Emulators: Console Gaming's past has never looked better

Posted by Tiberius Jonez
GameJonez Blog Founder and Editor

Final Fantasy XXII never looked so good.

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Now that that's out of the way, onto the fun!!

As I'm sure you're keenly aware, the current generation of consoles is winding down to its inevitable conclusion, and like a sports fan stuck in that depressing vacuum of time between the end of football season and the beginning of baseball season, I've been looking for other outlets to spend my entertainment time. As a result, I've found myself diving (back) into videogame emulation so that, before moving forward with the new consoles, I might play some of my favorite games from the past, the memories of which still burn brightly but whose hardware, sadly, has long since fizzled out.

I've spent a large chunk of the past week or so getting familiar with PCSX2, the best Playstation 2 emulator currently available, and the focus of this article. For those of you not familiar with videogame emulation, here are the very, very basics: there are essentially four parts to videogame emulation; the emulator, a game rom, a BIOS file from the original hardware and a computer. An emulator is a software program that mimics (or emulates) computer hardware. Rom is short for "read-only memory" and is a game's programming code, and a BIOS is essentially a programming environment that sets the rules of how any given computer hardware and software function together. If you have a decent PC with an internet connection, an emulator, a BIOS for the hardware you wish to emulate, a compatible game rom and some patience, then you have all the necessary components for reliving the memories of games from your past.

While emulators are generally easy to find and download using your search engine of choice, roms are a different story, requiring a bit more effort; mainly because,  under the vast majority of circumstances, possessing the rom of a game you don't already own is illegal - a federal offense no less. Hence, the disclosure above. Essentially, for any software that is not free-ware or share-ware, if you don't own a copy of the original game, then you are not legally permitted to possess the rom. The same basic rules apply to a console's BIOS. In order to legally use it for emulation, you have to "dump" (transfer) the BIOS from a console you physically own to your computer. The practical result is, you will never find emulators, BIOS's and roms simultaneously available on the same website.


God of War 2 on PCSX2 running at 60 FPS

Of all the emulators out there, MAME is probably the best known and best supported. It primarily runs classic arcade games from the 1980's, and has been in active development for at least 15 years. If you want to get your Galaga or Pacman groove on, you can't go wrong with MAME. However, if arcade classics are not your flavor of choice, fear not friend, there are a wide variety of emulators out there, spanning virtually every videogame console ever released since 1980, up to and including the Sega Dreamcast, Playstation 2 and the original Xbox. Sorry, despite the claims of some unscrupulous and fraudulent websites and YouTube videos you may come across, to date, no one's figured out how to successfully emulate the Xbox 360 or the PS3. Furthermore, the general consensus is, for various programming reasons (especially as it relates to the PS3), they probably never will.

If this is all new to you, you're probably wondering, "Why isn't everyone using emulators and why haven't I heard of it before now?" It's pretty simple really; playing games with an emulator requires both some effort and a degree of patience and, as a result, is not for everyone. Even the best emulators run only a fraction of their parent console's total game library well enough to play. The percentage of playable games for any given emulator is, for the most part, directly proportionate to the amount and quality of development hours invested in improving the emulator's programming code.

Okami. Simply gorgeous!

Emulators are, as far as I've ever seen, free-ware and open-source; so you're usually free to, and, in fact, encouraged to, tweak them to your little hearts content if you think you can do a better job than the developer. Generally, whenever a new emulator first appears, it will not run any games well enough to actually play. That's where Geek Nation comes in; the best emulators are almost always the result of cooperation between the original developer/programmer and the gaming public, which often takes the software and improves upon it, usually in an effort to play a specific game that the emulator may not run well, if at all. For example, when PCSX2 debuted around 2005-2006 it could only run one game, and only at a pitiful 1-3 frames per second. At the time, it was really no more than a "proof of concept" offering, demonstrating that a PS2 emulator was at least possible. Fast forward to the present day (as of this writing) and the official PCSX2 website currently lists 1,866 PS2 games as "playable", with more games being added and/or improved upon every day. Without the benefit of any corporate funding, that, in my opinion, represents a staggering rate of improvement for a team of programmers that has fluctuated between just 2 to 6 people at any given time.

Of course, impressive as that number is, it still represents less than half of the 3,852 total Playstation 2 titles ever released as of May 2011, according to Wikipedia. That being said, if you're looking for the most popular PS2 games, you're likely to be pleasantly surprised. In the past week I've played Kingdom Hearts 2, Final Fantasy XII, Okami and God of War 2; four of the highest rated PS2 games ever released. Of course, you have to understand that playing those games was not as easy as simply placing a disc in a tray and hitting the power button; far from it! While you don't necessarily have to be a rocket scientist to be successful, emulation is not for the lazy or the completely computer illiterate.

If you don't know what a "noob" is, then, yep, you guessed it, you're the noob. If you don't know how to download and open a compressed file or how to "mount an ISO" and you want to run emulated games, then you're either going to have to learn how by searching the net like the rest of us, or you can simply give it up now and go buy another, working console on Ebay. In fact, one of the main downsides of emulation and what turns many off from using it is the fact that no two titles ever seem to run equally well with the same settings. As a result, tweaking, experimentation and trial and error are all par for the course if you plan to spend any appreciable time using emulators. Fortunately, for those willing to put in the time and effort, most emulators (at least the good ones) have active forums populated by passionate members sharing their experiences (and settings) in an effort to help each other get the most out of the emulators with the fewest possible problems.

Kingdom Hearts II

So, after varying degrees of tweaking of the different emulator settings for each of the games mentioned above, with one exception, all of them ran perfectly (some, better than "perfect") on my laptop with full gamepad support using PCSX2. I say "better than perfect" due to the fact that because most modern PC's (laptops and notebooks included) are far more powerful than the original PS2 hardware, many games can be played at resolutions far higher than the console's native resolution. Final Fantasy XII running at full 1080p is a site to behold and Okami will simply take your breath away.

In the interest of full disclosure, and in an effort to demonstrate how a modern low to mid-range PC can handle PCSX2 emulation, the screenshots here were all taken (using FRAPS) with the games running at 1024x768; roughly 70% higher than the PS2's native resolution, and as you can see, they all look pretty spectacular. All these games consistently ran at between 50-60 frames per second except for Gran Turismo 4, which I can't seem to get above 35 FPS in-game, despite my best efforts. To my credit, I'm not alone; PCSX2 is known to still have many issues running GT4 and GT3. Aside from these titles, I only own about 10 other PS2 games presently, so I was somewhat limited in what I could play with emulation as, since I'm writing about it publicly, I couldn't take a chance on playing anything outside the letter of the law. Some of the other PS1&2 titles I own and plan to try are Bully, Grand Theft Auto 3, Gran Turismo 2 (to test backwards compatibility with PS1 titles) and Maximo: Ghosts to Glory. I will report my results with those in a few weeks.



Gran Turismo 4 Opening Movie

In the meantime, if you have an itch to play some of your old games but your console is dead, whether it's a Sega Genesis, Nintendo NES, SuperNintendo, N64, Playstation 1&2, Xbox or most any other console, with some determination and time, emulation might just be the ticket to keeping your favorite games alive!!

Have you ever tried emulation? If so, please share your experiences and, as always, thanks for visiting GameJonez Blog. Happy gaming!!