PSP Amiga Emulation

[Radertified]

I just bought a PSP E1000, which is basically a PSP with Wi-Fi removed and mono sound. They're not dealbreakers to me, so it's a nice replacement for my phone as a portable gaming device. I obviously want to use Amiga emulation, but would love to get a C64 and MAME running on this too, as well as any other systems that I may feel like a little later down the road.

What's the process here? It's running 6.60, so I assume I have to install some type of custom firmware?

When ready, what are the best emulators to put onto it?

I've already ordered a MicroSD to Memory Stick Pro Duo adapter, and I have a 16GB MicroSD card lying around, so I should be fine in terms of storage.

Any help would be much appreciated

[lilalurl]

I don't own an E1000 so I won't really help you with the CFW. But yes, you will need to install one.
I don't remember if they work also on every PSP or if there are some specific for the E1000, but you can find some links here:
http://wololo.net/talk/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=7169

However, either read a lot to be sure or wait for someone to give you a clear answer, so that you are sure not to make a mistake.


As for emulators, here is a very good list:
http://wiki.gbatemp.net/wiki/Emulation_on_PSP

[Djay]

I have a 1003 with cf6.60 pro c1fix3, amiga emulation is terrible (very slow)... works much better on my caanoo

[twenty90seven]

there's an Atari St emulator called Castaway that works pretty well - obviously the sound and colours aren't as good as Amiga, but still a good fix

[FOL]

Originally Posted by Djay

I have a 1003 with cf6.60 pro c1fix3, amiga emulation is terrible (very slow)... works much better on my caanoo

I would'nt go that far. I dont have any problems running games on 1 or 2 frame skip with sound.
I am currenty running 0.80 (unreleased yet).

[Radertified]

Thanks for the responses. You've all been very helpful

I installed the Pro C fix 3 CFW and my obvious first step was to try Amiga emulation. I grabbed PSPUAE 0.80 Beta 13 and tried it with 3 games (the same 3 games I always use to test Amiga emulation):

- Turrican 2 - Very slow and jerky. The auto frameskip causes many frames to be skipped, thus makes it virtually unplayable.
- Kid Gloves - Slightly better than Turrican 2, but still jerky unfortunately.
- Rick Dangerous - Works well, surprisingly!

I'm a little disappointed with the performance as I'm used to playing UAE4ALL on a friends GP2x, which works phenomenally. I was hoping for something like that. With that said, it is understandable. A PSP is not a GP2x. They are not developed by the same authors. And as I understand it, UAE4ALL on the GP2x uses an ASM core while PSPUAE does not.

It's a letdown, but I guess that's just how things have to be until an ASM core is used in PSPUAE.

Thanks for the help everyone!

[FOL]

Originally Posted by Radertified

Thanks for the responses. You've all been very helpful

I installed the Pro C fix 3 CFW and my obvious first step was to try Amiga emulation. I grabbed PSPUAE 0.80 Beta 13 and tried it with 3 games (the same 3 games I always use to test Amiga emulation):

- Turrican 2 - Very slow and jerky. The auto frameskip causes many frames to be skipped, thus makes it virtually unplayable.
- Kid Gloves - Slightly better than Turrican 2, but still jerky unfortunately.
- Rick Dangerous - Works well, surprisingly!

I'm a little disappointed with the performance as I'm used to playing UAE4ALL on a friends GP2x, which works phenomenally. I was hoping for something like that. With that said, it is understandable. A PSP is not a GP2x. They are not developed by the same authors. And as I understand it, UAE4ALL on the GP2x uses an ASM core while PSPUAE does not.

It's a letdown, but I guess that's just how things have to be until an ASM core is used in PSPUAE.

Thanks for the help everyone!

Play with the config. As I have already said everything I run plays nicely with sound and fs 1 or 2.
Dont forget cpu to chipset and turbo options. I added them to help overall performance.

[Djay]

yeah to be honest i only checked out a couple of titles and didnt really mess around with the difficult settings... i will give it other try if you have had some success with it

[Radertified]

I set the following options and now Turrican 2, while still jerky and performs nowhere near as well as the GP2x emulator, is a little more playable Kid Gloves is also almost perfect, with the occasional slowdown.

I also tried Tearaway Thomas and that struggles a little and flickers at times, but overall is playable too.

