Playstation Classic announced

[Harrison]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl2h8LDq_oI

https://www.playstation.com/en-us/explore/playstation-classic/

As you have no doubt already seem, Sony has announced it will be jumping on the bandwagon and releasing a mini retro system in the form of the Playstation Classic.

It will come with 20 preloaded games, some nice inclusiions shown in the video announcement including Final Fantasy 7 and Wild Arms, plus 2 controllers and will connect via HDMI. Sadly the controllers are only the original design and not the updated analogue ones. And it comes with a USB cable to power it, but strangely now AC adapter, so they are assuming you have a spare.. maybe from an old phone.

It will cost $99.99 in the USA and £89.99 in the UK.

What are your thoughts on this?

Will be interesting to see if it will be possible to hack it like the Nintendo minis, to add your own games to the system. That would really be the only reason I would be interested. It's also a bit disappointing that it will come with the original style controllers and not the newer analogue versions.. especially with games included like Ridge Racer R4.

[Tiago]

89.99 pounds? I am sure you can get a real PS1 with that value and also including some games.
May be interesting for someone that wants to remember the old games, but the price is high.
A bit like the Amiga, there is the real hardware and there are other hardware that can emulate, not the same.
The question is always the price. Is it good? The idea maybe good, but 89,99 is to much imho.

[Harrison]

It is quite expensive that is true. You can buy an original PSX or PSOne for as little as £10. And many games can by found for a few pounds. However try buying Wild Arms which will be included with the classic, or many of the other collectable RPGs and other genres now. Some are really silly prices now, although many were always actually commanding quite a lot.

But this classic isn't really aimed at us reteo gamers directly. As you said, it's preying on nostalgia. So many people bought a PSX at time because it was the must have gaming system and they were casual gamers. When it went out of favour they threw them away. Fat forward and they see this and want to play the games again.

Would I buy one? I still own my original working chipped PSX so don't need one. But it connects directly via HDMI and upscaled so that's a big bonus, plus the games are loading from ram, not from a disc, so quicker load times, no disc swapping etc. If it gets hacked so you can add your own games I might be interested. But with 20 games included you have to wonder what the on-board storage will be. Will Sony just make thr storage big enough to fit the included games? 20 games, some like FF7 on 4 discs, so about 32GB storage needed to hold them. That would mean limited space for any more.

Rehashing price, it's about level with Nintendo's recent mini systems, and they sold out fast. Although many were bought out by scalpers flooding ebay with them at higher prices.

[Kin Hell]

Tsk! :rolleyes:

[Demon Cleaner]

Playing PSX games on my PS3 with smoothing on. Why exactly would I need this?

[Harrison]

Exactly, every Playstation has been able to play PSX games. As I said before it's aimed at the causal gamers from when it originally came out whom for rid of it, see this release and feel the nostalgia to play it again.

The only real bonus is no physical media and a very compact system that connects via hdmi with usb controllers.

[Demon Cleaner]

And quite portable I guess.

[Harrison]

Definitively portable. Maybe good for a bit of multiplayer after the pub as you can just take it with you easily.

As I said before I would only be interested if it gets hacked. Would make a nice little system to run titles with solid state storage.

[Technooke]

Very cool, will it still run with the old school games or only the new feature games?

[Harrison]

It's a fixed platform system the same as the recent Nintendo minis. Plug and play. It plays the same as the original and will come with 20 of the best games from the system built in, identical to how they were when originally released.

[Harrison]

This has now been released. £89 in the UK.

Many are moaning about the selection of games included. But more so retro gamers are moaning about the complete lack of customisation! If you look at the Nintendo mini systems they provide settings such as adding emulated scanlines. The PlayStation classic has nothing. It loads in 16:9 upscaled resolution, and with most Playstation games originally for 4:3 aspect ratio, so it stretches out the image. If your TV has the settings you might be able to make the TV force the screen to a 4:3 and squash it back, but that's annoying. Equally if you have a UK one you are locked to a PAL bios and 50hz output. All modern lcds can run 60hz. Big oversight!

