The PlayStation 2 arrived at a time when widescreen TVs had only just started to be widely adopted, so it was not commonplace to see many native widescreen PS2 games. Later games such as GTA: San Andreas was a game that included a 16:9 widescreen option in the game.
But with emulation now hugely popular and pretty much any modern screen being a widescreen display, sometimes you may prefer to emulate PS2 games in widescreen mode.
Fortunately, the LRPS2 core in RetroArch has you covered and comes with 16:9 and widescreen game patch options built into the core. In this guide, I’ll show you how to configure the LRPS2 core in RetroArch to play PS2 games in widescreen.
Step 1 – Install & configure LRPS2 core in RetroArch
If you have not already set up RetroArch to play PS2 games with the LRPS2 core, then you will need to do this first before proceeding further.
Step 2 – Load & start the LRPS2 core in RetroArch
First of all, load and start the LRPS2 RetroArch PS2 core, access the quick menu by pressing ‘F1’ and navigate to the ‘Core Options -> Video‘ menu, here you will find two options:
- Aspect Ratio – Change this to ‘Widescreen (16:9)’
- Enable Widescreen Patches – Change this to ‘On’
Next, restart RetroArch.
Step 3 – Launch the game
Your game will now launch in RetroArch in 16:9 widescreen mode and RetroArch should show a notification that a widescreen patch has been found.
Should you find that a widescreen patch is not automatically applied, you are able to apply manual widescreen patches to the PCSX2 application folder included in your RetroArch folder.
To apply manual widescreen patches simply copy the widescreen patch .PNACH file to the following folder ‘RetroArch -> system -> pcsx2 -> cheats_ws‘.
A great resource for manual widescreen patches can be found on the PCSX2 forums.
A lifelong avid gamer and computing enthusiast, Matt has decades of Retro Gaming experience. Now over 40 years old, Matt now even considers himself retro, but fortunately, nobody has developed a Matt emulator (not yet at least!).