window) but I wouldn't hold out hope. It's still worth a shot though since that game is 2D so it would seem easy enough to emulate I guess.

Just to give you a better idea, we recommend a bare minimum STR of 1500 (and we like to see CPUs more in the 1800+ area) and your CPU has an STR of 1396.

Yeah that processor has an STR of 1205 which is below the bare minimum of 1500 that we recommend. We like to see CPUs in the 1800+ range so you can get playable speeds in most games.

I'd recommend taking a look at the List of Easy to Emulate Games and see if you own any of those, they should play well on your CPU. Other than that, yeah, you'll need a new CPU+motherboard. :-\

>I do have an i7 4770K and a GTX 660, and I've been able to run Shadow of the Colossus fine with 3x native upscaling Not really sure what point you're trying to make here. You being able to play the game certainly doesn't mean that he'll be able to. The i7-4770K is in another league, his FX-6350 couldn't even hold a candle to it. Your CPU's STR is 2261, that's an almost 800 point difference in single-threaded performance between your CPU and his. O_O

>and a friend of mine I believe (but could very easily be wrong) was able to run SotC with an FX6300+750Ti. This is to assume on my end that given the right setup in the settings, this game among many others should be at least playable.

You could be wrong OR he could have cranked EE Cyclerate and VU Cycle Stealing all the way (or almost all the way) up to get it to run at acceptable speeds. So yes technically you're right, there is certain settings you could setup to give a weaker CPU a fighting chance against this game but I honestly didn't think his CPU would be up to the task, even with the cycle hacks. He's more than welcome to try it though. No one would be happier than me if we can get him up and running on SotC. :)

> A lot of people grab emulators to play a small set of games, if not just one, and they'll tell you to "use these ultimate settings for full speed!!" but they could either be game-specific settings or not even the best settings to begin with. Hardware, especially CPU, is the biggest limitation you will have when emulating, since the CPU is doing the actual emulation. > Edit: I noticed a few days ago that 1.4.0 of PCSX2 came out. Might be worthwhile looking into using that version from now on.

Couldn't have said it better myself. :)

Damn, that sucks about your GPU man. Hope you can find something better on the cheap.

As far as your CPU though, you don't need a high-end one for PS2 emulation...just stay away from AMD. Even Intel's Pentium G3258 (a $75 CPU that goes on sale for $50 all the time) can run most PS2 games just fine. That little dual-core can overclock like crazy, and even with its stock speeds, its STR is sitting at 2172!

So yeah, just get yourself a decent Intel CPU and you'll be good to go. Feel free to message me or make a thread if you have any doubts about the CPU you pick out for yourself.

Cheers!

That processor is the problem. It's an almost 6-year-old CPU at this point and its STR is only 1197. We recommend a bare minimum of 1500 and like to see CPUs with 1800+ for most games to run smoothly.

You can try speed hacks like MTVU and maybe turning the EE cyclerate slider to the right a bit but other than that, I don't think there's much you can do.

Can you show me screenshots of your Emulation Settings? Also your Video (GS) Plugin Settings? One last thing would be your plugins, which you can see under Config > Plugin/BIOS Selector.

Thanks!

Yeah you can copy over your BIOS without any problems.

Your CPU's STR is 1512 which is basically the bare minimum we recommend. You are bound to see some lag spikes here and there unfortunately, there's nothing much you can do.

That CPU's STR is 1191, while we recommend a bare minimum of 1500 and prefer to see 1800+ for smooth gameplay in most games. I think you'll have problems even at native resolutions.

Which games are you planning on playing? Hopefully they're not on the CPU-Intensive list.

That's a gross exaggeration. You don't need a quad-core Core i7 for PCSX2, even if we're talking mobile processors. Dual-core Haswell i5s work just fine. Something like a Core i5-4300M would work just fine. That thing has an STR of 1819 which is plenty for all but the most CPU-intensive games. If you really want to take it to the extreme, you could go for a Core i5-4340M (which has an STR of 2105, holy shit!) and call it a day.

Unless he's wanting to play titles that require software emulation, going for a Core i7 is a huge waste of money for sixth-generation console emulation.

