PCSX2 2.0 Graphics Guide | Every Option Explained & Best Settings for PlayStation 2 Emulator PS2

[@KatRollo]

Notes: 1) VSync has moved under Settings > Emulation > VSync 2) You can also get into the per-game config on the game list screen by Right-Click (on game) > Properties. This will have all options available, but no real-time preview. Good if you already know what you're after and quicker than getting in-game. Thanks for the video!

[@warpedpolygon]

Hi Kat. Yes, Stenzek has a habit of moving options about, after I release a video. How inconsiderate! Thanks for providing another way to get to per game settings.

[@KatRollo]

@@warpedpolygon All good, keep doing these videos. I'm a fan. 👍

[@ebanksstudios]

THANK YOU! I've been looking for vsync

[@roonitogoorooni]

>no real-time preview It works if you render the game in a separate window.

[@KatRollo]

@@roonitogoorooni Ah good tip, I always render on the same Window.

[@Khraze]

This is my favorite channel of late. Top quality stuff!

[@warpedpolygon]

Cheers mate!

[@shinjiikarir]

i cannot beleive how amazing these old games look! thanks!

[@warpedpolygon]

No problem!

[@Dave.S.Cramer]

Wow, just wow. You are the best thing to ever happen to the emulation community. You have no idea how much we appreciate all your hard work.

[@warpedpolygon]

Thanks man. Glad to hear it's helping everyone out

[@SamRexii]

You know how to add games? Cuz I don't have physical copy

[@nukezon6992]

@@SamRexii bruh, download roms of the game you want.

[@kaiparado]

@@SamRexii Telegram has some channels that share

[@troymcdonald]

And this is why I’m subscribed and watch all of Warped Polygon’s videos!🎉

[@warpedpolygon]

You are now a true OG!

[@music123music9]

man.... I'm new to pcsx2 to play godhand, god of war series. And none of the videos I've found match your quality and content. Subbed.

[@vinicius100470]

7:28 this is said in the Progressive Scan list you linked, but in case anyone missed it, not every game will have Progressive Scan in the options, some of them requires holding Triangle + Cross as the game is booting up to activate it.

[@warpedpolygon]

Cheers mate. Will pin this

[@2ru2pacFan]

Wow thank you so much! Definitely what we needed and can't to see more future vids.

[@Mario-tm6uv]

I always look forward to and appreciate all your content. Thank you.

[@warpedpolygon]

Thanks Mario!

[@cloudcoco398]

Never has a video been so informative

[@JD69Han]

Fantastic video breaking down the various options, thank you!!

[@warpedpolygon]

No worries mate!

[@ThatSoddingGamer]

This was a pretty darn useful guide to get me started, thanks dood!

[@eugeneko26]

After a great tutorial's on duckstation, PS1 I was searching for PS2. This is exactly what I needed thanks!

[@warpedpolygon]

Glad I could help!

[@alissonlopesx]

amazing video my friend, i now can understand every option, absolute cinema!!

[@warpedpolygon]

Great to hear!

[@AndyU96]

Wow you really explained blending accuracy well there... Wow

[@warpedpolygon]

I fixed this and explained it in the new video. It's to do with lighting effects.

[@Pvnth3r_]

You are the best,from now on every emulator ill use it with your settings

[@biggie01taws6]

I'd love to see you make a video on how to setup those PNACH cheat files for PCSX2 and do it for dummies like me so I can understand it lol. I've been using Codemaster cheats in my Retrobat build which, for those that don't know, basically Codemaster is it's own ISO and you just start it like any other game and then choose your game and codes from within it's game list, then start your game by "changing disc" after pressing "select" plus "X" on your controller to gain access to the PCSX2 menu. It sounds complicated but it's actually quite easy. It's just a lot of steps and I was thinking the PNACH cheat files way might be much quicker, but I'm a dummy at the same time,so I really don't know if they would be better than using my current method or not lol. Great tutorial though!👍

[@warpedpolygon]

This is the best video I have seen on the subject kzbin.info/www/bejne/oqKwZJqCqtKcj9Usi=t5kElR2zlcf12J0D

[@biggie01taws6]

@@warpedpolygon yeah I've seen this video before. While it's a good guide, it's still too much for my monkey brain to grasp onto🤣

[@chadbrick67]

Codebreaker is so easy to use get the Codebreaker 10 iso and boot it and search for the game you want cheats for use usa roms/iso its really piss eady to use select cheat then disk swap to the game youve chose cheats for. Easy really easy ​@@biggie01taws6

[@elianmusic7452]

Ridiculously helpful and simple and nice, thank you so much!

