General Duckstation discussion

Clyde

Hello everyone,

I just learned about the Playstation emulator Duckstation. It sounds very interesting, but I don't know anything about it besides what I found on the web. So I thought a casual discussion topic about it would be nice. 😁 Feel free to share or discuss anything about DS that's not already discussed in other threads like Request: add Duckstation PSX emulator (spoiler: it's being worked on, but not there yet).

@george-spiggott told me about DS in Playstation 1 ROMS. I'll open with a reply to his post:

@clyde interesting. Probably not worth converting my collection [to CHD –– Clyde] at the moment. But worth considering if, for example, Duckstation has significant benefits over PSX reArmed or Beetle.

~~What benefits do you like about it?~~ [edit: misunderstood @George-Spiggott's post] A little web research got my eventually more speed and many supported hardware renderers, but (yet?) a couple of restrictions compared to the established two, PSX reArmed and Beetle PSX. DS seems to be under heavy development, though, so it looks very promising. Here's what I found so far:

Cheers
Clyde

George Spiggott

@clyde I fear I have been misquoted. I suggested I would seek to modify my roms IF Duckstation has significant benefits. I do not know if that is the case at the moment.

Clyde

@george-spiggott You're right, my apologies. I actually misread your post and quoted only the part that I thought was its point. I'll correct my post above accordingly.

Clyde

@george-spiggott Done. So let my rephrase my question: What kind of benefits would be important enough for you to switch? Maybe considering what's already known about DS?

Of course, only if you're interested in discussing this that early. 🙂

dankcushions

so i've been testing duckstation on retropie for some months now. i have an installation module ready to go but there are several blockers/points of note:

until recently it has only had an aarch64 dynarec, and 64-bit on retropie is not yet officially supported, which was a semi-blocker to its inclusion on retropie as there's not an appetite to include 64-bit-only emulators encouraging users to move to aarch64, when it's not yet officially supported by rasbi pi OS, tested, etc. it is not yet known what the performance is under armv7 (i would say it is unlikely to be viable on any pi less than a pi4.
~~standalone duckstation doesn't run under non-X yet, and the libretro core has some performance penalties, so i want to create a standalone duckstation module when the time comes.~~ Now runs without X! testing now...
until recently duckstation required GLES 3. it now supports GLES 2 but this only allows software mode. GLES 3 requires the next numbered version of retroarch to include this pr - this numbered version is not yet released, and will need testing and including on retropie. pi4's GLES implementation has known shader bugs (these are the same ones we saw in yabasanshiro i believe) that are being worked on. i'm not so inclined to bother testing GLES 2 since GLES 3 support is almost ready. due to the GLES context fix the PR fixes, i am not sure we would be able to easily force GLES 2 on pi4 anyway. RetroArch 1.9.4 via current retropie setup script supports GLES 3.1 https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch/pull/11181
it supports vulkan but not tested this yet as vulkan is still not officially supported by rasbi pi OS. this may arrive sooner than the GLES blockers - who knows.
~~it does not yet support .PBP, although that may happen soon~~ PBP support added!

i don't want to discourage people but i really don't want this to turn into an equivalent of the yabasanshiro thread with rolling discussions provided on how to fiddle this emulator into current retropie, as i would prefer to focus on getting it officially added in a solid state :) however the initial signs are good - i am confident this will be the best playstation emulator for pi4 and beyond. it's compatible, being actively developed, and faster than beetle-psx.

Clyde

@dankcushions Wow, thanks for this elaborate status report. Aside from its pure information, it's a reminder how much work has to be put in these things that many of us mere users tend to take for granted. Thanks for that as well!

I also don't want another impatient effort to prematurely implement a brand new core, that's why I called this a casual discussion and linked to the addition request thread (one can only hope and try 😉 ). This thread is rather meant for relaxed sharing of general information, thoughts, and hopes about Duckstation. Official news about it would also find an apt place to be reported here.

For my part, I recently got a Playstation Classic Mini that I hacked with Project Eris, which also uses RetroArch next to the PCM's standard emulator. That, in turn, got me to revise and optimise my so far mostly rudimentary PSX setup on my RetroPie machines. Hearing about Duckstation now did nicely fit into this current interest of mine. 😊

edit: ~~Among~~ -> Aside from

ImperVictor

@dankcushions Wow, I'm was testing duckstation with WIN 10 and I so excited. Is there way that we may test this core with beta retropie img? Have you tested games with 2x resolution too? Thanks for send the status of emulation.

dankcushions

@impervictor said in General Duckstation discussion:

Is there way that we may test this core with beta retropie img?

sorry, but as per my previous comment:

i really don't want this to turn into an equivalent of the yabasanshiro thread with rolling discussions provided on how to fiddle this emulator into current retropie, as i would prefer to focus on getting it officially added in a solid state :)

WODAK

greets!

I do not want to push anyone...

I'm just interested if there is any progress?

pure info ....nothing more :)

dankcushions

@wodak nothing to report until i submit the module, but i am working on it with the developer.

i don't want to provide updates or test builds until i'm satisfied it's ready.

WODAK

@dankcushions tnx for the answer :)

windg

Many many thanks to bring Duckstation to RetroPie !

I am testing the new emulator and i have some questions/problems.

