What is an emulator and do they work?

[Speedstang]

Ok, so I recently heard about these things called "emulators" that supposedly let you play games from consoles on PC. Is this true, and how does that work? The only console I have is the PS2, but I have about 60 games on it, and I love it, but it would be completely epic if I could play them on the PC. Would a PS2 emulator allow me to run those games on my PC? And how would I get one and use it? Any help at all is appreciated 😀

 

[Feel_Happy]

This is true.
http://pcsx2.net/ This PS2 emulator will allow you to play all of your old ps2 games in HD. (If your pc is powerful enough)

 

[getochkn]

Emulators are better for older systems many generations back. PS2 emulation isn't really there yet and it runs kind of slow and buggy. In addition, I don't know if your PC would be up for it. You need high power quad+ core system for emulation. In addition, I don't think there is a way to run the PS2 discs on a PC. You need a way to rip them and make images of them and I believe that requires special hardware.

Old Nintendo systems, PS1 isn't bad, arcade games, etc, emulate better. Maybe another 5 years we'll see good PS2 and Xbox and maybe the start of PS3/360.

 

[Speedstang]

Emulators are better for older systems many generations back. PS2 emulation isn't really there yet and it runs kind of slow and buggy. In addition, I don't know if your PC would be up for it. You need high power quad+ core system for emulation. In addition, I don't think there is a way to run the PS2 discs on a PC. You need a way to rip them and make images of them and I believe that requires special hardware.

Old Nintendo systems, PS1 isn't bad, arcade games, etc, emulate better. Maybe another 5 years we'll see good PS2 and Xbox and maybe the start of PS3/360.

My CPU is hyper threaded to quad core, and I have NEVER been able to lag it no matter what I throw at it, I love the thing, why do you think I have it as my user image, xD. As for the integrated graphics, they are handling far more then what I ever thought possible, and considering how old the PS2 is, graphics shouldn't be a problem.

What do you mean by slow and buggy? Just laggy?

 

[delaro]

A Emulator is hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the host) to behave like another computer system (called the guest). An Emulator typically enables the host system to run software or use peripheral devices designed for the guest system. "quote from Wiki"

Can you Emulate Console games, Yes is it all Legal? In the US Yes. Is it Ethical? No. To do PS3 and above you need some damn good hardware because of how the Consoles are designed. I have a HTPC that includes a Emulator of all Nintendo consoles up to the WII, All Sega Consoles and PlayStation Consoles up to PS3. We use 2 Bluetooth Dongles to control four PS3 Controllers as well as the Wii Controllers. Are all the Emulators free? no some of the good ones will run you as much as $50.

Does everything work? Yes Wii games actually look and perform better on a good PC than the Wii when you get the bugs worked out.
Does everything work like it does on a Console? No
Do I have frequent crashes and issues? Yes
Why did I do this? Because I didn't want a Wall of Consoles and hundreds of Cartridges and Disks laying around.

What are my system specs?
I5 4690K @4.5ghz Will upgrade to a I7 next year
970 GTX.. will upgrade to a R9 Nano around December
250 GB SSD
2 TB Hard Drive
16 GB RAM
SilverStone Grandia Series HTPC Case "Pain in the ass to get hardware in this thing"
55 inch Samsung 4K TV
24 inch Asus 1080p monitor

 

[getochkn]

It be better now. Looking at the link, looks like they have a lot more games than they used to working. Been a bit since I checked on the working titles. AND GPU doesn't really matter much, it's all about the CPU with emulation. PS2 and PC don't speak the same language so every single command the PS2 uses has be intercepted from the game, translated to something a PC can use, then be processed, converted back to PS2 language and then processed by the game engine.

This takes a lot of power, hence why in todays quad+ core world, we can just start to emulate a system that is like 10 years old.

Every game differs in performance. Apparently a normal DVD drive will read the discs too, since they went a CD-based system, so you could install the emulator, pop in a disc and give it a try and see how your system does.

 

[jossrik]

I've run PCSX2 for years now, and it's not that bad, depending on the game. As far as I know, you *can* run your DvDs on a computer, there's nothing fancy about them at all, they are just DVDs. If you have a DVD reader in your system, you can read them, and in many cases run them. Check out the PCSX2 website for more information. The hard part is that you need to get the bios from your PS2 to your computer, and getting the hardware to do that can be a pain. With integrated graphics, it will most likely bog your system down. The system I ran it on where is started to perform well was an AMD Phenom 2 X4 975 Black, paired with 8Gb of RAM and a 5750 graphics card, not the fastest by any stretch of the imagination, but it kept up with the games fairly well. Some games are optimized better than others. Some will run better than others, or not at all sometimes. Another pain is getting your controller from the PS2 to the computer, just more adapters and such. Xbox controllers will work though, the game will say press X, and the corresponding button on the xbox is I think A. So you gotta be on top of it. I say give it a try, if you need to beef up your system, then you can go from there, but I think the PCSX2 software is free.

 

[Archgaull]

I love running the Nintendo emulators on my PC, specifically the DS and Wii emulators.

 

[Speedstang]

So, beneficially it's super glitchy and it'd be much better to buy the PC version of the game then to run it on the emulator?

 

[Archgaull]

Well, obviously running a game that is meant for the PC will run better than using an emulator to run a game meant for the PS2/whatever your console of choice is.

However, the emulators for the DS/GBA/Wii are fairly solid, I have to say.

 

[Speedstang]

Well, obviously running a game that is meant for the PC will run better than using an emulator to run a game meant for the PS2/whatever your console of choice is.

However, the emulators for the DS/GBA/Wii are fairly solid, I have to say.

I only have the PS2 and just got a PS1.

 

[jossrik]

I have had no major problems with the PCSX2 program, with the exception of the learning curve to use it. Personally, I haven't had any games that didn't play well with it, and haven't had any problems with it being glitchy or iffy.

 

[gamerk316]

Emulators basically try and emulate how a system (the guest) works on another (the host) system. This is very expensive computationally, and very difficult to do properly if the architectures are significantly different. To this day, no NES emulator can actually pass all the NES test ROMs, even if every commercial title works without issue.

As far as consoles go, pretty much everything up to the PS2/Wii [No Xbox] has a solid emulator now, though with PS2 onwards you do still have a lot more compatibility problems. Honestly, the N64 is probably the worst of the bunch because it's so different, it's hard to emulate well. But for the most part, 80% of titles can be expected to run on the N64/PS2/Gamecube/Will without problems. In many cases, you can enable a lot of graphical hacks to make games look better.

As far as legality goes (at least in the US), here are the highlights:

1: Emulation itself is perfectly legal.

2: If required, you can legally make a backup of any required BIOS files from a system you legally own, per the BLEEM case decided by the Supreme Court in 1999. Downloading a BIOS file off the internet is illegal. Most emulators for CD-based consoles require one (or more) BIOS files at this point in time, so if you wanted to emulate the PS2 legally, you'd need to back up the BIOS from a PS2 console you own. And yes, I will note almost no one actually does this step.

3: Making backups of games you own is legal, per the DMCA. Easier to do with PS1/PS2 titles, since they are standard CD/DVDs with no copy protection. Breaking the copy protection (say, for Gamecube/Wii disks) is illegal under the DMCA. CD/DVD readers that can read Gamecube/Wii disks (few can) fall into a legal gray area, but are *probably* legal.

4: ROM hacks and independent translations are *probably* illegal, as it falls under unlicensed modification of code. This hasn't ever been tested though, and some companies are openly fine (to the point of hosting competitions).

Granted though, 99.99% of people ignore the legality aspect.