PS2 Audio RAM? by PsGeek243 at 11:26 AM EDT on May 12, 2026
The PS1s audio ram is 512KB and the PS2 is 2MB. In addition, you were able to stream more than one audio file.
The PS1 had this game/program called Music 2000, and I actually used this along with Duckstation to extract the SPU RAM with the RAM reaching its full capacity.
This in sample form (taking from Audacity, a measurement option) would be around 831,684 samples. NOT 831,684 different WAVS, I don't wanna confuse anyone. Just the measurement of each ADPCM loaded.
I've been studying PS1/PS2 audio in my spare time curious to see what the exact limit would be. It's easy to do with PS1 since there are people who made that SPU extractor, a full on SPU channel extractor, and the Music 2000 I mentioned.
What I'm curious to know is if anyone's done research like this for the exact limit on the PS2? Music 3000, MTV Music Generator 2 exist, but I personally don't think they get even close to the PS2 RAM limit or utilize it in a general sense.
There IS an option to dump the SPU2 via logs, but its tedious since there is no way to dump the ACTUAL SPU2 RAM at any moment the game is running. You have to load a scene, quit PCSX2, then use PSound to see what's on the file. And I can't tell half the time if its accurate since there are samples that don't even show up on PSound (which also don't show up normally unless via VGMTrans).
What I've been using are games like Silent Hill 2 and Resident Evil 4 in attempts to find the limit. The closest I've gotten is with the statue of Zalazar scene, where the PS2 audio ram is around 3,300,000 of sample data, and two audio streams can play with this loaded. Thats as far as accurate as I can get. In estimate 831,684 x 4 would be 3,326,736, so that might be the exact limit, but I can't confirm. Thats 2:30 in 22050Hz sample rate.
If anyone wants to follow along on this thread, feel free. Again, to clarify, im trying to figure out what the limit for the PS2 audio RAM is in sample form measurement (can be found in Audacity) for personal knowledge and inspiration in making games.