PCSX-Reloaded

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PCSX-Reloaded^{[dead link 2021-11-15 ⓘ]}, also known as PCSXR, PCSXr or PCSX-r, is a plugin based console emulator built on top of the PSEmu Pro plugin interface, which allows playing Play Station 1 games on a PC.

Being a plugin based emulator allows more configurability, including setting screen resolutions and texture qualities higher than those supported by the original console.

Installation

Install the stable pcsxr^AUR package or alternately the pcsxr-git^AUR for the development version.

Additionally, you can also install the pcsxr-gtk2^AUR package for the GTK2 version, which allows to run GTK based plugin interfaces without having to install lib32-gtk^AUR from the AUR.

Notice, however, that if you have a 64 bit machine and you choose to grab one of the AUR versions, PCSXR will be compiled to 64 bit architecture, rendering it incompatible with the vast majority of the plugins, which are 32bit only. If you intend to use any plugins other than the ones that come with the emulator, you should install the 32 bit package from the multilib repositories.

Usage

Upon the first launch PCSXR will create a hidden directory named .pcsxr into your home directory, where all the configurations, plugins, savedata and the console bios will be stored. Deleting this directory will reset PCSXR's configuration to its original state.

BIOS

Warning: The installation and use of this emulator requires a Sony PlayStation BIOS file. You may not use such a file to play games in a PSX emulator if you do not own a Sony PlayStation, Sony PSOne or Sony PlayStation 2 console. Owning the BIOS image without owning the actual console is a violation of copyright law. You have been warned.

The emulator needs a dump of the bios of a real console to run. That's not provided by PCSXR since using or distributing the bios infringes Sony's Copyrights and is illegal.

The bios dump must be put into the ~/.pcsxr/bios/ directory.
PCSXR can also emulate an internal bios, but it is not compatible with all games and presents issues. PCSXR provides an incomplete compatibility list^{[dead link 2021-11-15 ⓘ]} on their site.

Plugins

PCSXR already comes with a set of plugins that allows to play out-of-the-box, however, if you wish to install plugins for extra video/sound/joystick/configurability you will need to put the respective plugins and their configuration files at the ~/.pcsxr/plugins/ directory. Most of the Linux compatible plugins can be found at Pete's Domain.

Be aware that some of the plugins will require lib32-gtk^AUR to show their configuration interface.

Configuration

Configure your Video, Sound, Controllers, CDROM and BIOS by going to Configuration > Plugins & Bios.

Playing

Run a game from CDROM by clicking File > Run CD or by pressing Ctrl+O.

Run a game from an ISO or BIN file by clicking File > Run ISO or by pressing Ctrl+I.

Run the Play Station BIOS and manage your memory cards and savedata by clicking File > Run BIOS or by pressing Ctrl + B.

Save States

PCSXR supports save states, which allows you to save your game progress in any moment, regardless of you being in a savepoint or not and without the need of attaching a new memory card.

There are 9 slots available for save states, meaning that for each different game you can have up to nine different states saved.

Save a state by clicking Emulator > Save States and selecting a slot or by pressing Ctrl+Slot Number eg. Ctrl+1 for slot 1.

Load a state by clicking Emulator > Load States and selecting a state previously saved to a slot or by pressing Alt+Slot Number eg. Alt+1 for slot 1.

Troubleshooting

wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS32

You installed a 64 bit version of the emulator and is trying to run a 32 bit plugin. Install the 32 bit version of pcsxr^AUR found on the multilib repository

cfgPeteXGL2, cfgPeteMesaGL or cfgPeopsOSS not found

This issue happens because the latest Linux version of Pete's plugins do not provide the configuration files with them. To solve the problem go to Pete's GPU Plugins page and find the Linux GPU Configs section, download the configuration files - they will come all together in a .tar.gz file. Fetch the missing ones from the Gzip file and put them on the ~/.pcsxr/plugins/ folder and the problem will be solved.

PE.Op.S OSS Audio Driver outputs no sound

OSS is dated, use the SDL Sound 1.1.0 plugin that comes included with the emulator.

Audio crackling

Disable the system type (NTFS/PAL) auto-detection and manually set it to PAL in Configuration > CPU ... > System Type.

PCSXR segfaults when launching a game or the BIOS

Segfaults are confirmed to happen in computers that have an Intel HD Graphics 965 installed on them, but the bug is reportedly happening on AMD and NVidia powered PC's as well.

Open the file ~/.pcsxr/pcsxr.cfg and change the Cpu property's value from 0 to 1 to fix it.

You may also want to investigate the cause of the segfault by examining the Core dump with coredumpctl.

Opening the Pete's plugin interface does not work: error while loading shared libraries: libgtk-1.2.so.0

Install lib32-gtk^AUR. If pacman fails to resolve the dependencies, it is because they are not available on the official repos. Check the dependencies with less PKGBUILD and install them manually from the AUR.