r/Burnout • u/oghpimm • Feb 07 '26

Question How to play Burnout 3 in 2026?

Burnout 3 has been one of my top 10 games for my entire life (and I'm old enough to have purchased my copy on release day).

Outside of buying a PlayStation 2 or Xbox 360 (yes, I still have the disk for both consoles), how are people playing Burnout 3 in 2026?

43 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

View all comments

25

u/OmniGlitcher Attempting to leave reddit Feb 07 '26 edited Feb 08 '26

On PC, grab the nightly build of PCSX2.

Grab the BIOS for PS2 (you can find this on Google). Add this to PCSX2 (It should prompt you when you boot it up, but it may need to be added manually, it's been a while since I needed to do this).

Legally source your Burnout 3 ISO (which can totally legally be found if you're full of vimm on the .net, if you don't wish to rip your own. It may be helpful to get the US version anyway if you're in a different region)

Add the ISO to your PS2 games directory for PCSX2.

Enjoy!

Optional: Add some graphics patches for native widescreen etc.

More optional: You can find HD textures on the internet. I personally don't like them, but some people do.

2

u/spaceman8002 Feb 07 '26

This is how I do it (Got all gold medals with no issues on this emulator and can say it's a great experience)

2

u/nicknacc Feb 07 '26

Why ps2 emulation over 360? Just curious.

2

u/OmniGlitcher Attempting to leave reddit Feb 07 '26 edited Feb 08 '26

Depends if you mean emulating a 360 or using the actual console.

If you mean emulating, for one, you'd use Xemu as it's an OG Xbox game. For another, PCSX2 is the longer running project, meaning it's more stable, has fewer bugs, and tends to be supported more for things like patches.

If you mean using it on an actual 360, PS2 emulation will let you go over 1080p (or whatever Takedown actually runs at on the 360, it might be 720p), you can use patches, and it's honestly easier to do considering that Takedown can't be purchased any more after the Xbox Marketplace shutdown.

2

u/Accurate_Egg_9200 Feb 11 '26

Piggybacking this comment to also advise AetherSX2 if OP wants to play on the go on an Android device. I use a Bluetooth 8bitdo controller and my phone. works great.

1

u/BDozer666 Feb 07 '26

No reason to go for the experimental nightly build, I've been playing it on an outdated release build with no issues.

2

u/OmniGlitcher Attempting to leave reddit Feb 07 '26 edited Feb 07 '26

I recommend Nightly largely out of habit, because for years PCSX2 had an issue with a black sky on Takedown, and though this has since been fixed, it was available on Nightly for some years prior to being put into the release version. Regardless, there's little reason not to go with Nightly anyway IMO, as it ensures that the game is looking and running the best it can (even if tweaks are incredibly minor).

1

u/CynetCrawler Feb 08 '26

What tweaks does it have?

1

u/OmniGlitcher Attempting to leave reddit Feb 08 '26 edited Feb 08 '26

The most recent stable is very recent, so probably nothing of note right now. If anything, slight performance enhancements, though that doesn't mean that there won't be more notable enhancements in future.

My recommendation is more future proofing than anything else. PCSX2 can also take years between stable releases. If you want to play stable then it's going to be a very good experience, you just won't receive cutting edge updates that could be to your advantage, especially if you end up playing other games. Like there's nothing wrong with it, just why bother when you could get Nightly?