[@DigDigLinux]

Underrated channel and guide, keep it up with the good work, mate!

[@warpedpolygon]

Thanks mate! I fully intend to, hopefully it'll get some more traction soon.

[@RealDevastatia]

On an older PC, setting Rendering > Internal Resolution too high can reduce FPS, causing the animation to look like it's in slow motion. So even if your graphics card supports 1080p, you may want to reduce it to 900p to keep the frame rate at around 30 FPS or better.

[@revya-1951]

Straight and to the point with excellent breakdowns of everything thank you so much!!

[@stageiiwappie950]

Amazing how much better emulation has become better in recent years and how good software we have now, thank u

[@warpedpolygon]

The past 3 years have been leaps and bounds.

[@Subhankarapd]

You sir! is a lifesaver 😊 I was too frustrated and irritated for making graphics settings for every single game Thanks a lot.. Burnout Revenge (my fav burnout) i am coming baby..i am coming ❤

[@cfw95]

This video sheds a lot of light on settings that would cover a lot of emulators, (which is an absolute gold mine of a video btw), but I'd love to see a more in-depth look into Project64, if you're asking! :)

[@intothevoid9417]

I was just hoping you would make a guide for this emulator. my prayers couldn't have been answered sooner

[@dj_davidpullan]

Another great video, thats all my playstion emulators looking amazing thanks

[@SimonLampard]

Hey great video. I just started using the pcsx2 so this was really able to help me. I really like your videos and how they are well presented. You have done a wonderful job. Subscribed.

[@warpedpolygon]

Glad I could help!

[@Moonwalker86]

A million thanks for these amazing videos.

[@abbba2]

Thank you very much sir, I really do appreciate the efforts you put into making this video you were crystal clear I made my adjustments based on my GPU which is a high end one and everything looks smooth much appreciated you have my like

[@warpedpolygon]

You are very welcome

[@GenNowGamer]

Great tutorial 💯you for sure helped me get things working a bit better overall. Much appreciated 👍👍

[@parhamnekootalaban8310]

Such a thorough and magnificent video. Thanks a lot

[@Ironclock_4488]

Great work man! im replaying SotC ASAP, thank you so much!

[@warpedpolygon]

Have fun!

[@Right_Said_Brett]

Another superb and comprehensive guide. Thank you :)

[@warpedpolygon]

Cheers Brett, your comments are always welcome!

[@aydennuula979]

Incredible. All questions answered.

[@Lenxv07]

Thanks a lot, your settings worked best !

[@TheVengefulSquid]

This is great! I wouldn't say I am a beginner at PCSX2 but some of the settings I was unclear on, this has helped. Can you do a video on the manual hardware and hacks sections of PCSX2?

[@warpedpolygon]

Yes I can

[@WheeledHamster]

It's about time we get these kind of videos. I always wonder what all these options do and what's the best choice.

[@lightrayy0845]

Top notch in depth explanation. Thank you, sir.

[@outsidewithmike]

Thanks for the very informative video!

