PCSX2

PCSX2 is an advanced PlayStation 2 emulator.

The version of PCSX2 (and its plugins) in Portage (at the time of this writing) is very old (version 0.8.1), while the current version is 0.9.3. It also does not include the ZeroGS OpenGL graphics plugin, perhaps because it requires the binary-only Cg Toolkit to build.

For both the PCSX2 source and the Cg Toolkit, be sure you get your architecture. For example, x86/32-bit or x86-64/64-bit.

Requirements:

• PCSX2 source from website (labeled 'PCSX2 0.9.3 and Plugins Source Code') [1]
• Cg Toolkit 1.5 [2]
• 7-Zip support emerge app-arch/p7zip
• Glew Library 1.4.0 emerge media-libs/glew

Installing Cg

Portage now has an ebuild for cg-toolkit: media-gfx/nvidia-cg-toolkit.

emerge =media-gfx/nvidia-cg-toolkit-1.5.0

Patching PCSX2 source

The PCSX2 source in the graphics plugin has some script files which need to be modified to work (at least I had to).

Since the 7zip archive of the source does not make a new folder, do make one for PCSX2. Then move the 7zip file into it and extract there. Then you may delete the 7zip file.

mkdir pcsx2-src
mv pcsx0.9.3_and_plugins_src.7z pcsx2-src/
cd pcsx2-src/
7z x pcsx0.9.3_and_plugins_src.7z
rm pcsx0.9.3_and_plugins_src.7z

If you type bash build.sh inside this directory, it stops at the ZeroGS graphics plugin.

----------------------
Building ZeroGS OpenGL
----------------------
make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found.  Stop.
Error with building plugins

To fix this, modify plugins/gs/zerogs/build.sh

Comment out these lines:
if [ $# -gt 0 ] && [ $1 = "all" ]
then

Change the following: ./configure --enable-sse2 --prefix=${PCSX2PLUGINS}

to

bash configure --enable-sse2 --prefix=${PCSX2PLUGINS}

Then comment out these lines:
else
make $@
fi

Do almost the same for plugins/pad/zeropad/build.sh, and pcsx2/build.sh.

Building

Now the fun part. At the root of the source, type bash build.sh

Installation

You can always install this where you would like. I do find that when I double-click on pcsx2 in Konqueror, pcsx2 seems to forget its configuration, unlike when I run it from a virtual console (./pcsx2). The way to fix this is to make a bash script to run ./pcsx2, it seems.

I chose to install pcsx2 under /usr/local/games/pcsx2. I also decided to give all users permission to write to certain folders of pcsx2. Unfortunately, PCSX2 off the site (unlike the 0.8.1 version in portage) does not support multiple user configuration.

You can do this two ways. Console or with your favourite file manager as root. Here is the console method. Start at the source root, as root. After moving PCSX2, it is readable to all, but not writeable, nor are the configuration files which we do want writeable for the time being.

cp -R bin/ /usr/local/games/pcsx2
cd /usr/local/games/pcsx2
chown -hR <your_username>:users bios/
chown -hR <your_username>:users inis/
chown -hR <your_username>:users logs/
chown -hR <your_username>:users memcards/
chown -hR <your_username>:users stats/
chown -hR <your_username>:users sstates/

The other alternative that may work is to move the data folders from PCSX2 to your $HOME perhaps to .pcsx2, then create symlinks in the old data folders' places.

Under /usr/local/bin or /usr/local/games (you will need to create a different filename if under /usr/local/games).

cd /usr/local/bin
nano -w pcsx2

cd /usr/local/games/pcsx2
./pcsx2

Exit nano (^X).

chmod a+x pcsx2

Then you may now run pcsx2 by simply typing pcsx2 at the console. You will need to configure PCSX2 first, and you will need a PlayStation 2 BIOS dump in order to play most anything. If you have one, put it in the bios/ folder of PCSX2 /usr/local/games/pcsx2 or wherever you installed it. Then reconfigure PCSX2. Do not ask anywhere how to obtain the BIOS, as it is copyrighted by Sony and illegal to redistribute.

You can of course now add a menu item to whichever X desktop you use.