Sony Playstation 3 Emulator

[Yvone Brem]

Iam looking for a good recommendation for a PS1 emulator. I tried retroarch's beetle core, but it won't seem to work with the majority of the files I have in. They are in .bin format. I have ePSXe but the video quality is meh and some of the games are choppy.

Found that. Can't seem to get it to work at all. That core only seems to work with 1 game file that is .cue. The others are .bin and that core doesn't seem to like them. On top of that, when I try the one game from Big Box it won't load. The .bin files will only allow a SwanStation core associated with them for playstation.

Beetle / Mednafen and Swanstation / Duckstation are bother solid and are the best options. Neither is objectively better than the other in any meaningful way though a lot of people are on the Duckstation / Swanstation hype train.

With 3D games you can up the internal resolution scaling with ePSXe, Duckstation and the Beetle/Mednafen HW core in Retroarch. This will make 3D games look sharper but 2D sprite based games with still look pixelated.

Inspired by @dumpster's many emulation set-up guides, I thought I would write up my own for you guys. Previously, have followed several of these guides myself and always came away a little disappointed, not for anything Dumpster had done, just because either the picture wasn't through HDMI, or setting the machine up was difficult, or had various drawbacks.

Ok, so, there are various solutions you can use, which have different behaviours and results, but I decided on using Retroboot. Retroboot is a wrapper for Retroarch that hijacks the PS Classic launch logic and boots directly into Retroarch. Retroarch itself is a unified solution to manage multiple emulators through in easy to use interface. (This guide will only cover Retroboot for now, but I may updated it with Autobleem and Bleedsync if people show interest)

Firstly, you have to obtain the hardware. Its available for a fairly cheap price at Amazon Uk (around 40). Also, you'll need a usb thumb drive to store the emulators and roms. These USB keys need to run at a low enough voltage so that the PS Classic can actually run it without running out of power. The two drives I know that work are this Samsung USB Flash Drive 128 GB and this Cruzer Fit 64 GB USB 2.0 Flash Drive (the 2018). NOTE: If you have an thumb drive lying about and find it doesn't boot then you might need to perform this power modification on the PlayStation Classic itself.

You then have to format the USB thumb drive to FAT32. Windows 10 doesn't format in FAT32, so you need to download a third party program. I used this guide. I did have a bit of trouble formatting the Samsung drive with the program, and needed to format it with the disk manager first, before the program decided to let me format in with FAT32. IMPORTANT: Once formatted, rename the drive SONY in all caps and you are good to go.

Once you've formatted and renamed the drive, you then have to download and install the software. I downloaded this 0.8b Retro Boot Standalone Version from this Reddit post. I would probably keep an eye on the PlayStation Classic Reddit itself so you can spot any new releases of retroboot with bug fixes and other improvements. Once you have downloaded the zip file, all you have to do is unzip the contents to the root of the USB folder (so the drive has the "028c18a9-ec4b-4632-b2cf-d4e20f252e8f", "retroarch" and "roms" folders in the root). Once you've done that, you just need to plug the drive into the second port of the PlayStation classic and it should boot straight into Retroarch when you turn the power on!

After you have installed retroarch, you can then go about installing any Rom you want into the "roms" folder. You can organise these in any way, and I put them in separate folders for each system. Once you've put the roms onto the folders you want, you can then get Retroarch to find and organise your roms by selecting the "scan directory" option. Once scanned, select the rom from the playlist and then select the core you want to run it with and then enjoy some retro gaming! (Note: pressing start and select while running games brings up the retroarch menu).

A note about cores and roms. This Retroboot version of Retroarch comes with a a large number of cores. Cores are the emulators that retroarch uses to run the games. In some cases, there are multiple cores for the same system. These cores have a various level of performance and accuracy. I've drawn up a list of cores that I would recommend using for each system (please note, I was primarily motivated by performance, so some emulator accuracy may be lost).

A note about roms: Each rom you run needs to match the core you are using. If you don't download the correct romset then you might have trouble running the rom and get errors like "unable to load content". The MAME 0.78 ROMSET matches the km_mame2003_xtreme_libretro.so core and the MAME 0.151 romset matches the km_fbalpha2012_cps3_libretro.so core. If you have trouble running roms, this is the best place to start. If you google I'm sure you can find links to these sets. Either that, or pm me and I may be able to provide links.

