RetroArch PSP

RetroArch
General
Author	Libretro development team
Type	Other Emulators
Version	1.10.0
License	GPL-3.0
Last Updated	2022/01/24
Links
Download
Website
Source

RetroArch (formerly SSNES) is an open-source, multiplatform modular application capable of emulating various systems created by the Libretro development team.

The PSP version of RetroArch is initiated by aliaspider and can emulate a range of systems such as: Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo (NES), MSX-1, MSX-2, PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16, NXEngine and PrBoom.

Features

• Consistency across multiple platforms (same UI structure and a fully featured command line interface).
• Gamepad controlled menu system with multiple styles available, such as XMB or Material UI.
• Gamepad auto-configuration profiles, so that gamepads are mapped automatically when connected.
• Per-core and per-game configuration overrides.
• Custom resolution and refresh rate for video output, with exclusive fullscreen mode and monitor index for multi-monitor setups.
• Dynamic rate control for smooth audio and video, even when the game's output rate is different from your system.
• Basic fast forward, SRAM saving, savestate, etc. It supports serialization of the emulation state which is used to provide real-time rewind and netplay.
• Pixel shaders, primarily using Cg and GLSL, with HLSL on Xbox 360.
• Supports audio DSP filter plugins through .dsp configuration files.
• Custom overlay support.
• FFmpeg recording and playback support.
• Streaming support.
• GGPO-like netplay (latency hiding rollback).
• Options for decreasing input latency related to vsync by eliminating buffering by the video driver, as well as using frame delay to delay polling of inputs until right before a vsync occurs on the display.
• Run-ahead to reduce latency.

Installation

Note: In order to run RetroArch you need to have the latest version of Custom Firmware (PRO-C)/Pro CFW insalled on your PSP.

To install, create RetroArch folder under /PSP/Game/ directory and transfer the archive files to the /PSP/Game/RetroArch/.

All the supported cores and all the assets are included in the latest release.

Under Game press X, and then select RetroArch. Press X again to open.

Note that some specific cores require BIOS roms/files present in the system directory in order to run.

User guide

BIOS and System files

• Some emulation cores require special system files or BIOS. Extract the system folder in that archive to where you installed RetroArch.
• If it doesn't find the BIOS, go to Settings> Directory> System/BIOS Dir (or find system_directory in the config file) and make sure it points to the system folder.
• You can check the list of BIOS here.

Core Options, Core Specific Settings

• To edit options or settings specific to a core, you must start a game with that core.
• After loading a game, go to the RetroArch's menu to make changes in the Core Options (set core specific input options, cheats, change shader settings, etc).

Shader Settings

• Shaders usually either come in single CG files or as a group of files controlled by a CGP preset file.
• If you want to use a preset, like CRT-Royale or Super-XBR, simply select Load Shader Preset under Shader Options and select a CGP file.
• If you want to select individual CG files, increase the Shader Passes and select a CG file through Shader #0 (or #1, #2, etc.).
• After selecting your shader setup, hit Apply Shader Changes.

Saves and Saving Settings

• By default, RetroArch will save settings when it closes and will do so unless you put RetroArch in a directory that needs elevated privileges without running as administrator/root.
• Save New Config will save a new, different, config that won't be loaded the next time RetroArch starts.

Mednafen PSX

• This particular core requires some specific care.
• You should have the correct BIOS (if not follow the BIOS and System files section), you'll also need to make sure your game has a metadata file in the form of a CUE, TOC, CCD or M3U file.
• The most common metadata people use is CUE, and if your PS1 game lacks a metafile, you can create one.
• An easier way to get around metadata issues is to get your games from a better source. Redump PS1 games come in BIN+CUE format and work on mednafen without issue, but other sets that come in BIN+CUE+MP3 format might need editing their cue file with Notepad with the correct filenames for them to work correctly.

Ricing RetroArch

• There are 3 different menu drivers for RetroArch to choose from, RGUI, GLUI, and the default XMB.
• To switch between them go Settings> Driver Settings and switch Menu Driver. You'll need to restart RetroArch for changes to take effect.

