lr-duckstation - Experimental new PlayStation 1 emulator

nemo93

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

do you have a particular example where a game works bad without, good with?

=> sure. In fact I have plenty. Worth noting the issue is not only with that core.
=> Let's start with Ape Escape as it's easy to spot the difference with/without. The realtime intro should be sluggish with crackling/stuttering audio. Another very good candidate would be Aladdin Nasira Revenge as the game is a slideshow without the proper setting. After setting audio_driver = alsathread games are fullspeed with clear, uncrackling sound.
=> Other games impacted: 70's Robot Anime Geppy-X (FMVs audio crackles), Alien Resurrection (gfx are fine but audio stutters/cuts off), Castlevania-Symphony of the night (FMV and some in-game audio crackling/stuttering), Tai'Fu (cutscenes are like slideshows).

maybe this should be retropie's default for all systems if it performs better

On my stock pi4 it's a game changer :-) As stated above the setting helps a lot as well with other cores like lr-mame or lr-fbneo. For instance, Alien Storm does have sound crackling without. Same applies to many shooters like Stormblade or Desert Breaker. After picking the proper audio driver those games run flawless.

Genos98

@nemo93 thank you so much for the tip. Seems like alsathread+software renderer is the magic combination to make most if not all psx games ran great. It even fixed nba2k3 which lags for me before trying this tip. Any downside when staying with alsathread especially when using other emu/cores?

windg

I try Metal Gear Solid on both Pi3 and Pi 4 and it runs much better on the first one. It's unblayable on the Pi4 ( i try all renders modes).

Pi4 verbose log : https://pastebin.com/yAM3Duik

Edit: Ok i just try @nemo93 suggestion(alsathread+software render) and jack pot! Metal gear running perfect now.

lostless

@nemo93 I did those changes and still no change in castkevania chronicles. Might be related to my home made .pbp I made many years ago. I’ll do some testing later by extracting the iso.

nemo93

@genos98 said:

Any downside when staying with alsathread especially when using other emu/cores?

=> as far as I can tell there's no downside as this setting fixed also stuttering in other cores as mentioned above. Apart from making all your games and systems playable on your Pi there's no risk to stick to it. I'll keep on testing and I'll report in case of issue.

@lostless said in:

I did those changes and still no change in castlevania chronicles. Might be related to my home made .pbp I made many years ago. I’ll do some testing later by extracting the iso.

=> I'm positive the game is fullspeed here. Please recompress the image or even go straight with the cue/bin to see if that makes a difference. On my end I stick to .chd given the quite impressive storage saving it allows. If you have time and the will you should give it a try.

Genos98

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

@nemo93 I did those changes and still no change in castkevania chronicles. Might be related to my home made .pbp I made many years ago. I’ll do some testing later by extracting the iso.

Runs well for me. Using .chd version though.

@nemo93 said in lr-duckstation - Experimental new PlayStation 1 emulator:

@genos98 said:

Any downside when staying with alsathread especially when using other emu/cores?

=> as far as I can tell there's no downside as this setting fixed also stuttering in other cores as mentioned above. Apart from making all your games and systems playable on your Pi there's no risk to stick to it. I'll keep on testing and I'll report in case of issue.

Thanks again for the tips. I'm glad retropie finally has a way better alternative to pcsx rearmed.

ChaosEffect

This post is deleted!

ChaosEffect

Thank you for adding this emulator! It seems to have resolved every issue I personally ran into with specific PS1 games in RetroPie previously.

To me, the final frontier for PS1 emulation is link-cable support (unless there are some more obscure peripherals others can think of). That's probably another can of worms, though, because it would require two instances of the emulator to run side by side. It works well with Game Boy, but, well, that's Game Boy.

Outside of handheld systems, PlayStation may have had the most link-compatible games out of the game consoles available to emulate on a Pi. The only such game I can even think of in the 8- and 16-bit eras is Zero Tolerance on MD/Genesis.

obrie572

As it turns out, the keyboard issue was due to the use of a custom launching screen process. Nothing to see here :)

lostless

@nemo93 It was my old homemade PBP. I used a mac back in the day and used an app that was for that. It had a habit of setting the files at PAL, but the psp played the games just fine, it would just crop the top and the bottom a tad. Im assuming that was the issue. Reripped a new ISO and no issues.

ecto

Hi! Thank you very much for bringing Duckstation over. I've never tried it before but heard great things... and apparently it's true.

I had to fiddle around a little, but that was expected, since I also had to update Retroach (and apparently there are again some changes to the way the configs are being loaded).

But here is my little input, which is really great:
If you set dualshock in the QuickMenu/input menu as a standard for all games, it seems that Duckstation notices incompatible games and automatically sets to digital input. This is a new behavior (at least to me), that pcsx_rearmed didn't have. So now all of my option files to set the right controller for each game aren't needed anymore. Nice!

I also tried some lightgun games, but sadly there is still no crosshair for now. Next I'll try my old NegCon with a USB adapter for some Ridge Race action, but I'll have to find it first... ;)

EDIT
Oh, and another thing: I had to symlink all my old *.srm files to *_1.mcdto make Duckstation load them. IDK on the Github page (I think) it was mentioned that *.srmfiles can be loaded, too...

Darksavior

My setup: Pi4 2Ghz/750Mhz 1440p glcore crt-pi slang shader. If it matters, I'm also using that new psx bios from the psp that supposedly helps with performance?

