PS2 (Progress Update) RetroArch PS2 - New port now In development for PlayStation 2

(UPDATE x3 - Progress Report - DEC 2018)
RetroArch and its Libretro Cores have invaded just about every electronic device known to man it seems, as the retro emulation project continues to grow its ecosystem and support a vast amount of platforms, With ports to the PS3, PS Vita, PlayStationTV, PSP & so many other supported platforms (seen here), many PlayStation 2 fans were left wonder if a PS2 port would ever arise and some wondered if it was even doable. Well the libretro team via twitter has answered some of those question with an announcement of an in development RetroArch PS2 Port. This is still early but its good news to see some progress and knowing that this could be coming a reality soon for the PS2 community.
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-STLcardsWS​

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RetroArch PS2 Incoming Progress Update -October Progress Update NOV (2018) Progress Update (DEC 2018)

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  RetroArch Coming to the PS2?
  
  (Early RetroArch PS2 Screenshot for upcoming port)
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  We've had PlayStation3, PSP, and PS Vita ports of RetroArch. Now @fjtrujy is working on a PlayStation2 RetroArch port! What you can see here is RGUI being rendered to the screen on a real PS2! Early days but a lot of progress already made!

  
  
  January 2019 UPDATE
  
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  Moving slowly but still progressing, here you are the RetroArch's RGUI running in the PS2, fullscreen and with perfect colors. A step closer
  -@fjtrujy
  
  Oct 17 This time is the turn to show the PS2, RetroArch and how the controller works. Still a world ahead... @libretro
  
  Oct 29 Big progress with RetroArch for PS2, here you are a test-core running on real console. Colors need adjustment but so far it has been a huge step after replace the unstable method in the libc for PS2SDK. @libretro
  
  

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  ;Video:
  https://twitter.com/i/status/1052639203983540224
  This time is the turn to show the PS2, RetroArch and how the controller works. Still a world ahead...
  
  -link
  
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  Nov 4
  Pasito a pasito" like the Spanish song says, now you can see how the Libretro-2048 core is running in the RetroArch for PS2. Thanks @libretro !!
  
  
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  https://twitter.com/fjtrujy/status/1077928294341844992
  Dec 26
  Once more coming with news for #RetroArch and the #ps2development . QuickNes core running with color correction applied, sound still need to be implemented. @libretro
  
  
  Dec 24
  Turning back to the #ps2development I have done a huge advance. This time we can see how QuickNes core for #RetroArch is running in a PS2. Color correction still need to be applied. @libretro
  
  

Source: twitter.com/libretro/​

 

I can't compile it, because I have no clue where to look at, on how to compile a core (for the PS2).



Regarding the N64-Emulation (not via libretro): Yes indeed... Direct access-translation (via a TLB) would solely work on those games, which do not use 64Bit-Floats and to 'catch' the non-supported opcodes it would either need an abstraction (thus the opcode is at least single- if not double-cached) which directly executes supported opcodes/instructions and solely recompiles non-supported instructions (i.e. 64Bit-Floats) ['Opcode-Translation-Mask/Matrix', before the minimalized recompiler]. Another way to catch them might be to use something like 'sigill', if the EE supports this kind of thing.

That's an approach for a quite hardware-accurate emulation, but for most games it is enough to solely emulate the sycalls, HALs and 'APIs' (Well, whatever you want to call this way on an N64, lol.) and even in 32Bit-Mode + afaik a 64Bit-Float can be calculated via 32Bit-Floats as well (4?)!
So basically on most platforms, the software/HAL-emulation-approach (not hardware-accurate) is the better choice for most platforms, especially due to performance-reasons.

However... On a PS2 a hardware-accurate emulation might be possible in a quite performant way as well! A lot of the components are interconnected and implemented in a quite similar fashion. The PS2 pretty much has the RDP and RSP partially included in the same way (albeit much more performant and with shorter physical connections + shorter latencies) via the EE (including both VUs)!


...and of course the other components need to be emulated as well...

I do have an idea of a structure of implementation, but it's just taking too long to work on every structure/idea.


I could make a write-up, how the complete idea/structure could work (solely for the emulation, no GUI-related stuff) for soft- and hardware-emulation and it's differences/variations.


N64 on PS2 running fluid, is possible(I am 100%ly certain about it.) for some games and I am sure how better it is implemented, so more it would be possible to extend it with feature a hardware-accurate emulator would usually not even have (like better gfx, filter, whatever...)!

Less optimized software/HAL-emulation wouldn't take as long to implement (partially 'port'), as the Hardware-Accurate emulation (partially a runtime, which rather does setup correct memory-flow to spare some classical emulation-functions...) would!

 

I mentioned it in the PS4 RetroArch news, but there has been some developments on this port lately. You see various tweets by the dev. Some tweets have videos that i have not included yet but tweets links should be there. will clean it up a bit more later.

 

New Videos Added