http://www.pcsx2.net

This release brings a significant speed increase to the majority of games, this is due to a complete rewrite of the EE and VU recompilers. Various other improvements have increased compatibility with games, you will be able to check your game against the included compatibility list, which lists nearly 1000 titles (Please note at time of release list is not guaranteed 100% accurate).

Whilst the new recompilers are a major improvement, the recompilers are not 100% accurate at present, this may result in a number of broken games.

A further release will be created in the future enhancing upon the overall compatibility of the new recompilers. This is part of a new release schedule where we plan to be releasing more frequently; however, do not make requests for releases or ask when such a release will be produced.

Jason

I'd love to fire this sucker up and shoot a bunch of screenshots / test compatibility for them. Oh well.

Though i wouldn't bother unless you have a pretty heavy CPU. You'll need at least an AMD 64 3000 or higher to get this speed boost they're talking about.

It's a pretty damn nice development on this project though, i guess by the time multi-core processors really catch on and become the norm some 2-3 years from now, we'll all be able to enjoy perfectly playable PS2 games on our PCs.

Maybe then i'll finally be able to enjoy some Katamari action. :-)

All work and no play makes me..., well, you know the rest.

> http://www.pcsx2.net
>
> This release brings a significant speed increase to the majority of games, this
> is due to a complete rewrite of the EE and VU recompilers. Various other
> improvements have increased compatibility with games, you will be able to check
> your game against the included compatibility list, which lists nearly 1000
> titles (Please note at time of release list is not guaranteed 100% accurate).
>
> Whilst the new recompilers are a major improvement, the recompilers are not 100%
> accurate at present, this may result in a number of broken games.
>
> A further release will be created in the future enhancing upon the overall
> compatibility of the new recompilers. This is part of a new release schedule
> where we plan to be releasing more frequently; however, do not make requests for
> releases or ask when such a release will be produced.
>
> Jason
>

I was looking through the screenshots in the gallery and the compatibility list and there are a few I'd like to play that are listed as green and playable. I noticed on the screens though that they are running at around 15-20 fps. The forum is down so I can't get any info there either.

Any point in trying this on a P4 3.0?

Depends on what you wish to play I guess. I've got a mid range (AMD Athlon64 2.2GHZ) and can get quite playable framerates in the Nipon Ichi games(Disgaea, Makai kingdom, La Pucelle Tactics, Phantom Brave). Maybe around 85% speed or so.

Kind of hard to test the 3D stuff since those games tend to use heavy amounts of FMV and from what I've seen this emulator has problems running video.
-edit-

OK just tried Final Fantasy X. In windowed mode (320X240) I was hitting around 15FPS when the whole group was on screen around the fire in the opening...about 35-40 FPS when it was just the close up shots of Tidus and Yuna. It crash looped when he was talking on the mountain (or it was just going so slow it never got around to updating to the next line) so I have no idea what it's like in game. The intro bit had severe graphics errors on all the surroundings as well so not sure if this game could be suffering from behind the scenes stuff that could be adding to the slowdown. Speed was a little better in 640X480 75htz fullscreen.

I suppose if you're playing a simple 3D game with minimal characters on screen at a time you may be able to get about half speed.

I don't much mind the speed sucking right now on my ghetto PC :)

I did scare up some BIOS stuff last night, but I've yet to get the deal to even boot up to the PS2 BIOS screen...so....yea. I dunno. Following the tutorial and everything. Maybe my computer is just too crap. Going to keep playing with it today and see if I can get some neat shots for their little contest.