But there is hope. Someone discovered if you plus a USB keyboard into the console and press the Escape key it takes you into the emulator's settings menu! This gives instant access to scanline generation, selecting ntsc or pal bios, as well as options to load CD images (although not currently worked out how to load images.. maybe just plugging a usb stick in? Would be mad if it were that simple! Shows Sony have been a bit lazy because they are basically just running the standard Playstation emulator without customising it at all. All they needed to do was bind Select+Start to the Escape key settings link.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNtAUwz8fqw

[Demon Cleaner]

Like I said, why buy this if I can play EVERY game on my PS3? Which is btw still standing at it's initial spot, meaning fully available.

[Harrison]

If you have a PS3 then yes, but many don't, and most have no clue how to put their own PS1 games onto one to play them, instead repurchasing them from the PlayStation store. As I said before, this classic is aimed more at those whom were uni students when the original came out, but didn't keep it and want one for a bit of retro nostalga. They will be a bit disappointed by the game line-up though. One of the most famous games to get the system noticed by Students, Wipeout 2097, is not included. Either is Gran Turismo.

The thing I like with all these mini systems though is their plug and play design and their size. They fit in the palm of your hand and come with authentic controllers, plus are geared to output correctly on modern displays via hdmi, so no messing around. Admittedly Sony dropped the ball with this classic because they didnt give a direct way to access and configure the emulator running this setup.

For me at the moment the best mini system released has been the SNES Mini because you can easily unlock and customise it. It's a great miniature emulation system to stick under the TV. You can easily hack them and there is an ever growing community of hacking support and releases. You can add more SNES games to it to expand it's library, but you can also install the RetroArc emulator, which then allows you to run GBA, NES, N64, Gamegear, Master and Megadrive, NeoGeo, MAME and even PSX.. etc games. The only limitation of the SNES Mini is storage space. It has about half free when you get it, so can realistically fit about 20-30 more games on it. But even that has been solved. You can now get a cheap OTG USB adapter, and after installing some utilities you can plug a USB memory stick in and instantly expand the storage.

So yeah, I wouldn't buy a PSX classic at the momrnt, I would buy a SNES Mini and hack it. Perfect little emulsion system. The other route is Raspberry Pi in a SNES case.

If however they manage to hack and unlock the Playstation classic it might be more tempting. I don't know how the PSX classic's hardware compared to the Snes Mini (Nes mini uses the same hardware), but Nintendo's hardware is much more powerful than is needed to emulate SNES games, as is evident by being able to run PSX games on it. Even 32x and N64 games run fine. So if the Classic's hardware is even more powerful this would be good.

[J T]

Wipeout 2097, is not included. Either is Gran Turismo. .

Shame, but some of that may have been to do with licensing arrangements (music tracks, I'm guessing, but maybe also the car manufacturers for GT). It's a pity there isn't a simpler legal way around this but that's the nature of this world at the moment.

[Demon Cleaner]

The other route is Raspberry Pi in a SNES case.
Is that not basically what it is anyway, kind of?

[Harrison]

Yes, very similar. Both (snes mini and Pi) use the same hardware as smartphone technology and both are running Linux.

In fact it's fairly obvious the SNES is running on Linux if you hack one as the filesystem is standard, which is nice for the hacking/dev/retro emulation communities.

Nintendo have however developed the hardware beyond standard Smartphone tech.

Specs are:

Allwinner R16 SoC (system on chip), featuring four ARM Cortex A7s paired with an ARM Mali 400 MP2 GPU. Hynix single memory chip - a 256MB DDR3 module - and 512MB of NAND storage.

512MB storage might not sound a lot, but when you consider the size of the average SNES rom image is about 1-6MB you can fit quite a few on there, so more wasn't needed. Interestingly it's exactly the same hardware used in the NES mini, so Nintendo smartly designed thr hardware ready for all the Mini systems they had planned. Four an N64 mini (if one is ever planned) thr hardware running N64 games perfectly, but it might need more storage because N64 games were normally between 16MB and 64MB. But if you hack the SNES mini you can then just plug a usb stick or external hdd into it to expand storage.

