Emulation central - recommendations in 1st post

[Great Deceiver]

I'm guessing RA must do some frame-dropping then, so there's some jitter now and then, but that's preferable to de-synced audio and games running at the wrong speed

I specifically meant that RA runs (well, the specific core, so MAME, Finalburn Neo, etc.) at the game's exact framerate if you have a VRR/G-Sync capable monitor. So it's perfect, really. It also does some sync magic for 60hz, but I'm not really interested in that.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Ok, i get it, i had to go to "quick menu" to be able to resume the game. At least that's something. Tried King's Field 2 same problem, inventory has graphics now but the text is garbled.

[EDIT] Jesus Christ so you have to press F1 for a second before it actually works lmao who the fuck designed this shit.

The RA interface is abysmal, but you will end understand it eventually.

The esiest way is to use the standard RA interface only to install the cores and for configuration. After that, if you need to run a game, you can just drag and drop your rom from you folder to the RA windows, and it will automatically run that game. Or use an alternative interface for selecting roms that can be accesses pressing F5.
F1 is still important during the game because it gives access to a specific menu to configure the core/game you are running.
For PS1 emulation in RA I would consider using the Beetle PSX HW core. Personally I use Duckstation stand-alone, without RA: it is the best modern PS1 emulator and its UI is league beyond RA. I use Bettle only for specific games since it has a slightly better way to implement downsampling.

 

[flyingjohn]

For all the Windows looser's running Citra on a Amd GPU:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkUfoEwHIdQ

Link to fancy sollution:
https://github.com/pal1000/mesa-dist-win/releases/tag/22.3.0
Link to forum post with additional info:
https://forums.guru3d.com/threads/wrappers-fix-low-fps.441913/

Don't expect miracles and expect crashes.

 

[flyingjohn]

Can someone explain this post for me to me?

Mistakes made:
-Used steam version (main culprit)
-Didn't configure anything before running games
-Used worst versions of emulators(pcsx and beetle hw)

Stick to standalones,except for genesis and 3DO. Everything else is worse then standalone emu's.

 

[deuxhero]

Now I've got to get .nsz files into .nsp ones, but the converts I can find are Windows only. Hmm...

 

[Lyric Suite]

-Used worst versions of emulators(pcsx and beetle hw)

What else is out there for PS1? I mean within RetroArch before someone who hasn't read the last couple pages wants to be a smart ass.

BTW, the PS1 was truly an atrocious system. The absurd texture and geometry wobbling is the first thing you notice when you raise the resolution. You can fix that somewhat but there's other shit too, like glitchy disappearing textures, geometry that flickers in and out of existance constantly, big gabs or seams between the textures, polygons that clip into each other, it's a fucking mess. I always assumed the emulators were the problem but youtube videos of people running the actual hardware show that shit was in there from the get go.

Ho, i also haven't found a way to improve frame rates. Some games just run at a variable frame rate that caps at 30 FPS. Any attempt to improve it accelerates everything and makes the game unplayable. King's Field drops below 20 FPS when panning around and i have no idea how to make it at least go at a fixed 30 FPS. It's not my system as i can accelerate the CPU and make everything run at 200 FPS but the game is unplayble like a said.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Or use an alternative interface for selecting roms that can be accesses pressing F5.

I press F5 but nothing happens lmao.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Can someone explain this post for me to me?

Mistakes made:
-Used steam version (main culprit)

Not sure why would that make a difference but i guess i can try getting it as a separate client.

-Didn't configure anything before running games

Neither i did in DuckStation and everything worked instantly there.

Stick to standalones

Only reason i tried RetroArch is that i heard DuckStation is no longer being developed. So i was curious to see what new and improved things were being done on the PS1 emulators under RetroArch and apparently i had no idea what i was getting into.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Ok, figured out why Bettle PSX HW is glitchy. It's the PGXP. On DuckStation, you can fix gemotry wobbling without having to activate PGXP specifically, but on Bettle PSX is seems the options to reduce the wobbling are tied to PGXP instead.

Alrighty then, back to DuckStation. Fuck this shit.

BTW, what are shaders, and why do they matter? I noticed in my googling that's the main reason people stick to RetroArch.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

I press F5 but nothing happens lmao.

