lr-duckstation - Experimental new PlayStation 1 emulator

Crush

@dankcushions thanks but i'm refering to rendered resolution, like the enhanced resolution option in lr-psx-rearmed.
Right now my psx games look like mud in duckstation, so it's not really a viable replacement for psx-r for me pesonally.

dankcushions

@crush said in lr-duckstation - Experimental new PlayStation 1 emulator:

@dankcushions thanks but i'm refering to rendered resolution, like the enhanced resolution option in lr-psx-rearmed.

so am i :) those options are available in core options, as per my link. in duckstation the option is called 'internal resolution scale'. note that you'll have to switch the renderer option to 'hardware (auto)' (with the caveat in the my first post in this thread), and restart the core for it to appear.

that said, i just tested it and it appears to cause quite a bit of slowdown on my test game (tekken 2) at 2x resolution, but other games might be fine. you may also get better performance disabling all the PGXP enhancements.

Crush

@dankcushions ooooh for some reason i completely misunderstood, thanks i've got it sorted now :-)
time to try some games again ^_^

Crush

@dankcushions said in lr-duckstation - Experimental new PlayStation 1 emulator:

that said, i just tested it and it appears to cause quite a bit of slowdown on my test game (tekken 2) at 2x resolution, but other games might be fine. you may also get better performance disabling all the PGXP enhancements.

yes t does seem to struggle with hardware rendering, but it does seem to work well with some games that run in lower resolution like Midnight Run Road Fighter 2.
Games that already render in 480p don't really require it.
This emulator certainly has allot of potential, but needs some optimisation first.
And it is nice to have the widescreen available at least for the games that already look decent in software mode.

dankcushions

@crush my impression is that it's already pretty well optimized, but unfortunately it's a more demanding (accurate, compatible) emulator than pcsx_rearmed, and that comes at a cost to very weak devices like raspberry pis.

the latest mesa drivers seem to provide a small bump (and also permit the vulkan renderer), so next version of raspbian should be a bit better.

IGA

Hello)
Could somebody help me with 2 questions?

Could duckstation show internal fps?
2)What about saves? - Original retroarch pcsx-reloaded save.srm not supported by duckstation? And the only way is rename old save like GameName.SRM to GameName_1.MCD ?

lostless

@iga to answer your second question. You can change duckstation to to use libretro save format. Then saves can be used across pcsx and duckstation.

IGA

@lostless Yup, i saw it - Memory Card Type\ choose Save RAM (libretro .srm) - but my old saves won't be loaded...

And about first question - could i suppose that maybe parameter frameskip=auto is sewn into the duckstation core by default, to increase more speed?

sleve_mcdichael

@iga said in lr-duckstation - Experimental new PlayStation 1 emulator:

Yup, i saw it - Memory Card Type\ choose Save RAM (libretro .srm) - but my old saves won't be loaded...

I literally just renamed my existing .srm files to the _1.mcd scheme when I switched over (I didn't know "libretro format" was an option until just now) and they all seem to have worked. -- Does this also work in reverse (after they've been saved in .mcd format I mean. I'm sure any that haven't been modified in the new format could just be named back. But can one saved natively as .mcd be renamed to .srm and expected to work?)

dankcushions

@iga said in lr-duckstation - Experimental new PlayStation 1 emulator:

And about first question - could i suppose that maybe parameter frameskip=auto is sewn into the duckstation core by default, to increase more speed?

it’s not. it’s full speed on a pi 4 in software mode anyway.

there’s no internal FPS option, although duckstation is an accurate emulator so you can safely presume that the internal emulated fps is accurate.

EDIT: actually stand-alone DOES have an internal fps option, so maybe it does - check the core options.

IGA

@dankcushions OK, if it that, then great. This what i wanted to know! Thanks.

Just confused by the retroarch's fps readings ( which is not internal) and which constantly 60....

dankcushions

@iga RA's fps are how fast the emulator is updating to retroarch, which will should be at your display hz (typically 60hz) if it is constantly 60 it means the emulator is running at full speed. it shouldn't be affected by the internal frame rate of the emulated game.

IGA

@dankcushions As i've said in slowdowns in psx games thread - i had always 60 RA's and 25 internal.... so it NOT means the emulator is running at full speed, in my case at least)

dankcushions

@iga you're confusing terminology. if the FPS via RA is 60fps, then as far as the emulator (in your case pcsx_rearmed) is concerned, it IS running full speed. the issue is that it's inaccurately emulating the cpu (or something along those lines) so the game is slowing down more than it would on real hardware.

ie, 25 fps internal and 60 fps internal means that the emulator is saying i am full speed, which in this case means running a game at 25fps.

IGA

@dankcushions Ok, i just wanted to get is this problem of raspberry or pcsx-rearmed

lostless

@iga basically what @dankcushions is saying is that if retroarch is reporting 60 FPS, the emulator is running full speed and not lagging. Now most games on psx ran at a lower FPS on original hardware, and also some lagged on real hardware and that is also being emulated. Also emulators may have bugs that add additional lag where there wasn’t before. But Think of it like the psx has to send a 60hz signal to a tv, but internally runs lower. But it’s not an issue with the pi unless retroarchs fps dips below 59-60

IGA

@lostless Ok-ok. Firstly i've tested my problem games on real ps2 hardware, then on ps3 ( yeah, there are emulator too), they not showed fps too, but runs faster. Then i've run duckstation or epsxe on pc - speed of games was the same.
So after that made conclusions that those games must runs in 30 fps in any moments ( like on original hardware)
On Pi4 i could not reach this speed on pcsx-rearmed core, it runs only 25 or lower.
So, now, on the advice of @dankcushions became to use duckststion core and only believe that is it work with correct speed...

sleve_mcdichael

@sleve_mcdichael said in lr-duckstation - Experimental new PlayStation 1 emulator:

Does this also work in reverse?

I answered my own question, it does indeed work in reverse. I have a game I'm sure I've saved since I switched to duckstation. Switched Duckstation core option to use Libretro .srm as memory card type, then named the _1.mcd file back to .srm and it loaded up fine.

IGA

What about nfs games and duckstation core? - 1,2,3, high stakes are have sound issue and much slowdowns with default setting on Pi4. Only Porsche Unleashed works well.

It's duckstation problem or need special configurations??

lostless

@iga not sure if it’s changed, but the original configuration of duckstation uses hardware acceleration, which has been causing some slowdowns. Try using the software renderer and see if it fixes the problem with slowdowns.