emulation on my PS2

corc

Im opening this because i have read that you can get MAME running on your PS2 using the swap magic trick and i also have read of a SNES emulator that works on the PS2 also.

What i am looking for is anyone who has successfully tried any of the above and what PS2 configuration they have i.e. a PS2 with modchip or PS2 with fliptop using swap magic disks.

Ste-

http://www.zophar.net/consoles/ps2.html

Lists the emulators available on the PS2.
Not sure about the swap trick I always thought you need it modded.

DiscoStu

im pretty sure the swap trick will work for booting emulators.

bugs

Spent a LONG day getting these to work on my jap machine. The overall result is .... don't bother. Mame runs terribly, if you thought pc performance was bad, you ain't seen nothing yet. Its based on a linux port of mame is is bad enough before it sees the low end cpu in a ps2, end of the day, it runs nothing worthwhile playing, unless you're a space invaders fan. Seriously it wouldn't manage full fps on bubble bobble.

Pgen - the megadrive emu is average. Its got decent support for games, but in reality only the games the author has actually tested run at 45-50 fps, nothing runs at full speed. Its in beta form, but rarely if ever has updates.

Snes station - terrible, theres only been 1 public release, thats in well over a year. It doesn'y support sound for most games and the fps is 10-20 for practically everything. I spoke to the author on irc but even tho he plans another release, its clearly not going to be able to sort all that out.

That all said, i had hoped that being able to play the lot on my tv would be handy, its not....don't bother, it is actually a bucketload more enjoyable to run it on the pc.
If you're determined to run stuff, get an xbox, at the very least it can run most console emu's at full speed, gets regular updates and its essentially windows based so they can easily port stuff over. Plus it can run final burn....all they need now is some xbox games that aren't cr4p

DiscoStu

by a laptop and hook it up to the telly, thats what ive done.

mario 64 at 1024x768 on a 28'' widescreen looks damn good

Retr0gamer

I got 'it must be nes' (Ithink thats what it's called) for the PS1. It runs quite well on the games I've tested although the final fantasy games are really slow. There are some colour problems though. Haven't tried it on PS2 though.

corc

cheers for the replys. Ill try few out and ill post any success or failures that i have.

Retr0gamer

After a bit of experimenting here's what I thought of it must be nes, pgen and snes station.

It must be nes runs most games at full speed and runs on PS1 and PS2. It's great with games like mario. However the sound is a bit messy. The sound effects affect the bgm and seem to cut out channels of the bgm when they play. Also the final fantasy games are a little slow and the bgm plays at a slower tempo than it should and just sounds annoying. There are also so build up problems at the edges of the screen at times but you can live with these. It was worth the effort though just so I can play mario 3 and mega man 2 on a tv instead of the PC.

Pgen is an okay genesis emulator. The problem with it is that it really doesn't like more than 2 sprites on screen. The emulator says that most games are running at 30 fps but it is definitely a lot less. Also on many games the tempo of the bgm is very slow. There really would be no point in trying this emulator except for the fact that Shining Force 1+2 seem to run at 60 fps and the sound seems to be emulated well. These two games out of my collection of roms were the only games that ran at more than 30 fps.

Snes station is a dire snes emulator. It runs most games at full speed but if there are more than 3 sprites on screen or there is even a whiff of BGM or transparency effects then FPS drops well below 10 fps. Also there are loads of stupid problems with background layers with some games having layers in the foreground that appear in the background and vice versa. Just look at the intro for Metroid 3 for an example. It does however handle mode 7 very nicely with absolutely no trouble in handling super alestes 2nd level (even this makes my 1.2Ghz machine drop 3 fps from 60). You can play without sound but there isn't much point.

I also have a master system emulator but have yet to try it.