How would buying a budget Windows 8 laptop work for ps2 emu?

[AaronB]

So right now I'm using a hp compaq I got four years ago for three hundred bucks new. It runs psx emus and other old systems just fine but I'm not even going to try a ps2 emu like pcsx2 on it. I got two gigs of ddr3 ram and a 2.1 gighrtz sempron processor lol. So you can see why I want to upgrade. I had an acer desktop I got six months before this that I complained about all over the internet cause I wasted 700 bucks on a machine that just kept messing up. Acer didn't want to fix it after sending it in multiple times and so I just gave it to my mom to check her email and stuff. I have been using this crummy compaq ever since that actually works better. People think I'm nuts for always talking about it but it just made me so dang mad lol. I've told this same story to people countless times.

Now that I got that out of the way I want to know if I could play some ps2 games on a budget windows 8 laptop. Now, I'm not expecting miracles, however, I'd be happy if it could just play most of my games which I know is probably possible. I would be perfectly fine with about 24-30 frames per seconds and the ability to play 70% of my collection. I mostly just play turn based rpgs and and racing games. Actually that's all I play.

I gave away my ps2 to my sisters kids to keep them away from my ps3 and 3ds.

So, I don't want to pay more than 650 dollars at all. In fact my budget before was 450 dollars but I'm slightly more flexible now. I've been looking at some nice asus and lenovo computers below that price but I'm still not sure if they have the horsepower to run something like a ps2 emu. I'm not really up to date on computer evolution so the minimum and recommended specs are hard to understand for emulators and other products. That's why I need help.

So I got a couple, maybe three, computers that I'm looking at. I'm ready to pull the trigger on one of them any day. They're all from amazon which to me anyway seems to have the best priced stuff and I like them as a company. I use them all the time. I will probably get one anyway even if it can't run pcsx2 or whatever it's called since this is a crummy laptop. It would be nice if I had an idea if they had the horsepower to even get 24-30 frames per second though for most runnable games.

Ok the first one I'm looking at and am most likely to buy at this point is the ASUS K55N-DB81 15.6-Inch Laptop the basic specs that amazon listed are:

AMD A-Series Quad-Core A8-4500M 1.9 GHz
6 GB DDR3
750 GB 5400 rpm Hard Drive

Actually another website says some of the specs are:

Battery Information
TouchPad Features Multi-touch Gesture
Pointing Device Type TouchPad
Keyboard Yes
Input Devices
Operating System Architecture 64-bit
Operating System Genuine Windows 8
Software
DisplayPort No
Audio Line Out Yes
Audio Line In Yes
Modem (RJ-11) No
Network (RJ-45) Yes
VGA Yes
Number of USB 3.0 Ports 2
Number of USB 2.0 Ports 1
Total Number of USB Ports 3
HDMI Yes
Interfaces/Ports
Webcam Yes
Built-in Devices
Modem No
Bluetooth Standard Bluetooth 4.0
Memory Card Reader Yes
Number of Total Memory Slots 2
Memory Standard DDR3-1600/PC3-12800
Memory Technology DDR3 SDRAM
Maximum Memory 8 GB
Standard Memory 6 GB
Memory
Chipset Model A70M
Chipset Manufacturer AMD
64-bit Processing Yes
Cache 4 MB
Processor Core Quad-core (4 Core)
Processor Speed 1.90 GHz
Processor Model A8-4500M
Processor Type A-Series
Processor Manufacturer AMD
Processor & Chipset
Product Type Notebook
Product Name K55N-DB81 Notebook
Product Model K55N-DB81
Product Series K55
Brand Name Asus
Manufacturer Website Address http://usa.asus.com
Manufacturer Part Number K55N-DB81
Manufacturer ASUS Computer International
General Information
Bluetooth Yes
Ethernet Technology Gigabit Ethernet
Wi-Fi Standard IEEE 802.11b/g/n
Wi-Fi Yes
Network & Communication
Graphics Memory Accessibility Shared
Graphics Memory Technology DDR3 SDRAM
Graphics Controller Model Radeon HD 7640G
Graphics Controller Manufacturer AMD
TouchScreen No
Backlight Technology LED
Screen Resolution 1366 x 768
Screen Mode HD
Aspect Ratio 16:9
Display Screen Type Active Matrix TFT Color LCD
Screen Size 15.6"
Display & Graphics
Dual-Layer Media Supported Yes
Optical Media Supported DVD±R/±RW
Optical Drive Type DVD-Writer
Hard Drive RPM 5400
Hard Drive Capacity 750 GB

Then I was looking at a couple lenovos. The Lenovo G500 laptop on amazon that they list the specs as:

Screen Size 15.6 inches
Max Screen Resolution 1366 x 768 pixels
Processor 2.6 GHz Core i5 3230M
RAM 4 GB DDR3
Hard Drive 500 GB SATA
Graphics Coprocessor Intel HD 4000 Graphics

Then the Lenovo G505s laptop on amazon that they list the specs as:

Max Screen Resolution 1366 x 768 pixels
Processor 2.5 GHz AMD A Series
RAM 6 GB DDR3
Hard Drive 1000 GB SATA
Graphics Coprocessor ATI Radeon HD 8650G

If I understand correctly the lenovo g505s graphics processor is very similar to the one in the asus. All of these computers are less than 580 dollars at this time.

