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ePSXe thread? (Playstation Emulation)

NBtoaster

Member
Crash 2 with cartoon shader:

epsxe2012-06-2014-14-duitk.png

epsxe2012-06-2014-23-0ifw9.png
 

Adam Prime

hates soccer, is Mexican
All those shaders look terrible IMO. The simplicity in 3D PSX graphics are beautiful.

I'm playing through FFIX on ePSXe right now, looks fantastic. I'm tempted to boot up some Tomba!
 

Icelight

Member
I'm curious if anyone has ever run into this issue before and knows off-hand how one can fix it. (I did some preliminary Googlin' but didn't have much luck).

ePSXe only ever recognizes one of my 360 controllers within a game. That is, Player 1 can control fine, Player 2's input is not recognized at all.

Strangely enough, if I go into the controller config and actually configure the second 360 controller it picks up all the button presses just fine (and they're labeled as expected). It's just when you actually go into a game it refuses to acknowledge the second controller.
 
Might have to look into this when I get home. Still have some Games in the shed I would love to get out again.

Crash bandicoot
Resident evil
Silent hill
 
I feel like I'm missing something quite basic. I have Screen Filtering and Shader Effects both turned on, I've pointed the shader settings at the Shaders/ directory and I've selected 'ARB program' next to the Shader Effects checkbox. But when I run the emulator I get a pair of 'Shader effects: missing custom file!' dialogs and no shader effects are applied.

Vagrant Story is still lookin pretty good without the shaders:


Edit: whoops didn't realize it was that enormous.

Ah, fixed my problem, chose the wrong program type, posting screenshots as soon as I find settings that don't look awful.

Sketchbook shader makes things look like ass, couldn't find any settings I was happy with. The ADVCartoon didn't look too shabby

 

Seik

Banned
For those having stretching issues in ePSXe:

8ysWR.png


That's with Pete's OGL2 video plugin. You need to check that use window size in fullscreen option, and type in a window size based on the 4:3 ratio you want with whatever your fullscreen resolution is. So for 1080p, you do 4 x 1080 / 3 = 1440 to get the horizontal resolution.

I kinda like Xebra, but it doesn't look like it has a correct aspect ratio option for fullscreen.

Oh, damn...why did I never saw it. o_o

THANKS!

EDIT: I dared...
 

Wray

Member
So I started to play through Chrono Cross with the Cartoon Shader applied, and I noticed that while the 3d models look awesome, the text looks terrible and borderline unreadable. Especially in battle. Is there anyway to fix the text at all with that shader? Any tips would be appreciated.

Screenshots below.



 
Ugh, I don't know why anyone would want to play like that. Higher resolution and smoothed textures actually works and does a fine job.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
iKgs1252TcRjl.jpg


Dialogues are so awesomely bad.
Though i loved it when Ifrit screamed "You have NakidLADY?!"

Can I ask which plugin is this that makes the text this smooth ? When I played with the OpenGL plugin the text was all kinds of messy.
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
Oh, damn...why did I never saw it. o_o

THANKS!

EDIT: I dared...

4WFqZ.jpg
It looks terrible blown up, but I actually think the PSX port of Diablo is very good. On an SDTV it actually winds up looking pretty coherent and smooth. Most importantly, unlike the PC version, the game scrolls at a smooth 60 fps. The PC version had a much lower framerate though it did run at double the resolution.
 

Suairyu

Banned
iKgs1252TcRjl.jpg


Dialogues are so awesomely bad.
Though i loved it when Ifrit screamed "You have NakidLADY?!"
Anyone wanting to see FFVIII in high resolution should really check out the PC version. It's superior to the PS version, with backgrounds and FMVs being at DVD resolution, which is double of that used on the PS.

Only hassle is that you'll want to download the original PS soundfonts so the thing doesn't sound like poor man's midi.
 
ePSXe boils my piss. Setting up plugins was a pain, and the emulator just inexplicably stopped working at one point. I switched to PSX - none of the visual gloss, but at least it functions.

Edit: If someone could get it set up fully for me, no cocking about, ready-to-run, I would certainly use it. It's just so much easier with PSX - rip disc, boot bin/cue, play game. No fuss.
 

Suairyu

Banned
I just download the ePSXe and use the included plugins. Only thing I change is resolution/texture filtering and configure my pad. That's it. You need a bios, but otherwise it works straight out the box.
 
I'll have to do a fresh "install" and give it another go. Bearing in mind I just want to play my games, is there anything it can do that PSX can't?
 

