Beetle PSX libretro

Beetle PSX is a port/fork of Mednafen's PSX module to the libretro API. It can be compiled in C++98 mode, excluding the Vulkan renderer, which is written in C++11 for the time being. Beetle PSX currently runs on Linux, OSX and Windows.

Notable additions in this fork are:

• PBP and CHD file format support, developed by Zapeth;
• Software renderer internal resolution upscaling, implemented by simias;
• An OpenGL 3.3 renderer, developed by simias;
• A Vulkan renderer, developed by TinyTiger;
• PGXP perspectve correct texturing and subpixel precision, developed by iCatButler;

Running

To run this core, the "system directory" must be defined if running in RetroArch. The PSX BIOS must be placed there and must be named scph5500.bin, scph5501.bin and/or scph5502.bin for Japanese, NA and/or EU regions respectively. The file names are case sensitive, they can be lowercase, uppercase, uppercase with hifen (SCPH-XXXX) and the extension must be a lowercase .bin.

Memory cards will be saved to "save directory", memory card #1 is saved using libretro's standard interface. The rest of memory cards are saved using Mednafen's standard mechanism. You might have to rename your old memory cards to gamename.srm. Alternatively you may just rename it from gamename.gamenamehash.0.mcr to gamename.gamenamehash.1.mcr and load them off the corresponding slot.

This core also supports save states. Keep in mind that save states also include the state of the memory card; carelessly loading an old save state will OVEWRITE the memory card, potentially resulting in lost saved games.

Loading content

Beetle PSX differs from other PS1 emulators in that it needs a cue sheet (.cue) which points to one or more image files (.iso/.bin) instead of loading the image files directly. If you have e.g. foo.iso, you should create a foo.cue, and fill this in:

FILE "foo.iso" BINARY
   TRACK 01 MODE1/2352
      INDEX 01 00:00:00

After that, you can load the foo.cue file as content for the core. Note that this is a dirty hack and will not work on all games. Ideally, make sure to use rips that have cue sheets.

If foo is a multiple-disc game, you should have .cue files for each one, e.g. foo (Disc 1).cue, foo (Disc 2).cue, foo (Disc 3).cue. To take advantage of Beetle's Disc Control feature for disc swapping, an index file should be made.

Open a text file and enter your game's .cue files on it, like this:

foo (Disc 1).cue
foo (Disc 2).cue
foo (Disc 3).cue

Save as foo.m3u and use this file in place of each disc's individual cue sheet.

Some games also need sub-channel data patch files (.sbi) in order to work properly. For example, in the PAL version of Ape Escape, input will not work if the associated .sbi file is missing.

Compressed content

Alternatively to using cue sheets with .bin/.iso files, you can convert your games to .pbp (Playstation Portable update file) or .chd (MAME Compressed Hunks of Data) to reduce file sizes and neaten up your game folder.

PBP

If converting a multiple-disc game, all discs should be added to the same .pbp file, rather than making a .m3u file for them.

Most conversion tools will want a single .bin/.iso file for each disc. If your game uses multiple .bin files (tracks) per disc, you will have to mount the cue sheet to a virtual drive and re-burn the images onto a single track before conversion.

Note that RetroArch does not currently have .pbp database due to variability in users' conversion methods. All .pbp content will have to be added to playlists manually.

CHD

To convert content to CHD format, use the chdman tool found inside the latest MAME distribution and point it to a .cue file, like so:

chdman createcd --input foo.cue --output foo.chd

Note that the tool currrently does not integrate .sbi files into the .chd, so these must be placed alongside the resulting .chd file in order to properly play games with LibCrypt protection.

For multi-disc content, make an .m3u file that lists all the .chd files instead of .cue files. Like the PBP files, content must be added to playlists manually.

