How to Run PlayStation 2 (PS2) Games on Your PC with PCSX2

There has always been a gap between computer gamers and console gamers. Generally because of the impossibility of a console gamer to play computer games or a PC gamer to play console–only games. Luckily for us, some people just don’t understand when to quit and keep on trying to create a bridge between consoles and computers as far as gaming is concerned.

Those people are the ones behind console emulators for the PC allowing PC gamers to play titles that appeared in a console-only format. This is how emulators such as Chankast for the Sega Dreamcast, Dolphin GameCube emulator, ePSXe PlayStation One emulator and many more appeared. Next generation consoles, however, seemed to be impossible to emulate on a modern computer mainly because their architecture is pretty different from that of a computer. Although it is said that console manufacturers have created emulators, there are no real facts confirming these speculations.

There are numerous teams working on Xbox360 and Nintendo Wii emulators, and one has just succeeded in making the first emulator to play PlayStation 2 video games. Starting with version 0.9.6, PCSX2 can play most console games on your computer at acceptable speeds. I will continue by showing you how to configure your PCSX2 emulator. Let’s start with the basics:  After completing the installation, double click the short cut created and start configuring your emulator.

The graphics: configuring the graphics is easy. Go to the Graphics section and choose to use the GSdx 890 0.1.14. Plug in and choose these settings: Resolution: Windowed, Renderer: Direct3D10 (Hardware), no Interlacing, texture filtering and an internal resolution of 1024 x 1024. Now, press OK and you have just configured your graphics to play PS2 games at fast frame rates. The emulator should be preconfigured but better safe than sorry, right? In case you don’t have a DX10 compatible video card, Direct3D 9 (Hardware) is always an option.

Let’s continue by configuring the sound. My personal favorite is SPU2-x 1.1.0. Choose the “configure option” and make sure you use Linear Interpolation and XAudio 2. These should be the recommended options so you won’t have any trouble (don’t tick any other option… it will make the emulator highly unstable).

For the Cdvdrom emulator, it’s best that you use Gigaherz’s CDVD Plugin 0.7.0 and choose the drive you will be inserting the CD in. Side note: if you are planning to use disc images and not actual discs, I advise you to load them up with a third-party tool, such as Alcohol or Daemon Tools.

The last part of the basic configuration is the First and Second Controller configuration. My personal favorite is LilyPad 0.9.9. Choose this plug in, then press configure and start configuring your buttons (I can’t help you on that one because you know better than anyone how you want to play. A word of advice, though: the L Stick controls movement in most PS2 games so you might want it configured to your arrow keys or WASD keys. The R Stick usually controls the camera.

So, you have configured your game, yet it still runs slowly? Then, let’s get to the more advanced options, shall we? First of all,Cpu Config: if you don’t have at least a dual core CPU, don’t even think about running the PCSX2, since it is pretty CPU intensive. If you have at least a dual core, just tick all the options in order to get maximum speed and choose Limit for the Frame Limiting option. Normal will give you lower speed, Frame Skip will give you bad FMV in most games and VU Skip is Frame Skip just worse.

The “Game Special Fixes” menu allows you to choose custom options for certain games that sometimes happen to have a good effect on other games as well. It’s best if you tick them all.

Now, heading to the PCSX2 Speed Hacks menu. Although it has a lot of options that increase speeds, I have found it works best when you use a Default Cycle Rate and enable INTC Sync Hack, IOP x2 Cycle Rate, as well as WaitCycles Sync Hack. After pressing OK, head over to the Advanced Options tab where you should just choose the default options and not bother yourself with anything else (really touchy, this one).

Even if the configuration is officially over, you should know that in order to play PS2 games, you need a bios dump from a PlayStation 2 console (put it in the Bios folder... that's what the Bios folder is for). Although there are many easy (illegal) ways to obtain the files, I strongly recommend the legal way: using a bios dumper and dumping the bios from a PS2 console. These settings allowed me to play PS2 games at more than acceptable speeds.

It has worked on two low to medium-end PCs: an Intel Core 2Duo CPU E7200 2.53GHz, 2046 DDR2RAM with GeForce 8600 GTS 512VRAM AND an AMD Athlon 64 X2 2.1 GHz, 2046 DDR3 RAM with GeForce 8500 GT 512 VRAM/ATI Radeon X1300 with 512VRAM.                                                        

The USB Stealth Bot Covert Data Extractor

I bet 99% of you reading this have always wanted to see how it is to live the exciting life of an outlaw. Well, unless you're planning on robbing a bank any time soon, I have just the thing for you. The Stealth Computer Spying Tool will allow you to steal... copy data from another computer the way only those rugged, feared, cyberspace outlaws called hackers are able to do.

All you need to do, at least from what BrickHouse Security explained, is to insert the device into the target computer's USB and, after five seconds, remove it. After removing it, data nano bots begin a total mapping of the computer, saving unlimited text logs and storing up to 10.000 screenshots. When you want to retrieve the information, just make your way back to the computer, reinsert the device into the USB slot and everything will be retrieved.

Funniest thing about this little gadget is not what it does but who sells it and how. I'm not sure whether you caught in on the humor of it all but this thing is being sold by BrickHouse Security, a security firm that usually combats such unlawful attempts. Instead, it is now selling a device that supposedly almost no antivirus can detect. And it is selling this somewhat illegal merchandise (say I want to use it with... a bank computer and actually manage to download information) through legal means.

This device will allow you to capture screenshots of the computer, keystrokes (the way keyloggers do) and even visit websites. The amount of data this device can store is around 1GB. Let me paraphrase its home site a bit, “Do You Know What People Are Doing On Your Computer? 15% of children admit to chatting with strangers online, 1/3 of divorce litigation is caused by online affairs, 25% of company time is spent by employees goofing off”... and 99% of the people who bought the Stealth Bot Covert Data Extractor use it for illegal actions.

Liquid Cooling for the Dell XPS Series

As you probably know, the gaming community is never easy to satisfy in terms of “price-to-performance” ratios. But Dell usually does that and has especially succeeded with its latest XPS 625 and XPS 630 gaming desktops that have recently received an upgrade bound to make overclocking fans jump for joy.

As you probably already know, the 630 packed an NVIDIA nForce650 SLI Chipset, overclockable Intel Processors, overclockable memory (up to 4 GB DDR2 RAM), 1TB HDD, as well as an optional Blu-ray drive and an array of NVIDIA and ATI single or dual graphics options. The Dell 625, however, had an AMD Phenom II X4 940 (3.0 GHz) Quad-Core Processor, 4GB DDR2-800 Memory, an ATI Radeon 4850 PCI Express 2.0 graphics card with 512 MB memory and a 150GB HDD.

Although not really impressive, the devices offer enough power to cope with any new game on the market, as well as make them very affordable as far as gaming desktops are concerned - 899 USD (the 625 version) and 1099 USD (obviously, the 630). Who said gaming had to be expensive, right? Gamers already pay a lot of money on the titles themselves, it is nice for companies such as Dell to cut gamers a little slack and not tag their latest gear with an exaggerated price.

So, what could Dell add to its systems that is supposed to make overclockers happy? You guessed it folks, a liquid-cooling option. As some of you might know, these systems were a little loud and had a problem with heating if overclocked to a certain degree. Not anymore. Users have an option to replace their fan-based cooling system with a liquid cooling one from Asetek. With just an extra 120 USD, you'll be taking your CPU to new heights.