You're probably better off installing the PC version as it runs great with the widescreen fix.

https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Need_for_Speed:_Underground_2

Yeah that processor supports all the way up to AVX, so go into your Plugin/BIOS Selector and change your GSdx version to either SSE4 or AVX. There's no need to keep it at SSE2, that's the lowest end of the instruction set. Since you're going to be playing in software mode, I'd definitely say to go with AVX since that instruction set is known to help performance in that mode. Keep in mind that your i5 is an ultra-low power i5 running at 2.3 GHz, which means it won't perform as well as other Sandy Bridge i5s like the i5-2500K which runs at 3.3 GHz and can be overclocked even higher than that. Your CPU's STR is only 1580, which is just above the bare minimum we recommend for PCSX2. Don't be surprised if you can't get 60FPS in software mode. Like I said earlier, software mode doesn't use your GPU at all so your CPU has to do all the work. Try setting the 'Extra rendering threads' setting to 2 or 3 and see which one helps you the most.

Also since you don't have any HW Hacks turned on, I'd recommend just unchecking the "HW Hacks" checkbox so that anyone helping you in the future doesn't think you have some HW Hacks turned on and asks for a screenshot of them, like I just did. It doesn't really affect anything if you leave it checked though since you haven't changed anything in there. It's up to you.

You're very welcome man. Feel free to come back if you ever need more help. :)

>My computer isn't the greatest, but I have no problem running GTAV and The Witcher 3 on all med-high settings.

That tells me nothing about its ability to emulate PS2 titles. Running native code and emulating another piece of hardware are two very different things that have different hardware requirements. Most PC games require a strong GPU whilst PS2 emulation first and foremost requires a strong CPU, specifically one with high single-threaded performance.

>AMD FX 8350

And there it is. That processor has an STR of 1506, which is the bare minimum we recommend for PCSX2. We usually prefer something in the 1800+ range. Depending on which games you're trying to emulate, I wouldn't be surprised if most of the ones you tried didn't run at full speed on a system using that CPU. I still find it very odd that Bandicam's framelimiter would help you in this situation. Would you mind telling me some of the games you're trying to emulate?

>You knew what he was talking about. Why did it have to go beyond that?

Because it is incorrect and I want future readers of this thread to have the correct terminology listed for them.

You are correct, the most important hardware part for emulation (not just PS2 emulation but GameCube/Wii emulation as well) is the CPU. More specifically it's single-threaded performance. We suggest a 1500 Single Thread Rating in PassMark.com as a minimum, with an STR of 1800+ being preferred. A Pentium G3258, with its 2178 STR will be more than enough for emulation (unless you plan to play PS2 games that require software mode such as the Jak & Daxter series), there's no need to go as high as an i5 and definitely not an i7. If anything just bump it up to an i3-4130 so you can have more threads for better software mode performance.

If you're planning on doing PC gaming though, I definitely recommend getting an i5. I would go for the i5-4690K specifically because it's the most powerful one available AND since it's a 'K' it comes with an unlocked multiplier so you can overclock it for even more power. :)

The most important thing for modern emulation is single-threaded performance. Everything else is inconsequential. If you want to play anything past 2xnative resolution then you'll probably need a GPU though. You don't need a beefy GPU though, even a cheap GT 740 will do the job for the most part.

That all being said, the single thread rating for your CPU is 1371, which is a bit below the minimum we recommend for PCSX2. Usually we're looking for at least 1500 and higher, preferably 1800 or higher. Try looking into some other CPUs. The Pentium G3258 is an amazing contender and you can even overclock it on some cheap B-series and H-series motherboards.

Your processor is no where near powerful enough to be running PS2 games at full speed. That's why your games are running in slow motion, PCSX2 is not reaching full speed. If you look at the GS window's title bar when you're playing a game, you will see an FPS measurement. Notice that it's not at 60FPS, which denotes full speed.

You will need to buy a new computer that has a better processor (something with at least a 1500 Single Thread Rating) if you hope to use emulators like PCSX2 and Dolphin.

this list is old but it will give you an idea of cpu intensive titles https://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-LIST-The-Most-CPU-Intensive-Games

also, use pcsx2 1.5 instead and see if speed is improved http://pcsx2.net/download/development/git.html

upgrade to pcsx2 1.5. it will show the rez at the top menu bar http://pcsx2.net/download/development/git.html

also, some games will glitch if u use a custom rez. better to use multiplier / scaling rez like 4x, 5x etc...and always use openGL unless speed becomes a factor. it is the most compatible these days with the least amount of glitches

Boy, it would sure help if you read the whole page and see what the emulator requires to run before you ask for help. That dll does NOT go in your plugins folder, nor should you download single dll files from the internet. EVER.

