I was told mednafen was the best PSX emulators

Libretro Cores
#1

Have the latest 0.9.39.2 version with Retroarch, all BIOS, installation is all good (I think). But I tried Castlevania SOTN and the audio was horrendous, with the pixel skipping and terrible terrible lag.

I have an AMD A6 5200 APU, so I don’t think the lag is from me. So I thought maybe it was just that ROM (for such a popular PS1 title). Try a different game. Went ahead and tried FF Tactics only to have the same lag (audio is a little better). Am I missing something here? I probably I’m, as I practically spent the entire day installing and trouble shooting. I know it’s only two ROMS I tried so far but it’s 3AM and my eyes are getting that heavy feeling.

The ROMS were from [we don’t talk about ROMsites here. -ed]. Seeing posts of people playing improved textures and scaling makes me want to step up my emulation game (even though I rushed just trying to get a game to work for half a day).

What am I doing wrong?

#2

Your CPU is not strong enough. AMD’s CPUs and especially APU’s are not really cut for (accurate) emulation. Mednafen requires at least “A dual-core Phenom II or Athlon II at 3GHz or higher, or rough equivalent(in terms of single-core IPC)” since it’s an accurate emulator. Source For now your only choice is Pcsxr or epsxe.

#3

Mednafen is very demanding (and it has nothing to do with the console’s complexity or age). I haven’t tried the stand alone version, but its RA core brings my i5-4440 to it’s knees at resolutions higher than 1x native in most games (that I have played).

Try out EPSXE or PCSX-R as stevenstrike suggested. Either will do, but you’ll probably end up using both, since former is less demanding and good at 2d games and the later is better for 3d games.