Alright, before we get started I want to make one thing clear. Do NOT discuss piracy in this thread. As far as this thread is concerned, this is a place for discussing how to play your legally-bought copy of MBAA on an emulator with a legally-dumped BIOS that you dumped from your own PS2. Emulation by itself is not illegal and (I hope) doesn't break any forum rules.
Well, obviously, first off you'll want to know if your PC is good enough to run MBAA. And my answer to that is "I dunno, lol". Your best bet is to simply try it and see for yourself. Since the emulator is just a tiny download and you have your MBAA disc sitting right there, there's no harm in at least trying, right?
Once you've downloaded PCSX2 from
here, you'll want to start it up. Point it at the bios file that you legally dumped from the PS2 you already own, and get stuck into those nitty gritty config screens.
You have three choices for video. The first choice, the Gsdx thing, will give you the best speed and highest performance graphics, and is somewhat tweakable. However there's a price you pay for speed, and it's minor artifacting onscreen. For an example, check these images:
http://i27.tinypic.com/2e30ah2.jpg http://i30.tinypic.com/335crps.jpgIt's not as bad as it looks in still images, but it's definitely noticable. I played MBAA like this for hours without caring, and only decided to mess around and try to fix it when I decided to take a break. So it's not a huge deal.
The second option is here.
http://pcsx2.dyndns.org/index.php#GSdx Here is an updated version of Gsdx. Make sure your directX is updated to the latest version (march 2009) and make sure you download the C++ thing at the top of that page. This Will fix the sprite artifacts as long as you set it up properly (see below(thanks daimao!))
Set "resolution" to however big you want the window to be. This is just stretching, and should not effect performance. MBAC PC default window size was 640x480, for reference.
The third choice, ZeroGS, is much more customisable, allows for antialiasing and other cool stuff, and it will fix the sprite problems.
When using either Video plugin, you should configure settings for interlacing as per your preferences. Turning it on will result in lines across the screen, turning it off will result in the screen "tearing" - you can probably spot some tearing in the two screenshots above. It's up to you. Pick your poison.
Gsdx blur interlacing looks far far better than anything zeroGS has.FYI, if you hold triangle+cross once the render window comes up, pick the top option twice to use progressive mode. This way, you don't have to use the render plugin's deinterlacer, which makes it look quite pretty (no scanlines or blurriness)
Thanks mrthefter!
For sound, you have three choices. The top choice will give you the absolute nicest quality sound, however it will be somewhat desynced from the video, in my experience (your mileage may vary). Test it and see.
The second choice will give you audio that is perfectly synced, but sounds garbled and messed up, and won't play music properly. Obviously i don't reccomend it.
The Third choice is a happy balance between the two. It sounds pretty decent and is slightly desynced, but it isn't majorly noticable. I reccomend the third option here for most people, but again it depends on your machine. Set it up like this:
If anyone finds a way to get perfect audio in PCSX2, please tell me and I'll update the thread.
Lastly, make sure to click "configure" on your CDDVD-ROM plugin, and set it to the drive that you will be
mounting inserting your MBAA disc into, or else you won't get anywhere. You'll also need to configure your controls, but surely you don't need a walkthrough for that.
Speed Hacks - If you are running an older computer or are having any kind of issues, mess around in this screen.
As you can see, I do not have any speedhacks available. This is because I don't waste all my money on bad japanese cartoons, ugly figurines, or subpar quality fighting games, and thus I can afford a real computer. If you are less fortunate, experiment with these options until you get MB running at a solid 60fps. Only change one option at a time, that way, if something breaks, you know how to fix it.
One last thing. If your MBAA is actually running too fast, you can limit the framerate in config > cpu. Thanks to Zelretch for this.
That's about it. Keep in mind these are the settings I use on my machine (AMD 6000+, 8800GTS 512, 2GB ram) and they may not work for everyone. Please try and put some effort in by testing different settings before posting in this thread whining that "it doesn't work". I have little tolerance for people who can't help themselves.
AND DON'T TALK ABOUT PIRACY YOU STUPID FUCKS HOLY SHIT THIS THREAD IS FOR TALKING ABOUT PLAYING YOUR LEGAL COPIES OF MBAA ON THE PC SO THAT YOU CAN USE PC-COMPATIBLE PADS/STICKS/KEYBOARDS FOR PLAYING IT