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How To Use Codes on PCSX2 Emulator

Using codes on the PCSX2 Emulator is a royal pain in the butt and if you're inexperienced with computers or a naturally impatient person it is likely that it'll be too difficult to figure out. This guide breaks down how to setup codes in the simplest terms possible and it also points out the most common mistakes you may make while trying to get these codes to work.

Before I get started, here is a succinct list of all the steps for people who prefer information in this sort of format:

1. Find your games CRC #
2. Find your PCSX2 Cheat Directory
3. Make a .pnach file with your game's CRC #
4. Download OmniConvert v1.0.3
5. Use Omniconvert to convert your codes to a format the emulator can recognize
6. Add the code to the .pnach file using the format I show
7. Test your code to see if it works in game

The first step is figuring out what the CRC code is for the game you're playing. To do this boot up your game then on the PCSX2 Toolbar select "Misc" and "Show Console". This will bring up the box that you see in the screen shot below.

Scroll through all of the text until you find the Game CRC = part that I have highlighted in my screen shot above. The game I am playing/using for the purposes of this guide is Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King; the CRC number you see above is for that game.

You only need the last part of the CRC number, F4715852, the 0x should not be used when creating the .pnach file. Write this number down or just keep the console open while you locate the PCSX2 Directory on your computer. Mine is in Documents, which I think is where the program installs itself by default, but yours may be in Program Files.

Here's the only two directories I have ever heard of it being:

C: Program Files (x86) > PCSX2 > Cheats
Documents > PCSX2 > Cheats


Location of the cheats folder in My Documents.

Open this folder and right click anywhere inside the folder to bring up a set of options, select "New" and make a Text Document. This will likely be the only file in the whole folder for you, but in the screen shot below you'll see that I have a Text Document as well as many .pnach files in the folder.

This actually helps me demonstrate the difference between these two files to you easier; as you'll notice the files in this folder have suffixes such as .pnach and .txt. If you can't see this on your own computer and only see it in my screen shots then you'll need to enable them. If you're using Windows 10 you can enable these by going to the upper right corner of the folder and selecting "File Name Extensions" as you see in my second screen shot below.

Note: If you are on an older version of windows you can access this option by right clicking in the folder and selecting "Properties". Or you can go to Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Folder Options and uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types".


Right click the Text Document you made and rename it to whatever CRC # your game is and change the file's extension to .pnach. For the purposes of this guide, my Dragon Quest VIII file was named F4715852.pnach. Double click on the file to open it.

Below you'll see a screen shot of the inside of this file, with a few cheats that I have already added and can confirm they work; below this screen shot I have the raw text version of these same cheats which we're going to be referencing for the other part of this guide.

gametitle=Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King
comment=Almar's Guides: How to Setup Codes on PCSX2

Experience Times Two
patch=1,EE,203609D4,extended,8FA2319C
patch=1,EE,203609D8,extended,00021040

Enemies Always Drop Items
patch=1,EE,20296FB0,extended,9454004A
patch=1,EE,20296FB4,extended,10000027
patch=1,EE,20297058,extended,0280102D

As you can already most likely tell, these cheats look nothing like the codes you find on my Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King CodeBreaker Codes page. In order to use any of the codes you find on my website as well as pretty much any PS2 code you find online with the PCSX2 emulator you'll first need to convert the code into a RAW format.

There are multiple ways to do this but the most common way is by using the OmniConvert 1.0.3 which you can download here. I've personally used this download link and can confirm there's no malware or spyware but you should scan it anyway to make sure yourself. Get used to doing that - don't just blindly trust me. In order to extract OmniConvert after you download it you'll need Winrar, another free to use program that you can get from googling.

Note: If this download link doesn't work anymore, google for information about OmniConvert 1.0.3... I am sure you'll be able to find it somewhere; it's not a very large program and it doesn't require any sort of installation so it can be easily shared.

OmniConvert 1.0.3 & You

Once you've downloaded and extracted OmniConvert 1.0.3 using winrar your next step will be to run the Omniconvert.exe file which will bring up the window shown in my screen shot below. Depending on what type of cheat you're putting into OmniConvert, you'll want to go up to "Input" and select the cheat you're putting in from the list of options.

For the purposes of this guide, we're using the CodeBreaker codes on my Dragon Quest 8 CodeBreaker Codes page. I chose the code Max Gold (Max Gold: 2A8B1C65 05F5E0FF) from my list of codes and I placed it into the left side of Omniconvert, shown in the screen shot below.

With Input set to CodeBreaker V1+ and Output set to "Unencrypted > Standard" it's time to hit Convert and change our Codebreaker code into a RAW/Unencrypted Code. As you can see in the above screen shot, after you hit Convert the code goes from being 2A8B1C65 05F5E0FF to 20409840 05F5E0FF.

Now the next step is we need to put this into a format that the PCSX2 can recognize. Take the RAW code and copy and paste it into the .pnach file then scroll up to my previously mentioned codes and copy and paste one of them into the .pnach as well; we're going to be using the code for formatting purposes. After you format your code using this one just delete this code.

Take notice of the parts I bolded below; you're going to have to format your new cheat the same way as this cheat.

Experience Times Two
patch=1,EE,203609D4,extended,8FA2319C
patch=1,EE,203609D8,extended,00021040

So, you'll want to turn this: 20409840 05F5E0FF .... into this:

Max Gold
patch=1,EE,20409840,extended,05F5E0FF

Once you've properly formatted your cheat you can delete the other one I told you to copy and paste into the file. All that is left is for us to test the cheat we just added to the .pnach file and make sure it works.