Oemenia

Banned
Oh, I know, but it's still either very chunky or blurry. Neither replicates the appearance of those pixels on an interlaced display. 320x240 blown up to 1920x1080 or higher with or without filtering is unattractive.

Everything blends together so much better on a real system.
Emulator with interlaced SDTV is pretty much the best of both worlds. PSone 3D games look really good, they've certainly aged better than N64 games as you get the clean look but also the far more detailed textures.

ePSXe is a great emulator even though there's still quite a bit more left to do. The only problem is that you have to fiddle with three different aspect ratio settings, and sometimes when that's not enough the resolution as well. Heck I still haven't got Street Fighter Alpha 3 correct after all this tinkering.
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
Emulator with interlaced SDTV is pretty much the best of both worlds. PSone 3D games look really good, they've certainly aged better than N64 games as you get the clean look but also the far more detailed textures.

ePSXe is a great emulator even though there's still quite a bit more left to do. The only problem is that you have to fiddle with three different aspect ratio settings, and sometimes when that's not enough the resolution as well. Heck I still haven't got Street Fighter Alpha 3 correct after all this tinkering.
Well, the filters which attempt to emulate the look of an SDTV are certainly interesting...but they really don't match up to the real thing. The look of a proper CRT is very distinct and not easily duplicated using visual tricks.
 
I encountered a bug on Windows 7 64-bit. Every-time I opened epsxe I would have to go through the configuration wizard or it would crash when I started a game. The bug stopped after I added the epsxe executable to the Data Execution Prevention list (Control Panel > System and Security > System > to the left Advanced System Settings > Advanced tab> under Performance click on Settings > Data Execution Prevention tab).

Also I started using a different SPU plugin earlier this year called Eternal SPU. It seems to be a lot better then the P.E.Op.S. audio plugin. Some games would crash in-game when using the P.E.Op.S. plugin but when using Eternal SPU they worked without a problem.
 

Oemenia

Banned
Well, the filters which attempt to emulate the look of an SDTV are certainly interesting...but they really don't match up to the real thing. The look of a proper CRT is very distinct and not easily duplicated using visual tricks.
2D games suffer on a progressive scan screen but 3D games look better. Again what I'm saying is using an emulator but on an old CRT, you get the best of both worlds.
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
2D games suffer on a progressive scan screen but 3D games look better. Again what I'm saying is using an emulator but on an old CRT, you get the best of both worlds.
Aha ha, of course, I wasn't even considering that. You're right, that would probably look pretty rad. Might have to give it a shot sometime.
 

jett

D-Member
As far PS1 emulators go I like psxfin the most, it has the highest compatibility rate and the games run virtually bug free. I've had issues with some games in ePSXe.

http://psxemulator.gazaxian.com/

You can't improve the graphics at all, however, the games will look as they did back in the day. Call me crazy but I prefer that low-res look for a lot of PS1 games, in high resolution the texture warping becomes much more noticeable and unbearable.
 

Suairyu

Banned
You can't improve the graphics at all, however, the games will look as they did back in the day. Call me crazy but I prefer that low-res look for a lot of PS1 games, in high resolution the texture warping becomes much more noticeable and unbearable.
Thing is, so much detail is lost at native res.

Like, for years I thought the groundskeepers in FFVIII were weird alien-head things. It's only when I played the game at a higher resolution that I saw they were men with hats.
 

jett

D-Member
Thing is, so much detail is lost at native res.

Like, for years I thought the groundskeepers in FFVIII were weird alien-head things. It's only when I played the game at a higher resolution that I saw they were men with hats.

Lulz, I guess there are some cases where there's an improvement, but fact is these games were designed to be displayed in low resolution. For games that use CG backgrounds the high resolution characters clash way too much with the 320x240 backdrops, for me anyway.
 

Suairyu

Banned
Lulz, I guess there are some cases where there's an improvement, but fact is these games were designed to be displayed in low resolution. For games that use CG backgrounds the high resolution characters clash way too much with the 320x240 backdrops, for me anyway.
Well, like I said earlier, that's why everyone should only play the PC version of VIII these days. Pre-rendered assets were done at double the resolution of the PS ones.

But yes I see your point.

A good middle-ground is to render it at a 2x or 3x resolution, then scale the window back down to PSX size.
 

televator

Member
I played through Silent Hill entirely with this Emu. My 60GB PS3 kept doing a crazy audio glitch that would nearly blowout my speakers. I installed epsxe and ran the game with a shader that removed jaggies. Sure the texture warping is noticeable, but I always noticed it on the original hardware anyway and now I can actually see things that don't look like a low res mosaic. It makes games like GT1 and 2 playable today.
 