> Also switching from DirectX to OpenGL renderer might improve your performance a little, but I'm not familiar with APU video performance so give it a shot.

It won't help, in fact it'll probably make it worse. AMD's video card drivers perform horribly on PCSX2's OpenGL renderer because they don't have threaded optimization turned on. (Source: http://pcsx2.net/269-major-gsdx-progress-monthly-reports.html)

Like I mentioned in the comment above, the console's log is in emuLog.txt. You can just provide me a pastebin of that and it should help me see what's going on.

In your GSdx Plugin Settings, use the scaler instead of a custom resolution. Custom resolutions are known to cause issues.

Also, let's get your PCSX2 settings back to normal: turn off the manual game fixes @Neur0n1 suggested and turn the Speedhacks back on. In the Speedhacks tab, turn on INTC Spin Detection, Wait Loop Detection, mVU Flag Hack (those are all on by default) and turn on MTVU as well since you have a muti-core processor.

Official 1.3.1 builds are hosted by Orphis's buildbot. Here you go: http://pcsx2.net/download/development/git.html

Which renderer are you using? Direct3D9 hardware? Direct3D11 hardware? OpenGL hardware?

Have you tried using the latest development build?

Have you verified your ISO? Maybe it's corrupted. If you'd like to be extra sure, compare its CRC or SHA-1 hash with the one found in redump.org.

What /u/nobbs66 and /u/woried said. Also besides the configuration guide, there's also the wiki. That explains a number of things, specially GSdx settings: http://wiki.pcsx2.net/index.php/GSdx

Also if you download the latest nightly build, most (if not at all by this point) of the GSdx options have tooltips on them explaining what they do. Here's a link to the nightlies: http://pcsx2.net/download/development/git.html

Are you on a laptop or PC?

Not sure if this is the case, but I'm running an i7-8700K, and my PCSX2 lagged previously due to my CPU overheating.

I only learned that was the problem when I used this program to measure the temps of my CPU cores (it's free)

https://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/

Probably worth checking, at the very least. I ended up switching out my PC's default cooling system for a $45 fan cooler that greatly reduced the temps, and voila - no more laggy PCSX2 (except for broken games, of course)

If you're playing on a laptop on high performances, it may be worth to experiment with light undervolting. This is all assuming overheating is your main issue (it may not be).

don't use it trough steam, use it with SCP toolkit driver, wich will set it for the pc to be recognized as an xbox 360 controller, then you'll have no problem recognizing it in any emulator or also any steam games.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/scptoolkit.mirror/

mymc image of memcard: save datas that are missing are Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4, Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam, and Namco X Capcom

The wiki page didn't mention anything glitchy about it except the excess RAM usage issue.

I was going to recommend using the GC version instead until I knew it's poorly unstable in Dolphin at certain instances.

The PC version is in a bad need for hacky solutions to make it properly running on Windows , don't know if Wine runs in it in Linux or not.

So the PS2 version is the best one you can have at the meantime , though it's still recommended to use 1.5.0 over the stable version.

Don't think you'll get full speed in SotC (without speedhacks anyway) with that processor. Its STR is 1993 and I can't get full speed in that game with a 2100+ STR processor.

Your CPU has an STR of 1250 so honestly you're not going to get full speed in Jak & Daxter, sorry to say. You could try really heavy EE Cyclerate and VU Cycle Stealing but it's not going to be a smooth experience. :-\

I know it's not ideal but you should be able to invert inputs by binding them backwards in Lilypad.

Core count doesn't really matter to emulators, it's clock speed. Maybe your dual-core ran at higher clocks than your quad-core. I just looked it up and your i5-6300HQ has an STR of 1673 which is not that great. Have you tried bringing down the resolution or using the cycle speedhacks?

You also have to remember that newer versions of the emulator are more accurate, and usually with more accuracy comes greater CPU requirements. So it's entirely possible your older laptop ran it better because it was using an earlier build of the emulator.

Try the speedhacks, make sure you're using the best version of the GSdx plugin you can use, and try out different renderers as well.

The difference is entirely negligible, I wouldn't pay more for that older processor. If it's cheaper, go for it. But if not, don't. Here's where I'm getting the numbers:

i5-2500 - http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?id=803

i3-3240 - http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?id=765

The number you want to look at for emulation is the Single Thread Rating, or STR. It's the smaller number under the big, red number. As you can see, those two processors are about the same.