Anyone think it's even possible to run a ps2 emulator on a laptop without a dedicated graphics card? Do you think they improved these graphics chips enough over the last four years where they could actually possibly handle this ps2 emulator?

[deadlegion]

Unless you're really set on getting another laptop for whatever reasons (you don't seem to mention PC games or anything else I would see as a reason to upgrade), why not keep using what you have and buy another ps2 for yourself?

[AaronB]

Thanks for replying deadlegion

Actually, I would like to play some pc games too from steam(never used it before but they have interesting titles) and and other racing and rpg titles that I can't right now. I think I want to avoid buying another PS2, I got enough things over by the tv like a ps3(I don't care for most ps3 games and I haven't played it in months) I'm also more likely to play it if it's on the pc since I use it for other things like converting video, audio files, attempting to watch amazon instant videos. I guess I like to play mobile or pc games(or PSX Emulated games) more since I can do other things if I want to without switching over to another machine. I like the features these emulators have as well. I also like how these things can do so much more than just play games. I may be weird but I also like to watch TV sometimes while playing games. This computer has trouble playing HD video and the sempron processor is just too slow. This computer really can't handle flash video well enough. It was only 300 bucks when I bought it though four years ago and I really wasn't expecting to use it more than a couple years. I can still use it and will keep it but would like something better.

I'm looking to upgrade anyway. Sorry if I ramble on, I'm really trying my best to make coherent posts.

[deadlegion]

Just keep in mind that emulating ps2 using a laptop isn't going to be as good as a desktop (afaik). You're looking at budget stuff so I was thinking the money wouldn't really be well spent (but if you need an upgrade for other stuff that's different).

Hopefully Zaladane, Zorlon and/or random EP members will pop in to give you some feedback.
I'm basically a console guy

[Zorlon]

Sounds like it should be ok for PS2 emulation but to be honest PS2 emulation is far from perfect, there are still unplayable games and games that will have issues no matter how good a machine you own or any amount of tweeking

If the built in graphics was a very basic Intel chip set GPU then I would of said it would struggle but as the graphics are something a little more than that it should be fine for the most part

Myself I just use a real PS2 as well, it is soft modded so I can play from DVD+R, I would also never buy a machine just for PS2 emulation, even if I didn't own a PS2

I have plenty of consoles but my 43inch TV is on a computer desk/cupboard (it's a computer desk with doors) this has all my consoles in it, the oldest being the Saturn/PSone up to the 360/PS3 (I emulate older consoles on my Original Xbox and a few on the Wii for lightgun type games) but they are very much out of sight I can even have the wires for the pads passed through a gap between the doors

[Spose']

From my glance the laptop you have chosen is better than mine which can run a lot of ps2 games anywhere from 40-60FPS. 40 was a DBZ game that seems like some PCs were having a lot of issues with. I'll leave my system stats here for you to compare if you are interested.

Intel i3 @ 2.50GHz
4GB DDR3 RAM
Intel HD 4000
I believe these are the only important stats, if not I can add the others. The machine itself cost about 300$ at best best during a sale, I believe it was 400$ without the sale.

When it comes to modern games, I could run sleeping dogs at 22FPS, which is the only modern game I've considered playing so I don't have much info on others, you could always check sleeping dogs requirements compared to the average of other modern games.

[Zaladane]

Ok.

First off stay away from integrated intel gpu's - they're crap. Don't get fooled by high and mighty exclamations of performance like "HD graphics for beautiful video and gaming" Gigabytes and Gigahertz aren't the end all be all.

The first one you posted seems decent enough. With PS2 emulation it can also be dependent on the game itself or even if it's compatible - some won't even play no matter what you have. However PCSX2 is getting better all the time. Not to mention PCSX2 will only recognize up to 3 cores right now anyways and whether this will change in the future I have no idea. It's a matter of getting things correctly setup in the settings for a lot of games.

You may want to look at a more balanced machine maybe something a little less on the CPU side but one that has a dedicated graphics card would be more in order. Another thing that you won't see mentioned often is over heating and the power supply. If your'e going to be running high graphic games and emulation make sure to keep your laptop cool and monitor the temperature frequently with whatever software comes with or download (there's tons of free shit out there for temp monitoring) so make sure when buying you get something with good fans and air vents - and never actually keep it on your lap

Also maybe look into a cooling pad or something for it.

Try not to get something that has a ton of preloaded software too. Companies like HP/compaq have a bunch of garbage running in the background that you just don't need so try to find something that basically just has windows installed. Or better yet if you can find a laptop that is more "barebones" then you can just upgrade it yourself and tailor it more towards gaming and can add your own ram and graphics card etc.. but you are limited of course with laptops. Getting something with 8gb of ram and a terabyte drive is pretty much overkill anyways. Maybe look into a smaller Solid State Drive even which can drastically improve performance for everything.

