Any current advice on PS1 disc change handling?

[Bedwyr]

I saw a few old topics on this here and elsewhere, but nothing definitive. If I'm using BigBox and a controller, is there a decent best practice for changing discs without needing to pick up a keyboard or is that just too complex a problem to solve?

[Lordmonkus]

There are a couple of ways of doing this. The best emulator to use for it is Retroarch and the PSX core. RA supports the use of playlist files where each disk image is listed in the playlist file. Another option and is the one I use is with the recent addition of support for PBP files so you can merge multiple disk images into a single file and simply load that file. The program I use to merge images is PSX2PSP. Maybe someone else can pop in here and share their way of doing it because I am sure there is at least one other method to handle multi disk PS games. I only have experience with the merged PBP files and it works for me. If you want to go the play list route then google on how to make a play list, it isn't too difficult to do but I have never done it.

[Bedwyr]

Thanks. I'm a bit confused, although intrigued, by the pbp method. I googled around a bit and mostly came up references to an "eboot.pbp" file and PSP which confused me. Are you compiling multiple iso files into a pbp and loading it on a PSP emulator?

[DOS76]

That is what they were originally for but they also work with PS1 emulators or at least with the mednafen psx core.

[Lordmonkus]

The PBP format was used for convert PS1 games to play on the PSP but it's a format that emulators now support and Retroarch recently started supporting it. I used this method to compile the 2 Lunar games, 1 game was 2 disks and the other was 3. I compiled them into a single PBP file and they load through the PSX core, not the PSP emulator (though they may work on the PSP emulator, I never tried).

[SentaiBrad]

These should technically also work on PPSSPP, as they work on a real PSP (I have one modded), and as far as I know this was a Sony format that the community uses. Similar to WAD's for the Wii and Virtual Console Injection to insert other games unofficially. PBP is the best thing for PS1 games as it compresses them a bit without needing to use archives which suck, and it combines multiple discs. I do suggest using RetroArch with this and the Mednafen PS1 core. I didn't cover PBP's in the tutorial as I wasn't using them at the time, but I am gonna make a tutorial video at some point about Rom and Disc compression, and what the best way to do this is without using WinRar or 7zip as I think they suck for doing this job. They do do a good job for compression, so just storing these is fine. However, when you want to start playing these games then it starts to become a huge pain. PBP's, CSO's, WBFS, GCM, Trimming, all stuff that helps certain systems save space, but have it still be playable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HoXz8UyCSk

[Bedwyr]

Trying to use psx2psp 1.4 and oddly I can only select up to three discs (testing out FFIX). The fourth and fifth slots refuse to be selectable.

[Lordmonkus]

Hmm, I have version 1.4.2 but I don't have any of the Final Fantasy games but I can load in 5 images using Lunar and Lunar 2. I did not try combining them obviously but they do load into each of the 5 slots.

[SentaiBrad]

Yea, I have all 5 slots working on mine too. Is yours 1.4.2 or 1.4? Try 1.4.2 or a different download.

[Bedwyr]

It was the silly theme. I switched to classic and generated an eboot.pbp inside a fresh FFIX folder. So how does one cause Retroarch to read said file without a .cue? Which core; any other settings?

[SentaiBrad]

Use Mednafen, and it reads the game just fine. RetroArch it's self can read any file, it's up to the core for what it supports. Mednafen mostly uses cue sheets, but it also uses the PBP file just fine. There are options in the input settings menu to swap between discs with keyboard presses, so you can change that around in there.

[Bedwyr]

Ah got it. 1.3.6 was a new download and I hadn't turned off the "filter file type" option when loading content. I think it's working ok after some BIOS shenanigans (I had 1001 in the folder rather than 5501) and a re-download of the core. Now I'll muck around with the input settings. Will ask for direction if I get stuck on something again. This looks like it should work quite well.

[SentaiBrad]

Yea, 1001 needs to be renamed to the missing file, which is commonly missed.

[Bedwyr]

I think it's working well. I could use some advice for a rip->install workflow. In your video you recommend IsoBuster for creating cue sheets. Example 1: Let's say I rip my FFVII discs to .iso. How would the cue sheets work in that case, one sheet for each disc and then will Retroarch correctly recognize the following .cue files via the disc changing shortcuts? (You didn't say so explicitly in your video, but I saw what I assumed were separate discs, and therefore different cue sheets for each disc in a game.) Example 2: Let's say that I compile everything to eboot.pbp. How does disc changing work in Retroarch with this loaded? I didn't need the cue sheet; will Retroarch recognize that the second disc is contained in the same file and I just need to hit the "next disc" input key? I ask for both partly because I want to have a better sense of how RA+Mednafen will handle things and partly because I'm still figuring out my workflow.

[SentaiBrad]

So if you do PBP files, you don't need cue sheets. I only showed the IsoBuster method because a lot of games don't come as cue / iso. You can technically create a cue sheet by hand, and yes it is 1 per disc. The cue sheet points to a specific iso file. Sub and ccd files should actually work as well. I know CCD files work for other cores, and you can edit the info files for RA to add more file extensions. The PBP files will combine multiple discs and you swap discs with a keyboard function in RetroArch. PBP is how I suggest users deal with PS1 games with Mednafen in RetroArch. I don't know if the disc switching function in RetroArch works with discs that are not in PBP files, but a save state, loading the new disc, and a save load will usually work too.

[Bedwyr]

Thanks. All is on PBP now and it looks like it's working. I'll still admit to a little trepidation, but only because I don't get to test disc change functionality until Aeris, erm, does a certain thing. I'm sure it works as advertised.