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Playstation Emulator for PSP Released 76

Joan Cross writes "Today sees the release of the first Playstation Emulator for the PSP to play commercial games; the emulator plays games such as Ridge Racer at up to 10fps, and once dynarec is added full speed is easily in grasp. The emulator works on all PSPs except those with firmware 2.80 and higher." Update: 09/26 12:19 GMT by Z :Fixed dept.
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Playstation Emulator for PSP Released

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  • by Anonymous Coward
    10fps in Ridge Racer, alright!!! Flooring it in slow-mo has never been so much fun.
    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by falloutgib ( 585732 )
      http://lexluthor.ytmnd.com/ [ytmnd.com]

      C'mon, let me hear you say it.

      "It's Ridge Racer! Riiiiiiiidge Racer!"

      No, not that...the other thing.

      "The Playstation 3 shall retail for... $599!"

      WRONG!
    • 10fps in Ridge Racer, alright!!! Flooring it in slow-mo has never been so much fun.

      This is great for people who are hopeless at driving games. At least they have more time to avoid the other cars :)
  • by Cutriss ( 262920 ) on Monday September 25, 2006 @02:51PM (#16189949) Homepage
    once dynarec is added full speed is easily in grasp.

    Yeah right. The authors of the PSP SNES emulator basically stated that even with dynamic recompilation and a full rewrite, they could see no more than a 10% speed increase over what they already have, which is playable, but not full-speed.

    Somehow I highly doubt that the PSX emulator (at least the homebrew one) will accomplish that feat.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mike260 ( 224212 )
      Absolutely right. Running MIPS code at full speed on a MIPS CPU is clearly impossible, even with a 4-5x clockspeed increase. It'd be like running win32/x86 apps at full speed on Linux/x86 - as if that's ever going to happen!
      • by poot_rootbeer ( 188613 ) on Monday September 25, 2006 @03:47PM (#16190999)
        Running MIPS code at full speed on a MIPS CPU is clearly impossible, even with a 4-5x clockspeed increase.

        Running MIPS instructions on a faster MIPS core isn't the problem. It's emulating the support hardware of the Playstation -- the sound hardware, the Geometry Transformation Engine, the Data Decompression Engine et al -- that requires a lot of overhead, and has to be done mostly in software. Even where the PSP hardware offers a close analogue, you'll need at least twice the power of the original Playstation, to translate the opcode and then execute it.

        • we've got GHz of power (whereas the PSX had a 33 MHz core) and we've got far more than it's paltry 2 megs of RAM (I believe the PSP has more, so no wonder the PSP emulator is lagging,) for video memory. Then we haqve more plain RAM, at far faster speeds than the PSP. Emulating opcodes will not be a problem, even within an emulator, even in the tangled wreck that is Windows. BTW - ePSXe is nearly perfect with Pete's GPU/SPU plugins, so if anything, just up the Frame skipping to match real-time framerates.
          • What the hell are you talking about? GHz of power? Windows? The thread is about an emulator that plays PS games on the PSP, not on a PC!
    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by matt328 ( 916281 )
      Dynarec (while being a pretty cool little contraction) has rarely brought the speed emulator authors promised. I'd like to see the authors of this emu blame its slowness on my hardware not being up to snuff.
    • by Fozzyuw ( 950608 )
      It's all fine and dandy except...

      1) If you want to play new PSP games, they require you to update your PSP OS to the latest version. So, don't expect to be able to play anything that's "X.X and earlier" if you buy and play new PSP games.

