PSX Core Official Release

[dmckean]

I was an early adopter of 3D video cards and the games made for my Rendition V1000 and Voodoo1 cards ran circles around what the PSX and N64 could do. The library of 3D games on the PC was pretty small in early 1997 though. I remember the full screen anti-aliasing on the Rendition card being particularly impressive. 3D ports tended to be a lot nicer looking on the Rendition card but the Voodoo1 card normally gave you 2.5x the framerate.

[Wave]

NIce. Yeah, it's sometimes forgotten that Carmack's first 3d-accelerated try at Quake was vQuake. Vogons has some interesting details on how the Verite 3d acceleration worked.

After GLQuake became established, I remember that serious competitive Quake players would often spurn GLQuake to play competitive games in software mode with the tiniest possible screen size (full borders!) and almost non-existent textures. I think to maximize framerate which could affect physics (iirc), and possibly because the small number of pixels made movement easy to detect. Funny times.

How to make this ontopic...
Uh, I checked out my RetroArch Beetle PSX save files last night and found that the .srm memcard files work directly on MiSTer after renaming the extensions to .sav.

[throAU]

Yup. I was there in that exact situation in 1995-1996. Had an old 486 and the PlayStation blew it away. I was building PCs for people at the time as part of my job - the PSX was so ridiculously cheap for what it could do.

Even when I upgraded to a Pentium in 1996-1997 the PlayStation was comparable and it wasn’t until the very late 90s that 3d acceleration really took off with cards like the voodoo rush/banshee, riva128 and others to do mainstream 3d without two graphics cards. The voodoo1 and voodoo2 couldn’t do video by themselves. You needed a 2d card AS WELL (your old one was probably useless due to pc expansion slot changes at the time too not like today where everything is compatible several generations back - we went from ISA to PCI to AGP to PCIe in a short space of time).

That generation of consoles truly were a quantum leap in performance vs. basically anything else on the market at the time. They were better than anything but the most extreme high end of PC gaming at the time (and one reason for me why the PlayStation 1 is so near and dear to me)


That said. Standards were lower. 25 fps textured polygons was impressive. Most gamers would have been used to 15-20 fps for 3D graphics being amazing at the time.

So yeah. The PSX really did perform like that - and we loved it.

[Kreeblah]

If anybody's interested, I wrote a zsh script to compress Redump-named BIN/CUE games to CHD files and organize them (merge multidisc directories into one directory, and split by NTSC-U/NTSC-J/PAL region). It's not PSX-specific, either. I just used it to organize my PC Engine CD images, and it worked fine for that.

https://github.com/Kreeblah/organize_chd

I've only tested it on my Mac, but it'd probably work on a Linux host, too.

[cursedverses]

If anybody's interested, I wrote a zsh script to compress Redump-named BIN/CUE games to CHD files and organize them (merge multidisc directories into one directory, and split by NTSC-U/NTSC-J/PAL region). It's not PSX-specific, either. I just used it to organize my PC Engine CD images, and it worked fine for that.

https://github.com/Kreeblah/organize_chd

I've only tested it on my Mac, but it'd probably work on a Linux host, too.

Heads up: I tried this earlier today, now I'm restoring from my backup as all of the files were deleted... They were all in a PSX folder and at the folder was empty. I used all but the compress switch as the files were CHD to begin with. (Mac M1)

[Kreeblah]

If anybody's interested, I wrote a zsh script to compress Redump-named BIN/CUE games to CHD files and organize them (merge multidisc directories into one directory, and split by NTSC-U/NTSC-J/PAL region). It's not PSX-specific, either. I just used it to organize my PC Engine CD images, and it worked fine for that.

https://github.com/Kreeblah/organize_chd

I've only tested it on my Mac, but it'd probably work on a Linux host, too.

Heads up: I tried this earlier today, now I'm restoring from my backup as all of the files were deleted... They were all in a PSX folder and at the folder was empty. I used all but the compress switch as the files were CHD to begin with. (Mac M1)

You didn't happen to save the output from the script for that, did you? I can't think of a reason it would have happened, so seeing the output there would be really helpful for tracking it down.

[cursedverses]

Ah, I didn't - I can maybe set up a sample batch and rerun it, then drop it here for you...?

[Kreeblah]

Sure, that'd be good, if you'd be up for it. I did make some changes today to some areas that I think might have been related to the issue (though I can't replicate it myself), and also added more checks in general, so with any luck, the current version will work with your sample.

[max1602]

Schönsten Dank von mir, für den wundervollen Core !

