PCSX2

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This article is about the emulation of a console or deprecated PC platform on Windows, macOS (OS X), or Linux.

PCSX2

Developers
	PCSX2 Team
Release dates
Windows	March 23, 2002
Linux	April 14, 2002
macOS (OS X)	December 30, 2009

Key points

Emulator for the Sony PlayStation 2.

Uses high-level emulation.

Open-source and is still actively developed.

About 98% of PS2 games are considered playable and 1% of games are perfect.

Requires a PS2 BIOS that can be ripped from the console.

Many games have bugs or glitches that require certain settings to fix. Check the compatibility list for more information.

General information

PCSX2 Website

PCSX2 Compatibility List

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Official website

PCSX2 Source code (GitHub)

Nightly builds are highly recommended, as they are more frequently updated and have more features/bugfixes than the stable release which was released on May 07, 2020.

Has a built-in auto-updater.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows

Video

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution		Per-game basis. Natively supported by some games, others can be patched (if a patch exists). A database of widescreen patches is included with PCSX2, but disabled by default.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen		Per-game basis. Possible via game patches (if a patch exists).
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)		Per-game basis. Possible via game patches (if a patch exists).
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		Up to 16 samples.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		FXAA, SSAA (via raising internal resolution)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS		Per-game basis. Natively supported by some games, others can be patched (if a patch exists).
120+ FPS		Per-game basis. Possible via game patches or modifying the base PAL / NTSC frame rate in PCSX2.
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.
Ray tracing (RT)

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		Can be changed in the PCSX2_keys.ini.default file.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support
Controller remapping
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers
Xbox button prompts
Impulse Trigger vibration

Generic/other controllers
Button prompts

Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Arabic
Catalan
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
Croatian
Czech
Danish
Dutch
Finnish
French
German
Hungarian
Indonesian
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Lithuanian
Malay
Malay				Malaysia
Norwegian				Bokmål
Polish
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian
Spanish				Modern
Swedish
Thai
Turkish

VR support

3D modes	State	Notes
vorpX		2D The Emulator can be played with the VR Driver vorpX. Note: PCSX2 is not listed on the official vorpX game list but has a profile on the factory profile list. 3D is not confirmed yet. You may follow the discussion in the vorpX forum on how this is developing.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	11, 12
OpenGL	3.0+
Metal support
Vulkan

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	8.1	10
Processor (CPU)	Dual core with four threads	Quad core
System memory (RAM)	4 GB	8 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 2 GB of VRAM OpenGL 3.0 compatible DirectX 10 compatible	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB of VRAM OpenGL 4.6 compatible DirectX 11 compatible
Other	CPU supporting SSE4.1.	CPU supporting AVX2.

macOS (OS X)
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	10.13 (High Sierra)
Processor (CPU)	Dual core with four threads	Quad core
System memory (RAM)	4 GB	8 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 2 GB of VRAM	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB of VRAM
Other	CPU supporting SSE4.1.	CPU supporting AVX2.

Linux
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	Ubuntu 18.04/Debian or newer, Arch Linux, or other distro	Ubuntu 19.04/Debian or newer, Arch Linux, or other distro
Processor (CPU)	Dual core with four threads	Quad core
System memory (RAM)	4 GB	8 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 2 GB of VRAM OpenGL 3.0 compatible	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB of VRAM OpenGL 4.6 compatible
Other	CPU supporting SSE4.1.	CPU supporting AVX2.

A 64-bit operating system is required.

System requirements vary depending on the game. Some are vastly more demanding than others, such as those that require mipmapping enabled.

Windows XP and Direct3D 9 support was dropped after stable release 1.4.0.

Windows 7 and Windows 8 support was dropped after stable release 1.6.0.

32-bit support was dropped after stable release 1.6.0. The last 32-bit development build was PCSX2 1.7.2484.