My emulator is running slowly...

[Crazyboy]

Well, the games being emulated, to be more precise.

About 6 months ago, a tradgic event happened...
After 5 glorious years of never having any trouble outside of aging hardware and the constant slowing down of the system's main screen, my PS2 finally died... Luckily, I had an Xbox360 by then, and still enjoy playing it... Unluckily, I now have around 35 PS2 games lying around uselessly decaying away in their cases... Then I recently acquired a copy of the original Silent Hill game, for PC... Only, through later research did I find out that... There was never a PC version of Silent Hil released. The game I had acquired was actually merged with an ePSXe emulator, somehow... It installed like a PC game, but it was running from the emulator. Though I still dont know how or why it does this (Fun game though) I realized then there was probably a similiar program for PS2 games. Lo and Behold, I was right...

So...

I downloaded, installed, and completely configured Pcsx2_0.9.4.
Then, I attempted to play Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (random choice).
Game runs without problems... Only... The framerate jogs back and forth between 40, 60, 27, 13, 19, 6, and 5 FPS... Usually sticking to the lower numbers. So, I tried Need For Speed: Most Wanted (saw Pcsx2_0.9.4 comes with a (patch?) for this one) Again, same ordeal...

Tweaked settings on the emulator a little and nothing.

What can I do to speed this up so I can get a little enjoyment out of my games again?

PC specs are as follows...


System Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
System Model: Dell DXP051
BIOS: Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A05
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 2.80GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 1022MB RAM
Page File: 556MB used, 1901MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.2180 32bit Unicode

Card name: RADEON X300 SE 128MB HyperMemory
Manufacturer: ATI Technologies Inc.
Chip type: RADEON X300 SE (0x5B60)
DAC type: Internal DAC(400MHz)
Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_1002&DEV_5B60&SUBSYS_06021002&REV_00
Display Memory: 128.0 MB
Current Mode: 1024 x 768 (32 bit) (60Hz)
Monitor: Plug and Play Monitor
Monitor Max Res: 1600,1200
Driver Name: ati2dvag.dll
Driver Version: 6.14.0010.6561 (English)
DDI Version: 9 (or higher)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Driver Date/Size: 8/4/2005 04:10:38, 205312 bytes

[FatTrucker]

With those specs your PC won't run PCSX2 with a playable framerate. You need a fast Core2Duo with at least 2Gb of Ram and a good dedicated graphics card.

A Pentium D at any speed, 1Gb of Ram and onboard graphics won't even get close.

With emulation the relative power of the system being emulated doesn't necessarily equate to the power of the system required to emulate it. The PS2 has a lot of dedicated hardware that has to be emulated in software on a PC meaning its very processor and memory intensive.

[Crazyboy]

Oh... Well, that sucks... Looks like the whole effort was kindly well useless...

Thanks for the info, I'll just delete all this junk then...

[retroguiden]

Oh... Well, that sucks... Looks like the whole effort was kindly well useless...

Thanks for the info, I'll just delete all this junk then...

Wait a minute. What do you mean with this "Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 2.80GHz (2 CPUs)"?
2 CPU's or a dual core?

And second, the processor is way more important than memory and graphics card.

Third, the games you tried are not working well with the emulator yet. They are marked as "ingame" on the compatibility list (http://www.pcsx2.net/compat.php?c=key). This means: "You can get through menus, intro cutscenes / videos, and see ingame graphics, but either due to graphical bugs, crashes, un-resolved errors, you can't play through the entire game."

If you indeed have a dual core processor it might be an idea to try a game that is actually known to work. However I don't know anything about your graphics card so that might be too weak. And the memory should probably be upgraded.

[TchuBacha]

Id forget about PS2 emulation for the time being. You're probably best of buying a second hand PS2 from eBay or atleast trying to fix your old PS2.

Or dare I say it buy a backwards compatible PS3 which will set you back around £300+ ($???). Youve already got a 360 so I doubt youll want to go down that route.

What is actually wrong with your PS2? A common problem is disc reading errors which could cost you nothing to fix.

[FatTrucker]

Wait a minute. What do you mean with this "Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 2.80GHz (2 CPUs)"?
2 CPU's or a dual core?

And second, the processor is way more important than memory and graphics card.

Third, the games you tried are not working well with the emulator yet. They are marked as "ingame" on the compatibility list (http://www.pcsx2.net/compat.php?c=key). This means: "You can get through menus, intro cutscenes / videos, and see ingame graphics, but either due to graphical bugs, crashes, un-resolved errors, you can't play through the entire game."

If you indeed have a dual core processor it might be an idea to try a game that is actually known to work. However I don't know anything about your graphics card so that might be too weak. And the memory should probably be upgraded.

The Pentium D is a very different processor to the Core2Duo, not even as quick as a fast Pentium 4.

[Crazyboy]

The disc tray stopped working on my PS2, I took it apart several times in attempts to fix the problem (I'd cleaned the lense before, so this was nothing new) and no luck. I'm not even sure where it is at the moment.

As for the specs I posted... Those came from a dxdiag, I'm not exactly sure on my hardware, and I'm not the greatest with computers anyway. I tinker a little here and there, occasionally games screw up and need to be re-installed or some file needs to be replaced. Probably the most technical things I know how to do is to apply No-CD patches to games and Disk reformatting. So, yeah...

And... I'm not about to drop however many hundred Sony wants on a PS3. I bought the 360 because it was cheaper at the time and is, aside from the many breakdowns, better in my opinion. Besides, the console exclusives were so one sided. MGS4 and possibly Motorstorm are the only games that PS3 exclusive that are even worth mentioning. Come on...

So, ehm... Possibly will just invest in a PS2 later on. I'm not upgrading my PC to play games from 2-5 years ago. If and when I upgrade, it will be a graphics card, so I can play COD4...

Thanks again for quick responses, and helpful information...