[@Dorraj]

Couple things I noticed you mention here: Anisotropic filtering is NOT an anti-aliasing. It is a texture filtering option that changes how textures are filtered at an angle. Because of how the PS2 natively renders (low resolution) this causes the textures to have jaggies on movement, but that's not because of aliasing. They are two different things, but I won't get into that here. Basically it's more of a modern setting that wasn't a thing back then. If you want the game to look more "accurate", leave it off, if you want cleaner textures, turn it all the way up. (it has minimal to no impact on performance on systems from the past couple decades) Contrast Adaptive Sharpening has nothing to do with the upscaling technique by AMD (FidelityFX Super Resolution), they are just under the same naming moniker (FidelityFX). All it is is a sharpening filter to help with extra blurry scenes, often used with TAA. I'm honestly not sure why this is included in a PS2 emulator, unless I guess a game is particularly too blurry for some specific person and turning the render res up doesn't help. FXAA is an extremely terrible, but extremely lightweight, anti-aliasing technique, that honestly doesn't need to be used in any case. Unlike MSAA, SMAA, or TAA, it does not detect edges and simply applies a filter to the entire screen. This blurs EVERYTHING on screen, whether it be edges (the point of an AA) or textures (AA should not be touching). The blurring effect is lessened the higher resolution you are, but the point of it also decreases the higher resolution you are. It was terrible when it was first introduced in games when deferred rendering first started becoming popular, and has all but been replaced in modern games by TAA. Some people find it fine to turn on in higher resolution situations, but if you are supersampling your games anyway... I don't see much of a point to blur the screen a bit.

[@warpedpolygon]

@@Dorraj thanks for the info, much appreciated. This is a slightly older video and the FXAA thing has been addressed as has the Anisotropic Filtering option that I worded incorrectly in this video. The Contrast Adaptive Sharpening i wasn't aware had nothing to do with AMDs one. That will be fixed in the next video thanks to you.

[@Dorraj]

@@warpedpolygon CAS is related in that I'm pretty sure FSR uses it, but it's not mutually exclusive. But yeah, they aren't major things, just random stuff I noticed when watching. Videos like this are very helpful as the little info text given for the options really isn't enough to explain what it all means, I very much appreciate it regardless of my autistic nitpicks lol

[@warpedpolygon]

@Dorraj autistic nitpicks is the reason I started this channel. I appreciate the info, anything to get "the perfect guide".

[@Mbrook77]

Great video, I just subscribed. I suggest you do the dolphin emulator next

[@Phantom6.6.6]

Thanks a lot. Saved me a ton of time and effort

[@RyanStorey1231]

I love this. Nobody ever explains what shit like "bilinear filtering" and "mipmapping" and "dithering" does in these videos.

[@warpedpolygon]

Yeah man, not a lot of people are willing to do the research and test the crap out of it. I just give the info that I want and everyone seems to like it. Seems like we are all on the same page when all the info is available.

[@SupremacyGamesYT]

Ive been waiting for these video for years god bless. shout out for showcasing 187 ride or die legendary game

[@warpedpolygon]

I do like me some car combat

[@AgentNightingale]

This was actually super helpful unlike the other guys

[@warpedpolygon]

@@AgentNightingale thanks man, one of the reasons I do this as there's not really anyone else doing it.

[@AgentNightingale]

@@warpedpolygon I had everything except the blending accuracy set to full. Figuring out PSX2 for the first time was definitely annoying.

[@warpedpolygon]

@@AgentNightingale there's a lot to it, btw my explanation on blending accuracy is a bit rubbish in this video. In the newer vid i explain what it actually is, the advice is still to have it on full if possible but you may wanna know what it actually affects

[@intothevoid9417]

Btw, don't use GT4 1080i mode, use 480 progressive and upscale from there.

[@warpedpolygon]

Thanks!

[@ChasePhilport]

top notch video, great work really appreciate it :)

[@warpedpolygon]

Much appreciated!

[@NEOCORTEX2025]

you are very expert on this emulator keep up the good work thanks.

[@warpedpolygon]

Thanks, will do!

[@JeroeMorrow]

Fantastic video and information, thank you for sharing. It helped me to understand effortless this emulator.

[@warpedpolygon]

Thanks mate!

[@modforcesvirtualracingchannel]

First class guide!!! Thanks for sharing 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[@ZENIINN.]

Seriously some of these games look better than modern remasters. Thanks so much😀

[@warpedpolygon]

Yeah it's funny how they hold up. They still have style, none of this bland modern rubbish.

