Homebrew PS1/2 Emulator Project WiiSX / CubeSX (PCSXGC) with Lightrec Project - Beta testers & feedback needed!

[SaulFabre]

Hi there all,

After a LOOOONG time of the development of the legendary Sony PlayStation 1 emulator for Wii, WiiSX (formerly PCSXGC) was discontinued in 2010/2011, the development of WiiSX has been REBOOTED by @emukidid... but this time you'll never expect this:

WiiSX/CubeSX with Lightrec - a very cool and light dynarec!

The author of this cool light dynamic recompiler Lightrec, pcercuei (http://github.com/pcercuei/lightrec), was working in this cool project for a while, and he implemented (and he is still implementing) the Lightrec to the first WiiSX/CubeSX emulator, so it can be integrated on later forks (such WiiStation by @xjsxjs197 and WiiSXRX by @niuus).

By the way, this is still a WIP (Work In Progress), so i will make this thread for post builds for WiiSX and CubeSX with Lightrec implementation, but also WiiSX/CubeSX will get the CDRISO plugin from PCSX-df and the DFSound plugin from PCSX-Reloaded, meaning that WiiSX/CubeSX soon will say goodbye to the CDRMooby CD-ROM plugin, FranSPU sound plugin, their old PPC (PowerPC) dynarec, and more.

This new implementation aims to get a better speed at PS1 emulation on GC/Wii and also gain a bit more compatibility.

Video showcases:



As i said, this is currently a WIP, and we need BETA testers & feedback from all the GBAtemp community!
(@ploggy, if you're reading this, pls test these new builds )

Please consider test these new builds i've compiled here. Compiled until git 0d62bd3 (February 22, 2023)
Avaliable for GameCube and Wii.

Tell me what do you think about this new cool project.

Greetings to all!

saulfabreg - @SaulFabre

 

[GustavoReis]

Hi @SaulFabre, thanks for sharing this.
Can you create a new channel to original WiiSx? Your WiiStation channel are the best!

 

[cheloruiz79]

I have tried it as a wiiflow plugin excellent performance in mk4 but when exiting the emulator a black screen appears and the autoboot of the games does not work I will continue trying everything I can thanks for the excellent work

 

[SaulFabre]

I have tried it as a wiiflow plugin excellent performance in mk4 but when exiting the emulator a black screen appears and the autoboot of the games does not work I will continue trying everything I can thanks for the excellent work

Currently the original WiiSX doesnt support autoboot. I've opened a PR to WiiSX for integrate autoboot officially to WiiSX, but this is still not merged, but anyways lets cross the fingers to get my modification merged
This was picked from WiiSXRX by @niuus, this modification was made by @Wiimpathy
https://github.com/emukidid/pcsxgc/pull/8

 

[cheloruiz79]

Currently the original WiiSX doesnt support autoboot. I've opened a PR to WiiSX for integrate autoboot officially to WiiSX, but this is still not merged, but anyways lets cross the fingers to get my modification merged
This was picked from WiiSXRX by @niuus, this modification was made by @Wiimpathy
https://github.com/emukidid/pcsxgc/pull/8

Thank you very much friend I will continue testing my collection of games

 

[ilikegoldengrahams]

Nice. Any chance of lightgun emulation? Just updated my Wii's softmods after about 6-7years so apologies if it's already happened...

 

[Nintendoswitchmodfan]

Nice!! I hope Digimon World runs perfect now, I love it so much and want to play it on my Nintendo Wii!!!!

 

[SaulFabre]

autoboot of the games does not work

I have remade the PR because the old one had conflict with latest commits / code.
https://github.com/emukidid/pcsxgc/pull/10

when exiting the emulator a black screen appears

There's an annoying bug on the old WiiSX that there's some code but only works on old HBC, and that doesn't work with latest HBC. This issue also happens when trying to exit to the Wii System Menu.
Refer to latest WiiSXRX code for fix that. https://github.com/emukidid/pcsxgc/pull/9

Nice. Any chance of lightgun emulation? Just updated my Wii's softmods after about 6-7years so apologies if it's already happened...

This could be hard for developers to integrate light gun emulation on a PS1 emulator for Wii like WiiSX(R/RX/WiiStation)...

 

[ploggy]

Cool to see PCSXGC/WiiSX getting some love with Lightrec these will become the best of the bunch.
As for Lightgun Emulation Wiimpathy added Wiimote Pointer support to Mame Gun games so the code is available, don't know how hard it would be to incorporate that into WiiSX though.
I'll try out WiiSX when I get a chance, interested to see the perf difference between Wii/WiiU CPU overclock compared to Wiistation Wii/WiiU CPU overclock

 

[niuus]

Yeah, the great project by the mega talented emukidid. The big question is: why are you calling it reboot? It's the same classic PCSXGC/WiiSX, which never stopped development, it just slowed down. I've been following his project for many, many years now, patiently waiting for his new takes on the PSX emulator.

