Pcsx2 Tutorial
Gregory Monty
PCSX2 was the first PlayStation 2 emulator. Through persistent development, it has remained the best one around! It's capable of playing most titles without any major glitches. It conveniently comes equipped with its own plug-ins, which can be customized. PCSX2 requires a fast computer in order to run well. You might have trouble with it if you're using a budget laptop or a Windows tablet.
One drawback with PCSX2 is, out of the box, it runs barebones with its defaults and doesn't have any enhancements enabled. In this tutorial, after I help you get PCSX2 running, I show you how to enable graphical enhancements to benefit from the hottest features that modern emulation has to offer for PlayStation 2.
With other emulators, you can get away with using your keyboard for gameplay. However, with PCSX2 it's pretty difficult, given the PlayStation 2 controller's mini joysticks. I strongly recommend purchasing a gamepad for this emulator.
Installation is simple: just extract PCSX2 from its zip file. To make things clearer, check out the video below that shows how to 'install' a portable emulator (it shows Snes9x, but PCSX2 is the same process). It's pretty straight-forward - all that you're doing is extracting a zip file while doing a little bit of folder management. If you want to 'uninstall' a portable emulator, simply delete it!
PCSX2 is pre-configured for gamepads. Again, I urge you to purchase a gamepad since the PlayStation 2 controller has a lot of buttons. Using just the keyboard is a frustrating experience. If you insist on using the keyboard, or if you want to reconfigure gamepad buttons, keep reading.
PCSX2 doesn't require any special directions for using a PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, or Xbox controller. However, the first time you plug one into your computer, it needs to be properly setup or requires special instruction for connecting. There are lots of videos on YouTube showing you how to do this:
Note: I do not recommend playing your games via your DVD-ROM drive. PCSX2 is a rather demanding emulator on your CPU. Running the game from your DVD-ROM drive will slow it down and lower its performance. Rather, I recommend ripping your game to an ISO. I have directions for that towards the bottom of this guide.
By default, PCSX2 renders graphics in the native PlayStation 2 resolution. On our sharp HD monitors, this resolution looks very blurry (see below). However, you have the option to upscale graphics by increasing the resolution.
Now that you've increased the resolution of the game, you may notice weird graphical issues. See the examples to the right. These graphical issues are normally made up of obstructive vertical lines. This has an easy fix!
If it's not fixed, perhaps try Software as the renderer. If that doesn't fix it, I'm afraid PCSX2 may not be compatible with your device. However, if the black screen is the result of the game crashing (you don't hear audio), that's a different issue. Try black screen troubleshooting.
These formats are forms of compression, and your PS2 game is inside of it! You need to extract it. Windows can extract ZIP files by default: here are directions. To extract a RAR or 7Z file you can use 7-Zip (it's free).
These ISO formats are exclusive to specific burning software. Google around to find what program is associated with that format. Once found, install it and burn the game to a DVD. However, if you want my opinion, I say just forget about it. You should try to download the game from somewhere else to get it in ISO or BIN format. Working with these proprietary ISO formats are too much trouble.
This section is only necessary if you've increased the resolution, found that your computer isn't fast enough to handle the high resolution well, but you insist on keeping the high resolution. Or maybe you're using an old computer and it can't even handle the default (blurry) native resolution. Keep reading if you want to explore PCSX2's speed hacks.
6) Mostly Harmful - Harsh application of speed hacks. May help a very small set of games that have unusual performance requirements, but have adverse effects on most others. Not recommended for underpowered PCs.
New to emulation? If you're new to video game emulation, I don't want to confuse you into thinking that save states are what you're supposed to use as the only means to save your progress with PCSX2. Save states are an optional feature. You can still save your game at save points as you would on a real PlayStation 2. Although I do recommend using both save states and in-game saving so that you always have a backup. In-game saves are loaded at the game's title screen (like on a real PS2) - they're not loaded via the System menu.
Perhaps you prefer using your own PlayStation 2 games instead of downloading them from the Internet? Or maybe you just want to keep backup copies of your PlayStation 2 games? Whatever the case, here's how you can dump your games:
PCSX2 might cover the screen with a white bar or gradient. It might look something like the picture toward the right. This is a video related issue. It could be PCSX2's fault or the fault of your video card. Try the following.