Other customizations

• You can change your wallpaper, text color settings, text size (DPI Override, GLUI only), toggle mouse support, and whether to display the boxart in the Menu Settings.
• You can change RetroArch's menu font, but it'll only work for the GLUI menu driver (only on 1.2.2, newer builds have changed GLUI significantly and it no longer uses the OSD font).
• To change it, under Onscreen Display Settings hit OSD Message Font and select a .ttf font file.
• Should be noted that Onscreen Display Settings are for the yellow popup messages that RetroArch displays and GLUI happen to use fonts from it, all of the other settings here only change the popup message.
• XMB loads its font from $assets_directory/xmb/monochrome/font.ttf, so you can replace the default font TTF with a custom one. The same can be done with the default backgrounds and icons.

Cheats

• Not all cores support cheats, you can check the Libretro wiki for which cores do.
• By default RetroArch comes with a fairly large cheat database, so to make a new cheat file, you can find files in the cheats folder of RetroArch's install directory for reference.
• To enable cheats, load the game, toggle RetroArch's menu, load a cheat file in the Core Cheat Options and you'll get a list of cheats available which you can toggle.
• After setting your cheats, hit Apply Cheat Changes. Some cheats may require you to Restart Content to take effect.

Please refer to the official Libretro Documentation for the most up-to-date documentation on the usage of Libretro, Retroarch, and its cores.

Controls

Menu:

D-Pad Up/Down - Move through the menu

D-Pad Left/Right - Modify options

Circle - Accept, Enter Submenu

Cross - Cancel, Return previous menu

Triangle - Search

Square - Delete input bind

Start - Reset option to default

Select - Show tooltip for a particular option

L/R - Fast scrolling through files by jumping to the next letter

In game:

Note - Open/close menu

Screenshots

Media

RetroArch - How to Install: PSP (LibRetro)

RetroArch - How to Update: PSP (LibRetro)

gpSP Game Boy Advance emulator running on RetroArch PSP (LibRetro)

Compatibility

Require Custom Firmware (PRO-C)/Pro CFW (latest version).

