Hi. I recently tested the DuckStation Emulator. It's very impressive. Specially at the PGXP effects. Of course, it needs a lot of good hard work. But assuming that it still as an a "Beta Build", not still as an a "official version". I'm very glad and took my mind blowed so hard.

However. It looks like that this emulator it's maintained, and updating so frequently. It's a good thing. Because, i think. If the authors stills updating frequently; It will blows ePSXe and another emulator turns into dust, IN NO TIME. Really, this DuckStation got a brilliant future. And it's compatibility is very high. Highly recommended.

But still, ePSXe cannot be trashed or perished so soon. At least not upon on me. Because, it may not perfect. But it got a lot of better compatibility than the rest of the PSX emulators out there. And i got a lot of games, from all Regions. And specially, DuckStation doesn't got that charming Filters / Shader effects options and another stuff ( yet .... ) that it already comes inside at the the GpuBladeSoft Plugin. That Plug it's a real Master Piece of engineering, hacking stuff, fixing the Real PSX Real Graphics.

But too bad, the rest of the ePSXe stuff; such like the sound Plugins are very outdated. ( The CD-Rom, Drivers are plain outdated and not useful anymore for today standards ) The Eternal SPU Plugins are the best, but too outdated for today standards and needings too. The DuckStation got a lot of better balance and useful options for the PSX Sounding department. A much much better handlers for the CDDA kind of game discs. Really, it's a good choice as for another new Alternative, rather than ePSXe. But i can still wait peacefully. And The Best, it Yet To Come !!!!!

 

Hi. I recently tested the DuckStation Emulator. It's very impressive. Specially at the PGXP effects. Of course, it needs a lot of good hard work. But assuming that it still as an a "Beta Build", not still as an a "official version". I'm very glad and took my mind blowed so hard.

However. It looks like that this emulator it's maintained, and updating so frequently. It's a good thing. Because, i think. If the authors stills updating frequently; It will blows ePSXe and another emulator turns into dust, IN NO TIME. Really, this DuckStation got a brilliant future. And it's compatibility is very high. Highly recommended.

But still, ePSXe cannot be trashed or perished so soon. At least not upon on me. Because, it may not perfect. But it got a lot of better compatibility than the rest of the PSX emulators out there. And i got a lot of games, from all Regions. And specially, DuckStation doesn't got that charming Filters / Shader effects options and another stuff ( yet .... ) that it already comes inside at the the GpuBladeSoft Plugin. That Plug it's a real Master Piece of engineering, hacking stuff, fixing the Real PSX Real Graphics.

But too bad, the rest of the ePSXe stuff; such like the sound Plugins are very outdated. ( The CD-Rom, Drivers are plain outdated and not useful anymore for today standards ) The Eternal SPU Plugins are the best, but too outdated for today standards and needings too. The DuckStation got a lot of better balance and useful options for the PSX Sounding department. A much much better handlers for the CDDA kind of game discs. Really, it's a good choice as for another new Alternative, rather than ePSXe. But i can still wait peacefully. And The Best, it Yet To Come !!!!!

Dunno why you respond to 4m old thread but I gotta say you're a tad wrong about ePSXe, while it is a bit old now the newest version is pretty much perfect or close, there always will be that 1% of games that won't work or have issues it's the nature of emulation.
It is a shame that ePSXe is more or less dead now with features like HLE and multi threading left broken as for PGXP I understand why it wasn't implemented it's very hacky requiring often game specific fixed to work and very demanding and no one is working on it anymore.
Which is a point that I love about ePSXe it can run on a potato be it your pc or phone with the only other option being pcsx-r which is just broken.

But if you want that PGXP hack and superior emulation and have a beefy machine then RetroArch BeetlePSX is the way, thou RetroArch is a major pain to setup.

Plus CD plugin? It works fine the issue often is a bad CD or a drive that can't read sub channel data which these days would be difficult to get one that can, just play your games from a disc image like everyone else.

As for Duckstation I may give it a test, I mainly play on Android so I won't be using it thou, plus I remember when I was a we lad and a new PS1 emulator came to the world pSX only to be left never to be updated so I don't have much hope for Duckstation.

