Epsxe 2.0 Released!

[Mute64]

Apparently my main gripe with this emulator is fixed as well it no longer has that issue of running in the background when you exit wrongly. Also so much other emulation news its overwhelming, Dx12 support,Vulkan support and numerous emulators updating.. https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/468hlg/epsxe_20_for_windows_have_been_released/

[SentaiBrad]

Yea I saw this earlier. I need to check it out.

[DOS76]

I'm on that as soon as I get home. We need a sticky thread that we can make to report emulator updates.

[SentaiBrad]

http://emu-russia.net/en/ There's already this.

[DOS76]

Nice but I was thinking more along the lines of a post here on the forum were people can report finding new emulators or updated versions of emulators and keep them neat in one post and up at the top emulator section like the emulator settings for all platforms post.

[Mute64]

You could almost do a video segment on all the updates/things to come in the emulation world. Off the top head here are some recent updates to talk about. PPSSPP 1.2 EPSE 2.0 Retroarch 1.3 Dolphins Direct x 12 support Retroarchs Vulkan support RPCS3 Vulkan support

[DOS76]

ColEm and 4DO also have new versions out in the last few months and 4DO is developing a 3DO emulator for Android with another wave of beta tests coming in the future.

[SentaiBrad]

Yes, all of this I knew from that website. ;) We also talked about this being a video series once a month or bi-weekly too. Edit: Actually that site + another I go to sometimes.

[fromlostdays]

You guys think the updates are worth switching from the wonderful compatibility of mednafen, or in my case RA with mednafen core, to Epsxe with these updates? I'd really like your opinion on it, in terms of compatibility, speed, hacks, saves, overall functionality, controller support and graphics etc. I play a lot of PS1 games. Also, I can't see the updates because the site is blocked at my work.

[DOS76]

I already use eSPXe so for me the update is just a natural progression if you are already using RA it all comes down to if you are willing to switch away from the things you like about it to use something else.

The changes are: - First of all, ePSXe 2.0 now requires Windows Vista or superior. While it could work on Windows XP SP2, it has not been tested. - Multi-language support. Currently there is support for English, Spanish, Japanese (thanks to Nekokabu) and Italian (thanks to Domus). If you want to help us translate the emulator to other language let us know at epsxepc@gmail.com. - Added a gamelist window. Now you can open a gamelist window by selecting File->Open Gamelist or clicking on the letters "PSX" from the ePSXe logo. - Improved CPU/overall timing accuracy. - Improved GTE accuracy. and added support for widescreen and subpixel precision (GTE Accuracy hack thank to Edbla). - Ported the Soft GPU from the Android version. The new GPU Core requires a videocard supporting OpenGL2 + GLSL shader. Supporting increased internal resolution at x2/x4, brightness profiles, stretching modes, 2D filters (Thanks to Zenju), Shaders (Thanks to Lottes & Hyllian), Scanlines and Sub-pixel precision. (Special thanks to Pete Bernert :) - Included the Pete Opengl2 GPU core with support for sub-pixel precission (gte accuracy hack) and memory detection. Millions of thanks to Pete Bernert, Tapcio and Edbla. - Teamviewer incompatibility is resolved with the internal GPU plugins. - Added a configuration window to select options for the internal SPU Plugin. - Fixed support for CDDA music in external SPU plugins. - Improved the internal input plugin. Improved multitap andd added autofire support. - Added support for Konami Justifier gun using the mouse. - External Input plugins support. - Added game profile by game. - Improved auto-PPF support. (PPv3 and several files by game) - Improved cheat support. Fixed cheatcodes gameshark conditional, added increment/decrement types (0x10-11, 0x20-21) and copy type (0xc2). - Improved HLE bios emulation. Starting with version 1.9.25, the HLE bios has been improved to support more games: Wild Arms, Jet Moto, Toca World Touring, Simcity 2000. Memcards support was improved for a lot of games such as Dinocrisis 2, Metal Gear Solid, V-Rally2, Diablo, Ridge Racer Type 4, Driver, Echo Night and Azure Dreamns. - Fixes to the CD-ROM decoder and the core which made around to 40 more games playable or better working: Agile Warrior F-111X, Arcade's Greatest Hits - The Atari Collection 2, Blasto (PAL), C-12 - Final Resistance, Captain Commando, Cinema Eikaiwa - Ai No Hate Ni, Cinema Eikaiwa - ArasshigaokaA, Cinema Eikaiwa - Interceptor, Cinema Eikaiwa - Tengoru Ni Ikenai Papa,, Cinema Eikaiwa - This boys life, Cinema Eikaiwa - Zombiew, Duke Nukem - Land of Babes (PAL), Fantastic Night Dreams - Cotton Original, Formula One 2000, Glocal Hexcite, Jumping Flash 2, Legend of Legaia, London Racer 2, Mary-Kate and Ashley - Crush Course (PAL), Mary Kate & Ashley - Magical Mystery Mall (PAL), Medievil, Medievil 2, Metal Slug - Super Vehicle 001, Maboroshi Tsukiyo, Millennium Soldier Expendable, Nightmare Creatures II, Nishijin Packinko Tengoku Vol 2, Perfect Weapon, Psybadek, Rock'n Roll Racing 2 - Red Asphalt (PAL), Rugrats Studio Tour (PAL), SD Gundam G Generation Zero, Sidewinder II, Slots, Soul Blade, Star Wars - Rebel Assault II - The Hidden Empire, Super Pang Collection, The Hive, USA Racer - A2 Racer goes USA, Virtua Pachi-Slot Olympia Special (New logo thanks to Robert Typek)

