Hey, I was wanting to get into speedrunning some PS2 games (im mainly a PC game runner and some of the games i want to run have issues on PCSX2) so i was considering getting a real console to run the games. Only problem is i dont know what you would consider to be the "Optimal" setup. as in which model, run the game off disc or hdd etc. so if you guys could help me out that would be great ^_^

It depends entirely on the game.

First, using an HDD as a homebrew app to put any game on it instead of just the supported ones is banned because it’s modifying the console to speed up load times when it isn’t normally supported. Rather, most communities ban this because it’s changing how the system functions and console mods to increase performance are usually always banned.

If your game does natively support HDD loading (I only know of a few JRPGs that do) then you'll need a 50k model and a lot of specific hardware to benefit from the HDD. It takes a specific brand of HDD as well as some startup discs to get the console to read it right. It’s expensive and hard to find this stuff.

I’m assuming that you won’t be running a game with native HDD support, so in that case you’ll want the slimmest model you can get for the best loads. This is a 90k model. If you can’t find one, a 77k or a 70k model will also work. Both of those are comparable to a 90k in terms of loading (for example, my 77k and 90k load some games at the same speed). The general idea here is just don’t get a fat model, those are slow and the difference in loading between those 3 slim models can be small or they’re might not be any depending on the game.

For what it’s worth, a slim model is also the best for running PS1 games off a PS2 as well.

Thanks for the insight :D

Question regarding capturing, i dont have a crt or any tv with older connections so i would have to use a modern connection. would that be possible and if so would there by noticeable input lag?

There will probably be some input delay if you’re on an LCD TV. That being said, it doesnt mean much because you can learn around it and get used to it.

Although I always support CRTs, a friend of mine played a PS2 game on an LCD and switching to CRT was worse for him because he learned to adjust his menus with input delay. Without it, he couldn’t menu correctly anymore, so he went back to LCD. And he held many WRs like that so it’s hardly gonna keep you from doing good. PS2 input delay is much less noticeable than say NES or SNES.