Slashdot Mirror
PSP Emulator For Android Released
YokimaSun writes "This may be one of those projects that will get trounced on soon enough like the great Bleemcast Project, but a group of developers calling themselves the PPSSPP Project have released the first PSP Emulator for the Android OS, the emulator lets you play PSP Games with a touchscreen which was something PSP owners had wanted for years. At the moment games that are playable are Puzzle Bobble Deluxe, Puyo Pop Fever & Pinball Fantasies. The emulator has also been released for Windows and BlackBerry."
First of all, the verb "trounce" is never used with the preposition "on". But I'm a Finn, so what do I know?
That said: Android allows side-loading. Just put the emulator on Torrent (where you can find a shit-ton of other Android apps) and Sony can do fuckall about it.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I've never heard anyone want this. Is this anything like all the people who wanted a non-UMD version of the PSP, and eventually got it in the PSPgo, which promptly fell flat on its face due to lack of actual interest?
Of course, I can always imagine an emulator being popular, if it plays copies of games (regardless of whether you consider this OK or not).
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Wow. This is something I've been waiting for for a long time. I've never been a fan of the style of games on the iTunes App Store--I like my old school gaming, and I'm excited that it's available to me in a mobi--
What?
Oh, I have an iPhone. I'll never get to experience this.
Never mind then. Thanks, Steve.
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
I bought multiple copies to support Bleem years ago.
Clean room reverse engineering is a consumer rights issue. It should be supported when someone has the cojones to stand up to a large, litigious company.
Uh. The PSP is -NOTHING- like the PS3. It's actually also lower spec than the PS2. It's more like a PS1.5.
Nobody cares what the CAPTCHA for your post was.
Utterly irrelevant. A PS2 uses an unusual proprietary architecture and games tend to take advantage of very low-level architecture-specific tweaks. A PSP is a pretty standard MIPS R4000 and a fairly crappy but fairly standard GPU. With high-level emulation, dyamic recompilation, etc, it shouldn't be hard to emulate even on modest hardware. With today's GHz+ CPUs in phones, brute forcing may even be a reasonable option.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
That's because the PS2 has a rather complicated graphics subsystem, which is the hard part to emulate. All of the options you can tweak in PCSX2 are because of this.
But the PSP is more like a souped-up original Playstation, with 10x CPU speed, 16x RAM, 100x GPU speed, and an MPEG-4 decoder. I'm going to guess that the GPU is more like modern GPUs than the PS2 was, which would mean that the GPU in the host Android device can be used to do the 3D stuff. This would be like how N64 emulators can use the host's GPU for 3D, and even produce better graphics than the original.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
This is a bit too early for a slashdot post in my opinion. The emulator was just open sourced and it plays only a few games, not very well.
However, like it happened with Dolphin ( http://www.dolphin-emu.org/ ), I'm sure that compatibility will grow as quickly as we gain contributors. Here are the real links:
http://www.ppsspp.org/ and http://www.github.com/hrydgard/ppsspp .
Thanks!
Henrik
This reminds me of the work some enthusiasts have done with old games. Due to fundamental changes in the way shaders are done by GPUs, Theif 1 and 2 look like a green mess of hot garbage if you try to play it on a modern comp. I dont know how it works, but someone made a little hack that feeds the shading requirements to the CPU instead of GPU and it works great. It allowed me to re-enjoy those great games again, and I applaud the work they put into it.
A right to reverse consumer electronic devices (including game consoles) should be codified in law, IMHO. Right along the lines of format shifting, skipping adds in TV recordings, etc.
Especially if you realize that most emulator users are folks that a) already own the emulated device, or b) wouldn't buy it anyway. And it takes time to develop a decent emulator, so it won't be useful until a device has been on the market for some time. So it's not like the company would lose lots of sales because emulators exist (more likely the contrary, if it gets emulator users interested in the real thing).
So kudoz to these developers. If Sony decides to stomp on them: upload your torrent! ;-)
Another thing to consider is this: Yes, PCSX2 requires a beast of a CPU, but it will only use 2 cores. That's all it was coded for. Unfortunately, when CPUs started expanding by adding cores instead of upping mips, the emulator didn't benefit from it. A 3.2GhZ 8-core is pretty much 3.2GhZ dual-core as far as PCSX2 is concerned.
Sadly, coupled with the fact that most of the game-specific optimizations are for the popular crap I don't want to play (Final Fantasy Whatever, etc...) it never reached its full potential for me. It does play Persona 3 rather nicely, though, so it's better than nothing!
I know a very mobile platform with great battery life that can offer more:
A book.
Why do we need to buy our children $300 mobile game systems to sate them? Are they that mindless, and their parents so careless, that they need to be electronically entertained and stimulated every waking minute of the day?
