Can the 3ds emulate ps2?

[Naltic]

It's as the title says, can the 3ds emulate ps2? Might be a dumb question, but if it can't emulate it, what can it emulate?

 

[Pearly]

3ds can emulate most older handhelds, bar the psp and vita and most consoles older than the ps1/n64 era.

Even the regular 3ds can emulate SNES games, not sure why Nintendo was claiming only the new 3ds can do it.

 

[AlfajordeFrula]

Short answer: No, and it's impossible.

Not so short answer: The 3DS uses an ARM processor, just like smartphones, and is infinitely less powerful than a device from 2012, the year it was released—even less powerful than a PS Vita, which also couldn't emulate the PS2. Now, if there were a way to decompile PS2 games and port them to other platforms, similar to some N64 or XBOX 360 games, it would probably be possible to get a PS2 game to work, given the screen resolution and processor power should be sufficient.

Edit: But, if you have an smartphone powerful enough, like a mid-tier 2022 o newer, you can emulate PS2 there.

 

[Naltic]

3ds can emulate most older handhelds, bar the psp and vita and most consoles older than the ps1/n64 era.

Even the regular 3ds can emulate SNES games, not sure why Nintendo was claiming only the new 3ds can do it.

I see, I was planning on playing the first Monster Hunter game on the 3ds via emulation, but I guess I won't be doing that now.

 

[Xdqwerty Xdqwerty]

Yesn't

 

[Nelson2001 Nelson2001]

the PS2 emulation on 3DS that is impossible because we all know that PS2 emulation requires much more requirements to run it decently. and you have to take into account also because of the CPU of the 3DS which is ARM11 2x 268MHz compared to the PS2 which is EE 295/300 Mhz and also because of the screen because unlike the PS2 the 3DS is unable to display resolutions beyond 240p on both screens (Except in Camera mode which is 480p) compared to the PS2 which is 448i/512i, 480i/576i or 480p and also because of the controls because the 3DS uses a Circle Pad that serves as a kind of lever and also a right analog pad that is the C but it is very small although on the PS2 you have Analog Sticks with L3 & R3 Buttons and among other things but due to the limitations of the 3DS hardware it is impossible for it to emulate the PS2.

 

[Maximecool]

Obviously, it's impossible a 3DS isn't powerful enough to emulate a PS2.

For reference, a 3DS is a bit less powerful than a GameCube, so trying to emulate a PS2 on it is basically a recipe for failure.

Even on a PC, you need a high-end gaming machine just to emulate a PS2, so on a 3DS.

 

[solnK!]

This could be cheating, but they managed to port Dragon Quest VIII and Tales of the Abyss so maybe?

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

You can make 3DS ports of PS2 games theoretically (RE Mercenaries 3D and Relevations both are using the same kind of gameplay as RE4, MGS 3 and DQ8 were also both on the 3DS).

Emulation on the other hand would require more power so no.

I think PSX emulation should run fine on the other hand.

 

[qw90700]

When it comes to emulation of old consoles PS2 is one of the console you shouldn't underestimate next to Saturn and Xbox!!! On the other hand you also shouldn't overestimate a Nintendo handheld console yo lol.

Back in the day I had a shit PC for emulation so I was intentionally playing Gamecube versions of games instead of their PS2 versions because it run better for me, so this logic could be applied if a 3DS could emulate Gamecube ok too and the game you want to play had a Gamecube version lol, but I guess you better use a smartphone or something for it.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

This could be cheating, but they managed to port Dragon Quest VIII and Tales of the Abyss so maybe?

Porting and emulating isn't the same thing.

Super Mario 64 DS has been entirely rebuilt to run on a DS which is closer to a remake than running the N64 on the DS.

I think it's easier to natively run something than to run another machine. DKC Returns 3D was a miracle in a way but since it was a 2.5D platformer it may not be a high end Wii game.

this logic could be applied if a 3DS could emulate Gamecube ok too and the game you want to play had a Gamecube version lol, but I guess you better use a smartphone or something for it.

I legit wished Nintendo ported more GC games to the 3DS in the mid-to-late life of the machine. Mario Sunshine 3D would've been a logical sequel to Mario 64 DS.

 

[fake-kun]

No.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

I'd love if the PSX/Saturn emulation worked better on it.

 

[ladyerrant]

The real problem isn't so much the CPU emulation (the ps2 CPU wasn't _that_ fast and dynarec has come a LONG way), its the 3ds's limited 3d hardware. The ps2 outclasses it in every regard. Even the PS1 emulators run poorly due to the fact that they would have to be significantly rewritten to use the 3d hardware so all the rendering has to happen in software. Yabasanshiro runs poorly due to... well... yabasanshiro. Its not helped by the fact that the Saturn had too many CPUs for its own good, hard to emulate that without having a lot of available hardware threads.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

Its not helped by the fact that the Saturn had too many CPUs for its own good, hard to emulate that without having a lot of available hardware threads.

It's weird to read that when it became commonplace.

 

[ladyerrant]

It's weird to read that when it became commonplace.

Well, what became commonplace was having multiple CPU cores of the same architecture, locked to the same clock and frequently sharing memory access in one die. The Saturn, on the other hand, had multiple discrete CPUs over different clock domains (and bit widths) that had to interoperate. So instead of running one dynarec that can divvy up processes to the host CPU cores, now you have to run separate dynarecs for each CPU (or for the smaller ones like the z80 just interpret them) and synchronize between them. I lament the state of the yabasanshiro code base but I totally understand why it is the way it is. With all that going on its very difficult to maintain.

 

[Frickinfrik]

No, the 3DS would probably explode trying to do that

 

[Sorion]

the PS2 in general is pretty hard to emulate, you need decent hardware in order to do it, the 3DS should handle 16 bits machines just fine but anything beyond that it might be a struggle.
Also the new 3DS has a faster cpu compared with the OG 3DS so if you want to try to emulate anything on this platform you're better off using the new models

 

[Miles Miles]

Absolutely not. The PS2 and 3DS are similar in terms of power.

 

[Matricks]

Nintendood emulate Nintendoos 100% are NDS, Virtualboy, GBA, GBC, GB, nes.
Wonky not updates snes emulator,. all othrr dead emulation not wor5h it as noby seems to improve/ work on old emulators.

 

[Dew Prism]

All systems I have played comfortably on my modified new 3ds:

SNES
NES
DS
GBA
GBC
GB
Game Gear
TurboGrafX-16
Mega Drive
Master System

SOME games will run decent on FBNeo but not demanding stuff.
Also, cool Vagabond profile pic.

 

[CG4R12I4N]

Not even mid-level smartphone can emulate PS2, and they can emulate 3DS games pretty easily.

What makes you think the 3DS can emulate PS2 games instead?

 

[Dany28]

That would be incredible but I don't think that's possible.

 

[sadasa]

 

[Turbo Kid]

Yeah it kind of maxes out with PS1, and even that is only possible on the New Nintendo 3ds models.

For PS2 on a handheld you need either high end smart phones, Chinese devices like a Retroid Pocket 5 or Odin2 Portal, mini PCs like the Rog Ally X or Steamdeck, or just a modded or hacked Nintendo Switch (I'd recommend a modded OLED Switch for the best experience)