Hardware How accurate is PSP "emulation" on vita ?

[Yohanov]

1) How does the retro-compatibility works on Vita ? Does the vita totally emulates the psp ?
Does the vita has extra dedicated hardware for psp games ?
Or is the vita hardware similar enough to the psp hardware that it can also read psp games ?

2) Does psp games have imput lag when played on vita ?
Can the framerate of psp games be lower on vita than on psp ?

Actually I know for a fact that framedrop is possible when there is a lot of elements on the screen, because I saw it on a video comparing a 60 fps psp rythm game on psp and vita, maybe it was project diva, and on the vita when a song that was really fast started to have a lot of notes on the screen the framerate started to drop, I assume because the higher resolution vita screen couldn't follow that speed.
I tried to find that video back but I can't , sorry.

But what I wonder is if it happen only on these fast rythm games that aren't optimized for vita or can the framerate drops on any demanding psp game ?

I can't find much infos anywhere on vita retro-compatibility so I was hoping someone here had some
knowledge or experience about it

 

[WeedZ]

It runs the psp fw natively. Its not emulated. So 100%

 

[spotanjo3]

Yeah, WeedZ is correct. The PSP games on PSVita is not emulated. Its FW natively which means it is fully 100%.

 

[Deleted User]

It runs the psp fw natively. Its not emulated. So 100%

Technically, it is emulation because:

1) the codename for the PSP emulator the Vita ships with is called "pspemu" xD
and 2) it can play any PSP games and homebrew without fail. (probably not a reason, but...)

Actually, did you know that the psp emulator in the Vita emulates a PSP-1000?

 

[cvskid]

Technically, it is emulation because:

1) the codename for the PSP emulator the Vita ships with is called "pspemu" xD
and 2) it can play any PSP games and homebrew without fail. (probably not a reason, but...)

Actually, did you know that the psp emulator in the Vita emulates a PSP-1000?

Makes me wish it emulated a psp 2000 instead since certain emulators take up less space on a psp 2000 like cps2psp and mvspsp.

 

[Yohanov]

Alright so it's not emulation, but real hardware. So nobody experienced some framerate hiccups anyways ? Keep in mind even with real hardware it's not always perfect, the gamecube gameboy player has hiccups, some ps1 games won't run on ps2 etc...

I know that for a game like DJMAX portable 3, on the very high speed level 7+ song, the framerate isn't as smooth on the vita than on the PSP, so although it's native the compatibility is not perfect.

I found back the video I was talking about in the OP but it's in french, at the end of the vid the guy run the same song on both console and mentions that on the vita it's not as smooth but you can't really see it

 

[Deleted-355425]

the vita does PSP and PS1 natively.

 

[Deleted User]

Ah. I've been growing up in the Vita scene thinking it was an emulator, since the devs usually call it an emulator too, but I guess me and them were all wrong...

 

[cvskid]

Ah. I've been growing up in the Vita scene thinking it was an emulator, since the devs usually call it an emulator too, but I guess me and them were all wrong...

Native as in the ps vita has built in psp and ps1 hardware since it doesnt take actual psp/ps1 disc?

 

[Jayro]

Can you run PS1 eboots on the vita within the vPSP's CFW?

 

[Deleted-355425]

you can but n point when you can play them natively.

 

[Jayro]

you can but n point when you can play them natively.

I meant custom eboots, not ones you have to buy from $ony.

 

[Deleted-355425]

I meant custom eboots, not ones you have to buy from $ony.

you can play both on both man.

the eboots on epsp which you are talking about have sfx glitches and the likes, play them liek this



and its perfect.

 

[TecXero]

I'm sure there's some minor differences, mainly when it comes to some homebrew and PS1 games due to it not having the ME, just having the main core handle everything. I could be wrong, I haven't poked at the Vita at all, I just remember that coming up as an issue a few times over on Wololo. I doubt it's that big of a deal, anyway, the ME wasn't that great and required a shitload of overhead.

 

[tin_yaboku]

I'm very weirded out by the people calling this 'native', unless people use the word natively different here.

The PS Vita includes a PSP emulator. It does not have the hardware necessary to natively run PSP games. The PS3 60GB model ran PS2 games natively, as it included the hardware, which was removed in later revisions due to cost. The 3DS includes an ARMv9 Processor to natively run DS games.
No PSP hardware is included in the Vita.

The PSP Emulator on the Vita is near 100% for the games released on the PSN Store. I have not tinkered with anything beyond that so can't speak to user-prepared games but they should run fairly well, as previously suggested as well as on the PSP 1000.

No discernable input lag as far as I can tell. It runs games much better than my PC does with ppsspp. I can't tell the difference between God Eater on my PSP and on my Vita, and that is a fairly intense game. Something like God of War could be a different story though.