Amiga -> CPU
CPU: 68000
Cycles: Turbo
Cycles Option: Un-Locked
Speed: max

Amiga -> Chipset
Blitter Cycle Exact: OFF
Immediate Blits: ON
Collision Mode: Playfields
Chipset: OCS
Sound Emulation: Normal

Amiga -> RAM
Chip: 512kb
Bogo: 512kb
Fast: None

Amiga -> Kickstart
1.3

Amiga -> Drives Config
Floppy Speed: Turbo

PSP -> Display
Direct VRAM Access: ON
Frameskip: AUTO

I also set circle to be SPACE instead of the default of middle mouse button because it's much handier for gaming. My Amiga's mouse never had a middle mouse button

I'll continue to fiddle with it, but I'll also continue to hope for faster emulation in future

Thanks FOL!

[FOL]

Originally Posted by Radertified

I set the following options and now Turrican 2, while still jerky and performs nowhere near as well as the GP2x emulator, is a little more playable Kid Gloves is also almost perfect, with the occasional slowdown.

I also tried Tearaway Thomas and that struggles a little and flickers at times, but overall is playable too.

Amiga -> CPU
CPU: 68000
Cycles: Turbo
Cycles Option: Un-Locked
Speed: max

Amiga -> Chipset
Blitter Cycle Exact: OFF
Immediate Blits: ON
Collision Mode: Playfields
Chipset: OCS
Sound Emulation: Normal

Amiga -> RAM
Chip: 512kb
Bogo: 512kb
Fast: None

Amiga -> Kickstart
1.3

Amiga -> Drives Config
Floppy Speed: Turbo

PSP -> Display
Direct VRAM Access: ON
Frameskip: AUTO

I also set circle to be SPACE instead of the default of middle mouse button because it's much handier for gaming. My Amiga's mouse never had a middle mouse button

I'll continue to fiddle with it, but I'll also continue to hope for faster emulation in future

Thanks FOL!

It will never be as fast as an asm core, so its unfair to compare the two.

Try adjusting the cpu speed, from max to 50%. Messing with this option will help. The only side effect is, when lots of stuff is on screen it can slow a little.

I have tweaked it further with the source Im currently still working on.
I think its alot better than Beta 13. I have changed alot of things and tweaked alot of stuff. Its also updated and compiled on the latest PSP toolchain.

[Radertified]

Originally Posted by FOL

It will never be as fast as an asm core, so its unfair to compare the two.

Try adjusting the cpu speed, from max to 50%. Messing with this option will help. The only side effect is, when lots of stuff is on screen it can slow a little.

I have tweaked it further with the source Im currently still working on.
I think its alot better than Beta 13. I have changed alot of things and tweaked alot of stuff. Its also updated and compiled on the latest PSP toolchain.

I meant no disrespect. As I said earlier, a PSP is not a GP2x. They have different hardware, and different sources. I don't expect them to behave exactly the same. My comparison is purely to help others that may be curious about how well a PSP can emulate the Amiga, at least with the minimum amount of effort. Tweaking it will improve things considerably and I'm still trying to find the right settings

I'll mess with settings a little more in the next few days and if things improve considerably, I'll post an update.

Any idea as to when the next version may be coming out?

[FOL]

Originally Posted by Radertified

Any idea as to when the next version may be coming out?

Real life is a problem at the moment, so not sure when I will get time to finish aga support. I wanted to have another look at some more stuff (sound and hdd).

Want to look at trying the updated famec core, used in uae4droid.
That core seems very decent compared to our old core. Everything I have thrown at it has worked.

[twenty90seven]

Originally Posted by FOL

Real life is a problem at the moment, so not sure when I will get time to finish aga support. I wanted to have another look at some more stuff

If you get a Ps Vita or a chance to play around with one, it would be awesome if u could check out the menu issue in psp4uae in VHBL ;-)

[Radertified]

I've finally gotten around to playing with the emulator again.

As suggested, if you change the CPU speed from max to chipset, emulation speed will improve considerably.

For the Amiga -> CPU settings, my options are now:

CPU: 68000
Cycles: Normal
Cycles Option: Un-Locked
Speed: chipset
CPU to Chipset Ratio: 75%

With those settings, I played through Mad Professor Mariarti at close to full speed, with sound enabled. Other games I tried also seemed to work fine, although not all. Obviously the ratio is too high for certain games, such as Karate Kid II, so taking it down to 50% fixed that problem.

I'm happy with the emulation now. It's not perfect, but most things that I've tried are playable enough I'm looking forward to seeing the new version!

FOL: A couple of quick suggestions related to the UI. Whether or not they are implemented doesn't bother me, as I'm happy with the emulator as-is
- When scrolling through the list of ADFs, I use L1 and R1 to flick through them quickly. Have you considered making them Page Down and Page Up type buttons instead of a fast scroll?
- Ever thought about a favorites system for ADFs? ie. Find an ADF, click a button and have it added to a favorites screen so that I can easily flick back to that ADF without having to find it again.