[@MrMusicopath]

cool, you did it finally! 😄

[@warpedpolygon]

Thanks to hardware donation I was able to actually cover it. Yayy for kindness

[@Clarkane]

there is one setting that really helps gran turismo 4 (or any other game that has this kinda issue), some tracks especially the night ones can make the headlights of the car to blink, the way to fix it is to use fractioned resolutions like 1.25,1.5,.1.75x etc, i set mine to 3.5x and looks great

[@danton2949]

Great video like always.

[@Oscarmayer261]

this was great thanks!

[@mrnoob-333]

great guide ...we would like to also had RPCS3 guide too that will be amazing for us too

[@Clodd1]

This is pretty helpful. Thanks.

[@warpedpolygon]

Glad it was helpful!

[@subhajeetdas9539]

Good explanation, thanks

[@omkarpawar3331]

Best video man ❤

[@warpedpolygon]

Cheers mate!

[@temp_user_id]

Sir, you are an international treasure. May you win the lottery.

[@warpedpolygon]

I'm gonna play this weeks draw now! Fingers crossed

[@HaloinfiniteEternal]

Excellent Thank You

[@Alianger]

I find it weird how God of War seems to look right with the WS patch but if turning WS on in-game, it doesn't look right? Edit: Someone told me to turn it on in-game, then set the display setting to widescreen without using the patch. That seems to work better 16:30 It seems to only affect the flickering edges that are close to each other, during movement. Jaggies (such as on the tree behind the house where you can see clear "stair steps" on the trunk) are affected by a higher internal resolution only I believe

[@tonistarks2874]

Thank u! Got my sub💯

[@warpedpolygon]

Thanks mate!

[@Sulaiman544]

Great video. it helped alot thanks 🎮📺

[@warpedpolygon]

Cheers mate

[@NotOrdinaryInGames]

3:45 that stretched the image, anyone non-blind should be able to see it. Progressive does not mean "not 4:3 anymore", the image size is always a case by case basis.

[@warpedpolygon]

@@NotOrdinaryInGames yes you are correct. I made a mistake

[@Matt-vx9hp]

Ty so much!

[@warpedpolygon]

No probs!

[@jorge69696]

Blending Accuracy for God of War 1 and 2 is best set to medium. When set to basic, the ambient fog is less dense and disappears from some rooms.

[@warpedpolygon]

Cheers man!

[@zakhelemdaka8424]

Ur the best 💯💯

[@bohiles]

Thank you!!!

[@pipe_99]

Thank youu :)

[@sTheghost718]

What's a good GPU percentage? Im playing MK Deception and my gpu range from 29-35%. Thanks for the upload btw, you really made my game super crisp

[@warpedpolygon]

@@sTheghost718 anything under 100% is good as you're not maxing out performance. Cheers mate!

[@sTheghost718]

@@warpedpolygon cool, thanks for the response!

[@HerZeL3iDza]

Also I must mention. "EE Cycle Rate" is something you might wanna turn up (mine's on 180%). This insures the games run at their max framerates all of the time with no dips. 100% emulates how the PS2 ran these games but personally I don't think emulation should be about accuracy but to get the best visuals and framerate possible and not play with the original console's limitations. If you have a REALLY old CPU you probably should keep it on 100%.

[@warpedpolygon]

Overclocking will be covered in an overclocking guide. This is a graphics guide buddy.

[@joeldelgado9198]

@@warpedpolygon Looking forward to this. It's a big topic, and I haven't found much information about it. Thanks for the video!

[@KatRollo]

Turning up EE Cycle Rate globally must be done with caution. Some games are tied to the clockspeed, which can cause game-breaking events. Cranking up the fps isn't always the way to go.

[@Tall_Order]

Sadly all 3 of the Sly Cooper games have bad interlacing that even the patches do nothing to fix. They may fix it partially, but every so often it goes back to bouncing the logos and text again.

[@videogamesruinedmylife3769]

I'm surprised you didn't go into custom textures

[@warpedpolygon]

Will be covering that in another video for sure.