Now the interesting bit about the system. The bespoke Super NES emulation software layer, running on open source OS, Linux, not only emulates the Super NES itself, but many of the add-on processors that were included in specific cartridges. This includes the Super FX and Super FX2 chips that were used for Star Fox, its sequel and Yoshi's Island, and a few other games. Plus the SA1 CPU upgrade utilised by Super Mario RPG and Kirby Super Star. Even Super Mario Kart used additional hardware - NEC's DSP-1, which is also replicated for the mini consoles.

You might argue that many of these chips are also emulated in other SNES emulators, and that is true. The Super FX abd DSP-1 chip based games canbe problematic though. And for anyone whom owns a SNES Everdrive you might have encountered the limitations of the missing chips.. although they do have the facility to solder a real chip from an original carry to the ED hardware.

The final thing that's interesting. With the NES and SNES Mini hardware being identical they can both be hacked to do exactly that same thing. But the NES mini is currently only £45, whereas the SNES Mini is £69-75. So whilst it doesn't look so good IMO the NES Mini could be a great little emulation system to own. Only downside is the NES controller it comes with. You can buy additional SNES controllers, but if you wanted the best controller for either system the Wii classic controller works because it uses the same ports. Quite a nice inclusion, which makes you wonder if Nintendo's idea here was that these mini systems were easy to hack. Would be strange considering how protective they normally are over anything emulation or rom related. Using a Wii classic controller you can then easily play N64 games and other systems fully as you have access to a lot more controls such as dual analogue sticks. More likely is its support is built in because if they do make an N64 mini they can just put thr Wii classic controller's hardware inside an N64 style casing.

[Harrison]

Quick update. It seems some have already found exploits in the classic to add your own games. So far it's a bit fiddly as you have to exit the system database and replace one of the existing game entries with your new one. Or you can exploit it by adding games to a usb stick, but you still need to edit the database. Early days so they should develop a far easier solution soon.

Disappointingly once they hacked it they discovered Sony have made thr classic as cheaply as possible. Basically a Risc PC similar to an old Raspberry Pi version, and running a third party emulator, not even using their own they have developed for years and used on many of their recent systems. Strange. They could even have used their PSP, Vita or PSTV hardware.

[Demon Cleaner]

Tells you.

[Harrison]

It seems that, due to the disappointment and poor reviews of the PlayStation Classic, stores in the UK have already reduced its retail price to £49.99. It's at this price in most stores already including Amazon, Game and Argos.

I've already read it can now be explored far more easily now, but haven't investigated. If I see one for £30 I might be tempted.

As it is my wife bought me a Nintendo SNES Mini for Christmas. Going to be hacking it this coming week and adding emulation support so I can then run NES, N64, Neo-Geo, GBA, Megadrive etc and even Playstation games on it. Great little system. The way it should be done.

[Harrison]

PlayStation Classic Boot Menu + RetroArch + 91 Cores, Christmas 2018 public BETA

https://www.libretro.com/index.php/playstation-classic-boot-menu-retroarch-91-cores-christmas-2018-public-beta/

Depending on how powerful the hardware in the PlayStation Classic is, this could be an interesting release. With 91 cores supported thry may include newer systems than the SNES Mini can run, such as Dolphin.

[Demon Cleaner]

Is it not that the SNES mini's hardware is a bit more powerful than the one of the PSX? Thus making sense buying that one for hacking and running emulation, although I think the PSX controllers are way better.

This made me think: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol12g5GxI7Y

But apparently RetroArch runs perfectly on the Playstation too, plus the emulator of RetroArch runs PSX games a lot better than their built in one, strange enough.

[Demon Cleaner]

I bought one, gonna see what's possible with RetroArch. Seems to work fine, and I wanna try myself. Costs only 55€, so not really an investment.

[Harrison]

I've not bought a Playstation Classic yet, although they have them in a store called Argos for £49.99, and as they are a part of the Sainsbury's supermarket group they use the Nectar reward points scheme, which I currently have about £40 in points. Very tempting to grab one as it would only cost be £10. lol.

