Cranking Graphics in PS2 games on your PC.

J

Jakalwarrior

2[H]4U
Joined
Aug 6, 2005
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Anyone try tossing your old PS2 games in your fast new rig with an emulator and cranking the graphics? The PCSX2 (I'm using playground version, speed hacks help my games a lot) emulator has a nice DX10 plugin available that lets you change the internal resolution. Boy do these old games look sharp when you jack up the internal res to your monitors native res. The difference between letting it use the games intended resolution and setting it to 1680x1050 was night and day for me. Making me dig out my old PS2 games just to see what they could have looked like! It did introduce a few very slight artifacts for me but they are nothing compared to the gains in the games I've tried so far.
 
I have tried the older ps2 emu's around last year with a copy of Soul Calibur 2, the experiance was horrible. I have always been looking to see if the emulators gotten any better, as I have all my old ps2 games just lying around...PS2 has officially been retired.
 
I still play rpgs on the ps2 since there are so many good ones. Hooking my ps2 up to my 1080p 24inch ws monitor with hd component connections looks great! emulators still kinda suck.
 
They do look significantly better, but I still get glitching and crappy performance in some games. Case in point, I'm playing Persona 3 now via PCSX2 so I can snap up some screen shots for my site and the performance leaves a lot to be desired. Works well enough for me though, the issues aren't bothering me enough to boot up the PS2 and the shots look AWESOME. :D
 
this makes me want to play some GT4 on my laptop haha.. would an oc'd p8600 be able to run this?

and crazy idea but is there a way to hook up a mem. card to the USB to get my old game saves?
 
Mystic-Micro said:
Post Screens Please!!!
Click to expand...

Yes please do, last time I looked into PS2 emulation, they were barely able to get FFX to play the opening cutscence. I figured things have come a long way since then but wow, I never thought games were completely playable yet!

Question, is it technically legal to download a ps2 bios as long as you own a ps2? I was going to ask where I could find one, but not if it would be ilegal.
 
ITSTHINKING said:
Yes please do, last time I looked into PS2 emulation, they were barely able to get FFX to play the opening cutscence. I figured things have come a long way since then but wow, I never thought games were completely playable yet!

Question, is it technically legal to download a ps2 bios as long as you own a ps2? I was going to ask where I could find one, but not if it would be ilegal.
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PS2 emulation is a lot better than it was before and there are many games that are fully playable. As for the BIOS, I'm not sure if it is illegal or not, but with a search on google, you can easily find one.
 
Good to here. I always wondered what ffx would look like with aa+af enabled, probably makes gt-4 look purdy as well.
 
Anyone know if Final Fantasy 12 is working on the emulator yet? I have a copy laying here but I don't feel like using my PS3
 
Anywho. The first game I was farting with was Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life SE for my wife. At first it had horrible artifacts and was unplayable (it is listed as broken on the compatibility list). The DX10 graphics plugin fixed the artifacts and the playground version of the emulator that I guess is open for the public to contribute too or something has "speed hacks". Before that my game was running too slow to play. CPU utilization was only about 10% and GPU was showing somewhere around 0%. Enabled all of the speed hacks and some of the in game timing was messed up (NPCs going too slow). Disabled the one labeled "unstable risky!!" or some such and in game timing went back to normal. Game now runs fast enough that it has to be throttled to keep it from running at 180-500% normal speed depending on location.

Also make sure you check in the CPU settings, there is a multi-threading setting and a dualcore setting. Even with both turned off my CPU utilization isn't high BUT the emulator runs like crap. Another thing I noticed. Using Vsynch shoots my cpu utilization through the roof and performance suffers. Game runs much better with it off. Just use the speed limit mode in the cpu setting instead. It keeps the game throttled and keeps the fps right around 60 so tearing is minimal (I didn't notice any).

Honestly I piddled with it for an hour or two to get it running good and pretty. Considering the game was listed as not working though, I am happy. Now that I am familiar with all of the settings though new games shouldn't take long at all.

I also just ordered GT4 from some ebay store that sells em for 5 bucks shipped used and without case / manual. I'ma play the heck out of that. It is another one listed as "sort of works" on the compatibility guide but there are plenty videos of people with it working on youtube.


---- Bios and legality----?

Can google how to dump your own bios from your own PS2. I dunno if that is legal or not either though.
 
How are you guys playing GTA IV on a PS2 emulator? GTA IV is a PS3 game. Are you talking about the PC version?
 
I'm very intrigued... although having a PS2 game natively render at HD resolutions might just expose grotty, low res textures.
 
Here are some of my screen captures:

http://www.rreactor.com/gallery/p31.jpg
http://www.rreactor.com/gallery/p32.jpg
http://www.rreactor.com/gallery/p33.jpg
http://www.rreactor.com/gallery/p34.jpg
http://www.rreactor.com/gallery/p35.jpg
http://www.rreactor.com/gallery/p36.jpg
http://www.rreactor.com/gallery/p37.jpg

Most of these were taken at 1400x1050 (I play Windowed) and a few at 1600x1200. The resolution doesn't really make that much of a difference, you notice more of the AA and the texture smoothing. I don't know why the shots come out blurry, but I plan on resizing them to 1024x768 anyway. It looks much better in motion, when at full FPS anyway. :D

You can also check out some of the artifacting there.
 
