Emulation Vs The Real Thing

[Ryanfaescotland]

For Christmas Santa brought my one of the Memor32 Cards which allows me to transfer my PS2 saves onto my PC. Since getting it I've had a lot of fun hacking my GTA:SA saves but I'm thinking of maybe moving my from the real PS2 on to an emulator because quite often a hack results in the PS2 completely crashing and having to be rebooted. I know getting a PS2 emulator to work can be a pain in the ass so before I do so I've got a couple of questions I was wondering if you guys could help with.

Do any PS2 emulators play GTA:SA well enough for me to load in a saved game and run about a little bit?

Are saves made in a PS2 emulator similar/identical to those made in the real playstation (about 4 files give or take with icon.icn, icon.sys and similar)?

Would creating a savestate at the load memory card screen of GTA:SA allow me to skip the game actually loading?

Do any of the emulators automatically 'catch' and compensate for crashes? (I had an emulator for another system that told you if the real system would crash in certain circumstances I think or maybe it was a dream)

Is it worth it or should I stick to the real thing?

Hmm that's all the quesitons I can think of just now, cheers to anyone who can help.

[ulaoulao]

Do any PS2 emulators play GTA:SA well enough for me to load in a saved game and run about a little bit?

- not at full speeds, 15 frames on the best damn duo cpu you can buy..

Are saves made in a PS2 emulator similar/identical to those made in the real playstation (about 4 files give or take with icon.icn, icon.sys and similar)?

- not 100% here.

Would creating a savestate at the load memory card screen of GTA:SA allow me to skip the game actually loading?

- savestates are emulator dependent. They cant be used for the real console.

Do any of the emulators automatically 'catch' and compensate for crashes? (I had an emulator for another system that told you if the real system would crash in certain circumstances I think or maybe it was a dream)

- at this stage in the game the only emulator that works PSX2 has more crashes then the real console. But if it was with in the 90%-tile then its is conceivable it could catch sony bugs, yes.. But this is never the goal for emulation. Emulation is to emulate it 100%, including its faults.

Is it worth it or should I stick to the real thing?

- Realy thing for the next few years.

[Ryanfaescotland]

savestates are emulator dependent. They cant be used for the real console.

Yeah I know that I meant can I skip past the initial loading on the emulated version straight to the point where I can load a saved game?

It's not that important anyway I think I'll stick to the real thing going by what you've said.

[ulaoulao]

Yeah I know that I meant can I skip past the initial loading on the emulated version straight to the point where I can load a saved game?

- Well if you had a prev save state yes, or if you download a save state you could, but only save states would allow that.

So

Would creating a savestate at the load memory card screen of GTA:SA allow me to skip the game actually loading?

- Being you mean the emulator version as you said then yes. Provided the emulator wont chock.