https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOkpJcyCldU

Playstation 2 emulation has been a reality for years thanks to PCSX2, but it’s mostly been a one-horse race since its competitors (PS2Emu and Neutrino) never really developed to the state it had reached. While PCSX2 is criticized by some for having an incomplete hardware mode, it still plays good enough to allow gamers to experience their favorite games in higher resolution modes.

Thanks to the original author of AdriPSX and DSemu, a new PS2 emulator has come up to give PCSX2 some competition.

While competition may be a bit of a strong word to use in this case, the new emulator seems to fulfill a desire for simplicity that those who are turned off by PCSX2 have asked for. With no need for plugins, no need for a BIOS file and a focus on compatibility rather than fancy effects, this new emulator has already earned an equal measure of haters and fans due to that simplicity and the author’s refusal to make it open source. For the record, I’d be happy if it could finally emulate Champions of Norrath at a reasonable frame-per-second clip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbOHo5uXa-4

The author, Roor, has tentatively named it the “Connectix Ps2emu”. No doubt a shout-out to ultra popular yet litigation-prone Connectix Virtual Game station, which was gobbled up by Sony after a lawsuit and then dissolved.

Videos exist of users trying random games on the new emulator, and while they are running a bit slow they are running amazingly well for something that is so early in development.

If you have a large collection of Playstation 2 games and want to help Roor test his emulator, you can contact him via his email which is listed in the aforementioned thread.

I think someone in that thread made a very truthful statement when they said that, quote, “The Batman of PS2 emulation has yet to arrive”. Sadly, the PS2 still doesn’t have it’s perfect emulator the way nearly every other system before it does. Hopefully that changes.