PS2PSXe public preview - Playstation Emulator for PS2 Released

News via http://psx-scene.com/forums/showthre...243#post493243

So as I wrote. Public PS2PSXe preview. Only command line version attached. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get current sources to work properly (I'm halfway with some major changes and it will take awhile to complete them). The one attached you can consider as "the last one that actually works", or simply rev168.

Now all the necessary stuff.

The emu supports both PAL and NTSC display, but I REALLY RECOMMEND leaving the default PAL output. Why? Well, it's the only mode I use. Many fixes were made to make PAL games show less glitches in PAL mode... When you switch the display to NTSC it most often will show more glitches.

The PAL scph7502 bios is recommended to run games.

PAL games are recommended due to two simple reasons:
1. PAL games require only 50fps to be at 100% speed (NTSC games require 60, so PAL games are easier to emulate).
2. PAL games should look nice when using PAL display mode... NTSC games will always look much worse.
(well, I live in Europe. It's PAL region, so everything has been coded with PAL games and PAL TVs in mind. Actually, the option to switch display into NTSC mode has been added in rev163... so no fixes for that)
So use NTSC display mode only if your TV doesn't support PAL (yes I know this sucks... Most TVs in Europe nowadays support NTSC... On the other hand, most TVs in US do not support PAL... What a crap...).

Many of the parts of the emulator (like cue/ccd parser) have not been changed/updated for few years (the time I created them in 2007 or so). I focused on the most important parts of the emu... Once the time comes, everything will be replaced by proper code rather than some temporary solutions.

You shouldn't experience any problems launching it if you know what you're doing... Otherwise it might crash before even showing you anything.

The emu doesn't provide any drivers or modules other than the parts of the emu itself. But thanks to this it supports any devices that you will load modules for. I've tested it with internal hdd, usb, lan, dvd and even ps2 mc. I recommend using internal hdd or lan (host device). You can use usb, but the asynchronous cd plugin is tweaked for high bandwidth media... So when using with usb, some stuttering might occur here and there.

There is no real requirement for the modules present before the emu is launched except one. The emu REQUIRES IOMANX module to be loaded before launching it (older PS2link versions were loading it by default, but you will have to load it manually for newer ones or change it and recompile it).

Default ps2client versions will always truncate the files opened for writing and reading (even if O_TRUNC is not specified). Use the one from uLE or just change it by yourself).

Now the options:

-cdimage=PATH
Path to the cd image. 2352 bytes/sector images supported. CUE and CCD cuesheets are supported. Multiple tracks in ccd/cue are supported but only if all tracks are in a single file (no multiple files). For multiple files just point to the first track (it contains the data). PATH can be either relative to ps2psxe executable or full path.

-exepath=PATH
Launches PSX exe file (for intros, demos and such).

-bios=PATH
Bios path (bios/scph7502.bin by default)

-digitizepad
Internally switches pads into digital only mode (visible to PSX code). If you then manually enable analog mode (small analog switch at the center of the pad), then the left analog stick will act as D-PAD and right analog stick will act as R1/L1 horizontally. It's a nice features for games that do not support analog sticks at all (like FF7)

-spfix
Stack pointer fix. Try it if something goes wrong. It might be able to fix some games. It disables one of the optimizations (not many games make any use of it anyway)...

-xoff=OFFSET and -yoff=OFFSET
Positions the screen on TV. You can use it to correct the image position if your TV leaves eg. black bars at right or left side.

-sub
Enables subchannel support. It is really necessary only for libcrypt protected games... For two years or so not even for them. It's kind of obsolete as the emulator has automatic patch for libcrypt, so unpatched games like FF9 PAL will work even without subchannel data. The subchannel file has to have the same name as the img/bin/ccd/cue, just with the extension being .sub (so if the image is ff9pald1.cue, then the subfile is ff9pald1.sub). It's not really necessary anymore.

-excep
Disables some exception stuff. Use it if a games experiences problems. I believe this one should not be necessary anymore, but I left it... Didn't see a game that would need it in year or so.

-4ever
Disables most of the automatic libcrypt patches (not all of them though). It's there just for testing, really. You won't have to use it until you want to test subchannel file support.

-32bpp
Switches into 32bpp mode. I really RECOMMEND using it unless the game has texture problems (clut problems to be exact). It's not default only because it's not native PSX format . So use it unless it causes problems.

-nofps
Disables resolution/mode/fps display (the yellow crap at the top)

-nosprtf
Disables filtering for sprites. (2d images, though not all 2d images are sprites). Needed for 2d backgrounds in many games (a must for all final fantasy games - all ff games).

-nopolyf
Disables filtering for all polygons that are not sprites .

If you specify both -nosprtf and -nopolyf, filtering will not be used at all.

-nodith
Disables dithering in 16bit mode.

-ntsc
Switches display into NTSC mode. DON'T use it unless you really have to.

Savestates are screwed at the moment (search the information in the other ps2psxe thread - I posted the reason a month or so ago).

Use (l1+l2+r1+r2+triangle+circle) to save screenshot in "snap/" directory - always using executable (slesxxxxx) with counter (always checking for files that are already there, so it doesn't overwrite files if used in multiple sessions). Screenshots are saved in tim2 format.


(now some info taken from a mail I've sent some time ago to dlanor) Because the gpu doesn't yet support offscreen drawing nor drawing on the same buffer that is displayed, quite often instead of menus (even the fps counter may die, but everything will work once the correct button is pressed), black screen will be displayed. You will have then to either try you luck by pressing common buttons (start, x, o) or to check how it in fact looks on some other emu and then make the choice. Movies should be displayed now in most of the cases, but sometimes all you will see is a black screen... Wait or press start/x/o to skip it (it's not that often, it usually works). Some things are just really hard to do in hardware accelerated gpu... I'm not sure why yet, but the emu has a tendency to freeze for few seconds from time to time (quite rare actually), so don't worry if it seems to freeze... Just wait and it should unlock (unless it takes more than 10 seconds, then it is a complete freeze).

Do not bother to report glitches and bugs. I know about them. You won't help this way. This is PREVIEW, not a public beta for testing. Either use it or not... It's as simple as that.