ePSXe (huge pics inside)

[Obiwanshinobi]

If anybody wants to link or PM me Saturn/PS1/Dreamcast emulators with everything that will make them work perfectly with any game, I'd appreciate that!

I can help with ePSXe (still most versatile PSX emulator for the PC as far as I know), but since one setup won't do for every game and I feel like pic spamming, I'm starting this thread with people intimidated by its plethora of options in mind. Of course you can read some online guides, but you can't be bothered, can you?
You can download the emulator from here, plugins from here and the BIOS from wherever. I'm using WinXP, ePSXe 1.7.0, BIOS scph1001 USA (recommended) and the following plugins:
Audio - Eternal SPU Plugin 1.41



And here's my humble config (with a CPU more powerful than my Athlon 2000+ you can have better synchronisation and get rid of clipping, but for weaker machines this should do)



Gamepad - frankly, I've no idea how you change the controller plugin, which is a shame as ePSXe's native plugin sucks when it comes to configuring analogue sticks and vibrations, and you NEED those features (yes, vibrations too) to get the most out of Apocalypse, Silent Bomber, Cyber Org or Threads of Fate BADLY. I've never played extensively on ePSXe any game utilising either, so I was happy with this trivial setup



Graphics - Pete's D3D Driver 1.77



3D

First of all, in your video card settings force anisotropic filtering and antialiasing up to the highest values possible. DON'T force v-sync (you don't want any more input lag than necessary).
Furthermore, bear in mind that you have to restart the emulator every time you change something in the plugin settings.
That's the config most 3D games should be just fine with



Of course if you are using an LCD, "Desktop resolution" should be set to your LCD's native.
128 MB just happens to be my video card's amount of RAM. It's overkill anyways.
Texture filtering



is a feature some 2D games will be better off without, but more about that later.
That's how 3D games should look with the aforementioned setup (I forced AFx16 and AAx2 in desktop resolution 1280x1024, but if only your monitor and video card can handle more, you should exploit this advantage fully):

Threads of Fate (huge pics, click on to blow up if needed)
http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/4141/psd3d008.png
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/3851/psd3d017.png
http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/8625/psd3d030.png
http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/7808/psd3d034.png
http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/4210/psd3d018.png
http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/5541/psd3d015.png
http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/8688/psd3d014.png
http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/9674/psd3d025.png
http://img839.imageshack.us/img839/1641/psd3d032.png

Cyber Org
http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/6024/psd3d027.png
http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/8471/psd3d028.png
http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/8266/psd3d031.png
http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/10/psd3d021.png
http://img36.imageshack.us/img36/410/psd3d012.png

2D

First of all, in your video card settings DISABLE forced AF and AA.
Now in theory the option



should leave sprites alone, taking care exclusively of textured polygons - useful in games mixing 2D and 3D. Some PSX games, however, use textured ploygons looking exactly like sprites at the first glance.
For the sake of demonstration I've left all graphics options unchanged, except for the resolution (on LCD it should be still its native, but on my CRT I prefer 640x480 for 2D).



Scanlines still disabled. Now that's how it renders The Adventure of Little Ralph



As you can see, the background bitmap is properly pixellated, but the characters, boy, are they ugly and glitchy. So I switch the filtering OFF



Now that's more like it



Now putting on the scanlines



And I'm done



Ultimately, the optimal config for this particular game (on a CRT) is



Again and again and again - on LCDs ANY sub-native resolution will ruin the sharpness those pixel-crisp games have, no matter the settings. Scanlines won't look so hot on LCDs, but you can't do much about it.
Gunners Heaven behaves similarily.
Filtering on - the dude, the barrels and projectiles are blurred



Interestingly, the explosions are pixellated as they should be, so these must be ordinary bitmaps.
Filtering off - everything's sharp



Filtering off, scanlines on - optimal



Of course for some games you have to enable specific hacks and fixes. Some plugins may be not compatible with certain games. Make sure disc images are named properly. Don't load games from physical discs - ePSXe supports images.

[CMoon]

???

[Obiwanshinobi]

Огонь!

[BPzeBanshee]

Good thread, straightforward and helpful.

I should mention that even ePSXe 1.7.0 doesn't quite get everything right for some games when it comes to emulation, for example The Unholy War to this day still has graphical glitches here and there and I've yet to have figured out ways around them messing around with the settings. Most popular games ie The Raiden Project should run just fine though.

[Jonathan Ingram]

2D looks awful in hardware mode. Software plugins like P.E.Op.S. Soft Driver are the way to go when it comes to sprites and pre-rendered backgrounds.

[nZero]

2D looks awful in hardware mode. Software plugins like P.E.Op.S. Soft Driver are the way to go when it comes to sprites and pre-rendered backgrounds.

If you're just going to run ePSXe with a software renderer instead of using the plugins to enhance the output, you might as well use something with overall better emulation like pSX emulator for those games.

[Jonathan Ingram]

If you're just going to run ePSXe with a software renderer instead of using the plugins to enhance the output, you might as well use something with overall better emulation like pSX emulator for those games.

