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Sony PlayStation

Overview

The Sony PlayStation application is an emulator for the Sony PlayStation game console.

Magic Castle by KAIGA

Due to its high resource requirements, the following devices are minimally recommended for running this application:

  • Modern PC or Mac
  • iPhone 11 or iPad 9th Generation (or newer)
  • Xbox Series X|S gaming consoles
  • Newer Android devices with a highly performant processor (high single core speed)

Adding Games (Feed Editor)

Due to large Disc image sizes, adding PlayStation games in the Feed Editor must be done manually (versus using auto-detection).

Important

The PlayStation application only supports .CHD and .PBP disc file formats (.ISO, .BIN, and .CUE are not supported).

See the Disc and Archive-based Items section for the list of steps required to add a PlayStation game in the Feed Editor.

Important

Both the iOS Safari and Xbox Series X|S Edge browsers limit the amount of memory that can be consumed by a particular web application (such as webЯcade).

The current limit is around 450 megabytes. Therefore, loading larger disc sizes may fail.

To increase the likelihood of a game with a larger disc size loading, you can optionally choose to launch the game using a standalone-based link (versus launching the game within the webЯcade player or editor). See the Standalone section of this documentation for further information (On Xbox, you would most likely want to bookmark the direct link. On iOS, you would most likely want to add the game to the home screen).

BIOS Files

In addition to Sony PlayStation Disc images, a set of PlayStation BIOS files must be specified globally within the feed (See the Feed Properties Dialog and Sony PlayStation Feed Properties sections).

The BIOS files specified must be one of the following three sets:

The BIOS files originally used on the PlayStation 1.

File Hash (MD5) Description
scph5500.bin 8dd7d5296a650fac7319bce665a6a53c PlayStation 1 Japan BIOS
scph5501.bin 490f666e1afb15b7362b406ed1cea246 PlayStation 1 USA BIOS
scph5502.bin 32736f17079d0b2b7024407c39bd3050 PlayStation 1 Europe BIOS

The PlayStation 1 BIOS file used on the PlayStation Portable.

File Hash (MD5) Description
PSXONPSP660.bin c53ca5908936d412331790f4426c6c33 PlayStation Portable

The PlayStation 1 BIOS file used on the PlayStation 3.

File Hash (MD5) Description
ps1_rom.bin 81bbe60ba7a3d1cea1d48c14cbcc647b PlayStation 3

Settings

The Sony PlayStation Application includes a custom settings dialog.

To access these settings, display the "Pause" screen and select the "PlayStation Settings" option (See screenshot above).

PlayStation Settings Tab (Session Only)

The PlayStation Application's "settings" tab is detailed below. It is important to note that the settings on this tab are Session only meaning they will not persist between gaming sessions.

Field Description
Analog mode Enables Analog mode on the PlayStation DualShock controller. Some games will automatically force this mode. However, this setting allows for forcing the controller into analog mode.
Swap controllers (ports 1 and 2) Swaps controllers 1 and 2. This is necessary in some games as they require the use of both controller ports (even during a single player game).
Reset Disc This resets the state of the CD that is currently mounted. This is only required if a game does not automatically support creating a game save prior to requesting a disc swap. In those particular cases, the only way to resume the game on the other disc is to do the following:

  1. Play the game to the point where it requests a disc swap.
  2. Create a save state at this point (requires cloud-storage to be enabled).
  3. Exit out of the game and subsequently load the game with the requested disc.
  4. Restore the save state once the game is loaded.
  5. Finally, open the pause menu, and enable the "Reset Disc" option.
  6. At this point, the game should continue.

Advanced Settings Tab

The PlayStation Application's "advanced" tab settings are detailed below.

Field Description
GPU Resolution Controls the resolution to render each scene at internally.

This option will only affect 3D rendered items (not 2D). This improves the clarity of the visuals, primarily noticeable on larger screen resolutions.

NOTE: This setting significantly increases the required resources, and will result in performance issues on a large number of devices.

Controls

The emulator supports up to four controllers. The keyboard and gamepad mappings are listed in the tables below.

Keyboard

Keyboard support is only available for controller one.

Name
Keys
 Comments
D-pad
Circle
Cross
Triangle
Square
L2
L1
R1
R2
Start
Select The Right Shift Key.
Show Pause Screen

Gamepad

Gamepad support is available for all controllers.

