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.

Although this product has been released, it remains under active development - information may change frequently and could be outdated or irrelevant.

PCSX2

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

PCSX2 is a open-source video game console emulator that was developed and released by the PCSX2 Team. It emulates the PlayStation 2 console.

The use of PCSX2 requires a BIOS of the PlayStation 2 console, which can be only dumped from the console itself. Almost all PlayStation 2 titles are playable.

Development of PCSX2 begin in 2001 and was released on March 23, 2002. It was plugin-based, using PSEmu Pro's specs. Since then, numerous improvements were made to the emulator. In 2021, PCSX2 had migrated from the plugin-based architecture to the Qt architecture.

The current QT nightly build includes features like automatic game fixes, the Vulkan renderer backend and, on MacOS, the Metal renderer backend.

Despite having stable releases, users are encouraged to try out the nightly releases which releases every time a change to the codebase is made.

General information

PCSX2 Website

PCSX2 Compatibility List

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Official website		Does not include Games or BIOS due to copyright.

PCSX2 Source code (GitHub)

Nightly builds are highly recommended, as they are more frequently updated and have more features/bugfixes than the latest stable release which was released on July 13, 2024.

Has a built-in auto-updater.

Game data

The Configs and Save data locations below referring to "path-to-game" are the default directories for the Development builds. The Stable installation builds default to Documents instead of the base folder.

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\gamesettings\ <path-to-game>\inis\ <path-to-game>\inputprofiles\
macOS (OS X)
Linux	$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/inis

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\memcards\ <path-to-game>\sstates\
macOS (OS X)
Linux	$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/memcards/ $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/sstates/

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		Double click the window to go Fullscreen and vice versa.
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 many (but not all) games, others can be patched (if a patch exists). A database of 60 FPS patches is included with PCSX2, but disabled by default.
120+ FPS		Per-game basis. Possible via game patches or modifying the base PAL / NTSC frame rate in PCSX2. May increase speed or break most games.
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.
Ray tracing (RT)

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		Can bind two or more keys/buttons to one virtual input by clicking an input while holding down the ⇧ Shift key.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support		PCSX2 UI requires Mouse and Keyboard. Controller only works on BIOS and Games.
Controller remapping
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion		Game dependant. Can also be done by remapping the right analog stick.

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers
Xbox button prompts		DualShock prompts only.
Impulse Trigger vibration

PlayStation controllers		DualShock 4, DualSense, DualSense Edge Back buttons and FN buttons on the DualSense Edge can be mapped since the July 7, 2023 commit.
PlayStation button prompts		Dualshock 1 (for PS1 Games) and Dualshock 2.
Light bar support		On DualShock 4, the color of light bar vary depending which player the controller was assigned to. On DualSense and DualSense Edge, the light bar remain in blue as the player indicator lights were used instead.
Adaptive trigger support
DualSense haptic feedback support
Connection modes	Wired, Wireless (Bluetooth), Wireless (DualShock 4 USB Wireless Adapter)

Generic/other controllers		Also support force feedback racing wheels from various manufacturers on certain PlayStation 2 titles by emulating either as a Driving Force, Driving Force Pro or GT Force.
Button prompts

Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback		Regular rumble on supported controllers.
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Game dependant.
Surround sound		Some games support Dolby Pro Logic II or Dolby Digital.
Subtitles		Game dependant.
Closed captions		Game dependant.
Mute on focus lost		There's an option to pause when minimizing the window.

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. Follow the discussion in the vorpX forum to see how this is developing.

Issues fixed

PCSX2 not responding when selecting a BIOS in the QT builds

Selecting a BIOS will cause PCSX2 to crash after updating several times.

Delete PCSX2.ini
Go to <path-to-game>\inis and then delete PCSX2.ini. (Which refreshes PCSX2 after getting several updates that may have changed some things about the UI) Reconfigure PCSX2's preferences and global settings when opening the emulator again.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	11, 12	9 and 10 dropped after the 1.6.0 stable version.
OpenGL	3.0+
Software renderer
Metal support		Not on 1.6.0, only on the latest Dev Builds.
Vulkan		Not on 1.6.0, only on the latest Dev Builds.

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows			32-bit dropped after 1.6.0 and the latest Dev Builds.
macOS (OS X)
Linux

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Audio	cubeb, SDL2
Interface	Qt, Dear ImGui, vxWidgets	vxWidgets has been deprecated and dropped since stable version 2.0, in favor of Qt
Input	SDL2

System requirements

System requirements vary depending on the game. Some are vastly more demanding than others - examples can be found on the following (non-exhaustive) lists: CPU-intensive games, GPU-intensive games.

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

Windows

macOS (OS X)

Linux

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	10 21H2 (1809 or later)	10 22H2
Processor (CPU)	Dual core with four threads	Quad core
System memory (RAM)	8 GB	16 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 AMD Radeon RX 560 Intel Arc A380 2 GB of VRAM OpenGL 3.3 compatible DirectX 11 compatible	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 AMD Radeon RX 570 4 GB of VRAM OpenGL 4.6 compatible DirectX 12 compatible
Other	CPU supporting SSE4.1.	CPU supporting AVX2.

Any version made after 1.6.0 requires a 64-bit operating system despite the fact that the said version has a 32-bit installer.

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

Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and Direct3D 10 support was dropped after stable release 1.6.0.

macOS (OS X)
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	11 (Big Sur)
Processor (CPU)	Dual core with four threads	Quad core
System memory (RAM)	8 GB	16 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 AMD Radeon RX 560 Intel Arc A380 2 GB of VRAM	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 AMD Radeon RX 570 4 GB of VRAM
Other	CPU supporting SSE4.1.	CPU supporting AVX2.

A 64-bit operating system is required.

Linux
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	Ubuntu 22.04/Debian or newer, Arch Linux, or other distro	Ubuntu 24.04/Debian or newer, Arch Linux, or other distro
Processor (CPU)	Dual core with four threads	Quad core
System memory (RAM)	8 GB	16 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce GTX 750 AMD Radeon RX 560 Intel Arc A380 2 GB of VRAM OpenGL 3.3 compatible	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 AMD Radeon RX 570 4 GB of VRAM OpenGL 4.6 compatible
Other	CPU supporting SSE4.1.	CPU supporting AVX2.

A 64-bit operating system is required.