Hardware plugins like Pete`s OpenGL and Pete`s D3D don`t enhance the quality of 2D graphics. Quite the opposite actually.

[nZero]

Hardware plugins like Pete`s OpenGL and Pete`s D3D don`t enhance the quality of 2D graphics. Quite the opposite actually.

I know, I should have worded it more clearly If you're not using hardware acceleration plugins with ePSXe to enhance 3D PSX games, you'd likely be better off with another emulator entirely.

[Jonathan Ingram]

I know, I should have worded it more clearly If you're not using hardware acceleration plugins with ePSXe to enhance 3D PSX games, you'd likely be better off with another emulator entirely.

Sure thing. Which is why I didn`t say software plugins were better for 3D. I only mentioned 2D.

Also, Pete`s OpenGL 2 Driver is a better hardware plugin than the one in the OP. The old D3D plugin in the OP was made with Riva TNT and other such GPUs in mind. OpenGL2 takes better advantage of modern GPUs and has shader support.

[Obiwanshinobi]

In some cases I prefer software looks of 3D to accelerated. Sometimes that primordial texturing is so crafted that filtering takes away some of its charm, almost like messing with pixel art.
That said, last time I tested a PSX game emulated via software it was too slow on my computer.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

So what would be the optimal setup to play Takumi's Night Raid PSX port via emulation purposes? I've noticed that it looks sharper/nicer on the DC console running DCbleem boot disc via DC VGA box output.

Of course, the original Night Raid G-Card cartridge running on the Taito G-Net mobo was presented in low-res format to begin with. Takumi would've had to go with a 480i presentation to present NR in fake high-res mode running on such a G-Net mobo setup if they decided to go that route but they didn't.

The PSX port of NR had some pros & cons over it's original arcade counterpart including all new CG opening intro FMV, only one player support (to retain it's 60fps framerate intact, otherwise by adding player 2 would bog the CPU down thus slowing down the framerate), and the numerical point values along with arrow indicator that'd go up & down isn't featured in the PSX port (but is present in the G-Card version).

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Obiwanshinobi]

Not sure if Night Raid's 3D is worth any enhancements.
With texture filtering (without sprites) and forced AFx16 & AAx2:

http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/3323/psd3d013.png
http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/4701/psd3d020.png

With raw textures and no AA:

http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/2206/psd3d002.png
http://img854.imageshack.us/img854/4141/psd3d008.png

The way it handles 2D elements isn't consistent (click on to blow up or else you won't notice all nuances), but in real time explosions steal the show and these look the same in both modes. Obviously raw texture mapping looks sharper. Looking at this boss:




I'd say the unfiltered version takes the cake, but then again, as you play you don't have that much attention to spare. As for the bullet patterns, in motion these look quite good filtered (the "tacked on" effect is less apparent that way, at least in high resolutions).

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Thanks for the comparisions of NR in both formats, Obiwanshinobi. Interesting to learn of how it fares with both texture filtering & anti-aliasing and without it.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Zeether]

Anyone know what the best setup is for Ridge Racer Type 4? I get FPS drops in the in-car view and it makes the game almost unplayable.

[1up]

Antons have setting guides like this for snes emulators?

[Jonathan Ingram]

Anyone know what the best setup is for Ridge Racer Type 4? I get FPS drops in the in-car view and it makes the game almost unplayable.

RRT4 works well for me in ePSXe 1.6 with OpenGL2 and it worked just as well with any other hardware plugins I used before. Anyway, here`s my current config:



It`s important to manually set your GFX card VRAM as the plugin does a poor job in auto-detecting videocards with more than 128mb VRAM. I had used to encounter occasional FPS drops before I did that. If you have a videocard with 128mb or less than just set "GFX card VRAM" to "auto-detect".

[shmuppyLove]

Gamepad - frankly, I've no idea how you change the controller plugin, which is a shame as ePSXe's native plugin sucks when it comes to configuring analogue sticks and vibrations, and you NEED those features (yes, vibrations too) to get the most out of Apocalypse, Silent Bomber, Cyber Org or Threads of Fate BADLY. I've never played extensively on ePSXe any game utilising either, so I was happy with this trivial setup

Setting up an analog pad is very simple, but first you need to change the type of controller. There is a drop-down box in the top-right corner that lets you do this.



Change it to "[SCPH-1200] DualShock (F5)", and set all the controls by clicking on each one, then pressing the button you want to assign to it.

I'm using this with an XBOX 360 controller, and all analog and rumble functions are perfectly supported (though honestly I hate rumble and normally turn it off).

[shmuppyLove]

Antons have setting guides like this for snes emulators?

SNES emulation isn't nearly as complicated because there's no 3D (well, not hardware-accelerated 3D anyway).

But if you really want, create a new thread for it, let's keep this one for ePSXe.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Two things to know about zSNES:
- it uses hardware upscaling and bilinear filtering by default (hence the blur); to get rid of it, I just switch off the hardware acceleration via dxdiag (but it's most likely doable by some other means)
- scanlines are good only for the 1280x960 resolution, i.e. good for nothing on most LCDs.