Strange... Try to press it as soon as Retroarch starts (without running any rom)

 

[Lyric Suite]

BTW, one thing i noticed when running PS1 games, on any emulator, is that the aspect ratio seems off. Only thing i found is this thread:

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/the-ps1-games-and-the-question-of-the-aspect-ratio.1599974/

Both on Bettle PSX and DuckStation, in all five Tomb Raider games Lara Croft looks skinnier than she should. King's Field is also wierd the ball where the combass is in seems is an oval rather than being perfectly round so i suspect things are bit squshed there as well. Tried different settings but i can't seem to get it right.

 

[flyingjohn]

Not sure why would that make a difference

Steam has less cores and more bugs then standalone.

Neither i did in DuckStation and everything worked instantly there.

That is because Duckstation emulates one system and retroarch emulates alot more.
Making defaults that work with everything would be troublesome.
If you don't configure anything in duck station you will get the same low res experience you were complaining about.

Only reason i tried RetroArch is that i heard DuckStation is no longer being developed

Wrong,it is still getting updates. And even then choosing retroarch forkes which are questionable quality or just outdated stuff like pcsx is asking for trouble.

Ok, figured out why Bettle PSX HW is glitchy. It's the PGXP

Only half of the problem. The beetle hw version is a buggy mess that is not recommend.It is gonna create problems no matter what.

what are shaders, and why do they matter?

Games were designed for older monitors/tv. Modern ones can't really replicate the graphics without shaders and other modifications.

 

[Duraframe300]

Lyric Suite Duckstation is back to being developed. Not as frequently, but there’s usually an update every two weeks.

 

[abnaxus]

I stopped worrying and use Mednafen, since it can also run Saturn and PC Engine.

 

[CyberWhale]

BTW, what are shaders, and why do they matter? I noticed in my googling that's the main reason people stick to RetroArch.

Filters, CRT ones in particular. The one packaged with Duckstation is atrocious.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Mmmh, to be honest i'm fine without that stuff. I'm really not into LARPing the actual systems. As long as i get some crispy pixels and no smeared vaselline shit i'm happy.

So anyway, i started building up a small library on Duckstation, and i ran into a few problems. First, i noticed that some games have some extra settings that come in the form of "cheats". Gran Turismo for instance has a "cheat" to make the game run at 60 FPS, except it doesn't work. Is there an extra step involved besides clicking on the check mark?

Also, some games seem to have multiple or modded versions but i'm unable to install them toghether because they all use the same ID. Is there a way to change this ID code in the ISO itself? I found out all the info related to the ID numbers on the disks are contained in the gamedb.json file but i don't think there's anything i can do there it's probably just easier to change the ID code on the disk and let Duckstation think it's a completely different game.

BTW i'm confused as to why Tomb Raider looks so wierd. It's definitely more squished than it should. I don't think it's actually running at 4:3. I tried 3:2 and it's a bit better (16:9 it's too much) but i'm confused why the game looks different from the PC version if both are running at 4:3. I didn't try many games yet but if they are all like this it's gonna drive me crazy. Perhaps it's only Tomb Raider that doesn't actually do 4:3 correctly.

 

[Lyric Suite]

For those who don't wanna bother clicking that thread i linked to, this is what i'm getting at 4:3:

 

[Don Peste]

 

[Derringer]

Can someone explain RetroArch to me?

So i get the thing from Steam, and decide to try out some PS1 games i have loaded on DuckStation. Load up the thing and i'm greeted by some stupid consoltarded UI. Manage to figure out how to load a game. Use the PCSX ReARMed core. Game loads up but looks ugly and low res etc. Press a bunch of buttons both on the controller or the keyboard and nothing happens. Escape wants me to quit RetroArch. I randomly press F2 and it says it made a save state. Goodie, i press the others and nothing happens. F6 seems to just change save state slot ad infinitum. F9 mutes audio. Nothing else. I try alt-enter and now i'm getting some options. I look what's in there and i see F4 is supposed to load save states. Down't work. I see F1 is supposed to load up an option menu (toggle) within RetroArch. Doesn't work. I manaully click on the menu, it now opens, i see PCSX doesn't have any options, i try resuming the game, but i can't. All i can do is quit or restart RetroArch. I do that, try to load up save state again, nada.

