DamonPS2

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DamonPS2
DamonPS2.png
Developer(s) DamonPlay Technology Co., Ltd.
Latest version 2.5
Active Yes
Platform(s) Android
Architecture(s) ARM
Emulates PlayStation 2
Website daimengplay.com
License Closed-source

DamonPS2 is a commercial, closed-source PlayStation 2 emulator focused on the Android platform.

General Information

Unlike most of the emulators that are built by the community, DamonPS2 is developed by a commercial company called DamonPlay Technology Co., Ltd. in China, which made it a commercial product kind of similar to Bleem!.

To run DamonPS2 fluently, a high-end Android device is required, which CPU should be the same performance as Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 or better, as DamonPS2 team once suggested.

Compared to Play!, another PS2 emulator available on a mobile platform, DamonPS2 provides significantly better performance and more games playable, with minor issues. However, minor issues in certain cases can be a game-breaking issue, such as Densha De GO! 3 won't register inputs in its sub-menu, causing the game unable to start.

DamonPS2 doesn't come with a PS2 BIOS. Users need to provide a PS2 BIOS file (*.bin) in order to use the emulator.

Issues

Terrible User Experience

As a commercial product, the purpose of it is to create revenue and to maximize revenue, the free version of DamonPS2 is plagued with in-app advertisements, and most of the functions locked, including important functions such as memory card saving, causing a terrible user experience.

A "professional" version of DamonPS2 can be purchased as an in-app purchase in DamonPS2 for $7.80, which unlock all functions and eliminate all advertisements.

Unnecessary DRM

In order to run DamonPS2, the device must connect to DamonPS2 authentication server or the emulator won't boot. Also, DamonPS2 will check Android operating system signature, if being tampered, the emulator won't accept in-app purchase.

Such heavy DRM could be considered a way to prevent faking IAP, but also a sign that DamonPS2 is probably doing operations that do harm to the device.

Also, DamonPS2 have some abnormal behaviors during its operation, such as checking SoC thermal control policy.

Code Stealing Issue

The PCSX2 team and others have accused the developers of DamonPS2 of using the code from the PCSX2 project and violating its GPL v2 license in a blog post.

The evidence provided by PCSX2 team include:[1]

  • GameIndex.dbf file distributed with the emulator contained patches that were specific to PCSX2;
  • CDVD strings, such as the message returned when a PSX/PSone disc is inserted in emulated PS2, is the same to PCSX2;
  • Matching file structure and graphical output that mirrors GSdx in PCSX2 is found.

DamonPS2 didn't reply to such questions in represent of a corporation. However, on Baidu Tieba (a website similar to Reddit), DamonPS2 team replied as:[2] (P.S. reference website is in Chinese)

  • GameIndex.dbf do come from PCSX2, but such file is an index file that including game title names, so whatever, the emulator will contain such file and it will be similar to PCSX2 Gameindex.dbf by any mean;
  • CDVD (contained in libserial.so) only used the same function names as PCSX2, the actual function is different, and such library has been removed as early as in version 0.95;
  • PCSX2 is a benchmark standard for DamonPS2 accuracy-test while developing, so such a standard made DamonPS2 behavior leaned to PCSX2, which explain the identical graphical output as PCSX2;

DamonPS2 was taken off Google Play for a short time following a DMCA request from PCSX2, but it shortly went back up afterwards and Google has dismissed subsequent DMCA requests.

References