I'd say PCSX2 is doing pretty damn great these days, I've played through Shadow of the Colossus on PC and had very few hiccups the whole way.

also does ps2 emulation work good enough now that it is actually worth somebodies time to emulate it on there computer? Because i tried playing persona 3 on my comp a while back and could never get the emulator to show the graphics correctly in pcsx2

Its hit or miss depending on the game because a lot of games require speed hacks to run well. You still need a pretty fast processor to keep things running smoothly, but even top of the line equipment can crawl on some games just because of the nature of creating something like a ps2 emulator(throw together something that works, start slowly rewriting the thing based on testing results of individual games solving and breaking shit at the same time)

Its hit or miss depending on the game because a lot of games require speed hacks to run well. You still need a pretty fast processor to keep things running smoothly, but even top of the line equipment can crawl on some games just because of the nature of creating something like a ps2 emulator(throw together something that works, start slowly rewriting the thing based on testing results of individual games solving and breaking shit at the same time)

actually, it is working a lot better then it was before. The new version is amazing. They changed the way they did the recompiling, and I'm actually getting playable speeds with my piece of crap computer.

Some games that I've tried just don't work at all, though. Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance doesn't even get past the title screen. There's very few games that are stuck like this now, though.

What video card are you running, everyclear? Did you make sure to set all the recompiler options correctly? what is your computer setup?????

Playstation 2 emulation is pretty good from what I've tried. 2D games seem to emulate better for me when using software rendering mode. The graphics plug-in also supports DirectX 11, but I don't know how much or in what way it helps. Probably a more efficient API.

I don't want to look like I've just ignored your suggestions, but I went with the Hori Ex2 Turbo in my original post because of analogue stick placement (prefer it above d-pad, since this gamepad will be for 3D-focused games). I mentioned Playstation 2 emulation, but it was not really a huge focus. I had no idea that the Xbox 360 controller had L3 and R3 buttons, which is great for Playstation 2 emulation, but I absolutely hate when games actually use them. No pressure sensitive buttons, though. I wonder how many Playstation 2 and Playstation 3 games actually use them. That's another feature I dislike since it makes the buttons feel mushy and like I'm never pressing hard enough. Also, fuck games that expect you to press it into just the right range to execute certain moves. Makes it even worse than L3/R3.

By the way, are Xbox 360 controllers supposed to have a limited analogue stick range? When looking at it through control panel, I see that the range is at max, but physically I have not pushed the stick all the way in that direction. It's a small amount, but definitely noticeable.