PS Vita - Is one worth getting?

[vroom6sri]

We've got a PS3 & PS4 hooked up to the TV in the living room. Both are primarily used by my 2 sons.

I was thinking about getting a 2nd hand PS Vita for each of them as one of their Xmas presents but I was wondering what you guys think. Is it worth it and, if so, are there things I should consider when looking for one?

[Anubis]

I got it few years back, and my son played it just a bit, but never got really into it like with Nintendo DS/XL or Switch. IMHO it is nice to have one, specially if you collected all those vita games offered in PSN+ and have or planning to get few good games it had.

I never bothered to run homebrew on it, but now that there is some cool emulators, I might use it for that.

[petarku]

i was using it a lot for amiga gaming on the go with amiga emulator. I think it is worth.

[S0ulA55a551n]

I would go with second hand newer 3ds/XL much better systems

[BippyM]

I am very thinking about an older vita for emulation purposes

[Glen M]

I was given one a couple of year back and I honestly don't think I've ever turned it on.

Amiga emulation sounds like fun though. How do you go about running emulators on the Vita?

[vroom6sri]

Hmmm... maybe it’s worth me buying at least one as a trial. Do you know if it needs modding in some way to run the homebrew and emulators?

[Anubis]

It should be soft hack, depending on firmware.

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[vroom6sri]

Nice one! I’m thinking this might be worth a look after all.

[Anubis]

After checking more YT videos, I am thinking I might try some of emulation on PS Vita, since my PSP does not hold memory card any more, since thing to hold it broke.

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It would be nice to play some PSP games as well some old PSX games.

[lesta_smsc]

Definitely worth getting. You will need to be able to run homebrew somehow, but plenty of guides regarding how to 'hack' the Vita to allow you to do this.

It is also able to run emulators for the PSP (via the Adrenaline emulator) and suprisingly it runs most emulators at full speed (I think). I know for UAE4All2 it is a huge speed boost compared to the version on PSP but saying that, FOL did a great job with the PSP version and on the whole, they are both excellent emulators to have!

There is Vita Homebrew Browser which is a nice app that lets you download and automatically installs the homebrew you want (this includes emulators).

If you are struggling to download, the simplest thing to do is copy the .vpk files over and install them via VitaShell.

Be sure to invest in "SD2Vita" adaptor, so you can put in cheap microSD card and use that instead of the very expensive Sony memory card for the Vita.

[vroom6sri]

Great advice. Many thanks.

[Anubis]

I had to use different video, since my firmware is higher then 3.73.

I followed this instruction and it was quite easy to install hack, vita shell and homebrew browser.

I did not try emulators yet, but for start, this was very easy to follow.

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[Anubis]

Here is amiga on PS Vita









For some reason unable to run Adrenaline. Will look into it once i get more time. (crashes with an error)

[gimbal]

Got to love the Vita screen, probably the best handheld screen I've seen yet. Such vibrant colors.

[vroom6sri]

That does look pretty bloody nice! How does the emulator perform?

[lesta_smsc]

Originally Posted by vroom6sri

That does look pretty bloody nice! How does the emulator perform?

UAE4All2 works VERY well indeed... in fact, I need to learn how to slow down some of the games which run too fast e.g. Golden Axe. I'm sure there is a config error on my part, but it's as though it's running at 1000% lol.

[Anubis]

Originally Posted by vroom6sri

That does look pretty bloody nice! How does the emulator perform?

I did spend little bit more time unsuccessfully trying to get Adrenaline to work. Since I am currently running everything off memory card, where I have bunch of PSN and Vita games installed, wonder if something with permissions is causing issues. I ordered couple SD2VITA and once I have those, I will see if setting 'emulation' only card makes any difference. (SD2VITA + 32GB card ~10 bucks - same size vita card is hefty 60+ USD.

As I already have said, I Installed GBA emulator and that runs very nice. I tried Advanced Wars, Metroid Fusion, Mario World 2, Advanced Tetris and GB Tetris. All run very nice.

Installed SNES emulator, tried Metroid and it runs OK, just sound is not as good as I was expecting. Same goes for Genesis and SMS emulators that I have also installed.

Retroarch seems to run all of them far better and has been more up to date. I also tried NES emulation in RetroArch - and that runs as expected - well.

Amiga emulation in UAE4ALL is quite good, with some frequent line disturbance for Lionheart, but it appears to play constant 50 fps and 100%. I played first leveland did not see any issues.Will probably try SuperFrog next to see how fast moving game plays. On screen keyboard works fine and for a second I could not figure out mouse click for intro, until I remembered that it is touchscreen.

So far 2 things are not working for me at all - Vita HomeBrew Browser - it opens, but will crash as soon as I click download, and Adrenaline - and I was really looking to get this one working.

I did not test any plugins yet. I am not sure how do you added cheats into PSN / Vita games, will probably look into that during week.

[FOL]

I held off when they were released. Glad I did, Its nothing near the PSP. Game titles released on it suck. Its only good for hacking and runinng emulation. I mainly use mine for XBOX gaming.

[Anubis]

xbox gaming??

Care to explain??