[Jegriva]

I felt like it wasn't really until 1998 when the Voodoo2 hit the market that PCs started giving the PSX and N64 a run for their money. It felt almost like a generational leap ahead. But even then, it came at a hefty cost vs. the $149 of the N64 at that time.

The 1998 PC cards that really were out of this world were Voodoo2, Matrox G200, Rage 128 and Riva TNT 128. I remember seeing Quake 2 (which was "old", despite being just 1 year old) at 1024x768 at a steady 60fps and being literally slackjawed by it.I really do not remember another time in videogame history where PC were so ahead and developer took full advantage of it.

[H6rdc0re]

Seeing how PGXP is not possible on the MiSTer PSX core. Hopefully once FPGAzumSpass has taken some rest he’ll manage to force true 24-bit color mode. Really the best possible enhancement feature if you ask me. Allowing to play games without color banding with dithering turned off. Would be awesome if there’s enough room left on the FPGA.

Update: Robert said on the Discord channel forcing 24-bit is not possible due to bandwidth limitations. Takes up a load of extra bandwidth so he looked into it. Would have been great if it was possible but PSX core is great as it is though.

[MostroW]

I think Robert will be back in a bit, though on his twitter he showed what seems to be a broken thumb?

So it might be some time before he's able to do some work on the core.

[held]

Wow, I just had to update when I read this, is there anything left at this point Next you're starting to invent stuff I like it!

PSX:
- multitap 4 digital pad emulation added(from markun)
- analog joystick input option added(from markun)
- direct video stability(from paulb-nl)
- fix memcard timing (fixes 007 and Ace Combat 3)
- fix bus rotation(fixes F1 2000)
- fix CPU internal timings
- fixes crashes related to CD/pausing
- OSD fixes

[FPGAzumSpass]

69 open issues on github today, so yes, there are still things to do

[Hodor]

69 open issues on github today, so yes, there are still things to do

Take your time, it´s a complex system. But I´m sure you´ll eventually nail it.

[Waifu4Life]

69 open issues on github today, so yes, there are still things to do

Nice!

[dyne]

It looks like the PS1 Digital group added HDR 10 support via patch injection if I'm reading their changelog correctly. Is that something that could eventually be implemented on the MiSTer core?

[FPGAzumSpass]

You have any more information about that?

I cannot imagine currently what it should really do.

[Neocaron]

I think there is only one neat thing in having hdr. It's what Mike Chi did with the RT 5X with the latest update. You get the full HDR brightness for filters. It makes them look absurdly good, like there is actual phosphor in the TV. It's insane. So maybe that's what the PS1 digital is doing?
A feature like system wide that triggers HDR would be pretty cool actually. ^^

[dyne]

You have any more information about that?

I cannot imagine currently what it should really do.

This is the only link the team provides. Granted, it's over my head so I may be reading it all wrong.

https://www.lightillusion.com/forums/ti ... n-627.html

Hope this helps.

[FPGAzumSpass]

i have no idea what it even means.

From what i understand it transmits 10bit colors to the TV, but PSX only has 8bit per color maximum(e.g. FMVs) and even just 5 bit per color for normal 2D/3D rendering, so i don't know what the goal would be.

[Nioreh]

i have no idea what it even means.

From what i understand it transmits 10bit colors to the TV, but PSX only has 8bit per color maximum(e.g. FMVs) and even just 5 bit per color for normal 2D/3D rendering, so i don't know what the goal would be.

It makes the TV utilize full brightness. Makes quite a difference apparently, useful for scanlines and CRT emulation.

[Retro-Nerd]

Yep, it's basically an option that enables "HDR on" on your TV/monitor, but without the specific layer you would get for movies or modern games. It's just the full Luminance your display can do. Looks great with CRT filters enabled on an OLED TV. But pretty useless without (the image is then way too bright and colorful).

[Neocaron]

If that's what it is, this should be an option with the filters menu. It would be great for every core, and if it works with the retrotink 5X it should work with the DE-10 as well. I love how Mike Chi is the source of a lot of new features for th Mister project. It's pretty awesome really ^^
What I wonder is if this "forced HDR mode" actually adds latency. I know with some TVs when you activate HDR the latency can get quite a bit worse.

[Retro-Nerd]

No, HDR doesn't add intput lag. What could happen is that one doesn't check the HDMI profile settings, after the switch to HDR. This actives usually a new HDMI profile and can have additional processing stuff enabled (which means lag). HDMI -> Game Mode (HDR) and everthing's fine.

[FPGAzumSpass]

It's probably best to ask for that in another subforum, e.g.:
viewforum.php?f=33

It's not specific to the PSX core.