**Getting Started with PS2 Emulation using Retro Arch**

As a gamer, having access to your favorite games from different consoles is a dream come true. One such console that has been a staple of gaming for decades is the Sony PlayStation 2 (PS2). With the rise of emulation technology, it's now possible to play PS2 games on PC using various emulators. In this article, we'll explore how to set up and use Retro Arch with the PCSX2 emulator to play PS2 games.

**Setting Up PCSX2 Emulator in Retro Arch**

We'll start by downloading the PCSX2 emulator from the official Retro Arch repository. If you've never used Retro Arch before, don't worry - it's a relatively straightforward process. First, we need to place the PCSX2 folder on our desktop for easy access. Once we have the PCSX2 folder on our desktop, we can start up the Retro Arch interface. From here, we'll scroll down to the "Online Updater" section and press Enter to initiate the update process. This will ensure that all our emulator files are up-to-date.

**Configuring the PCSX2 Emulator**

Once the update process is complete, we can proceed with configuring the PCSX2 emulator. We'll start by navigating to the "Core Downloader" section, where we can select the PCSX2 core from a list of available emulators. Since our PCSX2 folder already contains the necessary files and folders, this step is relatively straightforward. If you're using an Xbox controller, press the Xbox button to bring up the quick menu. Alternatively, if you're using a keyboard, press F1 to access the quick menu.

**Enabling Upscaling**

One of the features that we can enable in Retro Arch is upscaling. Since our system has sufficient power to handle PS2 games at high resolutions, we'll enable this feature to achieve smoother gameplay. To do so, we'll scroll down to the "Settings" section and select the "Internal Resolution" option. We'll then set the internal resolution to 1080p, which should provide a good balance between performance and image quality.

**Customizing On-Screen Display**

Another feature that we can customize in Retro Arch is the on-screen display. We can scroll down to the "On-Screen Display" section and select the options that we prefer. One option that I always like to enable is the "Frame Rate" counter, which will give us an idea of whether the game is running at full speed or not.

**Starting a PS2 Game**

Now that we've configured the PCSX2 emulator, it's time to start playing our favorite PS2 games. We'll navigate to the "Load Content" section and select the PS2 game that we want to play. Since we're using an Xbox controller, we can simply press the "A" button to start the game. If you're using a keyboard, press F1 to access the quick menu.

**Tips and Tricks**

One of the benefits of using Retro Arch is that it allows us to customize our experience to suit our preferences. We can use the "F1" key to access the quick menu, which will bring up various options such as exiting the game or backing out of the emulator. If you're experiencing lag issues while playing a game, we can try reducing the internal resolution by pressing the "D-Pad Down" button.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, setting up PS2 emulation using Retro Arch with PCSX2 is a relatively straightforward process that requires minimal technical knowledge. By following these steps and customizing our emulator settings to suit our preferences, we can enjoy playing our favorite PS2 games on PC with smooth performance and high image quality. Whether you're an experienced gamer or just starting out, Retro Arch is definitely worth checking out for its ease of use and flexibility.

**Additional Resources**

For more information on Retro Arch and PCSX2 emulation, please visit the following links:

* [Retro Arch official website](https://retroarch.org/)

* [PCSX2 official website](https://www.pcsx2.net/)

* [PCSX2 repository on GitHub](https://github.com/pcsx2/pcsx2)