Regarding the SNES Mini, I'm not sure if that or the PSX Classic has the more powerful hardware. But, concerning the controllers, the SNES Mini is compatible with the Wii Classic controller, which is a pretty good controller for emulation. Plus it has analogue sticks, whereas the PSX Classic doesn't, so not really any good for things like N64 emulation.

[Demon Cleaner]

I saw videos where people are using PS4 controllers with the PSX Classic, apparently it works fine.

[Harrison]

Really? That's interesting. Via usb cable I assume?

Definitely tempted to grab one. Some people have reported finding them discounted to clear in Tesco supermarkets for £25. Might go into my local one on Monday and check. Would rather do that than waste my Nectar points.

SNES and Nes mini both use the same proprietary connector as the Wii Numchuck connector, which is why the Wii classic controller works.

[Demon Cleaner]

There's a 8Bitdo Wireless Adapter device which lets you use them with Bluetooth.

Check here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkcxei_N_u0

[Harrison]

Nice find. Are you getting one? The cables are definitely not long enough on the Snes mini controllers, and I bet it's thr same on the PS classic.

[Demon Cleaner]

I have 2 USB 5m extension cables, not yet planning to get those dongles. Anyways, I'm still in the setup process, takes some tie to put all the games, going through all my sets at the moment, to remove duplicates and stuff. Plus checking for missing stuff, takes some time.

[Harrison]

Did you persevere with the classic? How did you get on? Howvgood was the emulation?

I ask because I've finally just grabbed one. Wasn't going to, but Argos have just reduced the price to £29.99, so I couldn't resist as that's nothing.

[Demon Cleaner]

I was cleaning and sorting my sets basically, once again, so that I could add the to the PS Classic. So to answer your question, I’m not finished yet, but almost.

On the other hand I have tested most of the emulation, I think it runs fine, with f.ex. N64 not being the case, runs slow. For me the most annoying part is RetroArch itself, as it freezes quite often, when quitting a game f.ex. and you’ll have to restart the console, by pulling the plug, there’s no switch. So if you’re lying comfortably on the couch playing some games, and you have to get up to pull the plug after every 3rd game you tested, can get frustrating.

[Harrison]

Have you looked at AutoBleem? Or are you still using Bleemsync? AutoBleem adds a much nicer front end and a lot of much nicer features, especially for PSX games, and you can add RetroArch to it by just putting its folder in the root of the usb stick. It even allows the built in games to be shown and accessible at the same time. It also adds four save state game slots per game.

Autobleem will solve your restarting issue as it configured L2 + R2 pressed together to reset the system.

[J T]

I was cleaning and sorting my sets basically, once again, so that I could add the to the PS Classic. So to answer your question, I’m not finished yet, but almost.

On the other hand I have tested most of the emulation, I think it runs fine, with f.ex. N64 not being the case, runs slow. For me the most annoying part is RetroArch itself, as it freezes quite often, when quitting a game f.ex. and you’ll have to restart the console, by pulling the plug, there’s no switch. So if you’re lying comfortably on the couch playing some games, and you have to get up to pull the plug after every 3rd game you tested, can get frustrating.

Is there like an app controlled plug/socket you could get to manually cut power? Having to get up sounds like a right PITA of a first world problem that can only be solved by MOAR TECHNOLOGY

[Demon Cleaner]

I'm still using Bleemsync, didn't know anything about Autobleem yet, thanks for mentioning it, might be the perfect solution to my problem. Definitely gonna check it out :thumbs:

[Harrison]

One thing I'm really glad about now. When I started renovating my house and did the electrics I replaced or added a lot of new double electric wall sockets, and I included a lot with 5V 3.1A USB ports built in. Originally to charge devices, but now I can utilise them without needing a power adapter for any mini consoles like the playstation classic and Snes Mini, and also the Amazon Echo. Really useful to add these usb wall sockets.

[Demon Cleaner]

One thing I'm really glad about now. When I started renovating my house and did the electrics I replaced or added a lot of new double electric wall sockets, and I included a lot with 5V 3.1A USB ports built in. Originally to charge devices, but now I can utilise them without needing a power adapter for any mini consoles like the playstation classic and Snes Mini, and also the Amazon Echo. Really useful to add these usb wall sockets.

