The main bottleneck in PS2 emulation is emulating the Emotion Engine multi-processor on the PC x86 architecture.
Since September 2016, PCSX2 is partially compatible with PlayStation games.
Additionally, PCSX2 requires a genuine copy of the PS2 BIOS, which is not available for download from the developers due to copyright-related legal issues. Different plug-ins may produce different results in both compatibility and performance. These are the graphics, audio, input controls, CD/DVD drive, and USB and FireWire (i.LINK) ports. PCSX2, like its predecessor project PCSX (a PlayStation emulator), is based on a PSEmu Pro spec plug-in architecture, separating several functions from the core emulator. Although PCSX2 can closely mirror the original gameplay experience on the PlayStation 2, PCSX2 supports a number of improvements over gameplay on a traditional PlayStation 2, such as the ability to use resolutions up to 8 times larger than native, anti-aliasing and texture filtering. PCSX2 is a free and open-source PlayStation 2 emulator for Windows, Linux and macOS that supports a wide range of PlayStation 2 video games with a high level of compatibility and functionality.
