List of PlayStation Portable emulators

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Note: For the purpose of this article, any references to an emulator being "popular" are based on download counts from PSP websites distributing such software.

[edit] Home video game consoles

[edit] Nintendo Entertainment System

The Nintendo Entertainment System is easily emulated on the Playstation Portable (PSP). Since its hardware is significantly older, full speed has been achieved in all games, even ones featuring the special Multi-Memory Controller chips (such as Castlevania III). As such, the two most popular emulators, pspFCEUltra and NesterJ, are not often updated anymore, only modified to fix small bugs, or add support for a few rare games.

InfoNes
Famicontest
Nes for PSP
Nesterj PSP
PSPfceUltra

[edit] Nintendo 64

The Nintendo 64 PSP emulators have a difficult job to do. Although the PSP and the Nintendo 64 share a similar CPU architecture (MIPS 4000 series), the N64 runs with a powerful CPU and graphics chip, which means much effort put forth by the PSP to both run the CPU, and to emulate the GPU. In addition, the N64 was able to do a lot of graphical calls in parallel, which the PSP must emulate with raw CPU power.

The Daedalus PSP project is currently the furthest along of all the publicly available N64 emulators. While currently unable to emulate sound (which may never be implemented due to speed restrictions), it renders a great deal of games adequetely for play. Minor graphical bugs still exist, and the entire emulator still needs a large speed boost (The R8 version, the newest emulator at the time of writing, was only capable of getting between 10-25FPS in Super Mario 64) before reaching speeds acceptable for regular gameplay.

The Monkey 64 project has been cancelled by the creator as he is no longer legally able to work on PSP homebrew software. The source code for his project has been passed on, but no word as to the future of the project has been mentioned so far.

Daedalus PSP
Monkey 64

[edit] PC Engine

e[mulator] for PSP
Hue for PSP
PCEP
XPCE for PSP

[edit] Sega Master System/Game Gear

SMS Plus
SMS PSP
MSX
fMSX
Hitbit
MMS Plus
PSPMaster

[edit] Sega Mega Drive/Sega Genesis

The Genesis is slightly easier for the Playstation Portable to emulate than its rival, the Super Nintendo. Although it does feature a CPU at nearly twice the speed of the SNES, it does not have as many "specialized" chips. One could equate Sega's method of developing hardware to "brute force", using one (or in this case, two) powerful CPU to achieve better graphics. The SNES (and subsequent consoles) used a different method, by using a slower main CPU, but more special chips and more compatibility with cartridge chip expansions (which many SNES games are known for). Emulating one powerful CPU is often considered easier, as the Playstation Portable does not need to emulate as much of the interrupts between chips, and can focus on covering just one device, rather than many simultaneously.

This allows homebrew developers to create quite sufficient emulators on the Playstation Portable. Most games run well, although a few later generation titles, as well as ones using special functions of the Genesis, are a little slower. Unfortunately, however, interest in the Genesis system seems to have waned in the past few months, as only one emulator (DGen) seems to get updates at all, and they are few and far in between.

Dgen PSP
Generator/PSP
Megadrive for PSP
PSPAdrive
PSP Genesis

[edit] Sony PlayStation

PSPSONE
PSXP
PS1P

The PSPSONE project was dropped, and some of the code was used in PSXP. But no credit was given to the PSPSONE creator, and there were reports of PSXP stopping DevHook from running.

The coder of PS1P is unknown, and is known only as 'anonymous coder'.

[edit] Super Nintendo Entertainment System

The Super Nintendo is a challenge for Playstation Portable (PSP) homebrew developers. While it is generally accepted that the PSP is capable of emulating the SNES at full speed, it will require all of the PSP's resources, including the main CPU, the GPU, and even the Media Engine CPU. So far, only snes9xTYL is able to use both the main CPU and the Media Engine CPU at the same time. As such, it is regarded as the fastest SNES emulator available at this time.

Despite snes9xTYL's use of both CPUs, there are still a few games that are not at full speed. These games tend to use specialized game cartridge chips, or the special Mode 7 graphic mode. Games which used the Nintendo SA-1 chip seem to have the most room for improvement (such as Super Mario RPG), as well as the Super FX chip (such as Star Fox). It is questionable that games using the SA-1 chip or the Super FX chip will ever be at full speed, but development still continues in the area.

As of September, 2006, the last active SNES emulator project, snes9xTYL, is no longer being worked on by the original creators. They have released the source code in anticipation that another programmer may pick up the project. The developers expressed that they did not have the time needed to do the complete overhaul of the backend and/or graphics engine necessary for more speed increases.