PS3 hardware chip versus software emulation (for PS2 games)

[avsteve]

Hi everyone, apologies if this is an exisitng thread already?

the 60GB PS3 was praised for it's hardware chip to play PS2 games while most of the newer PS3's use software emulation.

reviews state that the hardware emulation plays "most" PS2 games and the software emulation plays "many" PS3 games.

is one really better than the other? it seems we have no choice but to go software emulation on the newer 80GB PS3 and no option to play PS2 games on the 40GB version.

any reason to find a 60GB PS3 on ebay? (I doubt this option makes any real sense, just curious what some of the techies in the forum might think?) Thanks!

[kingofgrills]

The original 60 and 20 gig PS3 models contain the PS2's processors inside in order to be backward compatible for PS2 games. I don't know if it's fully compatible, but I own over 100 PS2 games and they all work upscaled to 1080p.

In order to reduce costs, Sony cut out the PS2's processors and switched emulation in the 80 gig model to be software based. There is a big difference in the number of games that can be successfully emulated by the software emulation compared to the hardware emulation. PS2 backward compatibility was pulled entirely from the 40 gig model, but it still is still backward compatible with PS1 games.

Most of the reported problems with software emulation involve older PS2 games. Sony maintains a list of backward compatible games on its web site. Unless you have an extensive PS2 library, and backward compatibility is big for you, the 80 gig model should be sufficient. Otherwise, you might still find a 60 gig model lurking around a store shelf somewhere, but that is becoming increasingly difficult.

[avsteve]

Thanks very much for this reply, good information.

Most of my PS2 games and most of my favorites are all newer PS2 games, so I suspect I will be fine. I'd be more concerned if half the games did not work, but that does not sound like the case.

Thanks!