Hacking Help With RetroArch PSP

[Arecaidian Fox]

I am trying to get one of the RetroArch ports for PSP to boot, but with no success. I have been pulling downloads for the PSP nightlys off the libretro.com site, going as far back as three months on a few random picks, but all they do is cause the PSP to hang and crash. If anyone has gotten one of these builds to work, please let me know what you did to get it running, especially if you've successfully tested the SNES9X Next core.

PSP 2001
6.60 PRO-C2
GAME.txt Plugins: CustomHOME 1.3.7, TempAR 1.63, AudioBoost for 6.2X-6.XX

 

[Nathan Drake]

I'm just going to come out and ask why you aren't using individual emulators. I mean, Retroarch rarely works as well as dedicated single system emulators, and considering I don't think a stable PSP version has ever been developed, you are far better off just leaving it behind for the world of stable, single system emulators. To give some context, I have never seen a single person say they were using Retroarch on PSP, nor have I ever seen someone actively recommend it. I'm guessing it's a dead in the water, half finished project at best.

Edit: To note, there are plenty of good tailor made emulators for the PSP for basically everything PSX (native to the PSP), to N64 (mostly proof of concept, but good for what it is), to basically everything older. SNES is pretty good, though it won't be positively perfect, and GBA emulation is also relatively excellent with just a few troublesome games that can usually be solved by using a different version of a given emulator.

 

[Arecaidian Fox]

I'm just going to come out and ask why you aren't using individual emulators. I mean, Retroarch rarely works as well as dedicated single system emulators, and considering I don't think a stable PSP version has ever been developed, you are far better off just leaving it behind for the world of stable, single system emulators. To give some context, I have never seen a single person say they were using Retroarch on PSP, nor have I ever seen someone actively recommend it. I'm guessing it's a dead in the water, half finished project at best.

Edit: To note, there are plenty of good tailor made emulators for the PSP for basically everything PSX (native to the PSP), to N64 (mostly proof of concept, but good for what it is), to basically everything older. SNES is pretty good, though it won't be positively perfect, and GBA emulation is also relatively excellent with just a few troublesome games that can usually be solved by using a different version of a given emulator.

I have plenty of standalone emulators to choose from, and have actively used them in the past. But I have been happy with the recent releases of RetroArch on other platforms, especially the Wii, and was hoping that the light-weight program and updated emulation cores would provide slightly better performance versus other standalone emulators on the PSP, akin to my other experiences.

 

[Nathan Drake]

Unfortunately, Retroarch never really got beyond very early beta on the PSP. Even the recent-ish revival effort basically got nowhere before people got bored and realized how pointless it was again. I don't even think they got a single core entirely stable and working right.

 

[Arecaidian Fox]

Unfortunately, Retroarch never really got beyond very early beta on the PSP. Even the recent-ish revival effort basically got nowhere before people got bored and realized how pointless it was again. I don't even think they got a single core entirely stable and working right.

Well, that's a real bummer. Was looking forward to being able to play Star Fox and other great games on a proper gaming handheld not running Android (by which I mean an nVidia Shield, for the small and measly price of just your firstborn child). Hell, on something like Star Fox, I would have gladly taken ~10FPS on RetroArch PSP, versus the 3-5 you get on SNES9Xtyl (if you're lucky)and it's plethora of mods.

 

[Clydefrosch]

the thing is, retroarch really isn't made for weak systems. the wii just had that sweetspot of just enough power and alternative emulators seemingly wasting precious resources on fancy menues and imperfect coding.
and i doubt even with extreme efforts, that they could get the fx chip game running significantly faster.
though is it really just 3-5 fps? i never tried star fox cause i dont like the game, but the fx games i remember trying at least got 20-30 frames

 

[Arecaidian Fox]

the thing is, retroarch really isn't made for weak systems. the wii just had that sweetspot of just enough power and alternative emulators seemingly wasting precious resources on fancy menues and imperfect coding.
and i doubt even with extreme efforts, that they could get the fx chip game running significantly faster.
though is it really just 3-5 fps? i never tried star fox cause i dont like the game, but the fx games i remember trying at least got 20-30 frames

I've tried about 3 different builds of SNES9Xtyl on my PSP, all of them tend to get about 3 to 5 frames a second on Star Fox (the DSTWO flashcart is about the same, maybe a frame or two a second more, not that it makes much difference). Star Fox itself doesn't natively run much more than 15-20 FPS on a Super Nintendo anyway, but getting in the neighborhood of 10 FPS on a PSP emulator certainly would have been fantastic. As for FX Chip emulation on RetroArch Wii itself, I get damn near flawless gameplay with it. I'll get an occasional audio pop and slowdown in super-busy areas, but that even happens on my copy of SNES9x 1.53 on my PC, so that's more of a game engine limitation.

 

[Hargrun]

Well, that's a real bummer. Was looking forward to being able to play Star Fox and other great games on a proper gaming handheld not running Android (by which I mean an nVidia Shield, for the small and measly price of just your firstborn child). Hell, on something like Star Fox, I would have gladly taken ~10FPS on RetroArch PSP, versus the 3-5 you get on SNES9Xtyl (if you're lucky)and it's plethora of mods.

What about Open Pandora or DragonBox Pyra (this one wasn't released yet)?

Both should emulate this and much more, not running Android. (They're more portable too.)

PS: Just throwing it on the table cuz you mentioned "proper gaming handheld".

 

[Arecaidian Fox]

What about Open Pandora or DragonBox Pyra (this one wasn't released yet)?

Both should emulate this and much more, not running Android. (They're more portable too.)

PS: Just throwing it on the table cuz you mentioned "proper gaming handheld".

I was thinking about seeing if I could put together a Raspberry Pi 2 with a few buttons and a couple small joysticks or something. They seem to be popular for emulation and the boards aren't too pricey. Heck, Win10 is going to have a build for them, so that would certainly be interesting. But honestly, money is a factor for me, at least right now. I've got nothing against Android at all, but the ones better-suited to emulation tend to be on the higher price points and overall I was hoping for a solution that didn't require the purchase of more hardware. Looks like I may be out of luck though, unless RetroArch for the 3DS turns out to be any good and I can one day boot GW through a DSTWO flashcart on my 9.5 system