[@rodrigoapiolazamedina5808]

Hi, is there a way to change the plugins? Great video btw!

[@warpedpolygon]

Yes but it's a pain in the butt. What you tryna do?

[@chadbrick67]

Outstanding

[@Lex_Hausens]

Is it possible to modify tv shaders settings? there is "GSdx_FX_Settings" but it does nothing when modified. Great video!

[@MusicCityCANE]

@Warped Polygon great video! What are your settings for the Recording tab. I have a few specs of pixels after the characters move on the recording, I just want to know what I can do about it. Regular gameplay is fine, I don't see any of that. It only shows up on the Recording. Anyway, I'd greatly appreciate your help with this. Thanks in advance!🙏

[@pomich7060]

Great video dude, thank you. I just downloaded the PCSX2, but i dont see the Vsync option. Should i download a previous version to fix it?

[@warpedpolygon]

@@pomich7060 no, it's just moved to the emulation section mate

[@pomich7060]

@@warpedpolygon you saved my life (and my eyes😅). Again, thank you and great vid! 🙌🏻

[@warpedpolygon]

@@pomich7060 no worries. Enjoy!

[@user-ey5tl5vq8w]

Can you use the mouse to control shooting and aiming in action games? I don't have a gamepad and I would like to play with a keyboard and mouse.

[@RaphaelAT]

Hey man, great video! On the filters option there is 4xRGSS and and NxAGSS options, what do they do? Are they actual anti-aliasing options to make the jaggies less visible?

[@abhijitdey9513]

thanks buddy!! Please make some videos on PS3 emulation where we can actually play some games properly.

[@warpedpolygon]

Despite getting an upgrade I still can't quite emulate PS3 with good frame rates. I'm gonna refer you to @Igor.L for this. PS3 emulation generally needs a heavy per game focus which this guy does very well, if you like my stuff you'll like his.

[@nicholsonng]

Thank You

[@warpedpolygon]

Welcome!

[@soccerj75]

Love the video! Any chance you can make a video on how to get light guns to work on PCSX2? Been trying to play Time Crisis 2 with a wiimote with dolphin bar and the game doesnt register the movements of the wiimote..only the buttons.

[@warpedpolygon]

At some point I will cover this. When I actually get some lightguns

[@zurytan]

Help the vsync option is missing in current version

[@ImLamboV2]

it's now under Emulation tab

[@zurytan]

@@ImLamboV2 oh imma check dat

[@Stefan-xm7ti]

Can you go a bit more deeply on the software renderer? I only use this because it creates a mostly authentic picture (real close to real ps2 but sharper) and z buffer glichtfree experience in like gta 3, vice city or tony hawks pro skater 3. But what is so magical and why is no one using this option? Thanks and great channel

[@warpedpolygon]

Software is the most accurate but is more demanding on performance. The hardware renderers allow for Upscaling and enhancements. If you want an original experience, software is a good way to go, but using the original resolution with a hardware renderer is almost the same

[@Stefan-xm7ti]

Thank you very much for your community work. Will use vulkan > opengl > software from now on​@@warpedpolygon

[@RetroSmoo]

Could try vulkan and crt shader

[@rayphoenix7296]

I'm having an issue using this emulator with Ratchet and Clank 3 and Deadlocked. When I got to the vendor in those games and leave the vendor, the environment disappears and most of the platforms and enemies disappear making the games impossible to be played.

[@warpedpolygon]

make sure mipmapping is ON. Set filtering to default. if that doesn't work try a different hardware renderer, if that doesn't work try Software renderer

[@happyhoildays2010]

Need advice when I play Marvel vs Capcom 2 the characters are to pixelated but the background looks good how do I fix that

[@warpedpolygon]

Try default or linear filtering

[@TheBlackItalianGamer]

When playing Tenkaichi 3, there's this black outline on the characters. How do I get rid of it please?

[@leonardoleiva3398]

Thanks

[@grandiosa86]

Will I have to adjust the settings for each game I play, or do the same settings fit every game?

