Emulating the PS1
I finally got my handy N64/PSX USB converter the other day, a purchase motivated by my recent acquisition of a complete Nintendo 64 ROM set, but I could NOT find any of my old 64 controllers laying around. I have to settle for emulating the PS1 through ePSXe until I buy a new controller. Unlike the majority of emulated systems, the emulation of these two consoles is unique, as the experience is unequivocally superior to the “real thing”. Through the use of advanced graphics and audio plugins and filters, games are greatly enhanced, and playing with the original controllers seals the deal.
As my favorite PS1 game of all time, and one of my favorite games ever on any console, I decided to go through the original Silent Hill again, and now I cannot see myself going back to playing it on the original console. The difference is far from subtle; the game almost looks like an early Dreamcast port, as you can see in the before/after screenshots below (50% actual size). Of course, seeing Playstation models at such high resolutions helps to amplify how low-poly they are, but at least it’s not a pixelly garbled mess.
But it doesn’t stop at merely betterifying the graphics. Through specific settings in specialized graphics plugins, you can achieve all sorts of neat visual effects, from toon shading to bump mapping. Sadly, no amount of emulator magic can fix the Playstation’s lack of a z-buffer, so even though the textures can be smoothed and resized, you still get that annoying glitchy warping on textures in perspective. How a system touted for its 3D capabilities got manufactured with such a glaring design flaw baffles me to this day.
August 20th, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Betterifying is my new favorite word!!! hahaha Nice.
August 21st, 2007 at 1:34 am
I actually was pretty proud of that word and thought I could lay claim to it, so I Googled it to check. 34 instances online already. Bummer.
March 31st, 2008 at 1:10 pm
I bought this model recently but I can’t get it to work. When I connect it to my computer nothing happens. What do I need to do?
March 31st, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Uhhh if you’re running a modern operating system, it should install the drivers for you and you’re good to go. Make sure the little switch on the side is set to whatever controller you’re trying to use. I didn’t see the switch at first and couldn’t figure out why the PSX controller worked but the N64 one didn’t.