Sony's attempt at making a miniature version of one of its old school systems, the PlayStation Classic, has received mixed reviews. Major criticisms have stemmed from the hardware simply using an open source emulator, to the PlayStation Classic randomly having a mix of PAL and NTSC games. Now that the little throwback system has released, users have been tinkering with the software and trying to find secrets. YouTube channel Retro Gaming Arts has discovered that if you plug in a USB keyboard (not all keyboards appear to work, however) into the PlayStation Classic and hit the Escape key, the PCSX ReARMed emulator settings will appear that normally cannot be accessed. From here, you can change certain options, such as showing current framerate, changing the frameskip amount, loading savestates, forcing games to run at PAL or NTSC standards, adding filters like scanlines, and perhaps most interestingly, an ability to "Load CD Image". Multiple attempts have been made to get the PlayStation Classic to utilize this option to boot normally unsupported backups, though no breakthroughs have been made yet. It's only a matter of time until the community finds even more interesting details.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Wait, it didn't have savestates already?
Not a huge deal to me personally, as I rarely use them, but that is a huge oversight on Sony's part. Made worse by the fact that many PSX games don't allow frequent saving.

How so? Because people can potentially fix a shitty product?



At least Nintendo didn't go so low as to use an open source emulator This is just really lazy. PCSX ReARMed is just...not the best emulator.



PCSX ReARMed doesn't even use Gaussian interpolation, but ear-raping point-sampled interpolation for audio.

Not a lot of open source PSX emulators for ARM around, I thought PCSX-ReARMed was just about the best choice, but it clearly has more issues than I thought. Sony settling for something that not only has weird audio slowdown issues but also struggles to maintain 60 FPS which resulted in them using the PAL versions of many of the games (which shows they clearly realized this) shows how little they care about this device. At least Nintendo put effort into theirs and made it something more than a cashgrab, something people actually want to own on its own merits.
I think that for the price they could also have spent a little more on the hardware and ended up with a more stable 60 FPS and less compromises. Would have been the easy fix.

 

[Deleted User]

One of the best psx.game i played was
The Granstream Saga
Anyone else played it?

I did, with Wiisxr 2.3 beta for the Nintendo Wii.
Played it, because it is from the same guys that did the Soul Blazer Trilogy for the Snes.

 

[Noctosphere]

Look at you, swinging your textual hips; you're going to cause something to happen....I couldn't decide how to make it more "creepy uncle"....your refund is good for 15 minutes.




You mean, Grandia, right?

For the *____* (ya tu sabe, puto), SONY could have been testing the waters, seeing what would kill the PS2 Classic, what naysayers would accuse SONY of doing wrong, finding the "sweet spot" for games, etc,.

Basically, spend 3M to make 800K for data to spend 5M to make 50M.

lol no, not grandia, really, The Granstream Saga

 

[Rabbid4240]

It gets worse... Apparently Crash Bandicoot 1+2, Tomb Raider 1+2, PaRappa, and Mega Man Legends (oh sorry. mega MAM legends lol) were scrapped from the games list., according to the console's source code that Sony shared on their website.
Edit: there's actually 36 FUCKING GAMES that didn't make the cut. Source

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Shouldn't it be possible to just plug in an appropriately formatted USB drive and use the menu to load an ISO from it?
Thinking it might have to be EXT(3/4) formatted. But I guess they might have automount disabled which would make that difficult without accessing a terminal.

Apart from Nintendo didn't start the mini consoles going.

Fucking Nintendo fans again with the Nintendo did it first and Sony copied.

Sega have rights to a third party that have been making mini Sega consol3s for fucking years before Nintendo ever decided to do the mini nes.

And they did such an awful job at it that people prefer to forget it ever happened. Thanks for reminding us

It gets worse... Apparently Crash Bandicoot 1+2, Tomb Raider 1+2, PaRappa, and Mega Man Legends (oh sorry. mega MAM legends lol) were scrapped from the games list., according to the console's source code that Sony shared on their website.

That isn't Sony's website though? Just some rando with homebrew stuff on his repo.

 

[the_randomizer]

Okay, there's using an open source emulator (btw, anyone who owns this thing -> mail Sony for the source code, you have both the right to get it and distribute it, the whole thing is under GPLv2) and there's using one but not even modifying it to your own needs.

So far it just seems like a single core RetroArch box with a UI Sony quickly slapped together.

Bingo. Hit the nail on the head. Even Nintendo put forth more effort in their mini consoles.

 

[Molhel]

Everyone should have expected crap quality the moment the subpar library was revealed.

