How much ram do you need to emulate PS2 games on a PC?

Answer 1

Note: RAM should be capitalized as it is an acronym for Random Access Memory.

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The current build of PCSX2 (1.2.1 as of May 2014) will only run at full speed on high end consumer processors (i7 2600, i7 4700k, etc), a high range video card, and at least 6 GB to 16 GB of memory. It will not run at full speed on the AMD Phenom or Phenom II as these CPU's lack certain types of instructions sets (SSS3 & SSE4.1) that are critical to the operation of PCSX2. The Phenom will instead run on the SSE2 instruction sets, which is slower.

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The fact that the real Playstation 2 hardware only used 32 MB of system RAM and 4 MB of video RAM has no bearing on the amount of RAM a PC needs to emulate the Playstation 2. The reason the RAM is needed is so that a working model of the entire logic of the Playstation 2 console can run in resident memory of the computer. The proprietary design of the Emotion Engine (particularly its variable 128-bit bus) is extremely difficult to duplicate accurately. The CPU of the PS2 had many elements within the dye that dynamically interacted.

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There are ways to get the PCSX2 emulator to run with less RAM and on slower computers than the i7 series, such as the Core 2 Quad and Core 2 Duo. These CPUs do support SSS3 (and some even support SSE4.1). However, this involves using special settings and speed hacks, which reduces the quality of the emulation significantly.

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The graphics card is also important. Although the Playstation had very primitive graphics capabilities by today's standards, the way the graphics bus and CPU bus interacted with each other is difficult to duplicate. Although most video cards with Pixel Shader 2 capability will run PCSX2, to actually run the emulator at full speed a more powerful video card will be required. Again this is because the logic of the graphics system has to be duplicated, not just cell shading for backgrounds and character models. To see real PS2-like performance you are going to need a video card like the GTX 660 or the HD Radeon 7870. Again you can get the emulator to run on slower cards (with speed hacks and special settings) but the quality of emulation will be diminished.

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PCSX2 is the only PS2 emulator, and its minimum requirements are outstanding.

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Requirements (will simply run the emulator):

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz

Graphics card: 7600 GT with 256 MB (or AMD equivalent)

Memory: 4GB DDR2 (some graphics may disappear as memory runs out)

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Recommended (to actually play games):

Processor: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.80 GHz

Graphics Card: 8800 GT with 512 MB (or AMD equivalent)

Memory: 6 GB to 8 GB DDR3

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Recommended (to play games at full speed):

Processor: i7 2600 (or better)

Graphics Card: GTX 660 (or better)

Memory: 8 GB to 16 GB DDR3

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Visit http://pcsx2.net for pcsx