The best PS2 emulator

Building an ps2 emulator is definitely not a simple job, and much more complicated than emulating ps1 games as developer stated. It has come a long way, and I can finally say that there is one very playable ps2 emulator around and that's PCSX2. To download the emulator go to its official website pcsx2.net

Is PCSX2 the best ps2 emulator around? Yes it's.

Can it play homebrew games? Yes, it can.

How's the game compatibility? Pretty good.

Now I have answered some of the most popular question. But don't get too happy yet. The emulator is still not as perfect as ps1 emulator. Most games I tried either have minor graphical issues or sound bugs and it does not look as good. Nonetheless it's still very playable. And also you need a very powerful CPU to run ps2 games at decent speed. Currently I'm using an amd athlon x2 5000+ 2.6 ghz with 9600gt nvidia graphic card, most games I played fps still dropped to under 40 very frequently including persona 3 and shadow hearts 2 convenant. You need to maintain the fps above 50 to play smoothly, otherwise it'll be slow and sluggish. Anything below 20 fps is basically unplayable. Although you can do some tweaking and hacking, it's not going to work well. So my guessing is you need at least a dual core 3.0 ghz above cpu to play perfectly, preferably an intel cpu as the current best graphic plugin work best with intel and support better direct x version.

I'm sure a perfect ps2 emulator is not very far away from now and definitely not impossible. Be a little bit more patient. I'll try to update again when the near perfect ps2 emulator is out. In the mean time, for those who have powerful cpu you can download the emulator and try it yourself.

StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty Review

I've completed the single player campaign for a while now and I stand by what I've wrote in my previous post, I'm not impressed. StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty are getting mostly positive review from other websites and gamers, and I don't totally agreed with them. It's not a bad game by all means, it just does not live up to the hype. I'm not going to write a long review covering all aspect of the game, its a classic real time strategy games stay true to its root. There's nothing revolutionary here or anything fancy to talk about here, graphic is good, sound is ok, storyline not bad (I'm quite interested to see how they are going to do with the zerg storyline), and CG cutscene is good as well. If you haven't heard about, the only new element they added is a rpg like area where you can interact with characters, research and other thing. Seriously, if they cut out this part of the game, the game will be extremely short. How short you ask? I think I completed the game under 20 hours, and I'm playing it very slowly. I think I spent 1/3 of the time in the base, and the rest on the actual mission. Yes, it's definitely much more shorter than previous installment. Most mission play very much like tutorial introducing new units in each mission, all you have to do is to keep building them and complete your objective. There's a wide variety of mission types, nothing too memorable I must say. I completed most of them in under 40 minutes (slowly). So even there's 26 mission in the game, it still feel extremely short. There's not too much challenge in the game beside the last mission which I reloaded 3 times to win.

So does it worth the extra 10 bucks? Hell no! Not counting the multiplayer of course. Bottom line, I'm sure all fans will be pleased, it does not disappoint. Although I do hope they will at least improve the gameplay a little like after seeing what Relic did in company of heroes. If you haven't play this game, you should totally try it. Its the best real time strategy games in recent memory, or maybe the best in all time. StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty still provide fun and enjoyable experience to the player, I finished the whole game so it couldn't be that bad. After all, rts is not my favorite genre in gaming. I preferred slower games like rpg, turn-based strategy like xcom, jagged alliance, fallout 1&2...etc. Unfortunately, its the least favorite in gaming market and slowly dying. What I'm trying to say is I could be a little bias, for rts fans StarCraft 2 might be a gem from the sky.

Final score: 8.5/10 (single player experience only)

How to host multiple domains with godaddy that are registered elsewhere

Another problem I faced recently, I'm trying to host my namecheap domains on my godaddy deluxe plan. This time godaddy support were helpful enough, and I get it working very soon after. But they should really change the help section which provide wrong information. It would save us and theirs time if they have post the right information in the first place.

So I assume you know how to add extra domains in godaddy account. If you don't, launch your hosting control panel, go to setting, domain and add it accordingly. It takes a while before it's setup, so wait patiently. If your domain is registered at godaddy, it'll configure properly without any work from your site. But if your domains are registered elsewhere, you need to change the dns information on your domain.

The problem here is how do you get the right dns information for each domain? The dns you found on your hosting control panel will not work as it's probably different. To check each of your domain dns, go to setting > dns management. Now click on the domain list, and you should see a list of domains you have added. Click on the one you want to setup and you should be able to find its dns.

Now that you have the right dns information for the domain. You need to modify the dns at your registrar. If you are using namecheap, go to manage domain, choose the domain you want to change and click on change nameserver. Enter the first and second field with the dns you found on godaddy and click change. Wait for a while and you should see your site is now up and running.