 

Dunno why you respond to 4m old thread

Because i wanted. And this newer DuckStation needs a real attention. ePSXe, at least the 2.05, might be the latest of the series, but not a newer version anymore. As for i can say. It's the worst version ever created. The 1.60, 1.90, 19.25 and 2.00-1 are the greatest versions. And ePSXe, still the greatest and the king for the PSX emulation. For as i can still say. And i will still on using it for today and for the future course.

But on to have another alternative options, it's always welcome. And for that DuckStation, at my shorter experience; it won't asking you a lot of your resources. But it ask you Windows 10 64-bit as a Primary requirement. Even a 4GB Ram machine can run this Emulator pretty smooth without any complications. But RetroArch it's another story.

However. You can run DuckStation without the PGXP or even without the OpenGL filters. You can on deal with your games as for the native PSX standards ( Software mode ) and still good. Not that bad.

Give it a try. Hope it won't be a deception for you.


P.S. PCSX Reloaded, PCSX PGXP. Sucked so bad. Outdated and obsoletes. ePSXe and DuckStation still better that this.

 

Because i wanted. And this newer DuckStation needs a real attention. ePSXe, at least the 2.05, might be the latest of the series, but not a newer version anymore. As for i can say. It's the worst version ever created. The 1.60, 1.90, 19.25 and 2.00-1 are the greatest versions. And ePSXe, still the greatest and the king for the PSX emulation. For as i can still say. And i will still on using it for today and for the future course.

But on to have another alternative options, it's always welcome. And for that DuckStation, at my shorter experience; it won't asking you a lot of your resources. But it ask you Windows 10 64-bit as a Primary requirement. Even a 4GB Ram machine can run this Emulator pretty smooth without any complications. But RetroArch it's another story.

However. You can run DuckStation without the PGXP or even without the OpenGL filters. You can on deal with your games as for the native PSX standards ( Software mode ) and still good. Not that bad.

Give it a try. Hope it won't be a deception for you.


P.S. PCSX Reloaded, PCSX PGXP. Sucked so bad. Outdated and obsoletes. ePSXe and DuckStation still better that this.

Out of curiosity what is your issue with ePSXe 2.0.5? I have been using it since realese without any issues minus the 1% of games that don't emulate properly, wonder if Duckstation will play Monkey Hero properly.

Again I may test Duckstation but I mostly play on Android devices these days, so I won't have much use for it.
As for it running well on PC I don't doubt it PS1 emulation on PCs isn't that demanding, even my 6y old pc can run BeetlePSX at 16x with PGXP enabled among other settings.
But ePSXe can run even on a pc that's 15y old, all it needs is 1 CPU core at 1.5ghz 2gb of any RAM and a 512mb graphic card that supports opengl2.
That's one major plus of ePSXe, it maybe old but so are it's requirements.

Edit.
Gotta say im impressed, found some time to checkout Ducky on PC nad gotta say NICE, it emulates Monkey Hero perfectly, something that even BeetlePSX can't do, and I found that it also has an android version will check how it performs later.
One small issue thou no PBP support, on the other hand CHKD support so half and half.
Now if there only was an easy way to transfer memory cards from ePSXe.

 

Now if there only was an easy way to transfer memory cards from ePSXe.

Yes you can. Duckstation can read .MCR files

 

I'd be really surprised if it didn't, the problem isn't the file format but the naming scheme and that by default it uses MCD files, meaning I can't simply copy and past my 100+ memory card files from ePSXe I have to rename them all manually.

 

I never use these MCD files. But when at finding some Saved data Files on the web; first i install these MCD files inside at the ePSXe and then i only boot the bios to see if that card it's in a good shape. Normally, some downloaded Cards got the 132kb as it size. For me; it's not a good deal. But if ePSXe; inside at the game and inside at the Bios checking can open it, well. I transfer the data into a new, clean, brand new Memory Card using the .MCR file name sheme with it's 128kb. And everything it's just fine.

