They are used to translate some parts of the original PS2 machine code into x86 machine code, speeding up emulation. Recompilers for Emotion Engine (EE), Vector Unit 0 (VU0) and Vector Unit 1 (VU1). While the increase of number of useful cores may happen in the future it still remains unknown when this will happen because the division of the general emulation thread into two or more is a very hard and complex task - the original PS2 hardware has multiple CPUs and the correct timing between emulated CPUs is complicated enough without further dividing every CPU into more than one thread. As of late 2010 the program runs on both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows OSes and uses no more than 2 cores on multicore CPUs (1 core is used for the main emulation purposes and the second is for plugins' purposes like rendering graphics, output sounds or PAD works).

Although the plugins are numbered and unlikely to increase their quantity in the near future the plugin approach is still solid - it's possible to change to new updated versions of the plugins without changing the version of the main program and vice versa. The emulator uses plugin architecture making it possible to expand its capabilities by installing additional plugins.

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