[/oldmanrant]
I bet if you'd ran it on an AMD card instead of an Nvidia you wouldn't have had that problem, Nvidia tends to drop support for older games fairly quickly while AMD don't. I don't have that game to fire up and test but I do have Deus Ex 1, by the same company, and it plays just fine without any tweaks.
As for TFA I'm all for emulators, it quickly becomes a royal PITA to keep up with all the damned carts and consoles, anything that will let me play more games on my device of choice is a plus in my book.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
A tablet/handheld is a much better babysitter than books. They offer instant gratification, while books require a lot of work, not inline with today's value system. There are studies on their way to prove how much more educational tablets/handhelds are vs books. They are less of a health risk, as opposed to the eye strain suffered from reading. Much nicer on trees, too.
[/sarcasm]
The only thing offensive here, is your ignorance.
Hey, let's use this opportunity to share some facts person that's obviously jealous of this news for Android.
Not only do Android users have access to pretty much all of the same smudge-screen derived free-to-play social vomit that's been so popular on devices like the iPad, we also have access to pretty much every emulator available; and they can be purchased or downloaded freely -- even from Google's market; which is just one of many places to shop.
And since touch-screens suck ass for most games that weren't derived for this type of input and Android devices generally have USB ports, we can plug in actual gamepads, keyboards, mice, whatever; and yes, there's also Bluetooh.
And Android users don't need to do something strange, like jailbreaking their device if the want to access content like this PSP emulator.
Since moving to Android, I've not hit any lame walls and now have access to WAY more games -- better games -- than what that fruit company has allowed through its locked-down iGate.
So I have been playing PSP games on my Android for over a year... also it plays NES, SNES, PS-One, N64, Genesis so smoothly and with the pop out game pad i am the talk of the street or store when i pull it out to play a quick game of Donky Kong - NES og.. or to jump in Madden 2012 and pass a few balls, then back to playing Crash Bandicoot all with leaving Madden and NES running i can still take calls and surf the web with no issues. PSP game rips into iso and placed on my system works fine. I bet i would have to be one of the only people out there with a full working version of Diablo 1 for Ps 1 running on my cell phone. follow me at @answerbird for answers to all your questions or sweet pics on instgram
I'm afraid you don't know the definition of the word emulate. Once you do, you will realize that you made and extremely foolish statement. Any Turing complete software system can emulate any other implementation.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Can't look it up while at work, but if I recall it was a fundamental shift away from how graphics cards were made at the time. Theif came out back when Voodoos were still the shiznit, and we've come a long way since then.
Check out Rebirth on the Android! https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.plusonelabs.rebirth
I have an iControlpad
But how many other people are willing to buy and carry an iControlPad just to play emulated games on a phone when they could just buy and carry a used PSP? Has the manufacturer released any sort of numbers so that developers can know what size of market to expect for games optimized for the iControlPad?
Any Turing complete software system can emulate any other implementation.
For one thing, Turing completeness is unachievable because the memory of the universe is not unbounded. (Did you mean LBA completeness, which is the same thing minus the unbounded tape?) For another, Turing completeness or LBA completeness is not sufficient for gaming applications, which has soft real-time requirements.
Cant say Id ever heard anyone say they wanted psp games on a touch screen. Especially considering the psp has a circle pad, 4d pad, 4 face buttons, 2 shoulder buttons, start and select buttons I cant imagine thats going to work real well on a touchscreen.
That would be one reason they chose to emulate a PSP rather than a PS2 or PS3.
[Android device owners with a USB OTG adapter] can plug in actual gamepads, keyboards, mice, whatever; and yes, there's also Bluetooh
But how many people, other than you and toutankh, have actually bought a USB or Bluetooth gamepad to carry with your phone or tablet?
vita has the hardware but no games. tablets are taking over handheld gaming probably due to you know the far cheaper prices.
Being free or for sale is irrelevant. Sony can go after them just as hard if they choose.
And for what it's worth, bleem! was a clean room reverse engineering, and used no Sony code whatsoever (no PSX BIOS, etc.).
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
No paper cuts either.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Hey thanks for quoting my sentence, but then modifying it with a "partial" truth that only goes to show what you don't know. That rocks!
Yeah, some Android devices need an adapter, others do not. Many devices ship with micro USB and some even have full size USB. What really matters though -- especially for me, is that USB is a supported "OPTION" that's available on Android. It's why if I want, I can plug an arcade stick into my phone or any of my tablets -- well, not my iPad.
And I really can't give you an answer to your presumptuous question, nor do I care, as its outcome does not effect my choices; let alone the fact that USB is an option on Android.
For a while, it has profited directly from having a third one, as these days, the VU can run on its own thread, so it's one for GS, one for the VU and one for EE.
