PSX Question on Lakka

Libretro Lakka
#1

Hello,

i take the live installer for my zbox ID17. All works perfect and all games are running without any problems.

Now i have an question about the quality of the games.

Before i tested lakka, i had windows 8 on my zbox and i was using EPSXE emulator to play the games. For example when i was playing Grand Turismo i got really good pictues on my screen and the was not many pixels to see. When i now playing the same game on lakka, the screens arent good and lot of pixels. I try different shaders but nothing works.

On WIndows 8 with EPSXE i used pete’s d3d 1.77 for graphic and that works brilliant. Is there an way on lakka to use EPSXE and similar like pete’s d3d 1.77? Or is there another way?

Thx for helping

marcos

#2

Hello, mednafen-psx, the core we use for psx emulation on PC does not feature an enhanced resolution hack yet.

We could ship pcsx_rearmed for PC, but it’s optimized for ARM, not x86, so it will be very slow.

There is a feature request on mednafen-psx-libretro github issues. You can add your voice to it, maybe somebody will want to implement it. But it’s a lot of work I guess.

#3

Hello,

thx for answering.

What i dont understand is, that the epsx emulator which is different from lakka works great on windows 8. When i use lakka/retroarch too on windows 8 there are so differences between the screens on the games. Videos in epsx emulator are sharper then retroarch.

Is this different because epsxe use other graphic drivers then retroarch?

#4

ePSXe has plugins for both software-rendering (i.e., both emulation and rendering are done on the CPU) and hardware-rendering (i.e., rendering is done on the GPU instead). Hardware renderers allow you to produce high resolutions that the original system was incapable of producing (see: Dolphin emulator running at 1080p, etc.). The Playstation emulator cores available for RetroArch–both mednafen-psx and PCSX-ReARMed–are software-rendered. PCSX-ReARMed has a hack to double the resolution, but it’s still done entirely in software and is only optimized for ARM processors.

However, the Playstation cores available for RetroArch are much more accurate than ePSXe, which is basically the ZSNES of Playstation emulators, so there’s a tradeoff.

#5

Yes, the display of mednafen-psx and pcsx-rearmed may look pixelated when you are used to epsxe.

However, this is how the real playstation used to be.

And you can see that the PS1 games on the PSN on PS3 are pixelated the same way. They didn’t try to enhance the graphics, because on some games, that mix of high and low reslution could look aweful.

#6

Ok,i understand till now.

At the moment my htpc system is an zotac zbox id17 (dual-core, 1.1 GHz, NM70 Express, Intel HD Graphic).

Is my system to play playstation games over lakka to low or are the settings wrong?

When i looking at some youtube videos there are some rasperry pi 2 with lakka, the games run good and the screens has good color.

Where is maybe my problem?

#7

Your system seams powerfull enough to run mednafen-psx.

The RPi2 has pcsx_rearmed to run psx games, and they may have enabled the high resolution hack and disabled the dithering.

#8

Hey Kivutar,

is this possible on my system too? At the moment i have no luck to get a good video screen with mednafen.

#9

No sorry it’s not possible on your system right now.

As I said, I could ship pcsx_rearmed on PC, but it’s not optimized for this cpu architecture, so it will be slow.

#10

Not only is pcsx_rearmed slow on x86, the non-NEON (i.e., ARM-specific) renderer that it would use on x86 machines is actually broken and breaks a very large number of games, so it’s not really an option.

#11

Ok hunterk,

so at the moment there are no other options to play games on an x86? Did libretro fix such things or is the only focus on other systems like Android and so on`?

#12

Hello again,

so today i tested lakka intensive on my zbox id17. Now i am happy with the result. I take some shaders from the retroarch who working very well on my laptop. Result = good screens and no pixelate.

So one last problem now i have. THE SOUND

My Zbox is connected on my surround over S/PDIF…

First i try settings in menue and was going to devices. When i did this, system hang up.

Then i was going over putty to my box and did this:

aplay -l

Results:

null Discard all samples (playback) or generate zero samples (capture) default:CARD=PCH HDA Intel PCH, ALC892 Analog Default Audio Device sysdefault:CARD=PCH HDA Intel PCH, ALC892 Analog Default Audio Device front:CARD=PCH,DEV=0 HDA Intel PCH, ALC892 Analog Front speakers surround21:CARD=PCH,DEV=0 HDA Intel PCH, ALC892 Analog 2.1 Surround output to Front and Subwoofer speakers surround40:CARD=PCH,DEV=0 HDA Intel PCH, ALC892 Analog 4.0 Surround output to Front and Rear speakers surround41:CARD=PCH,DEV=0 HDA Intel PCH, ALC892 Analog 4.1 Surround output to Front, Rear and Subwoofer speakers surround50:CARD=PCH,DEV=0 HDA Intel PCH, ALC892 Analog 5.0 Surround output to Front, Center and Rear speakers surround51:CARD=PCH,DEV=0 HDA Intel PCH, ALC892 Analog 5.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Rear and Subwoofer speakers surround71:CARD=PCH,DEV=0 HDA Intel PCH, ALC892 Analog 7.1 Surround output to Front, Center, Side, Rear and Woofer speakers iec958:CARD=PCH,DEV=0 HDA Intel PCH, ALC892 Digital IEC958 (S/PDIF) Digital Audio Output hdmi:CARD=PCH,DEV=0 HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 0 HDMI Audio Output hdmi:CARD=PCH,DEV=1 HDA Intel PCH, HDMI 1 HDMI Audio Output

Then i write this “iec958:CARD=PCH,DEV=0” in the retroarch.cfg under audio devices.

NO Sound.

After that, i saw when i played different emulators, that everytime the retroarch.cfg was rewriting hisself.

Is maybe the problem that use “Lakka Live” instad of “Install”?? Or what is the problem?

Thx for helping

marcos