STR is the Single Thread Rating of your CPU, basically how well it performs in single-threaded tasks like emulation. It gives us a good idea on how your CPU will perform in PCSX2. In your case, your CPU's STR is 1803 which is pretty decent.

>2) I can only use ZeroGs 0.97.1 plugin for video, none of the GSdx SSEx or AVXx works at all.

Why not? It should work. Do you have DirectX installed?

> http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Pentium+G4560+%40+3.50GHz Well, if thats your cpu and it has that thread rating i think you can run it. MGS3 is somewhat difficult to run i believe but i think you can do 2 without much hassle.

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Pentium+G4560+%40+3.50GHz Single Thread Rating for the cpu.

http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Faq/What-is-the-PassMark-single-thread-score/51 Here is a "what is" for it.

OS: Arch Linux

Version: 1.6.0-1

Downloaded the ISO file from the Internet Archive.

Specs: https://www.reddit.com/r/UsabilityPorn/comments/gr68wo/bspwm_an_interesting_title/

I have a more powerful laptop running around that I'm hoping to run the game on later. I'm just using curious of how well this game will run on the laptop show.

~~I enabled the gamefix and still the same.~~ FIXED

>Do you have the "Enable Widescreen Patches" option ticked?

Yeah I had to tick that option. But it seems that I don't have a CRC code? https://gyazo.com/d092592f0d9a257a52b332924439f6d5

Try this.

1. Get the dev build @ http://buildbot.orphis.net/pcsx2/ - there's no need to install or anything; just extract the files to your preferred location.
2. Taken from PCSX2 forum, follow this website @ https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33265663/api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0-dll-is-missing-when-opening-microsoft-office-file and get the 32-bit version of the runtime.

https://launchpad.net/~gregory-hainaut/+archive/ubuntu/pcsx2.official.ppa

is a ppa

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gregory-hainaut/pcsx2.official.ppa

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install pcsx2

ppa's are basically third party ubuntu compatible repositories. i think that that one is actually run by an official pcsx2 dev. gregory is a linux dev on pcsx2 if that is the same person.

I don't know much about AMD CPUs, sorry. The best thing I could recommend would be go to PassMark.com and look for AMD CPUs that are compatible with your motherboard with at the very least an STR of 1500. The FX-8350 that /u/Beastlysteve mentioned has an STR of 1505 so that should be serviceable I guess. I'd try to go higher-end if you can though.

I wouldn't upgrade your GPU if it's solely to play emulated games. Like I said, the thing that's holding you back is your CPU so if all you wanna do is better your emulation experience, buy a better CPU instead of a CPU and a GPU. Obviously if you're also looking to play PC games you might wanna consider upgrading your GPU but if we're talking emulation...spend more money on a nicer CPU.

The fact that your PC can't run it doesn't mean his necessarily will. Your FX-6300 has a higher STR than his FX-8320. Number of cores doesn't really mean much to PCSX2, it's more about the single-threaded power within each core than matters.

The STRs of both of your CPUs are close enough to where if you can run it at full speed in 4K then he probably can at least do 1080p though so that's good news for him, thanks for sharing. :D

Question though, are you running any speedhacks to get it to full speed at 4K? Specifically any cycle hacks.

Damn, your CPU has an STR of 1259 and it can run it at full speed? I feel like the game needs to be moved from the CPU-intensive list to the easy to emulate list. That's crazy. Are you using any speedhacks?

Unfortunately, you probably won't be able to. Your CPU has an STR of 1396 which doesn't come close to the bare minimum 1500 that we recommend or the 1800+ we like to see.

On top of that, GT3 is on the list of the most CPU-intensive games. Sorry brother! :-\

My guess is that your CPU is not able to handle the load from that game seeing how it sits at an STR of 1407. Run a program like MSI Afterburner or CPU-Z to confirm.

When it comes to console emulation, specially modern emulation, your CPU is the key. And more specifically your CPU's single-thread power. That processor has an STR of 1678 which should be pretty good for a good amount of games, but unfortunately not so much with demanding games like Xenosaga.

If you're looking for an upgrade, you need a stronger CPU.

I will report back and give you a complete list some time down the line. Is there anyway I can submit a log dump or something to verify? I was getting great performance and if it were down to the i3 or FX 8XXX or 9XXX series I'd definitely go for the latter since PCSX2 is probably not the only thing you'll be doing on your PC heh. The i5 is better in most cases (except for a few games that have engines that utilize all

This APU actually has an STR rating of 1500 as well so you could go for it too: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113393

Single thread rating and overall bench: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=AMD+A10-7870K

Though its overall numbers are lackluster compared to the FX series, it would be a great overall budget build since some Radeon GPUs are compatible to run in crossfire with this APU.