 

[the_randomizer]

Everyone should have expected crap quality the moment the subpar library was revealed.

Oh we knew it was gonna be crap, but allowing people to access the menu via USB keyboard's the icing on the cake.

 

[Saiyan Lusitano]

Great job $ony, this is yet another evidence that you made this product just to do a quick cash-grab and jump on the classic mini trend ninty just started

What? No. SEGA started the trend with the help (or lack thereof) of AT Games.

Nintendo fanboys/fans for some reason think Nintendo began the whole mini classic console buzz.

 

[the_randomizer]

What? No. SEGA started the trend with the help (or lack thereof) of AT Games.

Nintendo fanboys/fans for some reason think Nintendo began the whole mini classic console buzz.

AtGames needs to learn how to not suck at programming, no wonder Sega sacked them.

 

[GerbilSoft]

What? No. SEGA started the trend with the help (or lack thereof) of AT Games.

Nintendo fanboys/fans for some reason think Nintendo began the whole mini classic console buzz.

And AtGames is the reason why no one gave a shit about mini consoles for years.

 

[Sakitoshi]

Not a lot of open source PSX emulators for ARM around, I thought PCSX-ReARMed was just about the best choice, but it clearly has more issues than I thought. Sony settling for something that not only has weird audio slowdown issues but also struggles to maintain 60 FPS which resulted in them using the PAL versions of many of the games (which shows they clearly realized this) shows how little they care about this device. At least Nintendo put effort into theirs and made it something more than a cashgrab, something people actually want to own on its own merits.
I think that for the price they could also have spent a little more on the hardware and ended up with a more stable 60 FPS and less compromises. Would have been the easy fix.

All ps1 emulators have issues right now.
pcsxr and rearmed are about the best lightweight emulators while also being feature rich and the only open sourced at that.
epsxe is also great and lightweight, but lacks some enhancements that pcsx has, is closed source and the arm version (android) is paid.
sony could have paid epsxe to make a psclassic specific port. I bet it would have been better only because the author would have a better understanding of what parts of his emulator can be toned down without affecting compatibility while maintaining accuracy. but they opted to go for pcsx because it was as simple as typing "make".
the funny thing is that it looks like they apparently did exactly that, as they didn't even bothered to modify a pretty obvious setting (https://github.com/xyzz/psclassic-source/blob/master/pcsx_rearmed_custom/frontend/menu.c#L112). that change alone would solve 80% of the problems eliminating the slowdown and the need to use pal versions.
for the record, that setting is exactly like that in the non-libretro rearmed, but it was changed to 100 in the libretro core 8 months ago. and is not like they did nothing, they added some line to that very same file (https://github.com/xyzz/psclassic-source/blob/master/pcsx_rearmed_custom/frontend/menu.c#L46).

 

[The Real Jdbye]

All ps1 emulators have issues right now.
pcsxr and rearmed are about the best lightweight emulators while also being feature rich and the only open sourced at that.
epsxe is also great and lightweight, but lacks some enhancements that pcsx has, is closed source and the arm version (android) is paid.
sony could have paid epsxe to make a psclassic specific port. I bet it would have been better only because the author would have a better understanding of what parts of his emulator can be toned down without affecting compatibility while maintaining accuracy. but they opted to go for pcsx because it was as simple as typing "make".
the funny thing is that it looks like they apparently did exactly that, as they didn't even bothered to modify a pretty obvious setting (https://github.com/xyzz/psclassic-source/blob/master/pcsx_rearmed_custom/frontend/menu.c#L112). that change alone would solve 80% of the problems eliminating the slowdown and the need to use pal versions.
for the record, that setting is exactly like that in the non-libretro rearmed, but it was changed to 100 in the libretro core 8 months ago. and is not like they did nothing, they added some line to that very same file (https://github.com/xyzz/psclassic-source/blob/master/pcsx_rearmed_custom/frontend/menu.c#L46).

That was what I thought as well, but it's obviously not up to the task, what I mean is that if the available open source options can't do a satisfactory job they shouldn't just settle, they should make their own.

ePSXe would have been an obvious choice, but as you said it's not open source, plus it's made for Android, and Android is significantly different from GNU/Linux, so it wouldn't be a simple recompile job.

Where are people getting that source repo? It seems to be just some homebrew dev, why is the repo on his account specifically? Was he perhaps offered a job designing the software side of things for Sony? Or did he just take the source from another public download and reup it on GitHub?

