The PlayStation 2 emulation scene has just seen the arrival of a new surprise contender. AetherSX2 is a PS2 emulator that runs on Android devices, and is set to release relatively soon. It comes from a new developer named Tahlreth, and while very little is known about the history of how AetherSX2 came to be, certain YouTubers have been given a alpha build of the emulator to show off the performance of PlayStation 2 games. Titles like Devil May Cry, Shadow of the Colossus, God of War, and Final Fantasy X are shown off, even running at fairly smooth framerates. The emulator is said to perform best when used with phones that have Snapdragon SoCs, and has wide compatibility with the PS2's library.

A beta build is planned for release sometime soon, where users will be able to get it from the Google Play Store and test it out, prior to a full launch.

Source

What is it?​

AetherSX2 is an emulator of the Sony PlayStation 2(TM) / PS2(TM) console for the Android platform. You can play games which you have dumped from disc on your portable device.

What are the requirements?​

The PS2(TM) is an extremely complex piece of hardware, with many very powerful components, even for today. You need a high end device to achieve good performance.

We recommend at least a Snapdragon 845-equivalent device. This means 4 large cores (Cortex-A75 level). If you only have two big cores (e.g. Snapdragon 700 series SoCs, you should not enable multi-threaded VU, and performance will suffer as a result). Devices with Mali or PowerVR GPUs will run the app, but performance will be much lower than Adreno GPUs, and the Vulkan renderer will not be available. This is because they are missing a critical feature (dual-source blending).

If you want to use the app on a slower device, you can try it, but games will run slow, especially heavier titles. You can try underclocking the CPU by setting the cycle rate to a negative number, and the cycle skip to a positive number in System settings, but this will cause games to lag internally at best, or crash at worst.

Expectations.​

This is a free app, worked on as a hobby in the developer's free time. At the time of writing, it is in very early stages and missing many useful features, however is usable for playing some games.

It is not going to be perfect, far from it. I will continue to improve it when I have time, but please remember this is not my job, and to have realistic expectations, especially if you do not have a high end device.

As it is an early preview, you should save your game regularly in case of crashes.

 

[spotanjo3]

Impressive. Here I come for Klonoa 2.

 

[AngryCinnabon]

Impressive. Here I come for Klonoa 2.

Good choice!

 

[artjsalina5]

Where is the APK?

 

[Marc_LFD]

This'll make it worth buying a powerful Android phone (I've seen phones with like 16GB RAM and it made me wonder, what for? Emulators).

 

[Dud]

Where is the APK?

It's got to release first.

 

[ZeroFX]

my newest 888plus phone is happy to know that

 

[WG481]

What an interesting bit of news. Will this be the Drastic of PS2 emulation?

I always have to ask people what they think about DraStic. Did you like it or hate it?
For me DraStic is peak DS emulation on Android, and I'd like to see that with a PS2 Emulator.

 

[slaphappygamer]

I love it. Emulate always, all ways.


Unless original hardware.

 

[Peninsula]

Switchroot?

Don't hold your breath. This emulator recommends a Snapdragon 845 SoC which is significantly more powerful than the Switch's Tegra X1.

 

[Kioku]

I always have to ask people what they think about DraStic. Did you like it or hate it?
For me DraStic is peak DS emulation on Android, and I'd like to see that with a PS2 Emulator.

If I said it sucked, I'd be wrong.

DraStic did what a lot of other emulators promised, but failed to do. Even if it ain't "perfect" or "cycle accurate". It was definitely a welcome addition. Even if paid. I hope this new emulator will prove to be the same.

 

[GBADWB]

I always have to ask people what they think about DraStic. Did you like it or hate it?
For me DraStic is peak DS emulation on Android, and I'd like to see that with a PS2 Emulator.

Drastic at its high was considered the best DS emulator, and many wanted a PC port of it. Many people still to this day, is waiting for the open source code for it after the developer said he would release it(and it hasn't happened yet) as he stopped development for it.

 

[the_randomizer]

If I said it sucked, I'd be wrong.

DraStic did what a lot of other emulators promised, but failed to do. Even if it ain't "perfect" or "cycle accurate". It was definitely a welcome addition. Even if paid. I hope this new emulator will prove to be the same.

And yet the author of DraStic doesn't give two shits on fixing his emulator for Android 11 users thanks to Scoped Storage. So yeah, can't use it.

 

[raxadian]

What an interesting bit of news. Will this be the Drastic of PS2 emulation?

The main problem with PS2 emulation is hardware requirements, once Android devices are basically equivalents to 2021 gaming computers they can just fork the PC emulators for PS2.

 

[WG481]

And yet the author of DraStic doesn't give two shits on fixing his emulator for Android 11 users thanks to Scoped Storage. So yeah, can't use it.

Simply downgrade

 

[Kioku]

And yet the author of DraStic doesn't give two shits on fixing his emulator for Android 11 users thanks to Scoped Storage. So yeah, can't use it.

Has Retroarch fixed this same issue? Also, didn't the dev stop development? So...

The main problem with PS2 emulation is hardware requirements, once Android devices are basically equivalents to 2021 gaming computers they can just fork the PC emulators for PS2.

Obviously it's not going to open the gates for low end hardware, I mean more so making it more reliable on mobile hardware. Forking the PC variants might not be as simple as it sounds. Haven't they tried this with PCSX2?

 

[Kioku]

Simply downgrade

Not as simple for a huge chunk of us. I actually can't go back to Android 10 because of a bootloader upgrade. I also can't root my phone because fuck US carriers.

 

[Guacaholey]

I always have to ask people what they think about DraStic. Did you like it or hate it?
For me DraStic is peak DS emulation on Android, and I'd like to see that with a PS2 Emulator.

Drastic was great. i don't know what it's like now, but it played stuff full speed on my Xperia Play years ago.

 

[WG481]

Not as simple for a huge chunk of us. I actually can't go back to Android 10 because of a bootloader upgrade. I also can't root my phone because fuck US carriers.

Have you looked up a guide for rooting it or is there some sort of carrier snooping?

 

[the_randomizer]

Has Retroarch fixed this same issue? Also, didn't the dev stop development? So...



Obviously it's not going to open the gates for low end hardware, I mean more so making it more reliable on mobile hardware. Forking the PC variants might not be as simple as it sounds. Haven't they tried this with PCSX2?

Simply downgrade

Pretty lame excuse to downgrade for just one app.

Has Retroarch fixed this same issue? Also, didn't the dev stop development? So...



Obviously it's not going to open the gates for low end hardware, I mean more so making it more reliable on mobile hardware. Forking the PC variants might not be as simple as it sounds. Haven't they tried this with PCSX2?

Don't know about that.

 

[Kioku]

Have you looked up a guide for rooting it or is there some sort of carrier snooping?

It's impossible to root my S21 Ultra because I can't unlock the bootloader