> i7-2600k

Your CPU's STR is 1943, which I don't think is enough to run the game at full speed. How many extra rendering threads are you giving the software renderer?

1. As /u/DolphinUser said, nope.

2. Emulation speed is almost completely CPU-bound, more specifically it's determined by the single-threaded performance of your CPU. Your i7-4770K has an STR (Single Thread Rating) of over 2000 (2261 to be specific), so you should be OK for almost all games.

As far as settings to make your experience better, just go into GSdx's Plugin Settings (Video (GS) > Plugin Settings) and crank up the internal resolution to somewhere inbetween 4xNative and 6xNative and you should be pretty much good to go. Another thing you can do is turn Anisotropic Filtering to 16x to help out with textures and mess around with the Texture Filtering option and see what looks good for you.

Enjoy!

P.S. If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask.

Your slowdowns are caused by your processor. It's a dual-core AMD processor from 2009. Its single-threaded performance is sub-par. Just to give you an idea, we recommend a bare minimum STR rating of 1500, with 1800+ being preferred. Your processor has an STR of 894, not accounting for your overclock of course.

I'd recommend going into the GSdx settings and turning the internal resolution back down to native and seeing if that helps. It should help in areas with lots of water effects, like the waterfall in Destiny Islands, for example. I also think you should try turning off MTVU to see if that helps. Sometimes MTVU can cause slowdowns instead of speedups, specially if you don't have a quad-core processor. Sometimes it helps though, so test it both ways.

Question: What made you think the issue was SPU emulation? The reason I ask is because I noticed in your screenshots that in the middle of your pirated Kingdom Hearts and BIOS downloads you also downloaded some SPU2 beta plugin and I wanted to make sure you weren't using it.

BTW I recommend switching from the shareware crap that WinRAR is to a truly free and open source piece of software like 7-Zip. :)

>If you are making a post asking for support, please include the following information:

>* Your hardware specs - CPU, Graphics Card, Memory, Operating System. * The version of PCSX2 you are using and where you downloaded it. * Any non default settings you are using. * What games you are trying to play and if you are playing them from an ISO or DVD.

...but I can tell you right now the problem is your CPU. It has an STR of 1431 and we recommend a bare minimum of 1500. We'd like to see it more in the 1800+ range. My i5-4670K has an STR of 2100+ and still stutters at times with really intensive games.

Yeah his CPU is definitely the bottleneck here. Its STR is 1326 which is quite a bit under our bare minimum recommended STR of 1500. We usually prefer somewhere around 1800+ for smooth gameplay on most games.

It's your CPU. That thing is woefully underpowered. Its STR is 826. We recommend a bare minimum of 1500 and for a game like MGS2 you need more like 2000+.

Take a look at the sidebar for a link to a list of some easy to emulate games. Maybe your laptop is good enough for some of those.

If you're on a budget and want a nice setup, look into building a desktop with a Pentium G3258 in it. That's a GREAT CPU that only costs $70.

Looks like PCSX2 is switching over to a software renderer for that game (which is a good thing since there's some gnarly textures in hardware renderers due to missing mipmapping support), and software renderers only use your CPU's processing power. If you want to switch back to hardware mode, just press F9 and it'll toggle the renderer temporarily to a hardware one.

Is this happening in other games as well? Or just Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal?

Your CPU's STR is 1581 which is probably not enough for using a software renderer with a CPU-intensive game like this one, which is why your emulation is not staying at/reaching full speed (what PCSX2 calls 60 "FPS"). If you want to try and achieve full speed, try going into the GSdx Plugin Settings and putting your "Extra rendering threads" to 2 or 3 (which number is best depends on your CPU and the game you're playing) to see if that helps. You could also try using the cycle hacks (EE Cyclerate and VU Cycle Stealing) but those will cause frame skipping issues if you crank them up too high.

If it was working good with your PS2 then the problem might be a driver issue with windows itself ....

I don't use a PS2 controller myself on PCSX2 but I found this wiki page for installing it on windows, https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Controller:DualShock_2

just follow the steps according to your OS and most importantly restart after installing it to take effect !