To me, that doesn't seem to be a very obvious thing to change. I would assume that the defaults would be optimized for best performance on low end ARM devices, and that increasing the setting would only cause the CPU usage to be pinned at 100%. If they actually had a thorough look at the source code, they might have thought to play with that setting to see if it helps anything, but I honestly doubt they looked through much of the source, probably just enough of it to change the obvious things they wanted to change. Which is evident by the fact that the Esc key emulator menu was left in. If they were too lazy/cheap to code their own emulator, why would they spend resources on scouring the entire source code when it's obviously just a cashgrab? I don't expect that much from them at this point.

 

[Sakitoshi]

Where are people getting that source repo?

you can get all the sources from here.
https://doc.dl.playstation.net/doc/psclassic-oss/

Or did he just take the source from another public download and reup it on GitHub?

exactly, sony offers only zip files with the sources. he just kindly uploaded everything to his github.

and that cpu setting is not cpu utilization, but percentage of cpu speed. so what is happening is that they are downclocking the playstation cpu. that setting was like that exactly for what you said, 3 years ago it was helpful since arm devices really weren't up to the task, but nowdays it is mostly useless. I'm certain that the mediatek 8167a (quad core [email protected]) is more than capable of running the emulator at 100% cpu clock since a raspi 3 (quadcore [email protected]) can do it even with the overhead of libretro.
they could have at least taken a look at that libretro thing everyone is talking about and see what are the default settings there, but they didn't.

 

[SG854]

We've seen paper clips, soldering jobs, magnets, etc...


But never have I seen something as simple, as literally spending 3secs plugging in a Standard USB Keyboard.... Absolutely incredible.

Next pressing the reset button will do the trick.

 

[Ev1l0rd]

you can get all the sources from here.
https://doc.dl.playstation.net/doc/psclassic-oss/

There's several pieces of source code missing there.

They're selling GPL code as one product, the entire thing goes under the provisions of the GPL. Mail Sony for the source of all the stuff they link under the ISC license, I'm pretty sure they're legally bound to link it.

Also, they need to provide compilation instructions on how to make the image they flash. It's part of the GPLv2, clause 3:

The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source
code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any
associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to
control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a
special exception, the source code distributed need not include
anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary
form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the
operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component
itself accompanies the executable.

(IANAL!)

 

[Sakitoshi]

There's several pieces of source code missing there.

They're selling GPL code as one product, the entire thing goes under the provisions of the GPL. Mail Sony for the source of all the stuff they link under the ISC license, I'm pretty sure they're legally bound to link it.

Also, they need to provide compilation instructions on how to make the image they flash. It's part of the GPLv2, clause 3:



(IANAL!)

...complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files,...

which they are including.
if a module is missing then it isn't open sourced. for example the sony and playstation logos, the interface and the fonts are missing but all those components are private.

...plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable.

meaning the make files, which are there.

However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.

exactly what I already said. if something doesn't need to be distributed, even if is bundled in the product (the cover art images, cd iso files, etc...), then you are free to not release it.

 

[Ev1l0rd]

which they are including.
if a module is missing then it isn't open sourced. for example the sony and playstation logos, the interface and the fonts are missing but all those components are private.


meaning the make files, which are there.


exactly what I already said. if something doesn't need to be distributed, even if is bundled in the product (the cover art images, cd iso files, etc...), then you are free to not release it.

Except they're distributing it all strings attached as a complete product.

They have to open source the interface and the fonts. Same for the logo's. Thems the breaks if you use GPL code/assets in your project. If you use it, your complete product, which in this case is the entire PS Classic, must be under GPL.

Its being distributed, ergo it goes under the provisions of the GPL.

The GPL is not a nice license. It's a strong license with a very powerful copyleft. There's a reason companies like Google and Microsoft shy away from it and use CLAs to transfer the copyright to them if they work with one of those projects.

(IANAL!)

 

[Sakitoshi]

Except they're distributing it all strings attached as a complete product.

They have to open source the interface and the fonts. Same for the logo's. Thems the breaks if you use GPL code/assets in your project. If you use it, your complete product, which in this case is the entire PS Classic, must be under GPL.

Its being distributed, ergo it goes under the provisions of the GPL.

The GPL is not a nice license. It's a strong license with a very powerful copyleft. There's a reason companies like Google and Microsoft shy away from it and use CLAs to transfer the copyright to them if they work with one of those projects.

(IANAL!)

then go ask id software to do the same, they have several of their old games source code released under gpl and I'm not seeing even a single logo or asset in there even when those are clearly part of the final product.
gpl doesn't work like that.

 

[Cha0tic]

Hey guys I just bought one

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