Edit: Much of my rant here is no longer applicable as it was the result of trying to play on PAL 50.
Still loads of crashes and missing bits and whatnot, but it’s playable over HDMI or with a workaround, so my mind’s changed.
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not sure if the PS3 port is still in development, but I thought I’d leave some feedback on how things went for me as a brand new user. I might be missing some really obvious stuff, but hopefully this helps others or gives the devs a noob perspective.
Process: Factory reset PS3 on 4.81 -> latest HFW 4.85 -> ps3xploit -> latest HEN -> latest RetroArch CEX via package manager
First oddity: the controls are wrong for GB, GBA, SMS, NES. On those consoles the ‘B’ (left most) button lies towards the tip of your thumb - Square ‘A’ (right most) lies on the ‘ball’ of your thumb in the name of ergonomics. Before, After.
Square is run on the SMB1, SMB2 & SMB3 SNES ports… so why not the NES? The precedent’s been set already. Your thumb rests in a certain position, and that position isn’t “let me rotate my wrist 90 degrees counter clockwise so my palm can mash the triggers”.
Just, y’know by this logic, why aren’t all of the SNES buttons rotated 90degrees so I can play the same SMB1-3 games on SNES/NES with the same button layout on the same controller if it’s so superior? Seems kinda juvenile and reeks of “well I like it this way, who cares that all the users will have to change this per core”. Bleh, being contrary for the sake of it?
Sounds like I’m making a big deal of nothing, but it felt to me like a bad omen. Had me wondering early on if there was some hot shot Axl Rose style Prima Donna leading development and imposing needlessly their preferences on others.
So anyway, I go to save the changes and find out that there’s no default directory for key mappings set. It’s showing … exit, file manager, make folder, set perms, come back… was a little annoying having to repeat this … for each core.
I assume certain folders probably have root perms and that’s why RetroArch is telling me the directory has not been found… while I’m in it. So back out, file manager, set perms, come back… Not sure if it’s odd coding or odd word choice?
So I loaded up a clean SMB1 ROM…
Despite being fixed hardware I’m getting stuttering, choppy audio, a bad framerate, etc with the default core 
Disabling VSync and shaders kinda helped, still runs at sub 25 fps though. Starting to feel like I’m missing something.
I understand that for general processing the PS3 is kinda limited (~800mhz Pentium) … but this game runs pretty well on NESTicle on Win95 (unfixed hardware), The PSP, the old XBox, the PS1 (for real it was actually a sweet emu), the PS2, Java! etc.
Just a bit underwhelming, y’know?
I try a few other systems ( and of course have to set the correct button layout for each, kinda kills the fun the 8th time )…
Btw, it’s crashing every second game launch as it scans for new content. Just as the game starts with 0% right there on the screen. There’s no option with the terms “scan” or “content” to be found anywhere. I leave it for a bit, I’m sure I’ll find an answer eventually, but I’m starting to cringe a bit and scratch my head.
Later I try and launch RetroArch and it’s attempting to output 1080p over the composite cable. This of course crashes the entire system.
Straight into /dev_hdd0/game/SSNE10000/USRDIR and wipe the CFG
Bit of a Groundhog Day moment here: -re-apply the controls for each core -disable vsync etc again -still keeps crashing on every ~2nd game launch
I eventually disable playlists and that seems to fix it freezing on game launch. There’s no way this isn’t a known issue on a clean install. I have maybe a few hundred roms. Nothing crazy; just popular games for SNES/GENS/GBA/GB etc.
So eventually things are feeling kinda stable… I’m feeling positive. Yeah I’m not a negative person.
I try to load some NES games from .7z files… and mash X to get through… the system hangs. Despite having the NES header at the top of the file, it’s trying to open the game with arcade cores… is this normal? Does it take a wild guess from the .7z header, or does it try to look inside? Bizhawk has this down.
Later I notice GameBoy games are going into the overscan region… and off the side of the screen when I actually look properly. I can’t find a calibration option, so I try to toggle resolutions. It successfully sets 720x576 from an initial res of… 720x576. I scroll down 2 menu options and… it freezes the PS3 again.
I don’t want to be disparaging - especially given all the hard work that’s been put in, but all round it’s been a solid, thoroughly underwhelming “Meh”.
Honestly I kinda resent that so much hard work went into this huge unwieldy project instead of small, frequently-updated, competitive standalone emus. E.g. on the classic XBox there were several SNES emus each with distinct advantages. They all ran pretty well out of the box without issues and recompiling from source isn’t such a big task (not that you ever had to, mind). E.g. there are so many solid emus for the PSP which perform great and look good over component cables.
I guess it’s just a massive shame that things seem to be moving to PS4 already and this was left in a fairly unusable state compared to similar standalone offerings on the XBox or PSP scene.
Cheers!