      2) PSP games are pretty limited. So, maybe you won't have much need to upgrade. =)

      I've used my PSP more for a MP3 player than game or movie player. It's such a beautiful piece of hardware but Sony has just driven any sport of the system into the ground. They really need
  • Cool! Now I'll have one more platform not to finally finish Final Fantasy VII on! I love the homebrew scene, but I really wish Sony would build this stuff and make it easy for people to do all of this stuff. I'd even be willing to pay for the software if it was good, easy to use, and not too expensive. Oh well, a guy can dream.
    • Sony IS developing a PSX emulator for the PSP, due to release later this year around the Ps3 launch. It will cost money, (obviously) but you DID say you'd be willing to pay for the software...
      • Absolutely, I'd be willing to pay as much as $30 or $40, but if it came out at the Ron Popeil friendly price of $19.95, I'd be even happier. I have a lot of old PSX games lying around that I'd love to be able to sneak off into some room in the house, away from the kids, and play without too many interruptions. Yes, I'm a baaaad man!
        • by Sancho ( 17056 )
          But are you also willing to pay for the games? Otherwise, I don't see how you're going to get them on a PSP (particularly with a Sony (tm) emulator, which probably won't allow ISOs.)
          • by tepples ( 727027 )
            But are you also willing to pay for the games? Otherwise, I don't see how you're going to get them on a PSP

            Walkman(tm) shaped CD-ROM drive?

            • by KDR_11k ( 778916 )
              At that point you can just mount a battery and LCD on your PS1.
              • Hell, if I could get a PSOne with the controller built in, like that one guy did, I'd be totally ok with that. I just want to play FFT and DW7 on the go, dammit!
                • Hate to burst your bubble, but anyone who's played FFT (assuming you meain Final Fantasy Tactics) knows that 4 hours of batterly life is never going to be enough. It's frusteratingly little... Where the hell is the next Tactics Sqeenix? We'll buy it as long as it is more like the PSOne version and not like the GBA version. Hell, it'll sell a lot of systems. I would even think about buying a PS3 if'n it has enough amazing tactics games on it...

                  I might even break down and buy a PSP if there was a few goo

                  • Four hours of battery life is plenty for me. I just need it to survive long enough for my commute to finish and to reach the next outlet. I don't mind playing tethered to the wall, or even carrying around the gear. It's just the having to hold the controller instead of the unit itself (and thus having to set the PSone down somewhere) that kills it.

                    On the other hand, There's always my ASCII Grip [oneswitch.org.uk]
        • by Khaotix ( 229171 )
          I'm assuming $0 for the emulator, $10-20 per game
    • by DrXym ( 126579 )
      The problem with the homebrew scene on the PSP is that's its basically a front for pirates. While there are people just interested in homebrew, it is quite obvious from looking at various sites that all the tools for downgrading / exploiting firmware, emulating UMDs, ripping UMDs, running isos from memory stick etc. are basically piracy tools and used as such. No wonder that Sony are updating their firmware as fast as they can. It's tough on genuine homebrewers, but what do they expect?

      Genuine homebrewers

  • From what the linked forum thread states, this emulator seems to be based on the code of PCSX and others, breaking the GPL license.
  • by TheBlueCrab ( 801925 ) on Monday September 25, 2006 @02:56PM (#16190067) Homepage
    This emulator is a deriative work of PCSX (see the linked forum post), as well as the P.E.Op.S Soft SDL driver, and SDL itself. It violates the license of all three of those by not releasing source or an offer to get the source. (Heck, it doesn't even acknowledge that its a deriative work of any of them.)
    • by KDR_11k ( 778916 )
      Are you sure that it's an SDL derivative and not just using SDL? There are quite a few commercial games using SDL that aren't opensource either.
  • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • WTF? (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    from the because-you-have-to-play-shenmue-on-the-train dept.

    I thought Shenmue was exclusively for the Dreamcast, not PSX
  • I wonder if Sony will ever come up with a virtual machine using CVGS (which they purchased a few years ago) to play legitimate downloadable versions of PS1 games stored on memory sticks. This could help draw some attention away from the Nintendo Wii and its virtual console feature.
  • I just got a PSP a month ago, and haven't found that many great games for the system (metal gear acid is great). But I kinda feel crappy that Sony has screwed the homebrew users...