That's actually a pretty decent set for Persona 3. I already finished the game on a console and haven't tested it on PCSX2. I've been having too many problems with the textures and frame rate in P4 so I gave up on that and looking to pick up a new tuner card.
 
Well yeh cranking the res will make old games look better, with zelda MM i wanted to play it again, i set my N64 up and relized how blurry and crappy it looked to the point it was just unbearable, i think my N64 is broke though i honestly dont remember games looking that bad.

Ps2 emulators on the other hand are still shite, nothing is 100 percent compatable and they require too much arsing around with to get anything to run decent.
 
Yea... I wanted to play VP2, but it doesn't work. (I don't know where my ps2 is, so I can't do that either! Probably don't have all the cables together either, lol)

But those p3 screens look pretty awesome, compared to playing them on the ps2. And as for playing Zelda MM again, it's probably just because you've played more HD games recently, and you basing your judgment on that, that or different tv and it's not displaying it right due to resolution difference.
 
piXel said:
Well yeh cranking the res will make old games look better, with zelda MM i wanted to play it again, i set my N64 up and relized how blurry and crappy it looked to the point it was just unbearable, i think my N64 is broke though i honestly dont remember games looking that bad.

Ps2 emulators on the other hand are still shite, nothing is 100 percent compatable and they require too much arsing around with to get anything to run decent.
Click to expand...

a decent n64 emu like Project64 is your friend :)
reminds me though, I've gotta a hellava back catalog to get playing!
 
Hm. I'm gonna have to check this out. Need to get my gamepad back from my brother first though.
 
Wow, I was not aware PS2 emulation had come this far. Does anyone know of any good guides to setting this all up? I'll be looking into this later...
 
Yeah, I'm just looking around the website and forums now. Looks like I might have something to mess around with this weekend!
 
This comes in handy. I drive my wife to UNI and sit there for 4 hours on Thursdays. I may pop some emulators on my laptop (hp dv 9000) and have some fun. I thought about a PSP for this very reason but this would solve everything.

Would games like MGS2 or Killzone work on the PS2 emulator? Do you have to convert the disks to .ISO's or can you just stick them in and it reads them?
 
You can just stick them in and it'll read them. Check the compatibility list on the PCSX2 site to see if your games are even playable first though.
 
Depends on which CD-Rom plugin you load. Some are for isos, some are for CDs.

linus84 -
It does take a bit of power. Dunno what your laptop has in it but my two with integrated crap can't even dream of running it. If yours has a core2duo or X2 and a decent card you will prolly be alright.
 
Ok, took a quick screenshot when I had to go home on lunch break. Sadly it was dark outdoors. Anywho, one to add to what they look like at decent res. The textures really dont look bad usually, you just notice the tiles much more since they are more defined.

http://i40.tinypic.com/104f6mr.jpg
 
Jakalwarrior said:
Found an article on zelda 64 with cell shaded graphics or a high-res texture pack mod lol. http://fookhar.dk/2008/03/12/how-to-play-ocarina-of-time-with-cell-shading/

Anywho, you know these "great" LCD TVs look blurry as shit with low res stuff... but I do remember trying to play Zelda again and being severly underwhelmed with the graphics. Honestly though, I might try it again with the pumped up graphics via emulator.
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Looks pretty nice with those texture packs.
 
Hmm, think I'll give the ps2 emu a try also. I had the psx one a while back, but it still had some sound glitches.
 
Well I tried to get the PS2 emulator working on the rig listed in my sig and that was a no go. Not sure if I didn't set the settings right or what...but it ran like ass! I tried Killzone and according to the FPS meter it was hitting 20FPS. I know if it ran like that on my desktop rig...no way it will run on the laptop.

I kept everything at the default settings on the emulator. Should I have changed something?

I did install the PS1 Emu and it worked perfect. Tactics, Parasite Eve, MGS1 all ran perfect on the laptop. May just have to run back thru Tactics, PE, and FF7 and be happy. :) Not a bad way to kill some time!
 
everything is content filtered at work lame. Checking in so I can look at this when I get home.

Any free way to get saved games from my ps2 memory card to the PC? about 50 hours into persona 3 and would love to finish it on PC.
 
stevedave said:
everything is content filtered at work lame. Checking in so I can look at this when I get home.

Any free way to get saved games from my ps2 memory card to the PC? about 50 hours into persona 3 and would love to finish it on PC.
Click to expand...

Probably not, unless you have a modded or exploit-ready PS2 and the ethernet adapter. Though I've heard you can use the PS3/PS2 memory card adapter, copy the saves to your PS3, copy the saves from the PS3 to a USB drive and then copy them to your PC. Can't say I've ever done it, but it certainly sounds plausible!

I just hope I can finish the game without any game-stopping bugs because it would really suck to start over.
 
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