The main difference he is aiming from what i've seen over the years is the use of 3D acceleration, which funny enough you didn't mention. That would be achieved, if my memory serves right, by the use of an OpenGL implementation wrapper on the GX subsystem, called OpenGX. He's actually been using the well known open source plugin P.E.Op.S OpenGL, for more than 5 years. I even compiled some personal builds back in the day.

That should end up alleviating the CPU load and hopefully, who knows what the future holds, probably allow the emulator for full speed all the time on the Wii, without the typical Wii U overclocking. Maybe even the Gamecube could achieve close to 60fps all the time.

Out of courtesy, did you ask him permission to publicly post WIP builds of it? His work is not done (hence why he has been working quietly and slowly over the years) and that may redirect undesired attention and progress begging to his project on the issues section, specially people that only live to make useless or pointless comparisons against other emulators or even PC emulators (most people on the forum might remember these obnoxious users), that just want to desperately play their pirated full set.

 

[ploggy]

Yeah, the great project by the mega talented emukidid. The big question is: why are you calling it reboot? It's the same classic PCSXGC/WiiSX, which never stopped development, it just slowed down. I've been following his project for many, many years now, patiently waiting for his new takes on the PSX emulator.

The main difference he is aiming from what i've seen over the years is the use of 3D acceleration, which funny enough you didn't mention. That would be achieved, if my memory serves right, by the use of an OpenGL implementation wrapper on the GX subsystem, called OpenGX. He's actually been using the well known open source plugin P.E.Op.S OpenGL, for more than 5 years. I even compiled some personal builds back in the day.

That should end up alleviating the CPU load and hopefully, who knows what the future holds, probably allow the emulator for full speed all the time on the Wii, without the typical Wii U overclocking. Maybe even the Gamecube could achieve close to 60fps all the time.

Out of courtesy, did you ask him permission to publicly post WIP builds of it? His work is not done (hence why he has been working quietly and slowly over the years) and that may redirect undesired attention and progress begging to his project on the issues section, specially people that only live to make useless or pointless comparisons against other emulators or even PC emulators (most people on the forum might remember these obnoxious users), that just want to desperately play their pirated full set.

I was going to ask the same thing about permission

Yea, it's more of a big level up than a reboot.
In my quick test CTR got to 64-70 fps in WiiSX with Frame Limiter off and as high as 100fps with WiiU Overclock!
Sound was abit mangled but for a WIP its expected.

 

[niuus]

I was going to ask the same thing about permission

Yeah, we really don't want to miss such a cool advancement by tunneling annoying traffic and useless issues or questions about release date/features to his pages, specially over unreleased and unfinished software. Most users don't read any disclaimers or documentation, they just download, use, and then complain, ignoring if the software says work-in-progress even with a big red splash screen at boot, not to mention bad comments on groups about how much 'emulation sucks' on the Wii . He has been undisturbed for a decade, without needing testers nor reports, as he has his own pace.

Yea, it's more of a big level up than a reboot.
In my quick test CTR got to 64-70 fps in WiiSX with Frame Limiter off and as high as 100fps with WiiU Overclock!
Sound was abit mangled but for a WIP its expected.

3D acceleration will probably be the next step for PSX on the Wii. It's pretty cool to see all these advancements over the years. Wii scene has been very fruitful, whether with homebrew or with emulation! Even Gamecube gets its fair share. I guess the next 'big thing' in the distant future could be 32X on GenesisPlus GX, Jaguar emulation (through a hypothetical open source release and port of BigPEmu), NEC PC-FX speed improvements... or even Bluetooth Fakemote?

Exciting times for the Wii.

 

[ploggy]

Yeah, we really don't want to miss such a cool advancement by tunneling annoying traffic and useless issues or questions about release date/features to his pages, specially over unreleased and unfinished software. Most users don't read any disclaimers or documentation, they just download, use, and then complain, ignoring if the software says work-in-progress even with a big red splash screen at boot, not to mention bad comments on groups about how much 'emulation sucks' on the Wii . He has been undisturbed for a decade, without needing testers nor reports, as he has his own pace.


3D acceleration will probably be the next step for PSX on the Wii. It's pretty cool to see all these advancements over the years. Wii scene has been very fruitful, whether with homebrew or with emulation! Even Gamecube gets its fair share. I guess the next 'big thing' in the distant future could be 32X on GenesisPlus GX, Jaguar emulation (through a hypothetical open source release and port of BigPEmu), NEC PC-FX speed improvements... or even Bluetooth Fakemote?

