I tried this PCSX today. I'm glad things are improving and all, but I had a less than pleasant experience trying it. Note: This is a Windows XP machine I tried it on. I don't even dare to try it on Linux yet.
List of my comments and problems in the order of occurance:
Reading the documentation:
"Configure your Plugins & Bios as follows: Sound: "No Sound 0.4". Then you can change this one when you're replaying your movie, but select this one when you're recording to prevent desyncs later. ― uh-oh. That sounds like trouble. Because when I'm making movies, I use the sound as an indicator of actions and a timing guide. It is very important to me. Not to mention that the way suggested doesn't sound quite desync-proof...
(Trying to select the paths for plugins etc.) Argh, I hate the windows folder selection dialog. It takes by average about 15 seconds to select a location that is deep within the folder hierarchy. As opposed to the 3 seconds it would take to simply type it in. And apparently, it does not recognize symlinks. I have a symlink pointing to a network location where my memory card images are, but the dialog promptly ignores the symlink, making it impossible to point to that location.
If it even used the current working directory as the base, it would be
great. But apparently, since Windows 95, the concept of current working directory was promptly thrown out the window. So it always assumes that you want to save to My Documents or to your desktop. If your preference is at c:\cygwin\home\bisqwit\nes\psx\pcsx\plugin, tough luck.
(Trying to load up a game.) Um, can PCSX not use disc images? Hmm, according to Dacicus's post on page 1, you need a plugin called "Mooby2 cd disk image driver 2.8". Time to go hunting for plugins. /me fires up Google.
Uh-oh, all pages having "Mooby2 cd disk image driver 2.8" on them only refer to the fact that you need that plugin, or are comments by people unable to find that plugin anywhere. Where do I download it??
So finally I found it somewhere.
Uh-oh, Mooby2 is also unable to follow symlinks. Do I really need to copy 1.4 gigabytes of stuff over WLAN to my laptop just so that I can play the game? Stupid Windows. I would so much like to just the symlink that points to the network path where the game is. Okay, well, how about the network path?
Uh-oh, Mooby2 does not allow inputting network paths. Try to enter \\, and it will change it to something else.
Okay, someone suggested that I map the network path into a disk drive letter. That
could work, but if I do that, it will slow down the boot times of this laptop drastically when that network path is not accessible. Because this is a roaming computer; I use it at home and at work. Network paths for my home network are inaccessible at work, and it would be reflected in the boot times.
Okay, against my better judgement, I tried mounting them as P:\. Uh-oh, Mooby2 does not allow me to input P:\ in the path. If I try, it will change it to something else. However, when I copypasted P:\ from notepad into the empty path entry, it worked. Yay ._.
(Trying to play game.) Uh-oh. When I point it to Chrono Cross ISO, it says that it does not support ISO images. It only supports BINs. However, it loads the game just fine. Eh?
Uh, how do you return to the menu in PCSX without ending the game? I tried esc, but I could not resume the game after that.
I would like to customize my hotkeys, and also to change the no-sound plugin into yes-sound plugin, as instructed by the RR instructions.
Configuration->Controllers->Shortcuts->Configuration dialog. I set that as ESC. After I did that, the emulator stopped responding to ESC. Quite the opposite of what I wanted.
Uh-oh, in the controllers setup, I entered "P" as the key for Start button. I try to use the P key in the game, but instead of pressing the Start button, it seems to pause the emulator. WTF?
(Trying to figure out where the emulator settings are stored so I could edit them easier, i.e. by loading up a text file and editing it, rather than by shuffling through dozens of dialog boxes filled with shoot-your-leg design.) Tried plugins\ directory. Not there. Tried home directory. Not there. Tried pcsx directory. Not there. Tried registry. 40 seconds of searching for "pcsx". Okay, some settings there, but not all. Where are all the rest of the settings? I have no idea.
Not to mention that in the passage of these misexperiences, the emulator crashed a number of times ― before it had even loaded a single game. Reminds me of an old saying in Bisqwit's world: I hate plugins.
I'm also reminded of this (ignore the speech in the first panel):