Hacking PSP - Worth buying for emulation?

[dalto]

I am thinking of picking up a PSP before they disappear completely purely for handheld emulation. Is it worth it? How good are the emulators?

Primarily would be interested in NES, SNES, Genesis, TG16, N64 and PSX

I found lots of information on SNES/N64 compatibility but not much on the other platforms.

 

[Nathan Drake]

From my experience: SNES works fantastic. I would assume it's safe to say NES would work fine, too, as even the DS has a pretty good NES emulator.

N64 works miserably. The emulator is still basically just proof of concept, though they have managed to get some games working reasonably well. Sound is choppy garbage and slows down the games, so you don't want to play with it on in the emulator settings. Games such as Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time do work, but my personal experience says it isn't worth the time and frustration.

Pretty sure Genesis works well.

PS1 works amazingly well. Convert the PS1 ISO's to EBOOT's, then just run it using popsloader for compatibility, and you're good to go.

 

[Snailface]

PSP emulation quality: Legendary
Buy one.

 

[kthnxshwn]

Emulation is the only thing anyone should be buying a PSP for.

 

[MadHouse38]

yeah i use emulators more then psp games

 

[Rydian]

SNES: As you know, great.
Genesis: Great.
NES: Great.
GB/C: Great
GBA: Great minus a few titles.
N64: ... eh. Might not even want to bother except for the novelty.
PS1: Good. Lots of titles have issues you need to take annoying steps to fix, but then they run well. It's not full emulation so things are fullspeed, it's more about compatibility issues.

 

[xist]

Out of interest has anyone found a definitive list of problem GBA and SNES games? Which is up to date? Or even problem games for PSP emulation full stop...

 

[chris888222]

tl,dr: PSP is awesome for emu. I played GBA on my old one and it turned out very well.

 

[Rydian]

Out of interest has anyone found a definitive list of problem GBA and SNES games? Which is up to date? Or even problem games for PSP emulation full stop...

Star Fox is slow.

On a more serious note some sections of some SNES games can be slow if they use palette writes, changing the setting for that to "simple" or "disabled" fixes it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KJg_lXu1BU

 

[ZAFDeltaForce]

SNES: As you know, great.
Genesis: Great.
NES: Great.
GB/C: Great
GBA: Great minus a few titles.
N64: ... eh. Might not even want to bother except for the novelty.
PS1: Good. Lots of titles have issues you need to take annoying steps to fix, but then they run well. It's not full emulation so things are fullspeed, it's more about compatibility issues.

What he said.

Then again, my experience with PS1 emulation has been nothing but flawless. I ran every eboot (Ripped the ISO from my own physical copy and converted/ Bought an online retail eboot from PSN) flawlessly with no slowdown or problems.
I might have just had a lucky streak though.

N64 emulation is terrible at the moment. I wouldn't even consider it at all.

 

[dickfour]

The PSP is the best handheld for emulation. MAME sucks though. If you want final burn or mame buy a GPH Caanoo, the only other handheld fit for emaultion. If I had to pick one though I'd have to go with the PSP because of the awsome PSX support.

 

[dalto]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I ordered one. Should be here later this week.

 

[zachtheninja]

PSP emulation:
The only thing better is the original console.