Suggested Firmware/BIOS

Ryphecha and the Mednafen team developed the PSX module based on a hardware revision which used a particular BIOS version. Using a BIOS version not listed below might result unforeseen bugs and is therefore discouraged:

Filename:	Purpose:	Hash:
scph5500.bin	BIOS image, Version 3.0 09/09/96 J. Required for Japan-region games.	MD5: 8dd7d5296a650fac7319bce665a6a53c SHA256: 9c0421858e217805f4abe18698afea8d5aa36ff0727eb8484944e00eb5e7eadb
scph5501.bin	BIOS image, Version 3.0 11/18/96 A. Required for North America/US-region games. The same as the SCPH-5503 and SCPH-7003 BIOS images.	MD5: 490f666e1afb15b7362b406ed1cea246 SHA256: 11052b6499e466bbf0a709b1f9cb6834a9418e66680387912451e971cf8a1fef
scph5502.bin	BIOS image, Version 3.0 01/06/97 E. Required for Europe-region games. The same as the SCPH-5552 BIOS image.	MD5: 32736f17079d0b2b7024407c39bd3050 SHA256: 1faaa18fa820a0225e488d9f086296b8e6c46df739666093987ff7d8fd352c09

Options

Option name	Description
Renderer (restart)	'software' 'vulkan' and 'opengl'. The last two options will enable and/or speedup enhancements like upscaling and texture filtering. To use 'vulkan', the frontend must be using a Vulkan video driver first, or else it will default the 'opengl' renderer.
Software framebuffer	If off, the software renderer will skip some steps. Potential speedup. Causes bad graphics when doing framebuffer readbacks.
Adaptive smoothing	When upscaling, smooths out 2D elements while keeping 3D elements sharp. Vulkan renderer only at the moment.
Internal GPU resolution	Graphics upscaling.
Texture filtering	Per-texture filtering using e.g. xBR, SABR, bilinear, etc. OpenGL only.
Internal color depth	PSX had 16bpp depth, beetle-psx can go up to 32bpp. OpenGL only. Vulkan always uses 32bpp.
Wireframe mode	For debug use. Shows only the outlines of polygons. OpenGL only.
Display full VRAM	Everything in VRAM is drawn on screen.
PGXP operation mode	When not off, floating point coordinates will be used for vertex positions, to avoid the PSX polygon jitter. 'memory + cpu' mode can further reduce jitter at the cost of performance and geometry glitches.
PGXP vertex cache	Maintains a cache for vertices. May result in better performance but can result in graphics glitches in most games.
PGXP perspective correct texturing	Original PSX did affine texture mapping, resulting in e.g. crooked lines across walls. This fixes it.
Dithering pattern	If off, disables the dithering pattern the PSX applies to combat color banding. OpenGL only. Vulkan always disables the pattern.
Scale dithering pattern with internal resolution	Self-explanatory. OpenGL only.
Initial Scanline	Sets the first scanline to be drawn on screen.
Initial Scanline PAL	Sets the first scanline to be drawn on screen for PAL systems.
Last Scanline	Sets the last scanline to be drawn on screen.
Last Scanline PAL	Sets the last scanline to be drawn on screen for PAL systems.
Frame duping (speedup)	Redraws/reuses the last frame if there was no new data.
Widescreen mode hack	If on, renders in 16:9. Works best on 3D games.
Crop Overscan	Self-explanatory.
Additional cropping	Self-explanatory.
Offset cropped image	Self-explanatory.
Display internal FPS	Shows the frame rate at which the emulated PSX is drawing at.
Analog self-calibration	Monitors the max values reached by the input, using it as a calibration heuristic which then scales the analog coordinates sent to the emulator accordingly. For best results, rotate the sticks at max amplitude for the algorithm to get a good estimate of the scaling factor, otherwise it will adjust while playing content.
DualShock Analog button toggle	Toggles the Analog button from DualShock controllers, if disabled analogs are always on, if enabled you can toggle their state by pressing and holding START+SELECT+L1+L2+R1+R2.
Port 1: Multitap Enable	Enables/Disables multitap functionality on port 1.
Port 2: Multitap Enable	Enables/Disables multitap functionality on port 2.
CPU Overclock	Gets rid of memory access latency and makes all GTE instructions have 1 cycle latency.
CD Access Method	If "precache" is selected, loads the complete image in memory at startup.
Skip BIOS	Self-explanatory. Some games have issues when enabled.
Memcard 0 method	Picks the format (libretro or mednafen) used for storing memcard 0 save data.
Enable memory card 1	Specifically enables memcard slot 1. Needed for game "Codename Tenka".
Shared memory cards (restart)	Stores everything in the same savefile. 'Memcard 0 method' needs to be set to 'mednafen'.