After months of demand, PCSX2 has gotten itself a Vulkan renderer. The PlayStation 2 emulator primarily used OpenGL in the past, but the addition of this new renderer allows for a performance boost in some notoriously difficult-to-emulate games. It's currently available through the latest dev build--v1.7.2212--of the emulator, available to download here. This feature comes courtesy of Stenzek, known for their own emulator, Duckstation.

A lot of people were asking for a Vulkan renderer and courtesy of Stenzek (Duckstation) it is finally here! It performs better than OpenGL in a lot of cases on similar blending levels so it should make a couple of harder to run games much easier to play! Thanks Sten! pic.twitter.com/rBzyi6McrW

— PCSX2 (@PCSX2) January 8, 2022

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[Snintendog]

is the emulator horribly made or

its a buggy mess that relies on Action replay codes to fix alot of the games but given ps2's Ducktape engine i dont expect much until we get an FPGA equivalent or a Reverse Engineer board.

 

[GDPOVER9000]

Looks like the rapid progress of the RPCS3 emulation team has lit a fire in the belly's of the rest of the emulation community; a high tide raises all ships.

Keep moving forward with the emulation progress, guys!

 

[Deleted member 534570]

I'll just wait until it's more "stable".

 

[GDPOVER9000]

its a buggy mess that relies on Action replay codes to fix alot of the games but given ps2's Ducktape engine i dont expect much until we get an FPGA equivalent or a Reverse Engineer board.

An FPGA core of the PS2 would be the Miracle on 34th Street. That would justify a price increase of the Mister by another $100, in my humble opinion...

 

[Tigran]

Still can't play Transformers.

 

[Marc_LFD]

Still I wish that someday we have a xbox emulator with this level of polish. Third party games are almost always better on xbox.

For sure.

You ever played Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions? That game still looks incredible today. Heck, most still hold up very well.

For Splinter Cell, the Xbox platform is ideal, but PS2 had some exclusive missions so that's something I wanna check out as I love SC.

 

[Marc_LFD]

Still can't play Transformers.

PS2 had a good Transformers game? Which one was that?

I'm only aware of the one developed by Platinum Games that's actually good.

 

[Zeze]

its a buggy mess that relies on Action replay codes to fix alot of the games but given ps2's Ducktape engine i dont expect much until we get an FPGA equivalent or a Reverse Engineer board.

I mean, when you have such glorious games like Xenosaga 1 that bug out because you actually do emulate accurately, its one or the other.

PS2 is such a treasure trove of insanity that I'm not expecting to see anywhere near 100% accuracy for most of my life. FPGA or not.

 

[ChrisMCNBVA]

PS2 had a good Transformers game? Which one was that?

I'm only aware of the one developed by Platinum Games that's actually good

they had several one was japanese but had english voice acting (very bad english voice acting) called call of the future with the original series, they had transformers armada, they had transformers the movie and revenge of the fallen as well

 

[Tigran]

PS2 had a good Transformers game? Which one was that?

I'm only aware of the one developed by Platinum Games that's actually good.

@ChrisMCNBVA was correct, there was several, but the the Transformers Armada game was exceptional. Huge levels for a PS2 game, lots of loadout customization with the minicons, and the bosses could follow you through almost the entire level if you tried to run away.

And then there is Tidal Wave.

 

[Naster]

I have no idea what it is

 

[Lv44ES_Burner]

Wonder what the Vulkan backend will do for CPU-intensive games like the first four Ratchet & Clank games... Those are typically harder to run even with a good GPU and CPU paired up. APUs like the Ryzen can eat this pretty badly if they're not up to snuff; I should know, trying to run R&C2 on my Ryzen 5 3550H in my PC was a struggle to keep at 40fps on native resolution.

 

[dominater01]

this is great news for people with an xbox series S|X. the ps2 emulation wasn't great at all due to having to use angular for to add compatibility for the opengl backend from what i understand. once ported there could be a significant boost to PS2 emulation on SS/SX consoles.

except pcsx2 core never ran on angle it ran on d3d11/12 also theres no vulkan driver for xbox one/series consoles

 

[Marc_LFD]

Wonder what the Vulkan backend will do for CPU-intensive games like the first four Ratchet & Clank games... Those are typically harder to run even with a good GPU and CPU paired up. APUs like the Ryzen can eat this pretty badly if they're not up to snuff; I should know, trying to run R&C2 on my Ryzen 5 3550H in my PC was a struggle to keep at 40fps on native resolution.

PS3 has an emulator on PC, right? Have you tried it?

Sorry for asking if you have.

PS3 has a decent amount of R&C games making it easier for fans to get most of them in one place.

I've bought a HD Retrovision Component Cable for my PS2 Slim (with a tiny Samsung 128GB USB) and also have a PS3 CFW (with a blue light mod if it overheats), but what I use most these days is PS4. Yeah, it can't play every PS1 and PS2 title though what I have makes me very, very satisfied.

Hopefully in the future that changes.

 

[Lv44ES_Burner]

I know the PC has RPCS3. I wouldn't ever play the PS3 port of the original R&C trilogy and Deadlocked. That port is too jank and buggy for a good experience.

 

[Marc_LFD]

I know the PC has RPCS3. I wouldn't ever play the PS3 port of the original R&C trilogy and Deadlocked. That port is too jank and buggy for a good experience.

Didn't know that.

PS3 had some very unfortunate ports. Splinter Cell Trilogy was another one. I'm hoping Prince of Persia Trilogy works fine 'cause I love Warrior Within and on PS4 it's very glitchy.

 

[Luke94]

How about photorealistic fur?

 

[AngryCinnabon]

The steam deck will appreciate this big time.

finally my amd laptop will had a 60fps for gta 3

Honestly just do the source code decomp, that will likely run best out of all the GTA3 options.

 

[soup1]

its a buggy mess that relies on Action replay codes to fix alot of the games but given ps2's Ducktape engine i dont expect much until we get an FPGA equivalent or a Reverse Engineer board.

that's sad to hear, but to them and to normal consumers if it works it works

 

[Pacheko17]

finally my amd laptop will had a 60fps for gta 3

GTA 3 never ran above 30FPS on console.