Getting back into PS2 gaming

Was making lunch and my dusty PS2 sitting in the corner of the living room caught my eye. Had a weird desire to plug it in and see if it still worked. Ended up playing an hour of Silent Hill 2 and had to stop myself. I just have the old composite cables but is it worth getting some of those PS3/PS2 component cables to improve the image quality? Or does it not improve it much at all? Just hoping for a way to un-ass the image quality as much as I can for an HDTV although I realize it'll still look bad anyway. Really want to revisit some games I think (like the Silent Hill series) and play some other horror games I missed and check out a couple of RPGs, especially Persona 4. Any recommendations?

P.S. I have an old phat version, is it worth getting that 2007 revision slim?

There are only a handful of games on the PS2 that support progressive scan, so I wouldn't bother. Here's the list of compatible games: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_PlayStation_2_games_with_HD_support

I think the composite cables only allow for 480p as opposed to 480i. So the quality increase in nominal at best.

The phat version is fine unless you're having problems with yours. There's no real reason to get a slim. I have both versions and there's no difference. I haven't plugged my component cables in recently, but I don't remember there being a quality difference besides the home screen.

Do you have a modern computer? If so get a PS2 emulator and just pop in your legal game discs into your computer. I have a PS2 hooked up via component cable, but it doesn't compare to playing games in 1080P HD.

@SavageManLove said:

Was making lunch and my dusty PS2 sitting in the corner of the living room caught my eye. Had a weird desire to plug it in and see if it still worked. Ended up playing an hour of Silent Hill 2 and had to stop myself. I just have the old composite cables but is it worth getting some of those PS3/PS2 component cables to improve the image quality? Or does it not improve it much at all? Just hoping for a way to un-ass the image quality as much as I can for an HDTV although I realize it'll still look bad anyway. Really want to revisit some games I think (like the Silent Hill series) and play some other horror games I missed and check out a couple of RPGs, especially Persona 4. Any recommendations?

P.S. I have an old phat version, is it worth getting that 2007 revision slim?

You're not going to be able to un-ass a PS2 on an HDTV unless you get a tube one. The native resolution/scaling really makes it nasty. It'll depend on the games, too. Not sure if the software can switch the game to 480i, but interlaced stuff on an LCD TV is pretty jarring. Depending on your TV, you might get crazy lag as the TV is going to upscale the image.

CRT with component in will probably look the best if you're going to use your PS2

PS3 with upscaling will be the easiest method and it'll look all right as well.

If you have a pretty boss PC, PCSX2 has pretty decent compatibility. Later PS2 games like FF12 look really nice.

If your computer can handle it, definitely look into PS2 emulation. PCSX2 has support for FXAA which smooths out every god damned jaggie it can find. It's made Persona 4 look more completely awesome than it looked before.

Hmmm, I did actually recently build a 900ish dollar PC with a GTX 670 and stuff so maybe I will look into this PS2 emulator. I definitely don't want to pirate or anything so if I could use the actual game discs that would be cool. Thanks guys.

Definitely look into PS2 emulation, but are you guys who are saying that component won't look much better nuts? I have played PS2 on an HDTV with both composite and component cables and the image quality isn't amazing for either but the component does look a million times better.

Component will certainly make the colours much more vibrant, but in my experience, enhances jaggies like a bitch. This is through an LCD display mind, can't say the same for CRT.

Broke down and just ordered a component cable and persona 4. Will mess with emulating later. Jrpgs were a staple of mine long ago until i just couldnt handle the grind anymore and mixed with playing an older system this is going to be a test for me in many ways. Would be nice to have a swan song to those old memories. Will pick up some horror games if things go well. Maybe fatal frame or echo night or something.