Emulating PSP games on PC - getting started with JPCSP
If you're reading this, you're probably interested in emulating PSP games on your PC. Currently, the best available emulator for this is JPCSP.
Stuff to know before you start reading (2012 06 28): I stopped paying attention to PSP emulation quite a while ago, and therefore haven't updated this guide in months. So certain things might be out of date.
Here's a General FAQ that covers most of the basics. I'm going to touch on some of the more important bits later.
System Requirements
Minimum
- Windows 32bit or 64bit / Linux 32bit or 64bit / Mac OSX
- CPU: Pentium 4 and up
- GPU: Any graphic card supporting OpenGL 2.0 and up
- 1GB RAM
Recommended
- Windows Vista / Windows 7 (use Jpcsp 32bit even on 64bit OS to have sound and video support)
- CPU: Dual core @ 2.5 GHz
- GPU: Always install the latest drivers
- 2GB RAM or more
(Source)
Please note that this does not guarantee that every single game will run at full speed.
Getting started
You can get the official build of the emulator from here. Much like in the case of Dolphin, however, new and updated revisions are released periodically. These usually contain certain fixes and tweaks not present in earlier versions like the official one, and may be more compatible, or even run certain games faster. Get them from here:
The latest JPCSP builds
Important: to be able to run JPCSP, you'll need the latest Java Runtime Environment installed.
You can run JPCSP by clicking on the .bat file in the emulator's folder, which should look something like "start-windows-x86.bat" in the case of the x86 version. Alternatively, you can just download JPCSP Launcher and run it with a simple JPCSP.exe (and the "Run" button afterwards).
http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/1...splauncher.png
SonicStage and OpenMG installers (special thanks to Shardnax):
Sonic Stage
OpenMG
Compatibility
To see which games work on JPCSP, check out the forums and compatibility lists here:
Commercial Game Discussion - JPCSP Official Forums
(Or the easy way: Google "[game's name] emunewz". That's it, really.)
PSP Emulators Compatibility List
Running games on JPCSP
To be able to play your games, you'll first need to copy your .iso or .cso to the "umdimages" folder found in the JPCSP main folder. Then simply run JPCSP, and go to File/Load UMD. Click on your game in the list, then click "Load". After this you should be able to run your game with the "Run" button (next to Pause and Reset).
Note: Newer versions of the emulator have an option called "Enable saving GE screen to Textures instead of Memory" under the Video tab in the Config menu. This might drastically improve your framerate, so give it a try if your game is too slow. Another possible solution if the previous option doesn't work: "ONLY GE graphics (not recommended for homebrew)" might also give a framerate boost (pointed out by treos).
Some common problems:
- When booting up your game, you might see something like this with a "this is a faked MPEG video" message. To be able to play videos (such as opening cinematics, CG cutscenes and such), you'll have to boot up JPCSP, go to Options -> Configuration and tick the "Use Media Engine" option under the Media tab. To have sound/music in said videos, tick "Decode audio files with SonicStage". For this, you'll obviously need to have SonicStage installed.
Note: As far as I know, the Media Engine does not work on x64 builds, so you'll just have to use the x86 ones for now.
- In some games, resizing the default JPCSP window might result in messed up graphics.
Important: If this guide hasn't answered your question(s) and you're planning to create a thread asking for help, please read this and try to follow the guidelines listed under "Emulation". Thanks!
