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Sony - this is how you do PS2 emulation on PS4 properly

R

Ricky Ricardo

Member
WaterAstro said:
Oooooh yes it does. It requires a significant amount of time and money to ensure that every PS2 game works with the emulator with engineering and testing support.

You see, there's this other company that's been doing BC, and they don't have that many titles out in comparison. In fact, they even cancelled a big title.
Click to expand...

Congratulations, you just admitted you have no clue what you're actually talking about
 
S

Synth

Member
Nick_C said:
This was the case when it was hardware-based emulation. To cut down on costs, Sony removed some of the hardware needed and partially emulated with software. Quite a few games weren't compatible. When the slim launched they only had the hardware for PS1 and PS3 disc compatibility. Around the same time that more and more PS2 classics started showing up on the PS Store.

PS3 and PS4 emulation is handled on a car by case basis because the emulator isn't one size fits all. The hardware required for full compatibility across all PS2 game formats is more than likely not under the hood of the PS4.

To the OP: Until you can show me an emulator running all PS2 games like they ran on their original hardware I can not take what you have to say regarding it with much weight. Anyone could say that something is easy to do, but unless they have a deep understanding of what it takes to accomplish the goal their words mean very little.
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When BernardoOne says "PS2 Classics emulator", he literally means the emulator that's running those supposed "case by case" PS2 Classics. On custom firmware you can throw any PS2 game at it,, similar to how you can the PS1 emulator on a PSP. It will play the vast, vast majority of PS2 games without notable issues. The only indication of the PS2 Classics being "case by case" is Sony saying they are (and if that were true stuff like Virtua Fighter 4 Evo shouldn't have happened like they did)... and they have reasons to want to convince us of that (to excuse removing the ability to play your own PS2 discs).
 
F

Fafalada

Fafracer forever
Synth said:
The only indication of the PS2 Classics being "case by case" is Sony saying they are
Click to expand...
When a company has 300+ official games up on the store, that's a pretty clear indication their emulator is general purpose, and they're not being held back by tech issues. PS2 games were also added to PSN at a faster pace than PS1, which should be even more telling the bottlenecks there were not technical.

Nick_C said:
Anyone could say that something is easy to do
Click to expand...
It's not a question of easy to do - the point is the hard work(the tech part anyway) had already been done before PS4 was released. Much in the same vein that Vita could have ran PS1 library on day 1 and it took 1+ years before it showed up, and we never got all the titles across 1:1 with PS3/PSP.
 
K

Krusenstern

Banned
Seriously, I just can't fathom why they won't release a such a PS2 emulator that lets me play the discs. I would honestly buy it.

I know that selling individual games gets them more money but their current selection is just pathetically small. None of the PS2 games out on PS4 interest me.
Seriously, I just can't fathom why they won't release a
 
E

EmiPrime

Member
There are only 46 PS2 on PS4 games on the PAL store and 0 on the Japanese store. They can't be making much money on this, probably the only games that sell are the GTA trilogy.

Just give us the damn emulator Sony.
 
K

Krusenstern

Banned
EmiPrime said:
There are only 46 PS2 on PS4 games on the PAL store and 0 on the Japanese store. They can't be making much money on this, probably the only games that sell are the GTA trilogy.

Just give us the damn emulator Sony.
Click to expand...

On second thought, you're right. You would have to be interested in any of these games when Sony wants to see your money. I think releasing a disc based PS2 emulator for 20 or 30 bucks will bring them more money than they currently get from the entire measly classics library combined.
Why would I buy the GTA trilogy when I can play them on my potato PC nowadays? Other bunch of those games I can play on PC aswell, or at least on other consoles.
 
M

moffattron9000

Member
Yeah, this isn't happening soon. Sony's thoroughly in the cocky phase of being a console manufacturer, and is a humbling from Microsoft and Nintendo away from course correcting.
 