Who would have thought that some years ago.

[Harrison]

So true. Especially for these mini consoles and things like Raspberry Pis, because none of them come with their own charger, with manufacturers assuming we all have spare ones from older phones.

When USB first appeared I really wasn't sure about the tech. Felt like going backwards. Initially so much slower than something like firewire.

And when these electric wall sockets with built in usb ports/ chargers appeared I really wondered what the point was just to charge your mobile.

But with USB 3 speed and now USB C's much easier connector it really is universal. Even Apple have finally given in and adopted it. The only annoying thing in my house is either the lack of USB C cables (my wife keeps breaking them.. how exactly do you snap the connector? ), or I only find a C cable when I want to charge an older USB mini based device. Must order some spares.

Regarding the wall sockets.. many still get caught out. The really cheap ones are only rated as 5v 2a, or even 5v 1a. These won't charge any current gen devices. The 5v 3.1A rated ones are the only ones to get. I also noticed some 4A ones on the market now, but the 3.1A seem to power all the devices I have tried. The irony is they are far cheaper then buying just a power adapter. Nintendo SNES mini charger is £19.99. A pack of 2 USB double plugs sockets are £15.

[Demon Cleaner]

But with USB 3 speed and now USB C's much easier connector it really is universal. Even Apple have finally given in and adopted it. The only annoying thing in my house is either the lack of USB C cables (my wife keeps breaking them.. how exactly do you snap the connector? ), or I only find a C cable when I want to charge an older USB mini based device. Must order some spares.

I bought the new iPad Pro 12.9" and it's the only device so far which has the USB-C connector. And I can tell you how "they" break cables, they take them out just by pulling on the cable, no matter if it twists the cable or the connector. I have to buy spare ones from time to time too, as my wife also breaks them regularly. How many times did I tell her to take the connector, or plug in her hand and pull it out instead of just pulling on the cable, as she (they?) also do it with the normal 220V devices like the hover! I have to fix the sockets from time to time too, as she pulls it out of the wall :dry:

[Harrison]

I didn't know you two got married?

Back on subject ;-) UK plug sockets are very hard to pull out without taking the plug out correctly, so at least that's something. And regarding USB C, both our current mobiles and our tablets use it. It's definitely become the new standard.

[Demon Cleaner]

Oops, did I say something wrong? Sometimes I say girlfriend and sometimes wife, as it's easier, but no, we're not married.

[Harrison]

I have a few friends where English isn't their first language and they sometimes use Wife instead of girlfriend, so you are not alone. Could maybe get you into some hotwater with the misses. :lol:

[Demon Cleaner]

I also do it in other languages, and my girlfriend is sometimes complaining, saying that she's NOT my wife YET, but of course she would like to be.

[J T]

So you're just gonna keep her hanging there, waiting and waiting?

[Demon Cleaner]

Probably :D

[J T]

smooth :cool:

[Demon Cleaner]

Back to topic.

I installed Autobleem now, works well, and in my opinion it looks and works better than Bleemsync. The problems with RetroArch are the same though, as it's still the same built, I'm using 1.7.5 which I think is the latest.

[Demon Cleaner]

Ok, updated RetroArch now to the newest version 1.7.7, UI changed completely, but I didn't try it yet.

Tried one USB drive with 64GB, the Sandisk Cruzer Blade which is in their list of compatible drives, I also tested the 128GB version but that doesn't work.

I also bought one OTG adapter, and you need to install it correctly so that the PSX Mini does recognize it, that way now, you can also use the second controller port instead of plugging the USB drive there.

- - - Updated - - -

EDIT: Tested again with Autobleem and the newest version of RetroArch and a smaller OTG, and now the 128GB drive seems to work fine. Cloned it with the 64GB drive. That's great as the NEC PC games are quite big as are the PSX originals, which I'm converting at the moment from .bin files to .pbp files, PSP format, which works with RetroArch.

[Harrison]

Very nice. I've not had time to play around with mine much yet. Great that OTG is now working. Makes it look nicer from the front too.

