Category:Playstation

Seminal fifth-generation Sony console.

My favored emulator is RetroArch with the Beetle PSX HW core. It can emulate at higher internal resolutions, with a conventional texture filtering algorithm that greatly improves the look of 3D games over the PS1's typically 320x240 and unfiltered 3D games, and has a bevy of other enhancements available.

To play NTSC games, you will need a BIOS file called "scph5501.bin," placed in the "system" directory within Retroarch. The BIOS file must have this exact name to be usable.

Some settings worth changing from the default:

• Internal GPU resolution - To improve detail, set this as high as you can without losing performance, though you'll get diminishing returns above 4x.
• Internal color depth - Set this to 32bpp to reduce banding and dithering, although some people may prefer the dithered look in games that used it heavily, like Silent Hill.
• PGXP operation mode - Must be turned on to enable other PGXP functions. Best to set it to "memory only" for most games.
• PGXP perspective correct texturing - By far the best feature of the emulator core. Reduces the texture wobble that plagued 3D PS1 games.
• Widescreen mode hack - Forces widescreen, and works pretty well for most 3D games. Not appropriate for all games, and shouldn't ever be used with 2D games (or 3D games with heavy use of prerendered graphics like Resident Evil), but most 3D games will show peripheral geometry even when the game was only designed for 4:3 screens. Graphics near the screen's edges can be glitchy in some games, but I think this is better than not having anything there at all.

Running PS1 games at 4K resolution and modern texture rendering isn't an authentic look, but is crisper, cleaner, and more detailed than the authentic look could ever hope to be.