K

Krusenstern

Banned
moffattron9000 said:
Yeah, this isn't happening soon. Sony's thoroughly in the cocky phase of being a console manufacturer, and is a humbling from Microsoft and Nintendo away from course correcting.
Click to expand...

I wish Sony would receive a good beating from Microsoft next generation, so they don't keep sitting on their asses and enjoy the current number one spot in sales, thinking that trickling 5 PS2 games biyearly onto the PSN store and needing to buy the same PS2 game separately for each platform will keep them afloat.
 
E

EmiPrime

Member
Krusenstern said:
On second thought, you're right. You would have to be interested in any of these games when Sony wants to see your money. I think releasing a disc based PS2 emulator for 20 or 30 bucks will bring them more money than they currently get from the entire measly classics library combined.
Why would I buy the GTA trilogy when I can play them on my potato PC nowadays? Other bunch of those games I can play on PC aswell, or at least on other consoles.
Click to expand...

Frankly unless as part of that one off fee the customer has the ability to report bugs and gets regular compatibility and feature updates it should be free.

It's all about ecosystems now and Sony should be trying to entrench people in theirs. Give us the PS1 and PS2 emulator, announce PS3 emulation is being worked on and commit to PS4 BC in PS5. If MS can do this so can Sony.
 
J

Joni

Member
AdamT said:
If this were part of PS+, not only would it make the service actually valuable, but they would sell far more subscriptions.
Click to expand...
No. The ability to play PlayStation 2 is not more relevant than the ability to play FIFA or Call of Duty online.
 
M

Melkezadek

Member
I'm not sure I agree with the argument by some, that "because Sony wants to charge you to rebuy them". The PS3 can play most PS1 games and they still sell PS1 Classics in the store. With PS2 classics, people would still buy them for the trophy support alone. Why can't we have both?
 
E

EmiPrime

Member
Melkezadek said:
I'm not sure I agree with the argument by some, that "because Sony wants to charge you to rebuy them". The PS3 can play most PS1 games and they still sell PS1 Classics in the store. With PS2 classics, people would still buy them for the trophy support alone. Why can't we have both?
Click to expand...

I agree but weirdly we're not even being given both. We're getting neither!
 
B

Berordn

Member
Diablos said:
Nice, clean idea... but is the Jaguar CPU even powerful enough to emulate PS2 games? I kind of doubt it.
Click to expand...

PS2 isn't a terribly difficult console to emulate these days, especially since modern CPUs are many magnitudes stronger.

I can emulate a bunch of games on a mobile CPU with integrated graphics just fine, so an official emulator should be able to do a lot more.
 
S

Synth

Member
Fafalada said:
When a company has 300+ official games up on the store, that's a pretty clear indication their emulator is general purpose, and they're not being held back by tech issues. PS2 games were also added to PSN at a faster pace than PS1, which should be even more telling the bottlenecks there were not technical.
Click to expand...

Well to be fair, MS has more 360 games than that up on XB1 right now, and we know that they test, optimize, and sometimes even return to and improve upon individual games. But the efforts they make to get the games running, and running well are somewhat visible to us... whereas the custom firmware kinda exposed just how general the PS2 Classics emulator is.
 
H

hitgirl

Member
OP I don't think you understand how upscaling works. You cant just render a game at 4x resolution and expect everything to upacale well
 
K

KalBalboa

Banned
Freddo said:
The PS4 not reading CD-ROMs is irrelevant. Neither the PSP or the PS Vita can read CD-ROMs, but they can still play PS1 games from the PS Store.
Click to expand...

It's not irrelevant if the subject is paying for an emulator. Why would I buy a PS1 emulator if the PS4 can't read the discs?

Obviously you and I both want PS1 classics to simply work through a PSN download, though.
 
Theonik

Theonik

Member
Afaik there is no real technical reason why the PS4 can't play CDs. This is an entirely business decision by Sony.

hitgirl said:
OP I don't think you understand how upscaling works. You cant just render a game at 4x resolution and expect everything to upacale well
Click to expand...
That's how Sony's present PS2 emulator works. They do repack the games and sell as individual units but the games themselves aren't modified. PS2's memory architecture does make rendering at higher res harder than in say the GCN or Dreamcast but Sony gets around that by just rendering at 2x res in either direction.
 
