Retroarch PSX cores differences

[Headrush69]

I've tried to find answers on Retroarch's forums and discord several times but never got any concrete answers.

Anyone know 100% sure that the beetle_psx core is exactly the same as using the beetle_hw_psx core with the software renderer?

Why maintain 2 cores then? Only thing I would summize would be that the beetle_psx core might be lighter on resources with the other renderers removed for more restricted hardware like the Pi.

 

Also, anyone have experience using the PSX bios from the PSP with their emulators?

 From what I've read this Sony tweeked BIOS has improvements which helps and optimizes many games under emulation. 

 

[ItchyRobot]

All I know is that the HW version allows for using your GPU, while the other version doesn't - software only. It makes a huge difference for upscaling resolutions and textures, etc. I think your assumptions are probably correct.

[Headrush69]

14 minutes ago, ItchyRobot said:

All I know is that the HW version allows for using your GPU, while the other version doesn't - software only. It makes a huge difference for upscaling resolutions and textures, etc. I think your assumptions are probably correct.

I'm really conflicted on which I prefer. 

Even the software core at 2x internal resolution with a shader looks pretty good.

If you go nuts with the hardware settings, you loose the feel for the real PS1 experience and you might as well run the PS2 version of the game. (Seems so many were done on both)

I'll probably end with a mix of running different games with different renderers using beetle_hw_psx. At this point in my build it's more about reducing the number of cores/emulators for long term maintenance. It seems from the libretro github pages for those cores that the software only core is a stripped down version as they do share common commit and issue pages.

[ItchyRobot]

It may be comparability too. I would imagine the non-HW version, running at all default resolutions is pretty accurate. Though, I have some roms that freeze at loading screens. I was thinking about starting to try some other cores... but I too like having minimal cores if possible.

[polygonslayer]

From my experience I found that by far the most accurate is using the non-HW version. When I was setting my PS1 games up and did find some games that did not look right and had some minor graphical bugs when using the HW core, even with everything on default.
Overall on my setup every game is defaulted to boot using the non-HW core with only 2x resolution enabled. Gives that PS1 feeling while still looking not too crazy pixelated on a 50" TV.
There is one exception to this, that is a game called Monkey Hero. From the research I was doing at the time I found that only epsxe would get past the loading screen to that game (possibly pcsx would do it as well, but not tried it). But yeah, apparently that game is doing something really funky in its code which makes it not work on the beetle cores.

[Headrush69]

1 hour ago, polygonslayer said:

Overall on my setup every game is defaulted to boot using the non-HW core with only 2x resolution enabled. Gives that PS1 feeling while still looking not too crazy pixelated on a 50" TV.

That’s what I am doing now also.

I’ll check out Monkey Hero on this new BIOS and let you know if it helps.