So load another core, Beetle PSX HW. Now i'm getting some options when i go to the menu, but once again i can't resume the game i have to restart RetroArch again. Save states don't work i have to go through the PS1 intro then game menu etc etc. I load up the game and the settings i changed are working. Seems good so far, except i don't get why every time i toggle the menu to go change settings i can't resume the game. Loading up the game again every time i change something is ludicrous and why the fuck save states don't work. DuckStation i can just change settings on the fly, with the game on one side and the setting window on the other and i can even see the effect of the change instantly but here i can't do shit without having to relaunch the whole thing every time. Try another game, King's Field 1, game is actually fucked up. Inventory has no graphics and interface is all distorted. I reset all graphical settings to the default, same shit. I'm not going to even try to attempt finding out what the problem is if every time i go to the settings menu i have to restart the whole thing. Fuck that.

Am i doing something wrong here? Why the fuck is this shit so complicated.

Retroarch is a glitchy piece of shit but you have to use keyboard controls based off the first input, there's an option to enable it for all controllers but it's designed like a console frontend for controllers so it looks gay from a glace and it kinda is. About the only things good about it are shaders and being able to adjust vsync timing for less input lag, that's about it. Duckstation runs better than Retroarch and has better debug support/cheats but has less shader options.

I crush the blacks and whites and add some exposure with Lightroom qUINT with Reshade but turn it off for screenshots.

 

[Lutte]

Discord is retarded in itself but people who use apple devices should be automatically banned, anywhere they're spotted.

 

[Great Deceiver]

muh Retroarch ui, very bad oh no

oh I don't know I can press F5

 

[Lyric Suite]

I already said pressing F5 did shit besides how the fuck would anyone know if the thing doesn't tell you.

Uninstalled that garbaged i'll use individual emulators just seems less confusing that way. Just found out that the latest version of PCSX2 reads CHDs now and has the same UI as DuckStation, which creates a nice continuity between the two. I like it.

Still trying to figure out how to the change the ID on the disk so i can put modded CHDs along side original ones without the emulator thinking it's the same disk (thus sharing save states, cover arts etc). Tried fiddling a bit with a program called PSX2PSP but so far i coudn't make it work. The thing seems to work than gets stuck at final compression and doesn't seem to move anymore.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Lmao, i just figured out the thing isn't stuck it just shows the compression percentage after it's done. Fucking hell i'm retarded.

So now i got this EBOOT.PBP thingy i gotta put back into the original bin.

[EDIT] Nevermind found a program called PopStationGUI that allows you to just edit the EBOOT.PBP without having to extract anything first. Now all i need is to figure out what kind of ID number to give those extra discs that isn't going to interfere with anything else. I can probably just steal the ID from the EU or JP version of the game since i won't be installing those.

[EDIT] Shiiiet the EBOOT.PBP IS the game. Fuck me all i gotta do is convert it back into BIN/CUE lmao. Somebody shoot me please i'm too stupid for my own good.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Well, that was a whole lot of nothing. PSX2PSP extracts a BIN of 14MB out of an EBOOT.PBP of 250MB. Useless. PopstationGUI only extras into ISO, not BIN/CUE, which ok, whatever, but ID hasn't changed at all. Got another program called Icetea but same results basically.

Somehow i don't think this should be this difficult.

It also appears somebody here is confused at what i'm trying to do.

REDACTED MUDDAFUGGA.

It has the same ID as the main game. If i put it inside my game folder under DuckStation, it's read as the main game and it will just use the same save states, memory slots and cover. I just want this thing to sit as a separate disc with its own unique saves and cover. Same for versions of games that have patches in them, undubs etc.

[EDIT] So i tested the modified ISO and it seems the ID was changed correctly but DuckStation doesn't see the change which i suppose means it's using something else to determine what the disk is, probably reading the track CRC32 number or something like that.

 

[flyingjohn]

HAHAHAHAH,just got his in the pm from one of Lyric suite's admirer's:
"
Lyric Suite is being a dumbfuck and posting direct links to emulation sites in the emulation thread. https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...tions-in-1st-post.86871/page-168#post-8280421
Could you be bothered to tell him to knock it off since I don't want to touch him with a ten feet pole."