D

Diablos

Member
Berordn said:
PS2 isn't a terribly difficult console to emulate these days, especially since modern CPUs are many magnitudes stronger.

I can emulate a bunch of games on a mobile CPU with integrated graphics just fine, so an official emulator should be able to do a lot more.
Click to expand...

EmiPrime said:
Uhhh yes. Look at the PlayStation store: The PS3 can emulate the PS2 and so can the PS4.
Click to expand...

ArkhamFantasy said:
They have an emulator running the games in HD, but its a handful of games.
Click to expand...

Vashetti said:
Are the current PS2 classics running on pixie dust?
Click to expand...
Isn't part of the reason why there are only a handful of games because they have to be optimized to work on PS4 hardware?

I'm talking straight emulation, as in, put in your PS2 disc and run the game with the emulator and no other added optimizations. Is this not a more challenging thing to do?
 
Theonik

Theonik

Member
Diablos said:
Isn't part of the reason why there are only a handful of games because they have to be optimized to work on PS4 hardware?

I'm talking straight emulation, as in, put in your PS2 disc and run the game with the emulator and no other added optimizations. Is this not a more challenging thing to do?
Click to expand...
No it's because games need to be licensed individually to release online and that takes a lot of time and effort. Also trophies which is relatively trivial.
 
D

dogen

Member
Theonik said:
Afaik there is no real technical reason why the PS4 can't play CDs. This is an entirely business decision by Sony.


That's how Sony's present PS2 emulator works. They do repack the games and sell as individual units but the games themselves aren't modified. PS2's memory architecture does make rendering at higher res harder than in say the GCN or Dreamcast but Sony gets around that by just rendering at 2x res in either direction.
Click to expand...

Technically they don't do 2x in each direction, they actually render at native res multiple times and use the data from all 4 images. They even patented the trick they use.

Diablos said:
Isn't part of the reason why there are only a handful of games because they have to be optimized to work on PS4 hardware?

I'm talking straight emulation, as in, put in your PS2 disc and run the game with the emulator and no other added optimizations. Is this not a more challenging thing to do?
Click to expand...

Might be part of it, but there's also the issue that people would expect every game to work. A compatibility list that you have to check isn't a good solution.
 
B

biggersmaller

Banned
People spending time playing an old 80 hour PS2 JRPG competes against their $60 new releases. Unless it's a subscription. Nintendo also figured this out.
 
N

Negotiator

Member
I have a couple of questions regarding PS2 emulation:

1) How does Jaguar @ 1.6 GHz manage to emulate PS2 games properly when on PC (PCSX2) even AMD FX CPUs @ 4 GHz are not recommended (due to poor single-threaded performance) and pretty much everyone buys Intel CPUs?

2) How does the PS3 manage to emulate the eDRAM bus (48GB/s)? XDR (Cell) is 25.6GB/s and GDDR3 (RSX) is 22.4GB/s.
 
T

texhnolyze

Banned
tapantaola said:
I have a couple of questions regarding PS2 emulation:

1) How does Jaguar @ 1.6 GHz manage to emulate PS2 games properly when on PC (PCSX2) even AMD FX CPUs @ 4 GHz are not recommended (due to poor single-threaded performance) and pretty much everyone buys Intel CPUs?
Click to expand...

Because PCSX2 developers are not Sony.

They are the manufacturer, they should be able to come up with a better technique. If they would.
 
