DuckStation - Play PlayStation Gams in Windows, Linux, Android and macOS
DuckStation is a PS1 Emulator aiming for the best accuracy and game support.
I've been using DuckStation for a while, and it's a fantastic PlayStation emulator. It focuses on speed, accuracy, and maintaining performance on low-end devices, making it super smooth. The setup is straightforward, and the frontend is sleek with its Qt-based UI and fullscreen TV mode.
It’s a solid choice for anyone looking to relive classic PS1 and PS2 games. Just remember, you’ll need to legally dump your own BIOS from a console to get started.
A PS1 or PS2 "BIOS" ROM image is required to to start the emulator and to play games. You can use an image from any hardware version or region, although mismatching game regions and BIOS regions may have compatibility issues. A ROM image is not provided with the emulator for legal reasons, you should dump this from your own console using Caetla or other means.
Features
- CPU Recompiler/JIT (x86-64, armv7/AArch32, AArch64, RISC-V/RV64).
- Hardware (D3D11, D3D12, OpenGL, Vulkan, Metal) and software rendering.
- Upscaling, texture filtering, and true colour (24-bit) in hardware renderers.
- Accurate blending via Rasterizer Order Views/Fragment Shader Interlock.
- PGXP for geometry precision, texture correction, and depth buffer emulation.
- Texture replacement system in hardware renderers.
- Motion adaptive deinterlacing.
- Adaptive downsampling filter.
- Screen rotation for vertical or "TATE" shmup games.
- Post processing shader chains (GLSL and Reshade FX).
- "Fast boot" for skipping BIOS splash/intro.
- Save state support, with runahead and rewind.
- Windows, Linux, macOS support.
- Supports reading directly from CD, bin/cue images, raw bin/img files, MAME CHD, single-track ECM, MDS/MDF, and unencrypted PBP formats.
- Preloading of disc images to RAM to avoid disk sleeping hitches.
- Automatic loading/applying of PPF patches.
- Direct booting of homebrew executables.
- Direct loading of Portable Sound Format (psf) files.
- Time stretched audio when running outside of 100% speed.
- Digital and analog controllers for input (rumble is forwarded to host).
- GunCon and Justifier lightgun support (simulated with mouse).
- NeGcon support.
- Qt and "Big Picture" UI.
- Automatic updates with preview and latest channels.
- Automatic content scanning - game titles/hashes are provided by redump.org.
- Optional automatic switching of memory cards for each game.
- Supports loading cheats from existing lists.
- Memory card editor and save importer.
- Emulated CPU overclocking.
- Integrated and remote debugging.
- Multitap controllers (up to 8 devices).
- RetroAchievements.
- Discord Rich Presence.
- Video capture with Media Foundation (Windows) and FFmpeg (All Platforms) backends.
System Requirements
- A CPU faster than a potato. But it needs to be x86_64, AArch32/armv7, AArch64/ARMv8, or RISC-V/RV64.
- For the hardware renderers, a GPU capable of OpenGL 3.1/OpenGL ES 3.1/Direct3D 11 Feature Level 10.0 (or Vulkan 1.0) and above. So, basically anything made in the last 10 years or so.
- SDL, XInput or DInput compatible game controller (e.g. XB360/XBOne/XBSeries). DualShock 3 users on Windows will need to install the official DualShock 3 drivers included as part of PlayStation Now.
Supported Platforms
- Linux
- macOS
- Android
- Windows
License
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Resources & Downloads
stenzek