[Demon Cleaner]

Version 1.7.7 seems much more stable, tested around 20 games, and I always managed to quit the game without the console freezing. You can also now finally set a starting directory where your ROMs are in, a lot less clicking around every time you wanna load a different game.

Emulation is fine, but N64 is very slow and has graphical glitches. DC, Saturn and NEC PC-FX are painfully slow.

I have 9.428 games on the drive, at the moment (104GB). So there's still room for more ;)

[Demon Cleaner]

Bought a Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 4GB, PS Classic being too slow for some emulation, plus other little inconveniences, like no ethernet, no USB3, no wireless controllers plus the lack of any other possibility of emulation besides RetroArch.

The Lakka site's servers are down, no possibility to download an image of Lakka.

[J T]

I hear that there are some excellent Rasp Pi arcade front ends to use.

A chap on another forum I frequent has made some nice posts about 'Retro Pie' (https://www.beexcellenttoeachother.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=11077&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=retropie)

[Demon Cleaner]

Got a Lakka nightly build now.

Read a lot about RetroPie, gonna try Lakka first as you can use RetroArch, which I'm very used to by now. Don't know if you can install both, Lakka and RetroPie, as this is my first Raspberry, so I have to fiddle around a bit, still a newbie.

Anyway, at the moment there's not yet support of RetroPie for the Pi4. Have to wait.

[Harrison]

I'm been considering a Pi4 to play around with. Will be interesting to know how you get on.

My conclusion at the moment is that the Snes mini is probably still the most powerful mini system in general, but that could be now to do with emulation maturity. It definitely still seems faster at emulating some systems than others can manage. It does still stuggle a bit with some N64 games, but that's true of the N64 emulsion on any system.

Best emulsion setup is still a Windows PC. Most Linux emulator builds used by Pi OSs are quite dated compared to the current PC ones. But it's getting better.

[Demon Cleaner]

Running newest Lakka with RetroArch 1.7.8v4 and it's running fine. DC games run like a charm, at least the ones I tried, and we are still in the very beginning of the Pi4. Still no RetroPie release for it though. Tried to get Dolphin running for GC, but there seems to be no core yet, unlike for the Windows version. But apparently it runs well.

Also bought 2 8BitDo controllers, the SF30 Pro and SN30 Pro, really nice. Only pairing them via Bluetooth to your Pi4 is a bit cumbersome. You have to SSH to your Pi4, and enter several commands, but nothing you couldn't handle. Works fine with PuTTY. They work very fine. Have still to get a bit more into Linux stuff.

Also tried Raspian, nice OS, not that I would need it, but had to try it out. Bought a Rii K22 wireless keyboard with integrated touch-pad, which also works like a charm, and makes it so much easier if you play computer based games like C64, as you don't have to mess around with onscreen keyboards.

Will eventually test LaunchBox on my PC, very nice frontend like HyperSpin, but I think it looks a lot better, plus it uses RetroArch in the background. It also has hundreds of options and fetches screenshots and stuff online, no need to do it manually, which is a pain in HyperSpin. Unfortunately it's not available for any other system like Linux, but it can run anything, not only the stuff restricted to RetroArch, but a TON of emulators.

[J T]

. Don't know if you can install both, Lakka and RetroPie, as this is my first Raspberry, so I have to fiddle around a bit, still a newbie.



I was of the assumption that everything ran from SD card on the Raspberry Pi (note I've never actually used one). Couldn't you just wang it all onto a separate SD card to play with, or is there something in the Pi's bios/rom/whatever you want to call the things that would mean you couldn't just do that?

[Demon Cleaner]

I have indeed separate SD cards, one with Raspian, one with Lakka, so whatever I want to do, I just swap them. But you know how it is, having multiboot is just easier and more convenient, although not mandatory in this case.

I wanted to perhaps try Android, as there's a LaunchBox version of Android out since some days. But I still OCD through my ROMs ;)

[Harrison]

I might have to give that Android version a try. Not played anything emulation/retro on Android in quite some time.

Also still haven't got a Pi4 yet, but I might ask for one from my wife for Xmas as she's always asking me what extra presents I want. Next holiday I have off is Christmas so I can play around with it then.