How to play PS2 games on my PC?

June 20, 2004 11:08 AM

Playing PS2 on PC? I'd like to be able to see my ps2 games on my swanky monitor. Would a tv card with s-video in do it? Also, if I pick up a tv card, what do people recommend as a good show recorder (I have a good pc)?
posted by Mossy to technology (13 comments total)

I'd actually go the other way around and get a VGA adaptor for the PS2. It's likely to give a better picture than encoding to NTSC and back would.
posted by majick at 11:27 AM on June 20, 2004

You need one of these VGA adapters to put your PS2 games on a VGA monitor. If you want to keep using your computer with the monitor you might want to invest in a VGA switch box too.
posted by revgeorge at 11:49 AM on June 20, 2004

Keep in mind that the average TV's resolution is much lower than the average monitor and, as a result, PS2 games played on a monitor will look fairly awful (considering they are designed with that lower resolution in mind.) This is the same reason that trying to use a television as a computer monitor generally results in disappointment.
posted by Danelope at 12:04 PM on June 20, 2004

How fast is your computer?
posted by Keyser Soze at 12:49 PM on June 20, 2004

AMD XP 3200+ with 2x512Mb RAM (nForce2 mobo) and about 80gb free on the hd. I have a DVD-R to keep space free on it.

I have a shuttle case so I actually hook it up to my telly every so often.. (I have a Radeon 9600 pro with svideo out).

I don't actually mind playing in a window (can you do that?) and it'll be PAL (I'm in the UK).
posted by Mossy at 2:09 PM on June 20, 2004

you need the redant vga ps2 adapter. I have it and it works great. The only problem is, as mentioned above, the res is waay high on a monitor and leaves something to be desired on certain games, usually only on psx games tho.
posted by bob sarabia at 2:42 PM on June 20, 2004

Get this one, I have it and it works great, and I believe it's the newer version of what bob has. (From the picture it looks that way anyway)
posted by banished at 5:43 PM on June 20, 2004

That machine you mentioned would emulate PS2 games nicely. Get a controller adapter (PS2-USB) for less than 25 bucks and you have instant backups and easy playability, not to mention you can turn AA and AF on in the games. I cannot find a link for it, maybe its worth asking another Askme question on where to get one.
posted by Keyser Soze at 7:49 PM on June 20, 2004

that looks pretty nice, banished. but whats "New YPsPr mode (for PS2 only)". that's the only thing the old one doesn't have...i think, since i dont' know what it is and it says "new"
posted by bob sarabia at 8:22 PM on June 20, 2004

Re: Keyser's note: PS2 games aren't playble on emulators yet. They're still in a larval state. PS1 games, on the other hand, are well-emulated, but emulator settings can be screwy and need to be changed between games, and some still don't work at all.
posted by zsazsa at 9:26 PM on June 20, 2004

i was going to ask another question about ps2 emulation, but perhaps zsazsa could expound on his statement a little?
posted by bob sarabia at 10:14 PM on June 20, 2004

Basically, the emulation isn't working for real games yet. A couple games do run, but are way too slow to be playable. A good site for PS2 emulation is NGEmu. If you look at the news, people are overjoyed just to be getting games to boot and play for a few seconds. The emulators are downloadable, so you can try them, but I couldn't get any of my games to boot in the emulators at all.
posted by zsazsa at 7:07 AM on June 21, 2004

YPsPr is composite video - it gives better clarity than s-video etc as it uses more inputs.

PSX emulation works fine on my pc, my playstation has been gathering dust for a while.. I use a rather nice thrustmaster analog gamepad instead of the stock ps2 fare..

But I need Disgaea dammit..

So I take it nobody has tried using s-video in?
posted by Mossy at 10:43 AM on June 21, 2004