I tell you my specs, you tell me what I can do with them.

[Viceroy]

CPU: i7 860 @ 2.8GHz
GPU: Ati Radeon HD 4670
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB DDR3 1333 7-7-7-21

I have had very limited experience with last-gen console emulation, such as with pcsx2 or Dolphin, but I have done a lot of reading and research on it. My computer is pretty powerful, especially the CPU, so I see no reason I shouldn't be able to emulate games from last gen on my PC, with a little tweaking of the emulators themselves.

I just want to make sure that I SHOULD be able to use these programs well, so that when I make my first attempts to, I will know that any issues I see aren't because of a bottleneck on my end (so that I know not to stop trying ).

Your thoughts?

[cibomatto2002]

You should be able to run a Playstation 2 Emulator at around 25 to 35 FPS depends on the game.

[Viceroy]

Pff, my ass.

[FatTrucker]

There's loads of threads here where the relationship between PC specs and actual emulator speed are explained. For about the millionth time on these boards.....the spec of your PC is not comparable to the spec of a console you want to emulate on it. It doesn't work like that.
Your specs should be good enough to get playable results on all the games that are currently playable. However the emulators aren't complete, not everything runs properly.
A good example is Mame, these are just old arcade games. There are currently games in Mame that don't run at full speed on any PC. Not because the PC is slow or the emulator is bad but because emulators that favour accuracy over hacks require insane amounts of grunt to process all the hardware functions of dedicated chips compared to the original machines which did it in hardware.

[Master_OrHan]

You can run all 32-bit & N64 games in emulation @ full speed. PCSX2 & Dolphin, no. PCSX2 doesn't quite run at full speed on my PC and it is bleeding edge. No one can run those @ constant 60 FPS yet.