I would need an "emulators for dummies" course to make that happen. My only experience with an emulator was downloading a relatively simple emulator program into my MacBook and then downloading a few Game Boy Advance games for it. The only one I could get to work was Pokemon Silver haha.
(Before I'm berated for this, we decided to bring Pokemon back one summer while working in the campus library. I enjoyed it and feel no shame.)
I don't think that the newer emulators are any more complicated than they once were. You just have more control input options....but you can most likely use a PS3 controller via USB with no problem.
I can't speak for all the emulators, but I can tell you the PSX one I setup a few years ago was a bit complicated. It's not like the NES and SNES ones from back in the day. Those older consoles had one installer with everything included and you were good to go.
The PSX emulator I used, ePSXe, required you to go out and find the necessary BIOS file to actually run the emulator (It wasn't included with it because of Sony copyright issues). On top of that there were different custom drivers for the video, CD drive, memory card emulation, and sound you could/had to download to play the games. Some games played fine with certain video .dlls, other older games only worked with another video .dll. Some games required a whole different version of ePSXe to run. Kind of a headache, but once everything was setup you could save settings for your favorite games so they would launch without adjusting anything the next time.
As far as using a PS3 controller for emulation, you may or may not want to do it! It may hose your controller. There's some instructions out there to download a program called MotionJoy that includes drivers for the PS3 controller to work with your PC. I bought a new controller (Most mine were old Sixaxis ones, I wanted another Dual Shock) and hooked it up to my laptop. It worked for a minute or so, then the controller completely died. Wouldn't work in the PS3 or anything else afterwards. Took it back since it was still under the return policy, the new one did the same damn thing, so I didn't bother doing that again. Maybe it was just my laptop, I dunno. In the end I spent $20 to get a Logitech controller that had the same exact layout of the PS3 controller, and that thing works great. Plus it has better driver support.
