41w ago - Over the weekend the
PCSX2 Team have finally released public version 1.0 of their PCSX2 Sony PlayStation 2 (PS2) emulator for various platforms including the PC.
Download:
PCSX2 - PlayStation 2 (PS2) Emulator Public Version 1.0
Below are all the details for those interested, to quote: PCSX2 1.0 released!
After many long years of development, debugging and testing effort, we have reached a point where PCSX2 runs a great majority of the games, and there are no important issues that could possibly be fixed without requiring major modifications to the emulator.
Because of that (and because we already felt it was overdue), we decided to stop thinking of new things to do for a bit, polish the stability, compatibility and existing features and release the result as the first major version of PCSX2!
There have been tons of changes since the last release, including improvements to Jake Stine's wxWidgets GUI overhaul, cottonvibe's new multithreaded VU core and improvements on the primary plugins.
This release is a big milestone that marks the way to new features and improvements!
Here is an excerpt of the latest changes:
Windows:
Core:
- Video timing adjustments
- microVU fixes for Metal Gear Solid 2 and others
- General speedups
- microVU speedup
- New GIF unit that mimics the real one better
- microVU elementary function bug fixed (affecting Valkyrie Profile 2, Radiata Stories and Star Ocean 3)
- Implemented Multi-Threaded VU! A new speed hack with almost 100% compatibility with games, using a third core to run the VU1 unit separately
- CDVD fixes (Time Crisis boots now)
- Added support for progressive scan timings
- Path 3 arbitration and timing refinements
- Added Finnish, Malaysian, Korean, French, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese and Polish translations
SPU2-X:
- Configurable output volume
- Fixes to reverb
- Various sound looping fixes
- Improved time stretcher
- Reverse phase audio quality improved
GSdx:
- Fixed RGB mode movie recording
- Texture cache change that fixes some black screening games
- Implemented NVidia FXAA 3.10, page up key activates it
- Better multithreading
- Arc the Lad bad fog fix
- Fixed shadows in software renderer
- Implementation of GSdx "Shadeboost" project (saturation, brightness, contrast settings)
- User configurable hacks in the GUI
- Fixed flickering in many FMVs
- Implementation of GSdx "Cutie" project (various extra CRC hacks)
Lilypad:
- Pad state getting stuck with savestates bug fixed
USBqemu:
Linux:
OnePad changes:
- New dialog configuration panel
- Improved support of various pad (sixaxis)/mouse/wiimote
- Added support for more controllers
- Added support for pressure-sensitive buttons
GSdx:
- GSdx ported for Linux! Based on OpenGL 3.3 with some 4.x hardware independent extensions. Requires OpenGL 4.2 drivers and is still in experimental stages. Don't expect the hardware renderer to run properly, but the Software renderer should be fine.
- Added support for configuration and keyboard shortcuts from PCSX2
ZZogl:
- Added support for configuration and keyboard shortcuts from PCSX2
- Added a GLSL backend to replace CG. Like GSdx, it requires OpenGL 4.2 drivers. Only available with PCSX2 self-compilation.
PCSX2 GUI:
- Added thread timing information to see the CPU usage in the status bar
- Fix multiple frame/box letters sizing.
In addition to these changes we found a fixed several bugs that could lead to crashes in various situations.
The PCSX2 executable has been built and tested with PGO optimizations enabled so it will be an extra 10% faster over regular SVN builds.
We hope you enjoy this first major version release and have fun playing your games on it!
Finally, below are some of the videos of the PCSX2 emulator in action:
You could attempt to uninstall the update and go back to 1.04, however if you're online, you won't be able to update or the cheat won't work. This al...
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It's an emulator and it doesn't work like a native program. The AA in those emulators, especially Dolphin, is kick to the CPU's balls rather than the GPU. The load from the AA to the GPU is negligible so long as the GPU is a powerful one.
It's strangely done, the AA is so heavy on the CPU that I'm better off just rendering it at a much higher resolution (4 times native) and letting it downscale for an AA effect rather than use its MSAA. My CPU is close to maxed, while the GPU doesn't even reach 40% usage.
Well, at least all games that didn't already have inherent issues due to compatibility problems.
You can also use up to 7 extra threads with the GSdx plugin in software rendering. Also AA would only increase GPU load, and not at all CPU load.
jarvis Pretty much said it all in your post, very accurate
I have no idea if Byuu's work on BSNES is comparable to those two emulators, Byuu aims for accuracy above all else, that's how he gets the best compatibility. Other emulators tend to use hacks up the wazoo, anything to get things working so I don't know if it would be a deal breaker making them multithreaded.