For those having stretching issues in ePSXe:

8ysWR.png


That's with Pete's OGL2 video plugin. You need to check that use window size in fullscreen option, and type in a window size based on the 4:3 ratio you want with whatever your fullscreen resolution is. So for 1080p, you do 4 x 1080 / 3 = 1440 to get the horizontal resolution.

Ok, I tried it and it works - on SOME games.

Alundra, Tilt!, Roll Away - 4:3 fullscreen is perfect.
But the 3 Crash Bandicoot games look like this ...

 

Oemenia

Banned
Well, like I said earlier, that's why everyone should only play the PC version of VIII these days. Pre-rendered assets were done at double the resolution of the PS ones.

But yes I see your point.

A good middle-ground is to render it at a 2x or 3x resolution, then scale the window back down to PSX size.
Unfortunately the backgrounds look really washed out and it's a pain getting it running on today's GPUs in hardware mode. Also emulators give you savestates.
 

Chris R

Member
I just download the ePSXe and use the included plugins. Only thing I change is resolution/texture filtering and configure my pad. That's it. You need a bios, but otherwise it works straight out the box.

Both me and my friend were unable to get it going right out of the box. Wonder if the resolution setting was the problem. But if it doesn't work at least there have been a few different ones to try out posted recently in this thread.
 

Mxrz

Member
I haven't tinkered with epsxe in years, but I've wanted to replay some old games recently. So I dug out my folders & files from around 2005 or so off an old hd. Guessing some things are now out of date. But I liked that I could just copy everything over, and it worked right where it seeming left off. Even the old save states are still there. But I was wondering if some things have been fixed/improved over the years with new versions.

- Do disc drives work any better now days, or do you still get the best performance from ISOs? That was always a major hassle.

- Do you still get slightly smudged text when you ramp the fliters up? Not too big a deal, but it always bugged me a little that over 2-3 plugins and countless settings I could never get 'proper' text.
 

Suairyu

Banned
- Do disc drives work any better now days, or do you still get the best performance from ISOs? That was always a major hassle.
You'll always get better performance with ISOs. Laws of physics dictate that. You can't argue with physics. Besides, save your disc drive - PS games make the drive spin constantly. You don't want that.

- Do you still get slightly smudged text when you ramp the fliters up? Not too big a deal, but it always bugged me a little that over 2-3 plugins and countless settings I could never get 'proper' text.
Nope! You just have to make sure you're not filtering sprites at the same time, as that's what the text is rendered as.
 
For those having stretching issues in ePSXe:

8ysWR.png


That's with Pete's OGL2 video plugin. You need to check that use window size in fullscreen option, and type in a window size based on the 4:3 ratio you want with whatever your fullscreen resolution is. So for 1080p, you do 4 x 1080 / 3 = 1440 to get the horizontal resolution.

I kinda like Xebra, but it doesn't look like it has a correct aspect ratio option for fullscreen.



thanks, this ended up working. Tried with Rival Schools, Parasite Eve 2, and Strider 1
 

Mxrz

Member
You'll always get better performance with ISOs. Laws of physics dictate that. You can't argue with physics. Besides, save your disc drive - PS games make the drive spin constantly. You don't want that.

Hmm, yeah I'd hate to screw up my discs after all these years. I'll read up on making an iso. Hopefully there's freeware that does it. I know there are other means to go about it, but there's something nostalgic about playing my own copy of a game. Maybe recapturing that 99/00 vibe. Almost makes me wish I had a CRT sitting around.
 

UrbanRats

Member
Can I ask which plugin is this that makes the text this smooth ? When I played with the OpenGL plugin the text was all kinds of messy.
I'm away from my PC ATM, the shader is for Pete's OpenGL2, and it's in a pack named "guest shaders pack" or something similar (just google "epsxe custom shaders" and you should find it easily).
Inside the pack there are several shaders, including the cartoon and the storybook ones, alongside the one i've used to smooth the image. There's a readme that details each and every shader included in the pack.

Anyone wanting to see FFVIII in high resolution should really check out the PC version. It's superior to the PS version, with backgrounds and FMVs being at DVD resolution, which is double of that used on the PS.

Only hassle is that you'll want to download the original PS soundfonts so the thing doesn't sound like poor man's midi.
You got a point, but i restarted it just to try epsxe and got hooked by my powertrip of killing exeryone with a few blows, due to my boss junctioning.
Best part was putting Edea (d2) to sleep, draw away all her magics and GFs, then kill her, while still asleep, with one attack.
Even the Ultima Weapon has gone down in one Renzokuken plus a few attacks.
 
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