The easiest way to figure out fault is to try other video game emulators. Or even try connecting a second monitor (if one is available). If the white bar is present elsewhere, then this is definitely a video card issue. Try what Microsoft recommends to fix this. Well, even if you don't see the white bar in other emulators, I'd try Microsoft's recommended troubleshooting anyway.
Are you using an older version of PCSX2? Or did you download PCSX2 from its official homepage? (Note that the official homepage hasn't been updated in years.) The issue could be as simple as you just need to download the latest version. You can find it on this 'automated builds' page.
Thank you for reading my tutorial! If you found it useful, please spread the word that this is an awesome site to get help with emulators and emulation! If you have questions, you're welcome to email me or message me on social media.
WARNING: This tutorial could be borderline difficult, and is specific to my own personal use. Feel free to experiment, change or customize to your own use. If there are other emulators that work through the lan, you may be able to play other console games this way as well.
A controller hotkey program capable of launching other programs. I am using controller companion, it costs some money, but in my opinion is well worth the price. This tutorial I will be using controller companion, feel free to use whatever you want
For those of you that don't know pcsx2 is capable of Lan play through the XLink Kai community (or at the very least Socom II US Navy Seals works I haven't tried other games yet). Xlink Kai is normally used to connect old consoles through LAN, so using this program you could potentially be playing other players that are actually playing on their consoles. That being said, for us bigbox users it can be kind of cumbersome because you have to open up the program separately and then choose your server; if you're using a non-admin account like me, you have to enter your password, log in, etc etc. If you're only using one monitor and would like to check the Xlink kai chat room you're pretty much SOL.
Using this combination of programs and batch files I simply hold the SELECT button and press up on either a PS3 controller or an Xbox one controller to launch a semi-transparent Xlink Kai UI. Holding SELECT and Down closes the Xlink kai UI.
You should have downloaded Xlink kai by now following the PCSX2 tutorial, if for whatever reason you haven't please download and install it, the rest of this tutorial I will assume you have gone through the SOCOM 2/PCSX2 Xlink tutorial, and that your PCSX2 is ready for Lan play through X link Kai.
Start up the Kai engine. On the task bar right click the engine -> ConfigurationIn Engine settings use your username + Password Check mark on the "auto Login" and then save. Close the program and reopen the engine to see if everything loads OK. Right click on the engine in the task bar and click on "Launch UI to make sure it logs you in properly.
If the port you are using for XLink Kai is different please change it from 34522
This script is the launcher for the XLink Kai UI that you will be using to start up with the computer.
What it does is open up the Xlink UI minimized in internet explorer after 15 seconds from start up. The -k argument makes it a full screen page so you don't get all the browser toolbars and such. 10 seconds after loaded it hides the browser into a background process, and the last line of code gives it a semi-transparent look.
Save this as Refocus Window.ahk this autohotkey script auto "refocuses" or "activates" PCSX2/Bigbox to wherever your mouse is positioned once the UI is closed. If you do not have this bigbox tends to hang and wait for you to manually click it with the mouse to bring it back into focus.
Last but not least open up UI Close.txt and enter this script
This scripts in their current form will do the job, but they will have irritating command prompt popups every time they are executed. Using nircmd we will create shortcuts to launch these scripts which will hide them.
Navigate to your LaunchBox\NirCmd-x64 folder. Right click nircmd.exe -> Create shortcut
As I said before my computer auto logs me in as a regular user, I use this to give my computer that little extra protection. The xlink kai server engine however requires you to log in as an administrator with an anoying UAC pop up. My solution to this is to have the program run with administrator privileges using task scheduler.
On the actions tab select new, the action you choose will be "Start a program" and in the program/script field you will browse to your kaiEngine.exe (wherever Xlink Kai was installed into) Mine looks like this:
All you have to do now is have a hotkey set to open your XLink UI Open.lnk (Shorcut file) to launch the UI in game and have another hotkey to close the UI by launching XLink UI Close.lnk Both these files should be located in your LaunchBox\NirCmd-x64\Commands\XLink Kai\ folder. As I said before I am using controller companion. I have the secondary select and up button configured to open the UI under PSCX2 and Bigbox, and under internet explorer program I have secondary select+ Down to close the UI.
687b7eae2f