 

[Yohanov]

Yeah that's why I started this thread, wanted to have clarification on the native vs emulated nature of psp by the vita hardware.

The reply from tin_yaboku just above and the other replies are contradictory so i'm still confused. Maybe it wasn't the right forum to ask that.
Sounds like most people don't really know the nuances between what is really "native", what is partially native and partially emulated etc.

And even with native hardware there are sometimes issues, like frame repeating/frameskip on the game boy player/super gameboy etc, so sometimes native doesnt mean 100% accuracy either.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

No idea why any of you think the PSP stuff on the Vita is native, there's 0 PSP hardware in a Vita, it's all emulated in a sandbox.

PSP mode is emulated in a sandbox, though technically it's not a complete emulation. PSP mode, in its legit form anyways, doesn't include a full PSP firmware. PSP mode uses a special wrapper for things that are different on the Vita, like Wifi, memory cards, and other stuff (which is what Kermit is, if you've ever heard that term when someone talks about eCFW). IIRC, someone on Wololo did a write up on this stuff...a while back. I don't remember when, and I can't find it with my quick 5 second Google search, but I definitely remember reading it.

Anyways, the PSP emulation is near flawless. You shouldn't have any slow down or input lag in PSP mode, mostly because (according to some benchmarks) the Vita emulates the PSP's CPU around 200mhz faster than an actual PSP (something around 500mhz instead of 300-333mhz). Some people have actually found PSP games run faster on the Vita than they do on an actual PSP. The only slowdowns you (should) see compared to an actual PSP are only for loading times, as PSP mode has to use the kermit wrapper to access the Vita's memory card.

 

[yifan_lu]

I'm very weirded out by the people calling this 'native', unless people use the word natively different here.

The PS Vita includes a PSP emulator. It does not have the hardware necessary to natively run PSP games. The PS3 60GB model ran PS2 games natively, as it included the hardware, which was removed in later revisions due to cost. The 3DS includes an ARMv9 Processor to natively run DS games.
No PSP hardware is included in the Vita.

The PSP Emulator on the Vita is near 100% for the games released on the PSN Store. I have not tinkered with anything beyond that so can't speak to user-prepared games but they should run fairly well, as previously suggested as well as on the PSP 1000.

No discernable input lag as far as I can tell. It runs games much better than my PC does with ppsspp. I can't tell the difference between God Eater on my PSP and on my Vita, and that is a fairly intense game. Something like God of War could be a different story though.

No idea why any of you think the PSP stuff on the Vita is native, there's 0 PSP hardware in a Vita, it's all emulated in a sandbox.

PSP mode is emulated in a sandbox, though technically it's not a complete emulation. PSP mode, in its legit form anyways, doesn't include a full PSP firmware. PSP mode uses a special wrapper for things that are different on the Vita, like Wifi, memory cards, and other stuff (which is what Kermit is, if you've ever heard that term when someone talks about eCFW). IIRC, someone on Wololo did a write up on this stuff...a while back. I don't remember when, and I can't find it with my quick 5 second Google search, but I definitely remember reading it.

Anyways, the PSP emulation is near flawless. You shouldn't have any slow down or input lag in PSP mode, mostly because (according to some benchmarks) the Vita emulates the PSP's CPU around 200mhz faster than an actual PSP (something around 500mhz instead of 300-333mhz). Some people have actually found PSP games run faster on the Vita than they do on an actual PSP. The only slowdowns you (should) see compared to an actual PSP are only for loading times, as PSP mode has to use the kermit wrapper to access the Vita's memory card.

You're both wrong as there is MIPS hardware in the Vita. Of course nobody has delayered the main SoC to prove it (there are reports behind expensive paywalls though). However, the main RAM in the psp hardware is shared with the Vita, and kermit is used to implement many of the devices (memory card for example). DMA is used for the screen buffer and a shared sram is used for other things like control input and such. A simple heuristic for reasoning that it's not emulated (but not the only reason): consider every file in the vita os0: vs0: dump that relates to the PSP. Of course we can't decrypt them, but looking at the sizes, if you remove the flash0 files (which of course takes up a lot of space), the "emulator" is ~100kb total; that's impossible without some hardware. You can compare this with the size of PSP emulator on the PS3.

 

[Vlad_78]

Hi guys! was taking advantage of this metal gear sale and bought metal gear solid portable ops plus when I entered list to download , look the problem appears to me , and now how low the game for psvita ?

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Hi guys! was taking advantage of this metal gear sale and bought metal gear solid portable ops plus when I entered list to download , look the problem appears to me , and now how low the game for psvita ?

Not the right topic for this post...

But to answer your question, Portable Ops, and by extension Portable Ops Plus, can't be played on the Vita for US accounts, only for EU accounts.