The .MCR name scheme it's a more universal format than the others. Normally I refuse like a plague another formats, because are very unestable. But if i want an MC file from the web, with everything unlocked from that game, ohh well ..... but, at least; i can transfer the data contents into a new .MCR file. And life is good.

 

MRC = MCD, they're the same both are 128kb it's just an extension, the memory card image is the same you can just change it without the need to convert, as for the 132kb mentioned I dunno what that is, Duckstation creates normal 128kb files.

As for the name scheme I meant the file naming, like so.
ePSXe
SCUS_942.28-00.mcr
SCUS_942.28-01.mcr
Duckstation
Region code
SCUS-94228_1.mcr
SCUS-94228_2.mcr
File name
Adventures of Lomax, The (USA)_1.mcd
Adventures of Lomax, The (USA)_2.mcd

After messing about with Ducky for now here's my thoughts.
BeetlePSX>Duckstation=ePSXe
BeetlePSX despite having to deal with RetroArch offers best emulation accuracy and conveniences of life that Duckstation simply doesn't have among other useful settings like cheats or ability to change the disc read speed which helps with load times in games lik Resident Evil 2.
Duckstation is equal to ePSXe as it does some things better than ePSXe but others worse, like with Beetle it lacks some conveniences and it plays some games better and some worse, I would put it above ePSXe as it is still developing unlike ePSXe but unlike ePSXe Duckstation android version is just bad, it's just bare bones, there's no settings even to map the pad and onscreen controls.

I'll keep an eye on it and maybe one day it will replace my daily PS1 emulator but for now I"ll stick to BeetlePSX for PC and ePSXe for android.

 

I recently discovered this PSX emulator and I'm blown away with it.

I never expected it to run so good on low spec devices. What I like a lot about it is that DuckStation can run PSX games full speed at half the FPS. That makes it the best PSX emulator for low spec devices like my GPD Win (which is downclocked to 99% max CPU speed and all power saving features enabled in the Intel GFX driver). No other PSX emulator that I used was able to do that without slowdowns.

I like the DX11, shader, PGXP and Widescreen hack support. I also like the per game settings configuration.

I think it's based on Mednafen PSX emulation as I notice exactly the same game compatibility issues. The only reason why you shouldn't use this emulator and stick with ePSXe is no support for D-Input Dual Shock Vibration yet (that means you can't use a PS Dual shock controller if you want vibration).

 

Well, thanks for the heads up anyway, seems Ill be checking out ducko sometime soon...

 

I always used to use ePSXe, with Pete's OpenGL2 Tweaks plugin. I used the XBR setting at 6x but found lots of glitches.

For example with G-Darius, on level 1, the clouds had black lines around them. I use XBR on Duckstation and there are NO glitches WHATSOEVER. However, I am getting FPS drops from 60FPS to, the mid 40's and sometimes even into the high 30's. Other ISO's I tried so far don't have that issue.

I also found on ePSXe that I could use my analog sticks on all games, including G-Darius. Now on those games, I have to use the D-Pad, which annoys me somewhat. I hope there is a fix for that or it can be fixed in an update. I can still use my analog stick on Ray Storm though.

Also, this is THE FIRST emulator that ACTUALLY gives me perspective-correct textures, which I thought wasn't possible!

Is there a workaround, so I can use the analog stick on my Xbox One Series X controller?

 

For the FPS drops, drop XBR, ePSXe XBR is not the same as Duckstation XBR and it's stupidly expensive on performance.

For the controller, controller settings - controller port 1 - settings tab and use analog sticks for dpad in digital mode.

 

I already tried not using XBR and tried it in OpenGL, Vulkan, DX11, and DX12 and I get the same performance issues on all 3D ISO's. Thanks for the tip with the analog stick though. Works like a charm. It would be nice to be able to map both the D-Pad and analog sticks to the same assignments. Games like Dino Crisis are much more difficult to control on the analog stick, rather than the D-Pad.

 

It would help to know your PC specs or what settings you're using, and to say this doesn't happen on other games is pointless as like with PC games not all PS1 games are equally demanding, some ps1 games are harder to emulate than others.

Try lowering the rendering resolution in enhancements or disable PGXP.