Your CPU's STR is 991 which is not enough to run most PS2 games at full speed. We recommend a bare minimum STR of 1500, with 1800+ being preferred. Your CPU is 7 years old at this point, I'd recommend upgrading to something a bit newer. If you still want to try to emulate PS2 games using PCSX2, feel free. Here's a video on how to do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plo8rMytBNg

Forgive me I don't mean to come off as rude or anything but I still don't see the relevance of the G3258 and its STR to this post or any of its comments. But anyway:

The i7-4770K has an STR of 2263, which is higher than the G3258's STR of 2170. Whenever you're comparing CPUs from the same architecture, in this case Haswell, you can easily know which one will be able to perform more instructions per clock (IPC), and thus have a a better STR, just by looking at clock speed: The i7 can turbo boost up to 3.9 GHz while the Pentium can't turbo boost at all and has a stock clock speed of 3.2 GHz. That's why the i7 has a higher STR. Obviously once you overclock the G3258 past 3.9 GHz (which is pretty easy to do, even on the stock air cooler) it'll have a higher STR than the i7 at its stock speeds.

Your processor's STR is 1555, which is right around the bare minimum STR of 1500 that we recommend. That's the problem you're having with games running so slow. We prefer processors in the 1800+ range.

As far as the brightness being low in Stuntman, that seems to be an issue with GSdx's hardware mode. Try switching over to software mode and seeing if that fixes it. Just remember to change your Extra rendering threads setting to a higher number than '1' so that your CPU's threads help out with the work. '2' or '3' should work, test them both and see which one gives you better performance in that game.

Same thing goes for Smuggler's Run and the Jak & Daxter games; they are known to have issues with GSdx's hardware mode. Switch to software mode and they will look perfectly fine.

Also your processor supports up to the AVX2 instruction set so I'd recommend choosing the AVX2 version of the GSdx plugin instead of the AVX version. It should help you a bit with performance, specially with emulating games in software mode.

Honestly there's no AM3+ socket CPU that's good enough at stock clocks to emulate most PS2 games at full speed. Even the mighty FX-9590 with its 4.7 GHz isn't enough. Its STR is 1726.

Unless you're willing to overclock (which I highly recommend), there's not much you can do to get an AMD CPU to play the more CPU-demanding PS2 games. You'd have to switch over to Intel.

Hm...your CPU's STR is 1905, that should be enough for running this game at full speed. Is your Power plan set to "High Performance" and are you plugged into A/C power?

What happens if you set the EE Cyclerate and VU Cycle Stealing speedhacks to their default positions?

No problem. I'm glad I could provide enough info. :)

>Question if I were to upgrade to an a10-4600m would i be able to handle the ps2 emulator?

No, that wouldn't really do it. The A10-4600M has an STR of 1008, which is still not enough. You need something with at least 1500, preferably 1800 or more.

I would recommend getting a desktop since it has more options as far as better prices and what parts you can upgrade later on. But If you absolutely have to have a laptop, go for a laptop with an Intel CPU. If you have any questions about CPUs, feel free to ask me before you buy them.

As soon as I saw the screenshot of your specs I knew what the problem was. It's definitely your CPU. We recommend a minimum STR of 1500 (we prefer 1800+) and your CPU has an STR of 794. That's no bueno sir. You can try MTVU to see if that helps any (and maybe even try the EEcyclerate hack) but you won't be able to get full speed in most games.

Another thing you could try would be going into the Plugin/BIOS Selector window and changing your GSdx version to SSE4, since your CPU supports it. Higher instruction sets will give you better performance in certain areas of certain games.

If you would like to have a system that can run PS2 games well, you'll need a new motherboard/CPU combo. I looked at the highest end CPUs available for your motherboard's Socket FM1 and they barely get a 1000 STR. If you're on a budget, you should get a Pentium G3258 and a B-series or H-series motherboard known to be capable of overclocking that CPU. You can acquire that for about $100-140. If you can afford it though, I'd recommend going for something a bit higher end like a Core i5 (i5-4690K, for example) since you want to be recording video while you game. Here's a budget build guide from one of our forum members:

http://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-Low-budget-build-for-pcsx2

Just out of curiosity, what are the specs on the other computer you were using when you typed up the OP? Maybe you can use that one to play PS2 games?