A note about video and shaders: Retroboot comes pre-installed with many different shaders which process the image and make it look better for modern displays. I've tested them all and recommend using the "sharp-bilinear-2x-prescale.glslp" which gives you a sharp pixel mage, and then enabling the "scanlines" overlay from the retroarch menu. I personally think that gives the best image, but feel free to experiment. A warning though, some shaders do not perform well on the PlayStation Classic.

A note about OTG adapters: Later versions of retroboot can use an OTG adapter in the rear of the PlayStation Classic and therefore free up both front ports to allow two players to play. I used this guide to modify mine. Its very simple, but you will have to modify your PS Classic firmware in order for it to work. I won't go into detail here, as that video explains the process very well, but you'll need to download the BleemmSync firmware and OTG firmware update from this site and then mod your classic with the new firmware. Once the process is done, you just plug your retroboot USB drive into the OTG adapter instead and it boots as usual. I bought this one and it works perfectly.

A note about custom playlists: When you scan the rom directory, Retroarch generates playlists which then appear on the XMB for you to select and play. You can add and customise these playlists to your liking (for instance, I've done this to break up my MAME roms into genres). Every playlist lives in the \retroarch\playlists\ folder and is in json format. You can add as many as you like and edit the contents to remove games you don't want to display (like alternative versions of mame roms). Also, you can customise the icon displayed on the playlist by adding icons with the same matching filename in the retroarch\assets\xmb\monochrome\png\ folder. If you look in there, there is already a large selection of icons for each platform.

A note about analogue control: Analogue control is possible. The easiest method is to plug your Xbox ONE or Xbox 360 wired controller directly into the classic using USB. Retroarch should recognise the pad and mame should automatically use the analogue sticks for input for racing games like Outrun. If you are using the 8BitDo wireless adaptor you have to switch input modes. By default the adaptor replicates the playstation classic controller, which has no analogue sticks. If you hold the select / share button and up on the d-pad on your dualshock 4 or switch pro controller it should switch the adaptor to 360 controller mode, enabling analogue control. If you want to reset the 8bitdo input then hold select + down to set it back to PlayStation classic controller mode. Enabling analogue control in PS1 games appears to be more tricky. You can follow this guide in order to get it working, but, be warned, I had limited success. To be honest, there isn't that many PS1 games that support or utilise the dualshock, so I don't think its a great loss.

Personally i use Autobleem and that exact 64GB cruzer fit you linked but I have done the power mod on port two. It is very very tricky. Essentially soldering a wire across two pinheads half a mm apart.

Edit: if you do give it a go I posted a video in the classic thread in general gaming. I only did the second port as you only need one and if you screw it up you can still use your machine stock with the player 1 port.

It is rather Russian roulette unless you are using one of the approved memory sticks. Though when it happened to me I found all I had to do was replace the db file, all the other stuff was still there. Luck of the draw I guess.

What I'm waiting for here (and I picked up a PS Classic from Facebook Marketplace last night for 20 to try this out) is the OP to continue to be expanded and to make good on the claim that the PS Classic is the best solution for emulation for 99% of people. I did a thread a while ago to see what people thought was the best overall emulation machine taking everything into account and I still think it's the Wii. Sure, the Nvidia Shield TV does more modern emulation, but it's 150 compared with a second hand Wii from Cash Generator for a tenner. But the Wii doesn't have HDMI and so it goes on - there are so many variables from one format to another. I like the PS Classic, I'm impressed with the size of it, and I'm looking forward to giving this a go. But so far, here are my negatives:

One of the great things about using a Wii (or Wii-U) for emulation is that you effectively get perfect 'emulation' of the native machine, meaning that you get perfect 8 and 16 bit emulation, with 100% Gamecube and Wii (and Wii-U) as well. It's a fantastic all-in-one machine. So if the PS Classic can do Wii and Cube as well as PS1, PSP etc, this could possibly be a new contender beating the Wii. Shame about the controllers, but I'll be watching this thread with interest.

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