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"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey what's going on everybody it's eta prime back here again today i'm going to show you how to set up the all-new pc sx2 core with retroarch so you can start playing your favorite ps2 games with retro arch now this is officially available from the la retro team but it's only working on x86 platforms windows and linux and i've had good luck with it but it's still in alpha so there will be bugs and when it comes down to it if you're really looking for a decent ps2 experience on your windows or linux machine i would stick with the standalone version of pcsx2 but if you want to give this a try and you like keeping all of your emulators together with an awesome little front end like this we can definitely get it set up pretty easily and in this video i'm going to walk you through all the steps you need to do to get ps2 games up and running with retro arch and with the score we still have the ability to upscale so this is gran turismo 4 upscaled to 1080p and as you can see up in the top right hand corner it is running at full speed but this really depends on the power of the pc you're running this on now with the machine i'm using right now i could probably go up to 4k but i left it at 1080p and i think it looks really good here and i'm getting great performance so if you're interested in getting ps2 games running with retro arch let's go ahead and get started alright so let's go ahead and get this set up there are a few things that you're going to need right off the bat i mean the most important things are going to be your ps2 games unfortunately i can't tell you where to get them i got a few on my desktop in a folder called ps2 games they're dot iso like i mentioned i can't show you where to get them just do a quick google search and you'll find everything you need the next most important thing we're going to need is a ps2 bios there are several to choose from but i personally use the scph 10000 which is the japanese bios and this works out quite well for me if you want to try the european or the us you can just do a google search and you'll also find this now let's go ahead and get this set up it's actually quite easy to do now what we're going to do is go ahead and open up a browser links for these will be in the description first thing we need is retroarch if you already got this set up you can go ahead and skip this but we're going to grab the 64-bit version for windows like i mentioned the ps2 core only works for x86 platforms like linux and windows we're going to download this one next thing we want to do is grab the standalone version of pcsx2 because this is going to make it a lot easier to get all of the files and folders we need into retro arch this automatically creates them you could always do it manually if you want to but i recommend just downloading this so we're going to go to the windows version and we don't want the installer we're going to go with the binary now that they're finished i'm just going to place them on my desktop for easy access so we have pcsx2 and retro arch first things first let's get those files we need so we're going to extract pcsx2 you can use winrar or 7zip we now have it extracted right here i'm going to rename this folder here pcsx2 1.60 might be higher in the future just to pcsx2 inside of this folder is the standalone version of pcsx2 we're going to go ahead and run it because it needs to create more files in here for us we'll just choose next next it's going to ask us to locate our bios but we don't have it in the correct location yet so i'll click finish give me a warning okay close it down as you can see we have more folders created here and this is exactly what we need for retro arch so in the bios folder here we're going to place our bios like i showed you mine's on my desktop scph10000.ben it's the japanese bios and now we have all of the files and folders we need for retroarch to get this up and running they're all right here in this folder that we rename pcsx2 so what i'm going to do is snap this over to the right hand side and now we're going to extract retro arch we'll open it up inside of here we're going to find a folder called system snap this to the left hand side and we're going to place that folder we renamed pcsx2 with all those files and folders inside of it right in our system folder in retro arch so there we have it all the files we need to get playstation 2 up and running inside of retro arch they're ready to go we'll back up and now we can actually start up retro arch right here or we can just create a shortcut which i usually like to do place it on my desktop for easy access we'll start it up on the initial startup if you've never run this before looks a little intimidating but it's quite easy to navigate you can either use your controller it's compatible with a ton of different controllers but i would recommend an xbox one or an xbox one s controller or you can just use your keyboard we're not in full screen mode so from the keyboard let's press f just to bring it up to full screen from here we're going to scroll down to online updater press enter or a on your controller i'm going to update my core info files i also like updating my assets and database now if you want to back up with your keyboard press backspace not escape it'll bring you back go back to online updater core downloader and we're going to find that pcsx2 core so if i press up it's going to bring me to the bottom we can scroll here until we find pcsx2 sony playstation 2. we're going to download this core and it's actually ready to use since we've already set up that folder we needed with our bios inside of it so from here if we want to start a game we'll go to load content we can navigate to where our content is mine's right on my desktop so i'll go to my c drive users username desktop and my ps2 games so from here let's go ahead and start up let's go with sly cooper press enter it's going to start the game we're now running