Exciting times for the Wii.

3D acceleration would be great to see and would help alot with WiiSX. The Wii scene is probably still one of the best scene's and still has it's moments and of course everything that happens in the Wii scene comes to WiiU
I'm more excited for the GC developments tbh, fullspeed PS1 emulation in GC will be a big achievement.

32X is already possible on Wii/U with Picodrive so it wouldn't be as big as it would have been a few years ago, but still, it would be nice to see GenesisplusGX finally get 32X support lol
I have no doubt BigPEmu will eventually become open source and iirc the dev isn't against console ports. So who knows.
As for Fakemote my hope is to get Console-wide Bluetooth Controller support on vWii So as soon as boot the Wii on boot into vWii my Switch Pro Controller will work on ALL Hb and Wii Games.

 

[godreborn]

@SaulFabre , did you have to install lightrec to compile this? if so, I'm encountering a problem. I got this error in both cmd prompt and msys:

pinky@GODREBORN-LPTP MSYS ~/lightrec
$ cmake .
-- The C compiler identification is GNU 11.3.0
-- Detecting C compiler ABI info
-- Detecting C compiler ABI info - done
-- Check for working C compiler: /usr/bin/cc.exe - skipped
-- Detecting C compile features
-- Detecting C compile features - done
CMake Error at CMakeLists.txt:109 (find_library):
Could not find LIBLIGHTNING using the following names: lightning

I've tried pip install lightning, which I think it's referring to, but it will not install. I think it's deprecated or something.

 

[SaulFabre]

@SaulFabre , did you have to install lightrec to compile this?

Yeah you need to have installed the GNU Lightning and Lightrec libraries to your devkitPPC/libOGC setup.
pcercuei was able to explain me how to install said libraries.

I will leave some steps you have to do for install GNU Lightning and Lightrec on devkitPPC:

Quote from saulfabregwiivc (me):

1. Install Git for Windows https://gitforwindows.org/
2. Install CMake https://cmake.org/
3. Restart your PC
4. On MSys2, run pacman -Syyuu a few times for install everything you need for compile this thing.
5. Close the MSys2, reopen it, and do the next following steps for compile GNU Lightning and Lightrec.

Quote from pcercuei:

GNU Lightning / Lightrec build​

Make sure you have access rights to the devkitpro toolchain, otherwise installing the files and libraries will fail.
If needed, you can run these scripts as root.

Build GNU Lightning​

git clone https://git.savannah.gnu.org/git/lightning.git
cd lightning

export PATH=$PATH:/opt/devkitpro/devkitPPC/bin/

./bootstrap
./configure --host=powerpc-eabi --prefix=/ --enable-static --disable-shared

DESTDIR=/opt/devkitpro/devkitPPC/powerpc-eabi make -C lib install
DESTDIR=/opt/devkitpro/devkitPPC/powerpc-eabi make -C include install

Build Lightrec​

git clone https://github.com/pcercuei/lightrec.git
mkdir -p lightrec/build
cd lightrec/build

export PATH=$PATH:/opt/devkitpro/devkitPPC/bin/

cmake -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=/opt/devkitpro/cmake/devkitPPC.cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX= ..

DESTDIR=/opt/devkitpro/devkitPPC/powerpc-eabi make install

Build CubeSX​

git clone https://github.com/pcercuei/pcsxgc.git -b lightrec
cd pcsxgc/Gamecube

make -f Makefile_Cube_Lightrec

 

[godreborn]

Yeah you need to have installed the GNU Lightning and Lightrec libraries to your devkitPPC/libOGC setup.
pcercuei was able to explain me how to install said libraries.

I will leave some steps you have to do for install GNU Lightning and Lightrec on devkitPPC:

?

 

[SaulFabre]

?

internet problems, message edited, please reread again

Yeah you need to have installed the GNU Lightning and Lightrec libraries to your devkitPPC/libOGC setup.
pcercuei was able to explain me how to install said libraries.

I will leave some steps you have to do for install GNU Lightning and Lightrec on devkitPPC:

 

[godreborn]

internet problems, message edited, please reread again

error with DESTDIR=/opt/devkitpro/devkitPPC/powerpc-eabi make -C lib install

 

[SaulFabre]

error with DESTDIR=/opt/devkitpro/devkitPPC/powerpc-eabi make -C lib install

View attachment 356320

same thing happens to me

 

[godreborn]

same thing happens to me

pacman -Syyuu I forgot to do this, so it's upgrading a lot of shit.

Post automatically merged: Feb 28, 2023

nope, still errors.