 

My rig is fairly powerful for 1080p gaming (AMD Ryzen 9 3900x, Gigabyte Eagle RTX3070, 32Gb 2400 DDR4 RAM). Most games run at a solid 165FPS and Quake II RTX gives me between 90-130FPS at max settings at 1080p. I will give you my DXDiag file. Where is PGXP? This issue seems to only affect G-Darius, where it often drops as low as 38FPS. It's a real shame as Duckstation looks AMAZING compared to what I got from ePSXe. For XBR in ePSXe I used Pete's OpenGL 2 Tweaks, but it had a lot of glitches. For example on G-Darius, on level 1 the smaller clouds had black outlines, and on Castlevania SOTN, not all screens used the filtering.

EDIT: I found and disabled PGXP and no dice. Every game is affected and it drops as low as 38FPS. I don't know why my rig can't handle Duckstation, now that ePSXe runs like crap after updating to Windows 11. This is frustrating the hell out of me. I don't think I will be able to play PS1 games anymore now.😢

 

PGXP same as rendering its under enhancements, but it doesn't matter with those specs you shouldn't have any fps drops unless you set the settings to stupidly high, like 16x internal resolution 16x MSAA with XBR.

My only guess is that's just how G Darius ran, Duckstation runs ps1 games same way the ps1 did which sometimes was poorly.

Only way around that is overclocking, under console settings enable and set it to 150%, now fair warning this can cause glitches in some games and no you're not actually overclocking your PC, this overclocks the "PS1" that Duckstation mimics.

 

I tried Duckstation at low resolution with all features disabled on all renderers and I get the exact same performance on all settings.

 

Well like I said and I checked it G Darius just don't run well on a ps1 plain and simple.
Run it at native clock speed it often FPS drops, used 150% overclock smooth 60 FPS.

And if it does run smoothly on ePSXe it either emulates the game incorrectly or reports frame rate incorrectly.

 

I went to change the overclocking to see if 150% would help. I can't see it anywhere. I had it set to 125% yesterday but forgot which section it's in, so I can't change it for testing purposes. Please assist.

 

It's under console settings.

 

I set the CPU overclock to 200% and G-Darius runs like butter now. Not only am I running it in 4K DSR (I have a 1080p screen), but I added the Duckstation exe file to Nvidia Profile inspector and set the antialiasing algorithms to the ones used by BioShock (the best quality and most taxing forms) and set it to 4x antialiasing with 8x supersampling. This means when in 4K DSR I get PERFECT edges. One boss (Dual Horn) was dipping as low as 38FPS but now stayed at 60FPS the whole time. Thanks for your help. I hope I don't encounter issues in other games with the CPU overclocked 200%

 

There is one remaining issue I don't know how to resolve. When playing Castlevania SOTN, when the screen scrolls some 2D elements wobble. Is there any way to fix this? I am currently running it in DX12 at 3840x2160 DSR.

EDIT: I fixed it. I set everything back to default and set it up again. I have the same settings as before but no 2D elements are wobbling on Castlevania SOTN anymore.

 

Wipeout doesn't work on Duckstation yet. There are sound issues and when I finish a time trial or try to quit it locks up.

 

SOTN is primarily a 2D game certain 3D enhancements like PGXP, Widescreen hack will cause glitches.

For Wipeout you most likely got a corrupted copy of the game.

 

I have all the games Duckstation can emulate running perfectly with the CPU overclocked to 200%. I run it in 4K DSR (I have a 1080p monitor) and added a profile in Nvidia Profile Inspector to force 4x antialiasing with 8x supersampling. I get perfect edges and Castlevania SOTN is perfect now. From now on, Duckstation is my go-to for PSX emulation. Thanks to all that assisted me.

EDIT: I found the max I can overclock the CPU is 220%. Otherwise, it corrupts the save slots for Castlevania SOTN and runs the FPS higher than 60FPS increasing the speed no matter what cap I set. Unlike ePSXe, when the CPU is overclocked it doesn't mess with the timing of games. For example on Castlevania SOTN, after beating Dracula in the prologue and all the text scrolls the music and text were out of sync. This is not the case with DuckStation!