Without alsathread, I got a speed boost in some games from ~54fps to around full speed when going from ogl to vulkan. I was still getting huge slowdowns with castlevania chronicles at around 34fps even with vulkan, but changing it to alsathread immediately made it full speed. Wow. I'll keep that as default.
UPDATE: I set it to vulkan but I guess it must default to software since I don't have vulkan installed..

nemo93

@ecto said:

If you set dualshock in the QuickMenu/input menu as a standard for all games, it seems that Duckstation notices incompatible games and automatically sets to digital input. This is a new behavior (at least to me), that pcsx_rearmed didn't have. So now all of my option files to set the right controller for each game aren't needed anymore. Nice!

=> hi @ecto :) I did the same at first but then realized still quite many games were not functioning properly with Dualshock "on" (as of typing 170 games tested and I'd say 15-20% didn't like Dualshock :-)). By that I mean no inputs are registered thus nothing happen when you hit "start" or "O/X" buttons (or any buttons in fact). Enough in fact to have me to revert back to the standard gamepad. This way I'm 100% sure controller will always work no matter what.

I may have missed something hence can you please share names of games working as you described please? Ace Combat 1/2/3 might be ones of these.

ecto

@nemo93 Oh, ok. Bummer. I've only tested a few: "Air Combat" is one of them. Then I tried "Romancing SaGa" and "Final Fantasy 7". And there it worked IIRC.

EDIT
The following other games need a digital pad and Duckstation automatically changes the input type accordingly:

Xevious 3D-G
Legacy of Kain - Blood Omen
Alundra
Azure Dreams
Final Fantasy Tactics
Jumpin' Flash 2
Parappa
Persona
Romance the three Kingdoms IV and VI
Soul Blade
Suikoden I and II
Tales of Destiny
Tomb Raider I and II
Wild Arms 1 and 2

The following games are compatible with dualshock input (and rumble) but need the digital pad:

Pepsiman
Tenchu

This list isn't complete, of course. This is what I tested in a few minutes.

@nemo93 Can you name a few games that outright refuse dualshock input and are not changed to digital by Duckstation? Maybe we can collect those for future reference (or make Duckstation even better).

BTW. super cool news: I tried Soul Blade's secret characters, and they work. PCSX_Rearmed always crashed with those :D

lostless

@ecto not sure if these games are identified yet, but Mortal kombat trilogy, mortal kombat 4, and mortal kombat mythologies, all require a digital pad.
And for fun, the only game that requires analog is ape escape.

busywait

@dankcushions I'm trying to install lr-duckstation from the 64-bit installer, but the install option is not available. Is this expected?

dankcushions

@busywait I see the issue - I'll fix it shortly

Genos98

Man really loving duckstation and so far it solved a lot of games I have issues on pcsx rearmed. I'm using a pi4 updated everything to latest without any overclocking.
Tekken 3 and Ridge racer r4 - feels more accurate and the fps is more stable now.
Capcom vs Snk and Hotwheels turbo racing - greets you with a blackscreen when starting the game but it finally ran on duckstation.
Parasite eve 2 - Fixes the crash when leaving the shooting range. So far so good no random crashes when playing.
FF VIII - solves the random crashing.
Star ocean second story - solves the random crashes at later part of the game.
Johnny Bazookatone - finally solves the invisible textures and makes the game playable now.
Nba 2k3 - Solves the random freezing I get during fouls or timeouts.
2xtreme - No more random crashes when racing.
Pool Hustler - Another game that will greet you immediately with a black screen on rearmed is now fixed on duckstation.
Jedi Power Battles - The infamous game known to crash immediately on the first level with pcsx rearmed is now fixed and runs well on duckstation.
Gran Turismo 2,Nfs III Hot Pursuit,Wipeout III SE - Tried a few races and it feels much smoother on duckstation imo.
DDR - Tried a rhythm game for the heck of it. I still do encounter slight slowdowns but pretty good and responsive overall. If I remember correctly even the ps1 version back in the days also experienced slight slowdowns from time to time.

windg

I test some problematic/unplayable games( in lr-pcsx_rearmed) :

3Xtreme: Game doesn't freeze.
Final Fantasy VIII : Doesn't soft lock during the Lunar Cry FMV.
Parasite Eve II : Doesn't soft lock in the beggining of the game.
Vampire Hunter D : Doesn't have the black screen on the menu .
Psybadek: Is playable.
WWF In Your House :Is playable
Formula One Arcade : Is playable but you have to disable the compatibility mode when you are in the race so the game can run i full speed,
Xenogears: Doesn't have the annoyng sound in the menus.
T'ai Fu - Wrath of the Tiger : Is playable

nemo93

@ecto said:

@nemo93 Can you name a few games that outright refuse dualshock input and are not changed to digital by Duckstation? Maybe we can collect those for future reference (or make Duckstation even better).

Sure. Here you go: Crash Bandicoot, D, Destruction Derby, Disruptor, Final Doom, Front Mission 2, Gaia Seed, Ganbare Goemon Uchuu Kaizoku Akogingu, Gex. To share just a few examples.

Test protocol:

open RGUI > Controls > Port 1 controls > Device type > Analog Controller (Dualshock)
in that same panel I make a Save Core Remap (DuckStation.rmp is being created under psx/configs/DuckStation folder)
exit Retroarch
run another game and check that Core Remap notif appears on start
if game is incompatible then it becomes impossible to bypass logos/intro FMV or to navigate the main menu