playstation 2 games with retro arch there's a few little tweaks i like to do here the system that i'm using right now can handle these games upscale so i do want to upscale them if you're using an xbox controller right now you can actually press the xbox button and it'll bring us back to the menu if you're on a keyboard press f1 this is our quick menu for this specific core the pc sx2 core scroll down until we see options press enter from here we have a few settings that we can mess around with and the main one that i like messing around with is the internal resolution like i mentioned my system does have enough power to run these games upscaled so we're going to go in here take it up to 1080p if you start lagging out go down a bit if you're not lagging at 1080p you can even try it all the way up to 5k but i'm going to go with 1080p we're going to back up with backspace or be on your controller another setting that i always like to change is from settings scroll down until we see on-screen display on-screen notifications notification visibility and we're going to turn on our frame rate so up in the top right hand corner we now have frame counter so we know if this game is going to be running at full speed we'll go back to main menu quick menu and resume our game which is sly cooper right now get my controller ready to go we can start playing we've upscaled the game we have our frame counter on and all in all i've had really good luck with this pcsx2 core inside a retro arch now like i said at the beginning i would recommend using the standalone version but if you want to keep everything together with retro arch which i really try to do with most of my emulators this is a great option give it a second to get into a little bit of gameplay here and there we have it i'm using my xbox controller with retroarch playing some of my favorite ps2 games and performance is really really good not bad at all i'm super excited about this now there have been little hacked versions around the web where you could get ps2 up and running with retro arch but this is now officially available from their repositories and it's only going to get better from here you want to exit the game f1 on your keyboard or your xbox button from the quick menu you can close the content or we can just back all the way up with the backspace button or b main menu quit retro arch that'll bring us right back to the desktop so yeah there you have it it's actually quite easy to get set up with ps2 inside a retro arch and if you've never used retroarch before it might seem a bit intimidating but as you saw in this video it's really not that many steps to get up and running and downloading that standalone version of pc sx2 is definitely the way to go that way it automatically creates those files and folders for us that we place in our system folder in retro arch so that's it for this one really appreciate you watching all links for everything i mentioned in this video are in the description if you have any questions let me know in the comments below and like always thanks for watching youhey what's going on everybody it's eta prime back here again today i'm going to show you how to set up the all-new pc sx2 core with retroarch so you can start playing your favorite ps2 games with retro arch now this is officially available from the la retro team but it's only working on x86 platforms windows and linux and i've had good luck with it but it's still in alpha so there will be bugs and when it comes down to it if you're really looking for a decent ps2 experience on your windows or linux machine i would stick with the standalone version of pcsx2 but if you want to give this a try and you like keeping all of your emulators together with an awesome little front end like this we can definitely get it set up pretty easily and in this video i'm going to walk you through all the steps you need to do to get ps2 games up and running with retro arch and with the score we still have the ability to upscale so this is gran turismo 4 upscaled to 1080p and as you can see up in the top right hand corner it is running at full speed but this really depends on the power of the pc you're running this on now with the machine i'm using right now i could probably go up to 4k but i left it at 1080p and i think it looks really good here and i'm getting great performance so if you're interested in getting ps2 games running with retro arch let's go ahead and get started alright so let's go ahead and get this set up there are a few things that you're going to need right off the bat i mean the most important things are going to be your ps2 games unfortunately i can't tell you where to get them i got a few on my desktop in a folder called ps2 games they're dot iso like i mentioned i can't show you where to get them just do a quick google search and you'll find everything you need the next most important thing we're going to need is a ps2 bios there are several to choose from but i personally use the scph 10000 which is the japanese bios and this works out quite well for me if you want to try the european or the us you can just do a google search and you'll also find this now let's go ahead and get this set up it's actually quite easy to do now what we're going to do is go ahead and open up a browser links for these will be in the description first thing we need is retroarch if you already got this set up you can go ahead and skip this but we're going to grab the 64-bit version for windows like i mentioned the ps2 core only works for x86 platforms like linux and windows we're going to download this one next thing we want to do is grab the standalone version of pcsx2 because this is going to make it a lot easier to get all of the files and folders we need into retro arch this automatically creates them you could always do it manually if you want to but i recommend just downloading this so we're going to go to the windows version and we don't want the installer we're going to go with the binary now that they're finished i'm just going to place them on my