Of course i know the core is experimental and i don't except any kind of support, i just report here maybe some else figure out a solution.

I am using the Pi4 with RetroPie 4.7.13 install from site.

My problem

Vibration doesn't work, i think it is not ready yet?
Multi-disk games with .m3u file don't start, i try to take logs but the folder was empty.
Ir - duckstastion will support Pi3 ? Ι am asking because i have a black screen when the game starts, the sound is ok .

How we are going to change disks when the game ask for this ?

So far it is looks very promising, some games that doesn't work with the PCSX ReARMed are working now !
.

Thanks.

(sorry i reply by accident to WODAK)

nemo93

@windg I second your congratulations to @dankcushions :-) Thanks for bringing that great PSX emu to Retropie! I'm pleasantly surprised by how great it runs on Pi4 (fKMS/OpenGL). I do also confirm compatibility is even higher than with PCSX-ReARMed. Some games that were crashing or unplayable do work now (eg. Crusader No Remorse, Night Raid, G-Police 2).

To your questions...

Vibration doesn't work => I don't know but it's supported. Perhaps fiddle with the many controller settings in Retroarch GUI > Controller until you got one working.
Multi-disk games with .m3u file don't start => ensure all your discs/files end with .chd or any other supported extensions. I might raise a feature request to support different extensions (eg. .cd[1-4])
Ir-duckstastion will support Pi3 ? => check that thread for an answer. Not sure about the performance though.
How we are going to change disks when the game ask for this ? => once you've changed your .m3u and associated files to .chd (or whatever supported) then you can change disc the Retroarch way. By simply entering RA GUI, navigate to Disc Control and Eject/change index.
I'm adding a fifth one because it can be annoying. In case your game(s) have music/CDDA issues (eg. looping or stuttering) and game has been compressed in .chd. It might be due to an older version of chdman being used. If so get the latest MAME binary, extract it and you'll find various executables. One of these being chdman which will match the MAME version. Compress again your game using that new version and you should be good.

@dankcushions Thank you again. I'm about to start a long testing session with roughly ~650 games - mostly PAL/FR. If you have any advice(s) or recommendations please feel free to share :-) I'm running a pi4 with everything standard/default (fKMS/32bit/Retropie). So far results are impressive. I got minor issue(s) with:

Crusader No Remorse (logo FMV have horizontal black bars on top, otherwise game runs fullspeed)
* Tai'Fu (3D cutscenes = slideshows, otherwise game runs fullspeed)

EDIT: as specified in the doc after I've set audio_driver = alsathread everything I throw at it does run fullspeed.

dankcushions

@nemo93 thanks! but really it's a very simple script module that was just waiting for various ducks (no pun intended!) to be in a row before it could be included, but it's for sure exciting!

pi3 (and pi2) are supported (I'm curious about performance!) but you need to set the renderer core option to 'Software'. This will be the default eventually: https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/pull/3353

I may create a testing/announcement thread to compile all this info in one place later today.

nemo93

@dankcushions said:

...that was just waiting for various ducks (no pun intended!) to be in a row

Awesome :-)

I may create a testing/announcement thread to compile all this info in one place later today.

That would be nice. So far and as stated above results are impressive, flawless even on the first batch of 30 games or so. I second you regarding the default setting for the renderer. It seems to work slightly better when set to software, at least on pi4. A Github topic confirms that too. The only issue is with rumble/vibration as @windg said it just doesn't work on my setup despite trying various controller configs (there are not much).

It's a sensitive topic as subjective but to me Duckstation does "sound" better. I mean audio quality appears to be clearer compared to PCSX-ReARMed (eg. Xenogears). This was enough to convince me to set that emulator as default for PSX.

Genos98

This is amazing and can't wait for duckstation. I really want to love pcsx rearmed but the random crashes for some games is just too much.

windg

The vibration is working. During the game open RetroArch menu nd from Controls > Port 1 controls > Device type > Analog Controller (Dualshock).

Also Disk swaping is working fine, i test it with Metal Gear Solid.

The overall performance on Raspberry Pi3 is very good, only few crackling sounds here and there especially on game menus.

Edit :
i discovered that the crackling sounds are affected from cpu overclocking option . if i set it to 50% they disappear, but the game is running slower.

To bad it is not possible to set the CPU overclocking to 80 % or something similar, the option dont have this value, and if you try to change it from the retroarch options file it doesn't work either. It will be perfect if we can find a way to adjust this setting .

dankcushions

I've created an 'announcement' thread for lr-duckstation here: https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/30743/lr-duckstation-experimental-new-playstation-1-emulator - might be a better place for discussion specific to that version.

@windg I believe standalone allows this level of granularity, but I'm still working on the script for this. If so, it may be possible to request more options for the libretro core. Still, have a look through the core options and try different things - I am not sure if any enhancements are on by default for pi3? Disabling them may help.

nemo93

@windg Please check you have audio_driver = alsathread in your retroarch.cfg (global config) to be sure? Thanks for "vibration" tip. I found out I'm using a specific input driver (linuxraw) which doesn't play well in that case...

Moving on to the new thread now :)

windg

@nemo93 Yes i have this setting .
I reading reports about crackling sounds in the the github page of Duckstation so maybe it is not releated with the hardware.