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==Emulation issues==
Despite a large interest in PS2 emulation due to its sizable collection of games, it is still one of the harder consoles to emulate for several reasons.
First of all, many people believe that since the main CPU (Emotion Engine) runs at a clock speed of 294 Mhz (299 Mhz on later revisions), it would make emulation easy on recent hardware. But this isn't the case because the clock speed of the emulated CPU is not necessarily indicative of the ease of emulation. Specifically, the PS2's CPU contains a multitude of custom sub-components and chips such as the FPU co-processor, 2 Vector Units, IOP, SPU2, Graphics Synthesizer, and SIF which together work asynchronously to comprise the 128-bit Emotion Engine. Emulating them perfectly with correct timing requires an enormous amount of power. Moreover, the PS2, just like PS1, uses the MIPS architecture instead of standard x86 code, thus making emulation slower.<ref>https://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-Why-is-PCSX2-slow</ref>
Another big problem is the emulation of PS2’s floating-point unit (FPU) because it doesn’t follow the IEEE standard. To keep it simple, just changing a couple of numbers will cause glitches to occur to the game’s graphic (VU) and logic (EE), resulting in things like broken AI, odd behaviors, and/or graphical bugs. While PCSX2 allows for either clamping/rounding on both VU and EE as a solution to fix these glitches, it remains by far not the most accurate way to emulate the PS2's FPU.<ref>https://wiki.pcsx2.net/PCSX2_Documentation/Nightmare_on_Floating-Point_Street</ref><ref>https://github.com/PSI-Rockin/DobieStation/issues/51</ref>
To conclude the problems with PS2 emulation, we come to hardware rendering. The PS2’s graphics pipeline acts very differently from modern GPU cards, and emulating it in HW mode with any degree of accuracy is difficult. This is due in part to the versatility of the PS2, the fact that it doesn’t use fixed shaders, or that even the games themselves do not use a consistent formula to achieve different graphical effects. Various emulation enhancements like display resolution scaling lead to the typical “black lines glitch” because of the use of a non-integer resolution. While the OpenGL backend on PCSX2 greatly improved on many of these issues, most games still require “software rendering” to fix many common glitches, which in turn slows down the emulation. Although Games using mipmapping ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratchet_%26_Clank_(2002_video_game) ''Ratchet & Clank''], [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_Combat#Games ''Ace Combat''], etc...) and games running on the Snowblind Engine are playable in OGL HW mode with minimal problems on high-end PCs.
In summary, it is impossible to achieve close-to-perfection PS2 emulation with actual PC hardware, and even if it were possible, the results would most likely be unplayable. The PS2 is a very complex machine that even game developers struggled to work with.
no edit summary
;[[DamonPS2]]:Closed-source payware/malware emulator only for Android, illegally based on [[PCSX2]], [[Play!]] and [[PPSSPP]]. '''It can hardly run any games''' and behaves very much like virus software. '''It is best NOT to use this emulator'''. DamonPS2 uses unnecessary DRM, making the emulator useless without an internet connection.
==Accessories==
Twitter user @DiscoStarslayer claims to be [https://nitter.snopyta.org/DiscoStarslayer/status/1570428063502012417 working on bypassing the HDD encryption of the PSX], which could result in this hardware being emulated, and it would allow for replacing the HDD in those consoles. This user also encourages dumping the content of the HDD of your PSX using a [https://nitter.snopyta.org/DiscoStarslayer/status/1592187362947526657 guide] made by a PCSX2 contributor called [https://nitter.snopyta.org/_987123879113 987123879113]
==Emulation issues==
Despite a large interest in PS2 emulation due to its sizable collection of games, it is still one of the harder consoles to emulate for several reasons.
First of all, many people believe that since the main CPU (Emotion Engine) runs at a clock speed of 294 Mhz (299 Mhz on later revisions), it would make emulation easy on recent hardware. But this isn't the case because the clock speed of the emulated CPU is not necessarily indicative of the ease of emulation. Specifically, the PS2's CPU contains a multitude of custom sub-components and chips such as the FPU co-processor, 2 Vector Units, IOP, SPU2, Graphics Synthesizer, and SIF which together work asynchronously to comprise the 128-bit Emotion Engine. Emulating them perfectly with correct timing requires an enormous amount of power. Moreover, the PS2, just like PS1, uses the MIPS architecture instead of standard x86 code, thus making emulation slower.<ref>https://forums.pcsx2.net/Thread-Why-is-PCSX2-slow</ref>
Another big problem is the emulation of PS2’s floating-point unit (FPU) because it doesn’t follow the IEEE standard. To keep it simple, just changing a couple of numbers will cause glitches to occur to the game’s graphic (VU) and logic (EE), resulting in things like broken AI, odd behaviors, and/or graphical bugs. While PCSX2 allows for either clamping/rounding on both VU and EE as a solution to fix these glitches, it remains by far not the most accurate way to emulate the PS2's FPU.<ref>https://wiki.pcsx2.net/PCSX2_Documentation/Nightmare_on_Floating-Point_Street</ref><ref>https://github.com/PSI-Rockin/DobieStation/issues/51</ref>
To conclude the problems with PS2 emulation, we come to hardware rendering. The PS2’s graphics pipeline acts very differently from modern GPU cards, and emulating it in HW mode with any degree of accuracy is difficult. This is due in part to the versatility of the PS2, the fact that it doesn’t use fixed shaders, or that even the games themselves do not use a consistent formula to achieve different graphical effects. Various emulation enhancements like display resolution scaling lead to the typical “black lines glitch” because of the use of a non-integer resolution. While the OpenGL backend on PCSX2 greatly improved on many of these issues, most games still require “software rendering” to fix many common glitches, which in turn slows down the emulation. Although Games using mipmapping ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratchet_%26_Clank_(2002_video_game) ''Ratchet & Clank''], [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ace_Combat#Games ''Ace Combat''], etc...) and games running on the Snowblind Engine are playable in OGL HW mode with minimal problems on high-end PCs.
In summary, it is impossible to achieve close-to-perfection PS2 emulation with actual PC hardware, and even if it were possible, the results would most likely be unplayable. The PS2 is a very complex machine that even game developers struggled to work with.
==External links==