desktop for easy access so we have pcsx2 and retro arch first things first let's get those files we need so we're going to extract pcsx2 you can use winrar or 7zip we now have it extracted right here i'm going to rename this folder here pcsx2 1.60 might be higher in the future just to pcsx2 inside of this folder is the standalone version of pcsx2 we're going to go ahead and run it because it needs to create more files in here for us we'll just choose next next it's going to ask us to locate our bios but we don't have it in the correct location yet so i'll click finish give me a warning okay close it down as you can see we have more folders created here and this is exactly what we need for retro arch so in the bios folder here we're going to place our bios like i showed you mine's on my desktop scph10000.ben it's the japanese bios and now we have all of the files and folders we need for retroarch to get this up and running they're all right here in this folder that we rename pcsx2 so what i'm going to do is snap this over to the right hand side and now we're going to extract retro arch we'll open it up inside of here we're going to find a folder called system snap this to the left hand side and we're going to place that folder we renamed pcsx2 with all those files and folders inside of it right in our system folder in retro arch so there we have it all the files we need to get playstation 2 up and running inside of retro arch they're ready to go we'll back up and now we can actually start up retro arch right here or we can just create a shortcut which i usually like to do place it on my desktop for easy access we'll start it up on the initial startup if you've never run this before looks a little intimidating but it's quite easy to navigate you can either use your controller it's compatible with a ton of different controllers but i would recommend an xbox one or an xbox one s controller or you can just use your keyboard we're not in full screen mode so from the keyboard let's press f just to bring it up to full screen from here we're going to scroll down to online updater press enter or a on your controller i'm going to update my core info files i also like updating my assets and database now if you want to back up with your keyboard press backspace not escape it'll bring you back go back to online updater core downloader and we're going to find that pcsx2 core so if i press up it's going to bring me to the bottom we can scroll here until we find pcsx2 sony playstation 2. we're going to download this core and it's actually ready to use since we've already set up that folder we needed with our bios inside of it so from here if we want to start a game we'll go to load content we can navigate to where our content is mine's right on my desktop so i'll go to my c drive users username desktop and my ps2 games so from here let's go ahead and start up let's go with sly cooper press enter it's going to start the game we're now running playstation 2 games with retro arch there's a few little tweaks i like to do here the system that i'm using right now can handle these games upscale so i do want to upscale them if you're using an xbox controller right now you can actually press the xbox button and it'll bring us back to the menu if you're on a keyboard press f1 this is our quick menu for this specific core the pc sx2 core scroll down until we see options press enter from here we have a few settings that we can mess around with and the main one that i like messing around with is the internal resolution like i mentioned my system does have enough power to run these games upscaled so we're going to go in here take it up to 1080p if you start lagging out go down a bit if you're not lagging at 1080p you can even try it all the way up to 5k but i'm going to go with 1080p we're going to back up with backspace or be on your controller another setting that i always like to change is from settings scroll down until we see on-screen display on-screen notifications notification visibility and we're going to turn on our frame rate so up in the top right hand corner we now have frame counter so we know if this game is going to be running at full speed we'll go back to main menu quick menu and resume our game which is sly cooper right now get my controller ready to go we can start playing we've upscaled the game we have our frame counter on and all in all i've had really good luck with this pcsx2 core inside a retro arch now like i said at the beginning i would recommend using the standalone version but if you want to keep everything together with retro arch which i really try to do with most of my emulators this is a great option give it a second to get into a little bit of gameplay here and there we have it i'm using my xbox controller with retroarch playing some of my favorite ps2 games and performance is really really good not bad at all i'm super excited about this now there have been little hacked versions around the web where you could get ps2 up and running with retro arch but this is now officially available from their repositories and it's only going to get better from here you want to exit the game f1 on your keyboard or your xbox button from the quick menu you can close the content or we can just back all the way up with the backspace button or b main menu quit retro arch that'll bring us right back to the desktop so yeah there you have it it's actually quite easy to get set up with ps2 inside a retro arch and if you've never used retroarch before it might seem a bit intimidating but as you saw in this video it's really not that many steps to get up and running and downloading that standalone version of pc sx2 is definitely the way to go that way it automatically creates those files and folders for us that we place in our system folder in retro arch so that's it for this one really appreciate you watching all links for everything i mentioned in this video are in the description if you have any questions let me know in the comments below and like always thanks for watching you\n"