Flycast Vita

Flycast Vita
Flycast Vita
	File:Flycastvita2.png
General
Author	Rinnegatamante
Type	Console
Version	1.1
License	GPL-2.0
Last Updated	2022/10/25
Links
	Download
	Website
	Source

Flycast Vita is a port of Flycast (A popular opensource Dreamcast emulator) for the PlayStation Vita. Due to the nature of the console emulated by this emulator, it's not to be expected a perfect emulation on every available title.

You can consult a Compatibility List from this link.

Installation

Requirements:

CFW Enso 3.60 or Enso 3.65
libshacccg.suprx
kubridge.skprx v.0.2 or higher
fd_fix.skprx OR repatch_ex.skprx

Install the required plugins:

Install kubridge.skprx and fd_fix.skprx by copying kubridge.skprx and fd_fix.skprx to your taiHEN plugins folder and adding two entries to your config.txt under *KERNEL (change accordingly if you are using ur0:tai):

 *KERNEL
 ux0:tai/kubridge.skprx
 ux0:tai/fd_fix.skprx

Install libshacccg.suprx, if you don't have it already, by running ShaRKBR33D.

Then install Flycast.vpk using [[VitaShell].

(Optional but strongly recommended) Dump your own DC bios and place it inside ux0:data/flycast/data.

User guide

Suggested Options Setup

On the compatibility list, you can find a perfect options setup for each game. A good starting options setup is the following:

General:

Cable: TV Composite
Broadcast: PAL
Region: Europe

Video:

Transparent Sorting: Per Strip
Fast Sorting: Enabled
Automatic Frame Skipping: Normal
Shadows: Disabled
Fog: Disabled
Texture Filtering: Default
Use Mipmaps: Enabled
Use Simple Shaders: Enabled
VSync: Disabled
Native Depth Interpolation: Disabled
Internal Resolution: 640x480 (Native)

Audio:

Enable DSP: Disabled

Advanced:

CPU Mode: Dynarec
Idle Skip: Enabled
Use Neon SIMD: Enabled
Downclock Ratio: 1.500
Self-Modifying Code Checks: Off
Enable UPnP: Disabled
HLE BIOS: Disabled
Multi-threaded emulation: Enabled
Fast GDRom Load: Enabled

If a game has issues during rendering try to change: Cable, Transparent Sorting, Shadows, Fog, Use Mipmaps, Use Simple Shaders, Native Depth Interpolation, Copy to VRAM, Use Neon SIMD options.

If a game crashes during gameplay, try to change: Self-Modifying Code Checks (The more complete the checks, the lower the performances, so be sure to stick to Off when not required and to stick to Reduced when Full is not necessary).

If a game has issues with audio, try to change: Enable DSP (Enabling DSP will lower performances, so be sure to disable it if not required).

Note: In order for most of these settings changes to take effect, you'll need to restart the game.

Tweaks and Issues

The emulator seems to memleak (probably related to some issues clearing some cache during emulation) thus causing games to degrade in performances during long runs and eventually even crashing the emulator due to out of memory. We STRONGLY suggest to take savestates often in order to not lose progresses.

Due to the nature of CHD and CDI dumps (compressed), GDI dumps must be preferred for best performances.

It's recommended to use PAL dumps and to stick to TV Composite option for the Cable option. This will make games to run with 25 fps/50 fps as target (Like EU TVs at the time) instead of 30 fps/60 fps. Due to the lower fps target, games will run smoother with these settings.

The new kubridge requires enso. If you don't have it, install it. It also has been tested only on 3.60 and 3.65 fw.

Stick to as low amount of plugins as possible. kubridge requires a lot of memory to work as it should for Flycast which means having a lot of plugins can make it fail to allocate memory and thus causing a crash at boot of the emu.

Screenshots

flycastvita3.png flycastvita4.png

Media

Sonic Adventure - Flycast Vita with 1.480 Downlock Rate and Reduced SMC checks (Rinne4Fun)

Changelog

v1.1

Downstreamed to latest official Flycast commit. (BoxArts support has been disabled by default. It's recommended to enable it from emu.cfg solely if you have few roms cause, with a lot of roms, it will cause general instability in the emulator due to mem constraints).
Added Fast GDRom Load option. (Faster loading times in games but may cause issues in some games).

v1.0.3

Replaced AutoPlugin2 warning with a check on kubridge versioning.
Added a check for kubridge existence.
Increased available memory for the emulator by 6 MBs.
Fixed an error causing a crash when attempting to boot unsupported platforms roms. Now it'll nicely error instead.
Added Fast Sorting option for Transparency Sorting for a faster but less precise sorting algorithm usage.
Updated to latest vitaGL commit.

v1.0.2

Updated Livearea assets (Thanks to TheIronUniverse).
Added support for microphone.

v1.0.1

AutoPlugin2 check is now just a warning where end users accepts to send help requests for any issue on whose in charge to solve them and not the original authors of the software. It won't prevent anymore from booting the software.

v1.0

First Release.

Credits

gl33ntwine for sorting out the build system on the Vita.
flyinghead for creating Flycast and for giving insights on improving the port.
TheIronUniverse for the Livearea assets.
All my patroners for their awesome support.

External links