P.S. Your PC is either from late 2011 or from 2012, definitely not 2007. The AMD A6-3620 came out in December 2011. Just thought that'd be a cool little piece of trivia you'd like to know. :)

Frame drops are to be expected, that game is known to be CPU-intensive (see the link in the sidebar for the complete list) and your CPU is borderline acceptable for PS2 emulation. We recommend a bare minimum STR of 1500 (preferably 1800+) and your CPU comes in at 1599. There's still some things to try though: Go into the Speedhacks section and try turning on MTVU. This will make use of an extra core and can bring speedups to some games. Another thing you could do would be to overclock your CPU, if that's the sort of thing you're OK with doing.

Other than that the only thing I can think of is using the EE Cyclerate slider under the Speedhacks section but I don't know if it'll be effective in that game. Might as well try it though. Just make sure to slide it back when you're done.

Your CPU has an STP of 1506, which is the bare minimum we recommend for this emulator. Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus is known to be CPU-intensive, so it more than likely requires a more powerful CPU, something in the 1800-2100+ STR range. Are you able to overclock that CPU more? That should help.

Also make sure you turn on MTVU in the Speedhacks section, that could help quite a bit.

That's not interlacing you're turning off, that's DEinterlacing which is just a filter meant to mitigate the tearing effects you see when playing an interlaced source on a progressive display.

Several PS2 games could output 480p natively but it required starting up the console while pressing a certain combination of buttons. This could also be achieve in emulation through pnach files for some titles, including ones that did not offer it on original hardware.

List of PS2 games with alternative display modes

PS1 and PS2 games can easily be done on a PC, just like copying any disc pretty much. For PS3 follow the directions on this page, Gamecube and wii is here

controller This was the one i was thinking to get, cos its the closest to ps controls i could find which isnt absolutely shiet. (Not really comfortable with the xbox controller so yeah)

Either there's two (or more) programs called DS4Windows or the InputMapper guys are lying. DS4Windows is still being actively developed and it looks quite different from InputMapper: http://ds4windows.com/

From what I can see, InputMapper is closed-source and has ads, while DS4Windows's source is open and readily available in GitHub.

https://github.com/Ryochan7/DS4Windows

If you use a DualShock 4 or DualSense on your PC, this is a must have. Turn your PCSX2 controller configuration back to default and just laugh DS4Windows before you play.

https://github.com/Ryochan7/DS4Windows/releases is the uptodate fork for ds4windows, for Windows is very stable and lots of features, not sure on the Linux side should be fine though.

People keep recommending outdated release. There is an active thread for it on the forum as well. https://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-DS4Windows-J2K

Moonlight emulates Xbox 360 drivers I believe, so I think anything should work, but I've only ever used it on my phone. I'd personally use a Xbox or PS4 controller if I had them, but hey, I'm using a PS3 controller lol.

For DualShock 4, you'd need something like DS4Windows

A note on PCSX2 and Playnite: [I've written up how to get per-game settings working with Playnite here](/r/playnite/comments/g94q59/how_to_use_pergame_settings_with_pcsx2_emulator/).

Anything works as long as it's xinput. If you want true plug-and-play, you'll want to use an Xbox 360 controller but obviously your buttons will be different from what's on-screen.

I personally use DualShock 3's, because I already owned a PS3 and it's what I had on hand. You'll need to download SCPToolkit to get it to work on Windows.

Obviously, DualShock 4 is a bit overkill, but in case you're not aware, you'll be needing DS4Windows for it.

I would add the stuff from the sidebar to the OP, tbh:

>If you're having issues with the latest stable release, try downloading the latest PCSX2 development builds here: http://pcsx2.net/download/development/git.html

>If you are making a post asking for support, please include the following information:

>* Your computer's specs - CPU, graphics card, memory and operating system. >* The version of PCSX2 you are using and where you downloaded it. >* Any non-default settings you are using. (screenshots preferred) >* What games you are trying to play and if you are playing them from an ISO or DVD.

>Don't forget to thank the users that help you by upvoting their helpful comments!

try 1.5 and see if hardware mode works. use 1.5 and enable 'align sprite' hack in the gsdx plugin settings http://pcsx2.net/download/development/git.html and check wiki for other settings that may still be needed https://wiki.pcsx2.net/Rogue_Galaxy

In the sidebar there is this link:

http://pcsx2.net/download/development/git.html

The problem you are talking about is an issue that was fixed in development builds. You need to update.

