PCSX is a

free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

video game console emulator A video game console emulator is a type of emulator that allows a computing device to emulate a video game console's hardware and play its games on the emulating platform. More often than not, emulators carry additional features that surpass ...

that allows software designed to be used with the

Sony PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a divi ...

to run on

personal computer A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...

s. Over the years, development changed hands several times with PCSX-Reloaded (PCSXR) now being the main version. As of 2021, the emulator seems to be no longer under active development. A newer fork of PCSX-Reloaded is PCSX-Redux. PCSX has a high compatibility rate, and is currently available for a number of different

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

s including,

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

, and

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

. It is released under the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the Four Freedoms (Free software), four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was th ...

History

Development for the emulator started in July 20, 1999, The emulator was first released for the PC on August 31, 2000. Official development ceased on September 17, 2003, and development shifted to the new

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October 2000, in Europe on 24 November 2000, and in Australia on 3 ...

emulator,

PCSX2 PCSX2 is a free and open-source PlayStation 2 emulator for Windows, Linux, and macOS that supports a wide range of PlayStation 2 video games with a high level of compatibility and functionality. Although PCSX2 can closely mirror the original gam ...

. PCSX-df was created in 2006 and added new features, a new

GTK GTK (formerly GIMP ToolKit and GTK+) is a free and open-source cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, allowing both free and propriet ...

-based interface,

AMD64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first released in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging mod ...

support, and corrected some bugs, but was developed mainly with only Linux compatibility in mind. Version 1.10 was released on March 29, 2009. PCSX-Reloaded is a new project created in mid-2009, which is based on the work of the PCSX-df branch, completely independent, and works on bug fixes while maintaining Windows and OS X compatibility alongside Linux. PCSX-df and PCSX-Reloaded coexisted for a while, with PCSX-df merging changes of PCSX-Reloaded back into ''df''. In 2019, another fork PCSX-Redux was started. It can be seen as the latest iteration of the original PCSX codebase. This fork has the goal of a complete redesign along more up to date code standards. Everything should be implemented on top of SDL/

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardwa ...

3+/ ImGui. Additionally, the plugin system will be replaced through a single monolithic codebase that handles all aspects of the PlayStation emulation. In this context, PCSX-Redux shares several approaches with the PlayStation 2 emulation successor project PCSX2

Features

PCSX supports network play and external plugins as used by

ePSXe ePSXe (''enhanced PSX emulator'') is a PlayStation video game console emulator for x86-based PC hardware with Microsoft Windows and Linux, as well as devices running Android. It was written by three authors, using the aliases ''calb'', ''_Demo ...

. As with many modern emulators, PCSX-Reloaded supports savestates and also has Save Rewind feature (currently only OSX and Linux version), Support for ECM files (currently only OS X and Linux version), Support for Libarchive (currently only OSX and Linux version), widescreen hack and makes use of plug-ins to emulate

GPU A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobi ...

, SPU, and

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both comput ...

drive functions, a model first established in PSEmu Pro, it uses Peops OpenGL plugin for graphics on default but can also use Pete's OpenGL2, gpuBladeSoft,

graphics plugin GSDX, AmiDog GPU plugin, Asmodeans PSXFX shader pack, input plugins such as Lilypad and Pokopom Pad Plugin. It also has multi-track cue support and is the only PS1 emulator with compatibility with anti-jitter options in graphics plugins, such as GTE accuracy in the default Peops OpenGL plugin, or Improved coordinate accuracy in Edgbla's gpuBladeSoft and it also supports PeteOpenGL2Tweak plugin. Additionally, PCSX seeks to simulate the functionality of the

PlayStation is a video gaming brand that consists of five home video game consoles, two handhelds, a media center, and a smartphone, as well as an online service and multiple magazines. The brand is produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment, a divisi ...

BIOS In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the ...

and consequently does not require a

file dump to operate, making it easier to emulate legally, however, Bios emulation is still incomplete so it is better to use dumped BIOS to avoid various bugs and reduced compatibility.

Ports and commercial usage

OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

, and

x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was introd ...

-based computers are the main development focus of PCSX-Reloaded but various PCSX iterations have been

ported In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...

to other platforms as well, including

Dreamcast The is a home video game console released by Sega on November 27, 1998, in Japan; September 9, 1999, in North America; and October 14, 1999, in Europe. It was the first sixth-generation video game console, preceding Sony's PlayStation 2, N ...

GameCube The is a home video game console developed and released by Nintendo in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, and in PAL territories in 2002. It is the successor to the Nintendo 64 (1996), and predecessor of the Wii ...

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...

Wii The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other Regional lockout, regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major ho ...

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand created and owned by Microsoft. The brand consists of five video game consoles, as well as applications (games), streaming services, an online service by the name of Xbox network, and the development arm by the na ...

, and various ARM-based platforms (PCSX-Rearmed fork) such as

BlackBerry Playbook The BlackBerry PlayBook is a mini tablet computer developed by BlackBerry and made by Quanta Computer, an original design manufacturer (ODM).

and

Nintendo 3DS The is a handheld game console produced by Nintendo. It was announced in March 2010 and unveiled at E3 2010 as the successor to the Nintendo DS. The system features backward compatibility with Nintendo DS video games. As an eighth-generatio ...

Usage

PCSXR was used for an official

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ham ...

and commercial re-release of N2O: Nitrous Oxide on

Steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...

on June 29, 2015. It is also used as the emulator on Sony's

PlayStation Classic The PlayStation Classic is a Dedicated console, dedicated video game console by Sony Interactive Entertainment that emulates games originally released on its 1994 PlayStation (console), PlayStation console. It was announced in September 2018 at ...

dedicated console A dedicated console is a video game console that is limited to one or more built-in video game or games, and is not equipped for additional games that are distributed via ROM cartridges, discs, downloads or other digital media. Dedicated consol ...

Reception

Tom's Guide ''Tom's Hardware'' is an online publication owned by Future plc and focused on technology. It was founded in 1996 by Thomas Pabst. It provides articles, news, price comparisons, videos and reviews on computer hardware and high technology. The si ...

'' featured PCSX Reloaded in a feature about the best PlayStation emulators, scoring it at 4 of 5 points. Kator Legaz reviewed the Mac OS version as "good".

References

External links

* * (archived) {{DEFAULTSORT:PCSX Free software programmed in C PlayStation emulators Software that uses GTK Software using the GPL license Free video game console emulators