[Drybonz]

DOS76 said Nice but I was thinking more along the lines of a post here on the forum were people can report finding new emulators or updated versions of emulators and keep them neat in one post and up at the top emulator section like the emulator settings for all platforms post.

I was just thinking this, as well, the other day. Since Launchbox supports multiple emulators it would be a great idea to help each other keep up on emulation news. *edit* Maybe even an in-app section for emulation news when you start Launchbox. Would be a nice touch.

[Lordmonkus]

The new 2.0 version of ePSXe is most definitely worth upgrading to over 1.9.xx. The base GPU video core is a vast improvement over the old Soft driver. You can now scale the resolution if you want (2x and 4x), adjust brightness levels if needed and has hyllians and lottes awesome shaders built right in with zero performance hit. This for me is by far the best way to run 2d sprite based games with a retro feel without being too blocky and ugly from upscaling. The old Soft plugin caused major issues for me on my amd powered laptop and was unusable. One other great feature of this new version is the ability to have a per game settings so you can have a setup for 3d games and a setup for 2d sprite games. As for switching from Retroarch using the mednafen core to ePSXe 2.0 that's going to come down to personal preference. Personally I wouldn't bother, RA just has way better options with the shaders being much better looking, the RA menu for quicksave management and easier disk swap from the couch with a controller. Performance wise ePSXe is much better than RA (Medanfen). On my relatively lowend laptop hooked up to the TV I cannot run RA (Mednafen). The performance just isn't quite there, games run about 49-50 fps even with zero shaders. ePSXe however with hyllians shader runs at a full 60fps butter smooth. On my laptop I use ePSXe and on my gaming computer will stick to using Retroarch Mednafen and an awesome tweaked out shader preset that looks amazing on 2d games. I don't play any 3d stuff from that era, it's just too damned ugly for me to go back to. I hated that era of gaming when I went through it back then and I hate it even more now. The 32-bit era should have been about amazing sprite work and cd audio over horrible low polygon count and extremely low grade textures.

[DOS76]

Except if they didn't develop that 3D stuff then they wouldn't have been laying the foundation for what was to come afterwards so while those 3D games might not be the greatest they were the stepping stones to what was to follow. You can't get to the end results of what we have in gaming unless you have all the pieces to build upon.

[Lordmonkus]

You are right about the foundation part but I believe that the game devs jumped the gun so to speak, they switched too early for the vast majority of games. The hardware just wasn't there yet to do it, the 64 bit N64 handled it much better. A perfect example of what I mean is Final Fantasy 7. A great game by anyones standards but would have been even better if it was done with pure sprite art instead of a godawful hybrid. I absolutely loved the previous FF games but I could not for the life of me tolerate the hideous mess that 7 was. The gameplay design around 3d games was actually implemented quite well from the start, it was just that the hardware couldn't push the polygons and texture quality needed yet. Now where the 3D stuff really did push and lay the foundation properly was in the racing games and the cartoony 3D platformers like Spyro and Crash Badicoot. It was just too bad they tried to shoehorn too many game genres into 3D where the hardware wasn't quite ready (even for foundation purposes).

