Graphics: 256 colour, B&W, and other low graphics plugins?

[DieselDragon]

Hi everyone!
Just a quick question if I may...I just tried a few searches of the boards to answer the question that I have, but I couldn't find anything relevant already on the forum.

Anyway...I've just started using PCSX2 to lawfully play my game collection on my PC (The laser in my PS2 died the other day, and repair may take a while, alas! ) and although I managed to get it configured to a workable state, the only problem is that the CPU/graphics load is just a bit too high for my generic Athlon system to cope with!

Now I was thinking: I'd be perfectly happy to play a game in low colour or greyscale modes, and I'm guessing that these would ease up the graphical processing a lot, as the graphics process would be using a palette no greater than 256 colours in size. Is my thinking along these lines correct, and are there any monochrome and/or low colour graphics plugins for PCSX2 knocking about?

Also: Whilst I have this post on the go, I'm currently using GSdx9 as my graphics plugin on a GeForce 6150 onboard GPU (I know, I know...But everything I normally run on this system hardly ever needs anything better than a DOS console display!) with WinXP Pro SP2 as my OS. Does anyone know what settings I could use to reduce CPU/GPU load as much as possible? I'm not too bothered about what the graphics look like, as half-decent gameplay is more my goal here.

Farewell for now, and thanks in advance for any advice!
+++ DieselDragon +++

[DKTronics]

Is this post for real ?
Greyscale

Why lower your visuals so they're actually worse than a real Ps2 ?
Wouldn't it be easier to just buy a real, cheap, second-hand PS2, than to go through the pain of getting no more than a few fps ?

I know it not the answer you want, but trust me, I doubt all the tweaks on earth could help you get anything thats playable, or at least enjoyable.

[Shadow Lady]

What cpu is it? there's many tweaks that can be used to improve your framrate but they only help so much, if you dont have at least a 2.4GHZ Athlon X2 I really doubt you'd be able to get much speed since you have that card also...

Tell us what CPU is it you have so we can help better (or tell you to forget it) I guess.

[DieselDragon]

Is this post for real? Greyscale

Like I said above, I'm not too bothered about the look of the graphics - My main intention is to use PCSX2 to allow me to continue playing games until I can get my PS2 fixed.

Why lower your visuals so they're actually worse than a real Ps2? Wouldn't it be easier to just buy a real, cheap, second-hand PS2, than to go through the pain of getting no more than a few fps?

That's one solution I suppose...I'll have to take a peek at eBay when I get a moment free - Probabally be cheaper than an official Sony repair, at any rate!

Just to give you an idea of what I can tolerate graphics-wise though: I'd actually be happy to play on a 4-bit, 16 colour greyscale palette if it'd let my games run relatively steady. I know that it sounds too low-fi to believe, but I've got no problem sacrificing graphics quality for gameplay...As long as the display's still good enough for me to be able to identify on-screen objects.
(As it is: The one game that I've tried playing on PCSX2 thus far has an FMV sequence right at the start. When I tried running it though, the FMV was very slow...No better than 0.1 FPS, at a rough guess.)

My first games machine was a Pong-esque tennis/football game, and my first proper games console was a Nintendo NES...So even in 8-bit monochrome, PS2 graphics would still be better than what I grew up with!

What cpu is it? there's many tweaks that can be used to improve your framrate but they only help so much, if you dont have at least a 2.4GHZ Athlon X2 I really doubt you'd be able to get much speed since you have that card also...

Ahh...My CPU is a single core Athlon64 2.4GHz one, and I only have a 32-bit version of WinXP available here as well...So probabally quite slow and too low spec, compared with the systems that PCSX2 is designed to run on I'm guessing?

I must admit that I never planned to run games on my PC when I bought it, hence the very low factory spec. As it is, most of my PC work is simple HTML editing and development, and - Being a bit of an old-school user - A lot of the utilities I use only give a console/TTY-esque output, which I'm generally happy with.

Farewell for now, and many thanks again for the help!
+++ DieselDragon +++

[Shadow Lady]

In that case there's not much you can do for pcsx2, even running games with the "null" renderer in GSdx which draws no graphics would be slow I think.

[DKTronics]

Try some second-hand games shops, the PS2 is going cheap.
Near me, are 2 Pink Planet games exchange shops which sell many cheap PS2 games from as little as £4. A couple of months ago I took a mate's son to buy a slim PS2 + 8 games & 2 controllers for £40, bargain. There are also lots around in papers like Trade-It (maybe not around your area), and those *mart-like papers.

Just to give you an idea of what I can tolerate graphics-wise though: I'd actually be happy to play on a 4-bit, 16 colour greyscale palette if it'd let my games run relatively steady. I know that it sounds too low-fi to believe, but I've got no problem sacrificing graphics quality for gameplay...As long as the display's still good enough for me to be able to identify on-screen objects. Smile
(As it is: The one game that I've tried playing on PCSX2 thus far has an FMV sequence right at the start. When I tried running it though, the FMV was very slow...No better than 0.1 FPS, at a rough guess.)

Oh I can quite easily tolerate 16-colour graphics, having grown up on ZX Spectrums Only, I would rather have those limited colours in emulators like Spectacular, and not Pcsx2.