Best way to play PS2, Xbox, etc

A Former User

hey everyone, long time pc tinkerer and love the pi/retropie. I know that the PI itself does not have the capability to run run anything above PS1 right now. And that you need to do an x86 install to do PS2, Xbox, etc.

What I wanted to ask is what is the most convenient set up for this.

One thing I like about the Retropie is the convenience factor. The small form factor of the PI, not tying up my PC and retropie being user friendly that even non techie people can use it.

So I'm sure this has been discussed but what's the easiest and most user friendly setup I can do to play things like PS2, Xbox games and such.

Am I best off putting something like Raspibian, Retropie, Ubuntu or something like that on a laptop. Use a more high powered mini PC similar to the PI or something else. Just curios on what ideas/solutions people have done for this.

wmarcio

Buy a used PS2 and Xbox, it will be cheaper, both consoles can be unlocked by software, and installed HD.

A Former User

@wmarcio I actually hadn't considered that. Thank you I will look into it. What kind of software can be used to unlock them?

wmarcio

@exavier For the PS2, it will depend on the model, but the best one to use would be the FMCB (free memory card boot), for the Xbox, you can either install a modchip, or use TruHeXEn software.
Emulating PS2 and Xbox on the PC will depend on the video card, I find it difficult to achieve a satisfactory result with only onboard video.
I don't know if I can post links here, as these programs may seem illegal, but you just need to use the colorful search engine on the internet that you find a lot of content.

A Former User

@wmarcio Yeah I am def going to look into that. I hadn't considered modding the consoles themselves.

The lack of a GPU card was my big concern about something like a PI or Laptop. I've read mixed results on those.

Otherwise I'm thinking maybe I should consider just building a small form factor PC with a video card. One thing I like about retropie is that it is always being actively worked on. I'll keep considering all options.

Want a good combination of convenience and price.

A Former User

So after some research I'm considering just putting retropie on a more powerful single board PC like the Udoo X86 II Advanced Plus. Anyone have any thoughts on if that would work?

mitu

@exavier It would work, but IMHO the Udoo will not be powerful enough for Xbox/PS2 emulation.

VictimRLSH

Actually you CAN emulate the PS2 on the Pi 4, but the speed is abysmal and the legwork required is insane. The tl;dr version of the story is you need to install Windows 10 using Windows on Raspberry and run PCSX2. SOME games run at playable speeds, but not many. Disgaea 1 and 2, Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2, Final Fantasy 10, and Final Fantasy 12 are playable. There are likely more, but those are the ones I've tested.