Sony PS2 games may soon run natively on Windows without emulation

The Sony PlayStation 2 remains to this day the best-selling console of all time with 160 million units sold. As such, it occupies a special place in the hearts of gamers worldwide. Sadly, only the early “fat” PS3 models had official PS2 backwards compatibility. This means that neither the PS4 nor the PS5 can play any PS2 games straight from the disk. This is a huge loss, considering that the PS2 had over 4,000 games.

Thankfully, there are plenty of emulators available online that can play a vast majority of PS2 games without any issues. PCSX2, for instance, reportedly supports over 99% of the entire PS2 game catalogue. However, not everyone has access to legally obtained PS2 game ISOs and BIOS files to emulate PS2 games on a PC. There is also the issue of quality, as not every game runs flawlessly and looks the best on an emulator.

A Brazilian developer is now trying to solve these issues through the development of the “PS2Recomp” tool. The tool will enable users/developers to create native PC versions of PS2 games.

Without getting into too much technical detail, PS2Recomp converts PS2 game code to C++ code. The PS2 was powered by a RISC processor called the “Emotion Engine”, which utilized the MIPS R5900 instruction set. PS2Recomp takes these MIPS R5900 instructions and recompiles them into C++ code that can be executed on modern platforms like Windows, Linux, Android, etc.

In essence, PS2Recomp allows developers/users to create versions of PS2 games that can run natively on modern operating systems.

While PS2Recomp is still a work in progress, the project is quite promising and exciting. Not only will PS2Recomp let people enjoy their PS2 game library, but the project will also help game preservation efforts. In an era where companies are increasingly making it hard to buy and play old games, emulators and projects like PS2Recomp are practically the only viable solutions for long term game preservation

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