[@neltlen]

I got a problem, I was trying to play resident evil outbreak with my wife and I noticed with the exact same settings and config but on different specs, the other is running worse. I have a 5800x3d and rtx 3070 with 32gb ram and on the beginning of outbreak in front of the door the gpu usage goes so high on vulkan that it would cause framedrops. On the exact same configuration but with a cpu of 3700x and gtx 1070 gpu with 16gb ram its running flawless on vulkan. The gpu driver on the rtx 3070 was re installed with ddu, i even reinstalled pcsx2 on both machines to see if i messed up some settings but its the same problem. The rtx 3070 is abnormally getting high gpu usage when using vulkan on that scenario which is making me crazy thinking why would that be. I even checked the prefer performance mode, disabled hardware accelerated gpu scheduling. Enabled/disabled g sync, v sync, even tried changing monitor refresh rate to 60. I couldnt figure why it is like that.

[@warpedpolygon]

@@neltlen your not the only one to have strange performance with vulkan. open gl is just fine, you have more than enough spec to run open gl. Is there a particular reason you wanna use vulkan? It's mostly used as it performs better, which for you isn't an issue.

[@neltlen]

@@warpedpolygon well people said its for render accuracy, but i switched to dx12 and now have proper expected performance with low gpu usage. Im just trying to figure out why it would do that on higher spec hardware.

[@warpedpolygon]

@@neltlen drivers are the likely culorit. Sometimes Vulkan just doesn't play ball it would seem, graphics card to graphics card.

[@additivewolf]

I copy-paste your settings on my Steam Deck but now the games don’t even start lol maybe it’s too much for the system to handle. What settings you suggest to change first to make it work again?

[@warpedpolygon]

leave everything on default and see how it performs

[@FOXTROT_3D]

0:25 -- what is the game??? P.S. Thanks for the video!

[@warpedpolygon]

187 Ride or Die

[@FOXTROT_3D]

@@warpedpolygon Thank you!

[@biharigamer7241]

Bro great video, can u please tell me from where to download games

[@NoteCrypticon]

Just search up the name of the game with ISO at the end ull need a .iso file of the game abd that's it

[@williamtael8379]

My Mega Man X8 is looking almost perfect, except for the weird pixelated glowing effect on the first stage's flowers and X's red helmet gem. How do I fix that?

[@PassolargoProductions]

Hi, I have an interesting problem. I'm playing GT4 on pcsx2qt. For some reason, sometimes the FPS suddenly drops and goes into slow motion. Even though the emulation is smooth at 60 fps, out of nowhere everything just gets slow, and this only gets resolved when I restart my PC. I have a notebook with an i7 12gen and RTX 3070ti and it doesn't force either the GPU or the CPU. I'm watching your video and for some reason the CPU/GPU Spin options caught my attention. Since it's a notebook, even when plugged in all the time, it has a battery. Thinking about whether a power outage could be the problem... What do you think? Could you help me please?

[@warpedpolygon]

@@PassolargoProductions try the spin options, but it may not help. Could be a lot of different things if those spin options don't work

[@yungguh5341]

I've been looking for the texture preloading and I can't find it anywhere

[@kardokdelikaya9570]

I have 3060 ti and 5 5500 but still getting fps drops while playing Punisher. I didn't have this problem with other games. When I look down there is no problem except I can't see and shoot enemies :D

[@warpedpolygon]

If it doesn't improve if you drop your settings, it's prob just the emulation.

[@ZuneGuy1118]

Thank you so much for this video. It is extremely helpful. If I may ask, do you know why I don't have the v-sync option in my emulator? I am using the latest version. Thanks for any help on this.

[@warpedpolygon]

The emulator got an update and vsync is now in the emulation section, mipmapping has also moved to to the rendering tab. I swear every time i put out a video covering stenzeks work, he then moves stuff around. Love the updates but he works so fast it's hard to keep up.

[@ZuneGuy1118]

@@warpedpolygon I heard that. Thank you so much my man. These video are awesome work.