EPSXe and multidisk games. How?

[placebo_yue]

As the title says, i use EPSXe and i have no clue how to approach multidisk games, and there's some great ones like final fantasy (7 and 9) or metal gear solid.

I must find a solution to this! You have any? Only thing i can come up with is adding the game twice, but if some game needs to swap disks during gameplay it could get tricky.

[progets]

You could convert your files to .pbp (these files contain all the cds in one file and solves your issue) .pbp format is only for PS games and not all emulators support it.

Other options include:
- create a playlist for multi disc games (not all emulators support this)
- manually remove disc 2 games that don't need to appear in your AM romlist
- create a global filter to hide games with "(Disc 2)" in the rom name in AM

The issue is complex because some PS games need to be run from disc 2 first while most always require starting with disc 1. Game saving for multi disc games can also be an issue if you don't use a playlist or .pbp files. Pbp files are a good solution for PS but they won't help for other multi disc systems. Pbp files will also eliminate the whole .bin and .cue multiple files per game as well as provide compression. Keep in mind any disc swapping after the game is started needs to happen inside of the emulator and not from AM.

Also consider that you don't necessarily need to convert all your PS games, you could convert just the games that are multi disc to .pbp. Try converting one game and playing it to see if it's a good option for you (loading, disc changes, save states, etc).

I should tell you that I have used EPSXe in the past but prefer RetroArch (mednafen_psx_libretro core) for many reasons. I should also tell you that I don't use .pbp files (which many people like) but do use .chd files with playlists that have all multi disc games in subfolders called by the playlist to make AM romlists creation easy by adding .m3u extension to the emulator file. You can look here if you're interested in this approach http://forum.attractmode.org/index.php?topic=2290.msg15484#msg15484.

[akafox]

I have to agree with progets on this one...

is there any reason you HAVE to use EpsxE?

[placebo_yue]

It's been a while..Honestly i've been busy completing every other emulator, adding all the art and such.

Now i wanna get back to this issue.
I'll try the playlist stuff ASAP and report back. I wouldn't mind having the two/three discs on the frontend list as long as i don't have to touch the mouse and keyboard and manually switch discs from the emulators UI. That's what i really wanna avoid. That's the whole point of using a frontend for me! So hopefully this works.

What's wrong with ePSXe? why is medafen superior?
I'm not too fond of retroarch in general, i think it's super bloated. But maybe for PSX it's fine? maybe it improved since i last tried it almost a decade ago?

[progets]

If you don't like retroarch there is a standalone version of medafen.

There's nothing wrong with ePSXe but I don't think it supports .chd files.

Use whatever works best for you. Personally, I never want to see another .bin, .cue or .gdi file again and would only consider .pbp or .chd files for PS1 since they are natively compressed and don't require wait times to be unzipped or take a ton of space.

[placebo_yue]

ePSXe does support PBP files, but the multidisc ones don't boot. A disc selection menu appears, i pick one, press ok, but the screen just stays black.
The single disc ones did boot. In case it matters i used PBPs i copied straight from my PSP's SD card.

Any clues? i really don't wanna use medafen, i tried it and it has no UI, the fullscreen mode is a small square in the middle of the screen, i don't know how to (easily) set up my Xinput.. it's unpleasant to say the least

[progets]

I said I didn't know if ePSXe supports .chd files, not .pbp files.

I don't know about coping from an SD card because this won't contain the BIOS.

RetroArch is pretty great IMO. If you want to use Medafen you just need to learn the command line switches.

[akafox]

What's wrong with ePSXe? why is medafen superior?
I'm not too fond of retroarch in general, i think it's super bloated. But maybe for PSX it's fine? maybe it improved since i last tried it almost a decade ago?

well I don't know about "superior" but i think it has advantages yes. I am guessing you are using a PC for this?

note that ePSXe has not been updated for a couple of years now...I had a computer I was having problems running epsxe on (after running it for a year) I went to retroarch and my experience has been better. I understand the want to do separate emulators trust me..and you still have to...after all retroarch doesn't handle everything..and some stand alone emulators are better then the libretro core.

But that is the whole point..to have choices to find the one that works for you!

As far as I remember no ePSXe does not support chd format. If i remember correctly I was having the same problem...multi disc support only goes so far in retroarch too. It's great for FF 7 type games..but not like Gran Turismo 2 I always had to load them as separate discs.

[Leecher]

This is the only multiple disc epsxe thread in this forum, so I think it's fine to post (revive) here. I don't think my concern can be solve anyway.

I too made a multi-disc pbp file (FF7) for epsxe use. And it works. My only issue is that epsxe doesn't have a shortcut key to change disc. I'm gonna consider this to be an emulator issue and not an attractmode (front-end) issue. Hope that feature gets added to the next epsxe update, if it ever gets an update.

Is that not an issue in mednafen_psx_libretro core? Does it have a change disc shortcut key?

[hermine.potter]

@ Leecher
Mednafen PSX:
Documation says : m3u lists
Documation says : F6, F8

ePSXe:
ESC-button to get menu and the following steps

[Leecher]

I also get this glitch in 4 disc games. All disc works, but the title of the last game glitches. It's either ePSXe doesn't really support more than 3 disc in .pbp, or my converter, psx2psp_v.1.4.2, doesn't really support more than 3 disc in .pbp


@hermine.potter
Maybe I should switch to Mednafen. But ePSXe is the emulator that I use way way back, and I try to avoid multi-system emulators as much as possible. I really wish that this just works in ePSXe. Also, I use the Esc key as my attract-mode exit hotkey for all emulators, so switching disc by going to the menu is not an option for me.

[hermine.potter]

@ Leecher
try to set best compression level in psx2psp options.
then create pbp again.

[Leecher]

@hermine.potter
Thanks. That fixed the name issue. But I didn't chose the best compression (level 9). I just increment it from Level 0 to Level 1, to maximize performance.

[akafox]

@Leecher psx2psp_v.1.4.2 should handle up to five discs. I had all of my psx discs in PBP format at one time. However I will point out that I never did play though many multi-disc games however the few that I did worked flawlessly. I left psx2psp_v.1.4.2 on the default settings and never ran into a problem...well that wasn't cased by user error any way.

I do have to point out That ePEXe is not almost five years old. That is a long time in emulation time. So I have to ask do you need to use epsxe? i.e. your computer that old it will not run a more modern psx emulator? If so I understand as i have one of my own like that. However if you can use a more modern emulator see if that will help you. Mednfen does work however I am not sure the stand alone Mednafen reads pbp format. I moved to duckstation as it is a stand alone emulator and a retroarch core just like Mednafen is.

Duckstation is here https://github.com/stenzek/duckstation/releases/tag/latest

if you need to use epsxe then let us know ans will will try to help you

[Leecher]

@akafox
I don't think I'll have trouble using modern emulators. I just use epsxe because of familiarity. If you know a way to play multi-disc ps1 games, and change disc without pressing the ESC button, I'd be very interested.