Changelog

1.10.0

• 3DS: Add Jaxe, A5200 and WASM4 cores.
• 3DS: Fix rotation.
• ARCHIVE: Allow loading files from archive subdirectory.
• AUDIO: Remove frame limit from audio batch callback. Before, if a core used the audio batch callback, there would be a hidden cap of 1024 on the number of audio frames that could be sent. If a core exceeded this value, any excess samples were silently discarded. While this is sufficient for 'normal' samplerates/framerates, it means that e.g. a core using the batch callback to send 44100 Hz audio at 30 fps with would have entirely broken sound. This has been fixed by removing the audio batch frame limit.
• AUDIO/RESAMPLER/NEON: Implement sinc kaiser NEON function.
• CHEEVOS: Reset hardcore default to enabled; show message when trying to load state in hardcore.
• CHEEVOS: Fix memory map conversion.
• CHEEVOS: Check netplay status when unlocking achievements.
• CHEEVOS: Support for hashing buffered NDS ROMs.
• CHEEVOS: Fix hung task whe badge doesn't exist.
• CLI: Load save states from command-line or playlist.
• CORE INFO CACHE/SETTINGS: Restore missing 'Cache Core Info Files' menu entry.
• DATABASE: Serial scanning for Gamecube/MegaCD/SegaCD/Saturn/PSX/PSP/Dreamcast/Wii.
• D3D10/D3D11: Add Vsync swap interval.
• EMSCRIPTEN: Add Jaxe, WASM4 cores.
• FILE IO: Fix incorrect file names for remap files when the content path doesn't have a preceding slash.
• INPUT/OVERLAY: Added support for showing the overlay behind the menu instead of in front. This is currently only supported on the GL, Vulkan, D3D 9/10/11/12 and 3DS drivers.
• INPUT/UDEV: Convert abs mouse from screen to viewport coordinates; fix relative mouse coords.
• INPUT/WAYLAND: Ignore mouse clicks on window decoration.
• INPUT/WAYLAND: Add scroll wheel support.
• LINUX: Added support for Linux GameMode (https://github.com/FeralInteractive/gamemode), which can be toggled on/off in the Power Management or Latency settings menus.
• LOCALIZATION: Fetch translations from Crowdin.
• LOCALIZATION: Add Indonesian, Swedish and Ukrainian language options.
• LOCALIZATION/MENU/RGUI: Enable Indonesian and Swedish localisations for RGUI.
• LOGGING: Logging cleanups.
• LOGGING: Stop logging FPS statistics twice on quit.
• LOGGING: Log font rendering backend only once.
• HOTKEYS: Added a hotkey toggle for the on-screen technical statistics.
• HOTKEYS: Add delay + acceleration to volume hotkeys.
• MENU: Add option for showing notifications only in menu.
• MENU/RGUI: Add Finnish to supported languages.
• MENU/XMB: Optional vertical list item fade.
• MENU/XMB/OZONE: Category + History/Favorites icons.
• NETWORK: Fix dummy notification – no longer shows a netplay initialization failed notification when netplay is not enabled.
• NETWORK: LAN addresses only for UPnP – Some router devices might accept non-LAN addresses without raising an error.
• NETWORK: Filter out non-connectable rooms. Add an option for filtering out non-connectable netplay rooms.
• NETWORK: Netplay spectator notification fix. Fix double notification when the host switches to spectator.
• NETWORK: Prevents long-term pausing from clients dishonoring allow pausing.
• NETWORK/LOBBY: Lobby Viewer: Filter out rooms that are not running RetroArch.
• NETWORK/LOBBY: Lobby Viewer: Display a non-connectable tag to non-connectable rooms.
• NETWORK/LOBBY: Host: Display warning if we are announcing to the internet but our room isn't connectable from there.
• NETWORK/RELAY: Custom relay server support – Add support for custom user-ran relay servers.
• NETWORK/RELAY: Replace Canadian relay server with Singapore relay server. Current relays: New York/USA, Madrid/Spain, Sao Paulo/Brazil, Singapore.
• NETWORK/UPNP: Various refactors/improvements, no more dependent on miniupnpc.
• NETWORK/UPNP: Various UPnP binding fixes for specific routers.
• NETWORK/UPNP: Accept IGD v2 service types.
• NETWORK/UPNP: Delay lobby server announcing – delay the announcing in order to give UPnP's port forwarding more time. Fix the remaining truncation warnings.
• NETWORK/UPNP: Smart interface selection – Find the most suitable address for UPnP by scoring interfaces on how close their address is to the device's address.
• OPENGL1: Fix buffer overflow – RetroArch would sometimes crashes at startup when loading asset textures with GL1 driver.
• PS3: PSL1GHT port added to Gitlab CI.
• VULKAN: Double combined image sampler descriptor pool size – fix segfaults with AMD GPUs using RADV.
• VULKAN: Emulate mailbox only with Vsync enabled – otherwise have it disabled – useful for VRR/G-Sync/FreeSync.
• VULKAN/SWAPCHAIN: Vulkan max swapchain images option adjustments: removed value 1, since it won't be used – Video reinit on change, so that there is no need to restart or toggle fullscreen.
• VULKAN/HDR: HDR support – tested on Windows.
• WAYLAND: Add libdecor for client side decoration.
• WAYLAND: Use any display for initial metrics.
• WAYLAND: Fix the window closing, if RetroArch is build without libdecor.
• WAYLAND: Use checked sizes in EGL resize.
• WAYLAND: Fix window title update.
• WEBOS: Fix webOS build and run.
• WIIU: Fix rotation.
• UWP/XBOX: Fix content over 4GB (approx) failing to load, improve/speed up copy/load times.
• UWP/XBOX: Fix scanning for playlists.
• UWP/XBOX: Move content copied to LocalState to a dedicated dir and clear on startup.
• UWP/XBOX: Make content copy to a specific cache directory in the LocalState folder when it's copied.
• UWP/XBOX: Auto delete VFS cache dir on startup.
• UWP/XBOX: Make resolution switching automatic and fix angle output issues.
• UWP/XBOX: Force ANGLE to render at 1080p regardless of screensize as the output is 1080p regardless of screensize. This fixes an issue where at 4k any angle output would be zoomed into a corner.
• UWP/XBOX: Set resolution based on display resolution (auto 4k).
• UWP/XBOX: Set driver to D3D11 if booting with opengl.
• UWP/XBOX: Reset width and height of output on boot to match display.
• UWP/XBOX: Mitigate need for VFS cores on NTFS drives.
• UWP/XBOX: Make check for standard I/O by access rather than the just assuming based on path string.
• UWP/XBOX: Add code to auto permissions so files can be accessed by non VFS cores (no exFAT or FAT32 support yet).

External links

• Official website - http://www.retroarch.com
• GitHub - https://github.com/libretro
• RetroArch forum - https://libretro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1635
• Emulation General Wiki - http://emulation.gametechwiki.com
• Pro CFW - https://code.google.com/archive/p/procfw/downloads