[CriticalCid]

I’m sorry you feel that way. I LOVE the early 3D era of gaming. The look and feel of many of these games is such unique and has its own interesting experimental style, graphical and gameplay wise. Maybe I’m too nostalgic about it because I grew up with it and the N64 was my first console ever. But nonetheless the PS1 is still my favorite console of all time and I love to play games for it still today.

[SentaiBrad]

Some early 3D games can be really fun, but they age horribly. 2D games from that era ages beautifully for the most part. The systems could technically handle it, it was the industry getting their footing. As far as ePSXe is concerned, the one game I tested on the new version was Blasto, and it didn't run any better, if anything the sound was worse. I didn't test much, that is the game I test every time because it is a bitch to emulate apparently. It's also very nostalgic, I love Phil Hartman in it. I don't think I am going to switch from RetroArch... but I need to see more tests, I might switch. As far as a news section, to be perfectly honest guys I like the idea of it, and even we talked about how we should handle something like that. My first thought is on video every two weeks or month, and that is where this has the best chance of living. There are already several websites which provide what you guys want, and I even linked to one. I would honestly probably just copy what I see on that site and some from Reddit. It would take me forever to go to each websites, or some aggregate sites, some forums and search out all this news, and If I am just going to go to the site I linked most of the time, then why isn't that site sufficient for the job? I am all for video's or blog posts about opinions on the news or our thoughts on whats going on (Like RetroAchievements.org integration in RetroArch, holy crap!) but it would just take time away from being able to do other things which I honestly think are more important. If you guys watch RSS lets put it this way, it takes me about 10-30 min to find 3-5 news stories (or If I heard anything natural over the course of a week I keep note of that stuff too), and find a game to suggest and a game from the past that fell in this month. I mainly use Bing News and Google News to search for certain keywords. It then takes me about 45 min to an hour to write the script, 10-20 min to record the episode, and about an hour to edit it all together. Granted, I don't have to do video editing if we did it in writing, but I am less of a writer myself. I can do it just fine, but it would take me time to write it, edit that, send it to Jason who then wants to read it, then If I need to make changes I do, then I re-read it, then he re-reads it. Just like if we were working at a place like IGN or Gamespot. So twice a week or once a month video to aggregate all of that news might be the best chance that that has of happening. Only have a certain amount of hours a month. That last paragraph, that is also for transparency. I'm not gonna lie to you guys about the possibility of us being able to do something. If I was full time, then that would be different potentially. I still think we don't need to just do the same thing other sites already do well enough. We want to focus on things we're not seeing happen well or at all. Of course though, let me know what you guys think. Also, damn it Derek, we did it again.

[CriticalCid]

What about an extra section in Retro Style Spotlight? I mean emulation news would fit perfectly fine with the other retro news, especially if it’s on a channel for a product like LaunchBox which is designed for using emulators. But I also would say there’s no need to cover it weekly, just throw it in when a huge release did come out.

[DOS76]

Once a month is great would be fine my suggestion was just for a forum post where the community would report these things to each other and maybe throw in some links like if this thread wasn't started I wouldn't have know the ePSXe 2.0 or PPSSPP 1.2 even existed so I'm glad that someone is looking out on the forums with this info. I was just hoping for a single post that could be used to so the community could keep each other informed without you having to spend anytime writing or preparing anything.

Also, damn it Derek, we did it again.

What is that we did again here?

[Drybonz]

What about a user updated section of the forum for emulation news?... and then have the thread topics show in a "news" section in Launchbox. We can literally keep each other updated through the app with no maintenance required on your part.

[SentaiBrad]

We could very easily start a thread, that would be good. As far as something official from Jason or myself, a segment in RSS when the need arises for a high profile emulator (ePSXe and PPSSPP) is a great idea. Ideally it shouldn't add on much more time in any leg of production. Also Derek we stole another thread. xD