P

Prototype Viktor

Member
Keinning said:
You lost Sony at the "single fee" line
Click to expand...

get em back with single fee for emulation software, then $3 per title when you put in your own disc. Give half to the licence holder and Sony keeps the other half of the $3. old PS2 disc prices skyrocket and it evens all out and no one wins
 
R

RedSwirl

Junior Member
Ideally it should just be like how PS1 and PS2 emulation were handled on the PS3 -- just ISOs you download into an emulator that's already in the system. The issue with PS2 emulation on PS3 is that the PS3 wasn't powerful enough to emulate the whole PS2 library well enough for Sony to allow physical discs. People hacked the PS3 to allow physical PS2 games but I think performance was pretty spotty in a lot of games. I remember publishers announcing certain PS2 games wouldn't come to Classics on PS3 because the emulation just didn't work. It's generally assumed the PS4 has enough grunt to solve this problem, so ideally Sony would just allow PS1 and PS2 discs on PS4 while also selling hundreds of classics from those consoles on PSN, keeping the licenses people bought on PS3. I think Sony would have to re-license those games for them to be playable on PS4 though which might be the biggest problem.

This is why ultimately, emulation for physical discs is the best way to get the whole PS1 or PS2 library on there. There are just too many games to try to get on PSN.

I've thought about the OP's idea before though. A one-time purchase of the emulator might make sense if and only if it plays PS1 and PS2 discs. It would be a smart way for Sony to at least get some ROI out of that physical backwards compatibility. I'd probably pay $50 for that. I wonder if you could do it for other consoles though. Like, imagine if SEGA developed a Dreamcast or even Saturn emulator for PlayStation and Xbox that played the old discs, and just sold it for a one-time purchase.

momshotdad said:
Except Xbox One does it for free and would be a PR nightmare if they charged for it.
Click to expand...

The disadvantage of Xbox One BC is it can only play games that are downloadable from XBL. It's basically a digital-only emulator, Microsoft just added the ability for it to read old Xbox discs and know what game to download, using the disc purely as DRM. I don't even know if Sony could do that for PS1 and PS2 games.

Sony selling a disc-compatible emulator gets it some revenue on its own while also letting players potentially have access to the hundreds and hundreds of legacy games that would probably never be re-licensed for sale on PSN.
 
Theonik

Theonik

Member
dogen said:
Technically they don't do 2x in each direction, they actually render at native res multiple times and use the data from all 4 images. They even patented the trick they use.
Click to expand...
Oh yes I am aware. I was simplifying somewhat the end result is a native image 2x in either direction. There is no game modification, that's an emulator feature.

dogen said:
Might be part of it, but there's also the issue that people would expect every game to work. A compatibility list that you have to check isn't a good solution.
Click to expand...
There is that, but they didn't have a problem with this on the G2 PS3 with BC where they lost a lot of the original BC and Microsoft has done this for 2 gens now where they have a partial BC solution with a list.

tapantaola said:
I have a couple of questions regarding PS2 emulation:

1) How does Jaguar @ 1.6 GHz manage to emulate PS2 games properly when on PC (PCSX2) even AMD FX CPUs @ 4 GHz are not recommended (due to poor single-threaded performance) and pretty much everyone buys Intel CPUs?

2) How does the PS3 manage to emulate the eDRAM bus (48GB/s)? XDR (Cell) is 25.6GB/s and GDDR3 (RSX) is 22.4GB/s.
Click to expand...
1) Different software, works differently. If PCSX2 devs were to re-write it today from scratch with the lessons they learned it likely would be much faster. Parts of that emulator are really poorly written.

2) It doesn't that was part of the issue. G1 BC PS3 units could had both PS2 CPUs and GPUs in them G2 had only the GPU. They disabled the BC on G3 because their software emulator for the PS2 GPU had serious issues being partly hampered by the memory bandwidth. They only later re-enabled it and started selling some of the handful of games that worked with it on the PS Store. Not every game relies on the memory bandwidth to run properly but there were problems even in some PS2 to PS3 ports in that regard.
 
T

Taker34

Banned
S

Souldestroyer Reborn

Banned
Licensing is the main issue in the way of this working, particularly for digital games.

I'd love nothing more than to throw 2-3 bucks on PS1 and PS2 games that i can download and play whenever I please.
 
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