    However as long as someone confirms it (sounds like this does) I'll be picking this up. I used to have a ton of PSX games, and am rebuilding my collection. Add in the fact I can play it on a portable and I'm happy.

    And I play RPGS, fps isn't too important there.
    • by tepples ( 727027 )
      But I kinda feel crappy that Sony has screwed the homebrew users...

      That happened back in 2004 when Sony started to terminate CLIE. It has little to do with PSP, which was never intended to run homebrew. (Another company, on the other hand, mostly looks the other way.)

      • Yes, however that other company realizes they make money especially if people are able to run homebrew and buy games, plus they don't have firmware.

        Honestly Sony continues to show an unkind face to the consumers. If they want ot charge me 15 bucks per game to play games I already own on PSX legal discs, screw them. I'm going to continue to support PSX-P even though it might go against the GPL because simply put, they give me the fairest deal (I am allowed to play the games I bought).

        I hope they give a web
        • by tepples ( 727027 )

          Yes, however that other company realizes they make money especially if people are able to run homebrew and buy games, plus they don't have firmware.

          Yes, the DS has a 256 KiB firmware. There have been two major versions of the firmware, with some minor revisions to each (e.g. to support DS Lite brightness control). However, Nintendo doesn't plug holes nearly as often as Sony: a DS Lite purchased in August 2006 is still subject to the same exploits (PassMe2 and NoPass) as a DS from October 2005.

          Honestly S

          • Are you sure they're talking about Nintendo and not GamePark's GP2X?
            • by tepples ( 727027 )

              <kinglink> that other company realizes they make money especially if people are able to run homebrew and buy games

              <PhotoBoy> Are you sure they're talking about Nintendo and not GamePark's GP2X?

              I don't think "and buy games" applies much to the GP2X. Do native commercial games for that system exist? The only current gaming handhelds I can think of that have both commercial games and a stable homebrew method are GBA and Nintendo DS.

    • ... otherwise you'd never hit those combos correctly in Legend of Dragoon.
      • Turns out waiting for a single screen of text to appear in suikoden is like pulling your fingernails out, only with out the niceties. Playable by masochists.
    • by DrXym ( 126579 )
      They have screwed the homebrewers because there is a significant overlap between the homebrewers and the pirates, in the tools they develop and the sites they inhabit. I'm sure Sony have no particular beef with genuine homebrew software but they sure as hell do with pirates. Homebrewers are just caught in the crossfire, and that's just too bad. You could hardly blame Sony for wishing to protect their profits and the long term success of their system by updating their firmware to combat the various exploits
  • The psp emulator hits for the DS at about 2-4x time the speed of the original (Let me sleep through the same speed).
  • huh, Zonk, Shenmue is a Dreamcast game...
  • by Yvan256 ( 722131 ) on Monday September 25, 2006 @10:06PM (#16194891) Homepage Journal
    [...] the emulator plays games such as Ridge Racer at up to 10fps
    Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiidge Raceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeer!
  • When will we read about the one [gp2x.org] for the GP2X on the front page? Let me guess, never?

  • Games originally published years ago on another system that you can now play on the PSP with really bad frame rates? Isn't that a lot like 80% of the PSP titles out there? Still, portable Parappa would be pretty amazing...
  • So it only works on old firmware, huh? My wife recently bought LocoRoco, the first really good PSP game in a long while. It forces you to upgrade the firmware (included on the disc) to play the game.

    So as long as you never plan to play any new PSP games ever again, this emulator is totally awesome!

    ------RM

    • No. It works on all but the latest two firmwares, and no games require those firmwares yet.
      • No. It works on all but the latest two firmwares, and no games require those firmwares yet.

        "Yet" being the operative word, my naive little friend...

        The point is that Sony has a perfect vector to shut this down, by implementing incompatible changes to firmware and requiring them with all new games.

        • They've already done that several times, and nothing has stopped us from playing the new games on the oldest popular firmware, due to a little program called Devhook that simulates the new firmwares. Sony can't stop us.

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