Hi, I'm a newbie on this forum, so I apologize in advance if my post is ignorant or inappropriate.

I have a Pentium 4 @ 3.06 Ghz, with 512MB RAM, which I bought 5 years ago. The graphics chipset is from Intel.

I've already tried various speedup tweaks, but I'm still finding PCSX2 a little slow on my machine, and while I've seen other posts saying get a faster computer, I'm not going to buy a new machine just to run PCSX2. I'd much rather try running it on Linux, to see if I can squeeze a little more juice out of it.

I'd therefore like to ask what would be the best Linux distro to use for running PCSX2. Which one is the most lightweight and runs the fastest, while providing the requisite graphics support for PCSX2?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Getting a different OS to run PCSX2 wont make up for weak hardware like the one you have... If you don't want to upgrade your PC for PCSX2 only I suggest you keep playing your games in your PS2 if you find them to be too slow on PCSX2.

Your machine is under-powered for PS2 emulation, and moving over to a new OS isn't going to help much. The Intel graphics and older processor are going to hurt a lot. Linux is unable to use the DirectX-based graphics plugin, which for most people is the one that runs the fastest and best.

But if you're looking to extend the working life of the machine, who am I to tell you what not to do. If you're new to all things "an OS that isn't Windows" then I'd highly suggest:

• something Ubuntu-based like Xubuntu. Good support already in place, and very well-known.
• Crunchbang (another Ubuntu derivative) because it's extremely light, and my personal favorite.
  

If PCSX2 doens't run well on Xubuntu, you can be reasonably certain it won't run well on any other distro. Being short on resources isn't your main problem, sometimes 5 year old tech just can't cut it

Ya basically 1 core CPU and 512 mb of ram wont run u much. I am on a quad core running at 3Ghz with 2gb of ram and currently FF12 uses anywhere from 30-50% CPU depending on the settings (more than 1 core) and 450mb of ram just for the pcsx2

Edit: oh btw my total ram usage is @ 1.3gb

Main rule is: every modern x32 (not x64) distribution. There is no speed impact from it.