Download the PCSX2 development builds here: http://pcsx2.net/download/development/git.html

If you are making a post asking for support, please include the following information:

​

• Your computer's specs - CPU, graphics card, memory and operating system.
• The version of PCSX2 you are using and where you downloaded it.
• Any non-default settings you are using. (screenshots preferred)
• What games you are trying to play and if you are playing them from an ISO or DVD.

The best 2 advices you will get:

1. Grab the latest git build from here.
2. Try it again here and if it misbehaves you can map your controller buttons manually.

for many games yes, decent specs. but for more demanding like MGS3 and GT4, SoTC etc, you will get some slowdown. try pcsx2 1.5 if u havent already http://pcsx2.net/download/development/git.html

and for gpu, you should probably stick with native resolution and use dx11 when u can.

probably not the answer you want, but use the GCN version with Dolphin if you can. it is so much better. as for the ps2 version, try pcsx2 1.5 see if it is faster for you. http://pcsx2.net/download/development/git.html

Like I said , download PCSX2 1.5.0 and copy the bios folder from the old PCSX2 you have and configure your settings normally.

Now for your video options , NEVER use DX9 unless you are forced to it like a workaround for some game (Which is a very rare case) so use DX11 Hardware , also it's better to use Bilinear PS2 option as it has less visual glitches than forced.

For speed hacks , enable it then check all four of them except fast CDVD , for the sliders it really depends on the game and your specs though so it needs experimenting and trying different but here's my tip.

VU cycle steal: +1 then +2 and only go +3 if you find your game to be reaaally stable and glitch free , this hack will give you a nice fps boost but can also give you false readings so you should test with it carefully.

EE cyclerate: No point to overclock the EE clockrate unless you have a monster CPU , which means don't go above 0 with this hack but you can go -1 or -2 if your game is having little lags which can help your CPU to adapt with it easily , -3 is not alot different from -2 and both can cause skipdraw (The framerate will be choppy but no lag) , and like I said these 2 hacks require experimenting to get the best result with them.

Download the latest build first here

After configuring it and error still persists then try with any other game iso and if it works then it's a bad rip.

try pcsx2 1.5. http://pcsx2.net/download/development/git.html

iirc, opengl works well in hardware mode but you have to enter each level in software mode first for the skybox to render correctly. there is also a 60 fps patch for the game. your cpu abd gpu should be able to handle that easily

you have an amd card and their drivers work awful with pcsx2 using opengl. its usually always slow. Use dx11 instead or get an nvidia when you upgrade and use pcsx2 1.5 http://pcsx2.net/download/development/git.html

This is where I got the emulator and the download: http://pcsx2.net/download/releases/windows.html

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-4370 CPU @ 3.80GHz, 3800 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s) Graphics card: GTX 960 Memory: 16 GB OS: Windows 10

I got this version of Theme Park Roller from The Iso Zone, and I think this is a CD version

You have not answered me about what version of the emulator you are running (the latest is here!), and I will still need screenshots of all your settings. :)

For now, I suggest changing your CDVDrom plugin to the latest Linuz ISO plugin and then configure it to point at your ISO and then try.

That it works with the older version is already a bad sign. Maybe give this version a chance? If that doesn't work what about this version.

While the color separation looks nice in the v1.0 build I don't think it is fixable. Maybe one needs to combine a newer gsdx with the older core. But first test the links I provided.

We have a compatibility list. When you click on the entries you often have the possibility to get a link to the forum report from one of the 'official beta testers' and a link to the pcsx2 wiki.

To be honest I wouldnt invest more time. Your pc can clearly not handle that game. Either stick to 2D games (Disgea maybe) or upgrade your pc. If you want to play most games with reasonable speed and optics improvement you need a fresh pc. Your cpu will be as well to weak for demanding games.

Because of dual layer issues you must use any git version v1.5.0-dev-460-gc829826 or over to get past this. Git builds can be obtained from the following link: http://pcsx2.net/download/development/git.html

According to the Destroy All Humans! page on the wiki, this is a known issue with GSdx's hardware renderers. It recommends to switch to a software renderer. If you're going to do this, be sure to set your 'Extra rendering threads' option to something like 4 or 5 so that PCSX2 takes advantage all of those threads your CPU has.

Another thing I suggest trying is switching to the latest development build and trying out the OpenGL renderer. At this point, the OpenGL renderer is more accurate than the Direct3D renderers so who knows? Maybe the issue is solved in the OpenGL renderer already and you don't need to settle for using one of the software renderers. :)

Link to development builds: http://pcsx2.net/download/development/git.html