{"id":43656,"date":"2026-01-06T08:20:36","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T14:20:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/steamdeckhq.com\/?p=43656"},"modified":"2026-01-06T08:20:37","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T14:20:37","slug":"ps2-emulator-pcsx2-gets-big-2-6-0-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/steamdeckhq.com\/news\/ps2-emulator-pcsx2-gets-big-2-6-0-update\/","title":{"rendered":"PS2 Emulator PCSX2 Gets Big 2.6.0 Update With New Customization Options, Game Shortcut Creation, and More"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you haven't yet, follow us on X (Twitter)<\/a>, Mastodon<\/a>, or Bluesky<\/a> to know when we post new articles, and join our Reddit<\/a> or Subscribe to us on YouTube<\/a> to check out our content and interact with our awesome community. Thank you for supporting us!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of the best ways to game on PC is easily emulation, and when it comes to emulators, PCSX2<\/a> is one of the best. This emulator has been out for quite some time, but it is one of the most stable and widely supported emulators out there. It's my go-to for playing PS2 games, and it recently got a big new update<\/a> with some nice improvements across the board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"PCSX2<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There is a lot to unpack in this update, but it's a pretty significant one that should make using the emulator much more enjoyable. There is now feature parity between Big Picture Mode and the original interface, meaning you can adjust more settings, create memory cards, and log into RetroAchievements easily without needing to go to the Qt interface. There is also a new Game Shortcut Creation feature, allowing you to create desktop shortcuts for games directly from PCSX2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love customization, and it seems the PCSX2 team does as well! You can now customize the background of PCSX2, with animated background support, as well as add Emojis in Big Picture Mode. Icons in big picture mode have also gotten a nice little refresh, and Korean game titles have all been translated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There have also been some massive improvements to rendering, seeing some big improvements across the board. This is due to texture cache optimizations, feedback reads support, multidraw framebuffer copy support, aborting unnecessary draw calls, shuffle improvements, and much more. There are a lot of changes to help out here, and that's just a treat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And there are some nice quality of life improvements as well. Buddies and Tabstops have been added to Qt, which is great for accessibility since this makes elements more interactive. There's a new Gamma Adjustment option, you can now adjust the position of different in-game overlays, there's a new hotkey to swap memory cards, game screenshots can now be sorted by name, and a bunch of smaller improvements like customizable game list column headers, support for full axis binds, and an improved hotkeys section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It's a really wonderful update, and contains some nice improvements across the board. PCSX2 is one of the best emulators out there, so any extra updates to make it even better will always be appreciated. And you can check out the update and all of its changes via their blog post<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can download PCSX2<\/a> from their website, or you can get it via EmuDeck<\/a> or RetroDECK on the Steam Deck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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If you enjoyed this article, check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ<\/a>! We have a wide variety of game reviews and news that will help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news<\/a>, tips and tutorials<\/a>, game settings and reviews<\/a>, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got you<\/em> covered!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PS2 emulator PCSX2 got its big new 2.6.0 update, which give Big Picture mode new features, a game shortcut creation feature, background customization, and more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":43678,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","inline_featured_image":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-emulation"],"acf":[],"author_meta":{"display_name":"Noah Kupetsky","author_link":"https:\/\/steamdeckhq.com\/author\/noah-kupetsky\/"},"featured_img":"https:\/\/steamdeckhq.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Screenshot_5-1-2026_04150_pcsx2.net_-300x138.webp","coauthors":[],"tax_additional":{"categories":{"linked":["Emulation<\/a>"],"unlinked":["Emulation<\/span>"]}},"comment_count":"0","relative_dates":{"created":"Posted 2 months ago","modified":"Updated 2 months ago"},"absolute_dates":{"created":"Posted on January 6, 2026","modified":"Updated on January 6, 2026"},"absolute_dates_time":{"created":"Posted on January 6, 2026 8:20 am","modified":"Updated on January 6, 2026 8:20 am"},"featured_img_caption":"","series_order":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/steamdeckhq.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/steamdeckhq.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/steamdeckhq.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steamdeckhq.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steamdeckhq.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43656"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/steamdeckhq.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43757,"href":"https:\/\/steamdeckhq.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43656\/revisions\/43757"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steamdeckhq.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/steamdeckhq.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steamdeckhq.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/steamdeckhq.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}