Name
Gamepad
 Comments
D-pad
D-pad When Analog Mode disabled.
Left analog When Analog Mode enabled.
Right analog When Analog Mode enabled.
Circle
Cross
Triangle
Square
L2
L1
R1
R2
Start Not available for Xbox and not recommended for iOS (see alternate)

Press the Menu (Start) Button.
Start
(Alternate)		  and  Hold down the Right Trigger and click (press down) on the Right Thumbstick.
Select Not available for Xbox and not recommended for iOS (see alternate)

Press the View (Back) Button.
Select
(Alternate)		  and  Hold down the Right Trigger and click (press down) on the Left Thumbstick.
Show Pause Screen  and  Not available for Xbox and not recommended for iOS (see alternate 3 or 4)

Hold down the Left Trigger and press the Menu (Start) Button.
Show Pause Screen
(Alternate)		  and  Not available for Xbox and not recommended for iOS (see alternate 3 or 4)

Hold down the Left Trigger and press the View (Back) Button.
Show Pause Screen
(Alternate 2)		  and  Not available for Xbox and not recommended for iOS (see alternate 3 or 4)

Hold down the X Button and press the View (Back) Button.
Show Pause Screen
(Alternate 3)		  and  Hold down the Left Trigger and click (press down) on the Left Thumbstick.
Show Pause Screen
(Alternate 4)		  and  Hold down the Left Trigger and click (press down) on the Right Thumbstick.

Memory Card Storage

The PlayStation application supports preserving state from Memory Cards between sessions. This state is persisted in the browser's local storage or optionally to cloud-based storage. State information will be persisted whenever the pause screen is displayed (or the game is exited). Therefore, the pause screen should be displayed periodically to ensure the state is properly persisted.

Feed

This section details how PlayStation application instances can be added to feeds.

Type

The type name for the PlayStation application is beetle-psx.

Note

The alias psx also currently maps to this application. In the future, the psx alias may be mapped to another PlayStation application (different emulator implementation) if it is determined to be a more appropriate default.

Feed Properties

The table below contains global PlayStation feed properties. These properties must be specified in the props object of the feed's Feed Object.

Property Type Required Details
psx_bios Array of URLs Yes

An array of URLs to PlayStation BIOS files.

The BIOS files must be one of the following three sets:

  • (PS1) scph5500.bin, scph5501.bin, and scph5502.bin
  • (PSP) PSXONPSP660.bin
  • (PS3) ps1_rom.bin

Item Properties

The table below contains the properties that are specific to the PlayStation application. These properties are specified in the props object of a feed item.

Property Type Required Details
uid String Yes

A unique identifier for the particular game (must be unique across all PlayStation games).

This identifier is primarily used to associate persistent state with the game.
discs Array of URLs Yes

Array of URLs to one or more (for multi-disc games) PlayStation game discs.

The PlayStation application only supports .CHD and .PBP disc file formats (.ISO, .BIN, and .CUE are not supported).
zoomLevel Numeric No A numeric value indicating how much the display image should be zoomed in (0-40).

This property is typically used to hide the black borders that are present on some PlayStation games.
analog Boolean No Enables Analog mode on the PlayStation DualShock controller. Some games will automatically force this mode. However, this setting allows for forcing the controller into analog mode.
multitap Boolean No Enables multi-tap functionality when enabled (4 controllers).
skipBios Boolean No Skips the PlayStation BIOS animation that is displayed when starting a game.
disableMemCard1 Boolean No Whether to disable the use of memory card 1 (memory card 0 will still be available).

Example

The following is an example of a complete feed that consists of a single PlayStation application instance (type value of psx). The discs property value contains a URL that points to a Dropbox location that contains the excellent homebrew game Magic Castle by KAIGA. The uid property value contains a unique identifier for this specific game (must be unique across all PlayStation games).

It is also worth noting that the PlayStation BIOS locations (psx_bios) is specified globally within the Feed Object's props object.

{
  "title": "Sony PlayStation",
  "props": {
    "psx_bios": [
        "https://<host>/scph5500.bin",
        "https://<host>/scph5501.bin",
        "https://<host>/scph5502.bin"
    ]
  },
  "categories": [
    {
      "title": "Sony PlayStation Games",
      "items": [
        {
          "title": "Magic Castle",
          "type": "psx",
          "props": {
            "uid": "60f942b4-b4e5-47c0-9759-5d9d191c58e8",
            "discs": [
                "https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/1fkmiszh1hj98d0/magiccastle.chd"
            ]
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

References

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