Seems like you have a decent budget so definitely look around and get the most bang for your buck and remember to keep an eye out for the little things beyond the almighty Ram and CPU/GPU like hardrive speeds, speed of the ram itself, cooling and power, cache etc..

Phew enough for now

[AaronB]

Hey, thanks for all the insight guys. Thanks for clearing that up about the intel graphics processors. I was thinking they would have it much improved over the amd chips by now but I thought wrong.

Also I never had a problem with a laptop overheating and shutting down but I never really had a powerful one. Because of that I never monitored the temp. I'll look at those cooling pads as well.

I've read some reviews of these laptops on Amazon and people say they overheated so they returned it, bought another brand and it did the same thing. Other people say they played Crysis 2 (or whatver that shooter is called) at medium settings and it ran great and stayed cool. There's just so many mixed reviews out there. I guess I could jump on one and return it within 30 days if it doesn't run too well. I'll give ps2 emulation a shot on a new machine but I'll keep my expectations low.

TBH I was actually more interested in running games from steam or elsewhere and thought PS2 emulation would be cool too. Plus, I need to do some video and audio converting for my devices which is just painfully slow on a sempron single core. I know PSX and older systems emulate well on anything I try. I mean I can do that on the machine I have now well but everything else stinks.

on another note windows 8 looks great to me though probably 80 percent of people hate it. I never really used the start menu that much anyway and like all the large pretty icons. I got a glimpse of it for about five mins at sams club. I might not like it if I use it more but from what I've seen I would be ok with it on a new computer.

[AaronB]

Your machine is a laptop? Have you ever experienced overheating with a laptop? More specifically do you think there is a real chance I could fry a new laptop like the asus if I attempt PS2 emulation? I've heard some people say that cooling pads don't help much or at all and others saying the opposite.

I'm not so sure I wouldn't be better off with a intel processor and they're behind the times graphic chips. Intels are supposed to run much cooler than amds right?

[Zaladane]

Anything integrated for graphics really, is not the best for any high end gaming no matter who makes it.

I don't think you'll have any problem with anything relatively current for converting audio/video either.

[Zorlon]

My laptop in on for weeks/months at a time I think I'm more like to over heat my system than you are emulating PS2

intel is the worst you can get for laptops and desktops and you would notice a large performance drop going from ati or nvidia/g-force chip sets to intel

My last laptop before my current one was an ati my current one is an intel HD ect ect with a much better cpu (dual core) yet it runs alot slower than the one that had the nvidia graphics

AMD vs Intel for heat produced maybe

My laptop is always hot but never over heats... it's a HP though and uses an Intel CPU, my last one was a Compaq (it's a HP brand also) that was AMD with nVidia though it had a slower CPU it's ran much faster over all for games, with more video effect available, don't think I could have as high resolutions though, but performance was much higher

[AaronB]

How would this work with the discrete amd graphics and a 65 watt power brick? Im sure it would be enough to power it without the card but with it im not sure. I can't find anything about the power it sucks up. 2GB AMD Radeon(TM) HD 8750M Discrete in a HP ENVY 15z-j100 . On second thought the integrated graphics might be just as good? Would I be wasting money on that card?

[Zorlon]

Integrated will not be as good in general no but you can go for an integrated to start with then grab a dedicated card later if you are not happy with a high end integrated as they can be good nower days and dedicated cards are very very easy to install ect anyway

[AaronB]

Hey thanks for all the help and suggestions guys. I settled on the hp envy a couple days ago. I went just thirty bucks over my budget. All I have to do now is wait for them to assemble and ship. I'm really excited and hope I'll be able to play most rpgs and racing games at medium to low settings. Here's what I got:Your customized HP ENVY 15z-j100 Notebook PC (ENERGY STAR) includes:
• Windows 8.1 64
• AMD Quad-Core A8-5550M Accelerated Processor
• 2GB AMD Radeon™ HD 8750M Discrete
• 15.6-inch diagonal HD BrightView LED-backlit Display (1366x768)
• 8GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
• 1TB 5400 rpm Hard Drive
• No Additional Office Software
• Security Software Trial
• 6-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery
• No Internal DVD or CD Drive
• Standard Keyboard
• HP TrueVision HD Webcam w/ integrated digital mic
• 802.11b/g/n WLAN and Bluetooth®

It doesn't have a dvd drive but I only like to use externals anyway.

Now the processor sounds like a mobile powerhouse but the benchmarks I've seen place it with some of the intel I3 mobile models. The weaker processor has me concerned for some games I will possibly be playing but notbookcheck said this should be sufficient for modern demanding games. Still it's cheaper than any intel i3 machine. It would be kind of cool if I could play nascar the game2013 at low settings. Im just not sure it has enough horsepower. Other than that i think i will try a couple emulated Ps2 games if I can manage to get it working well on that machine. Hey, even if I can't at least I know psx emulates well on anything, Well except for that gateway intel graphics machine I had many years ago.