OP title is very misleading. This is a new PSP emulator that has been written from scratch in c++ with portability in mind, so it's not locked to x86. It doesn't have to be run for Android, nor is it made with Android as the main target. It also failed to link to the project's website at http://www.ppsspp.org/.
Previous leading PSP emulator is written in java: http://jpcsp.org/
A C++ conversion of it was attempted at some point but it never gained steam. PPSSPP might, as it was founded by people who've made successful emulators before (Dolphin, a GC/Wii emu) and has already gathered the attention of many relevant names in the emulator development scene.
Making money is kind of the point of a company, which they were.
And to be fair, in every court appearance they 'won' and helped set some legal precedence in regard to emulation. In the end, they did just run out of money. bleem! wasn't out to screw Sony over or promote piracy, which is why it didn't support loading of .ISO's. the idea was to make sure the original PSX disc was used.
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
It was released in 1998, the same year as Deus Ex and Half Life. again five will get you ten that if you'd have played it on any current AMD card it would play just fine, Nvidia tends to drop support in their drivers for older games quicker while AMD tends to keep support.
Like I said I have Deus Ex 1, Half life 1, even the old Team Fortress Classic (man that is STILL fun and packed with players BTW) and while my HD4850 isn't cutting edge (I plan to go HD6850 after the holidays) it plays those games just fine, both the stand alone and steam versions. When I was running Nvidia cards (I got bit by bumpgate so I will NEVER buy Nvidia again) I often had to hunt down tweaks because as i said they drop support pretty quick. Now I don't know if this will still be the case after AMD switches to vector over VLIW when it comes to their graphics engine, but if previous years are an indicator they will simply keep support in the drivers and have some sort of translator to emulate the VLIW for older games.
I just wish someone would come out with a DOSBox for Win9X, there are several games from that era that will NOT run on XP or newer because of all the hacks they used to speed up performance. try Mechwarrior 3 or i76 sometime, both are completely unplayable on anything other than a less than 2Ghz single core running win98. While I used to keep a SFF 733MHz just for Win9X it finally died and I just don't have the room to keep another tower just for a few old games.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Me! And I use a stock DualShock. No need for specialized hardware, rooting and other electronic gymnastics.
But I don't always bring it with me. Only for lenghty away missions.
20 minutes into the future
Virtual Machines ftw.
Cool, I wasn't aware of that. Apparently my information is dated. I'm not sure how much it will help me personally, since the EE was always my bottleneck, but I'll have to grab a newer version and try it now that GW2 is getting stale(r).
Hey thanks for quoting my sentence, but then modifying it with a "partial" truth that only goes to show what you don't know.
Thank you for the correction. Next time could you please use a bit less sarcasm though?
It's why if I want, I can plug an arcade stick into my phone or any of my tablets -- well, not my iPad.
True. I just want to know how many people "want", as I'll explain next.
And I really can't give you an answer to your presumptuous question, nor do I care, as its outcome does not effect my choices
It costs a developer time=money to port a game optimized for arcade sticks to Android, and developers won't do it if they think there's not big enough of an audience. If few people own arcade sticks and are willing to plug them into an Android device, then few developers will find the audience large enough to make it worth their while to make such a port, and you will end up with fewer choices of games that support an arcade stick. That's probably part of why Mortal Kombat (2011) isn't on PC or Android.
Won't work as the quirks are dependent on the hardware and a generic VM simply won't function properly. For an example take i76, a great game from which a lot of the "cars with guns" ideas came from. When it was written it used the chip clock as a timer for in game events, this was to help lower the amount of CPU cycles because it had so many objects, bombs, bullets, missiles, that had to be calculated. Now if you load this onto a Win95 VM? Oh it'll start alright, and you'll actually be able to play the first two levels fine, after that though halfway through the third level is a jump that you will NEVER MAKE as an in game event is required to happen at a certain time and because it doesn't recognize a modern CPU's clock, even with something like MoSlo running the event never happens and you can't go any farther.
So you see what we need is NOT a high level emulator like a VM, but more of a DOSBox style low level emulator that will provide emulation of the standard components of the time. Probably the perfect emulation would be of a PIII 733Mhz, with a Soundblaster 16 for audio and your choice of a VooDoo II or Nvidia GeForce 4 for the graphics. Now this of course would cost more overhead, as you are going to emulate hardware and translate its calls into something a modern system can understand, but frankly its the only way to get a LOT of the great Win9X era classic to run short of the company releasing the source so it could be recompiled with the hacks replaced. But just off the top of my head I can tell you MechWarrior 3, Final Fantasy VII, and i76 all don't run worth a crap even in a VM, even VMWare simply doesn't simulate the hardware to a point that these classics will run correctly.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Holy shit. You truly are a complete moron ... Turing approved.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun