Best Plugins

[kjf1138]

What are the best plugins for videos, sounds and CD-ROMs on ePSXe? What are the settings for those plugins?

[jonc2006]

depends on your hardware and the games you are playing. i need to know both before anything can be suggested.

[Hard core Rikki]

Which ePSXe version would that be, by the way ?

- By default, the pete d3d plugin would be the most compatible on Windows.
- The ogl and ogl2 plugin are the most compatible ( ogl2 is way more compatible than the ogl plugin, however it is also generally more ressource-intensive, comparing with similar settings)
* Hitting the "Best" button generally would be very compatible with a majority of games, then you could proceed with configuring starting from there, depending on your games and hardware specs.


- pete's cdr plugin is as good as they get, for direct disc reading (or reading from a mounted disc image).
- mooby's cdr is generally the fastest performer with disc images (with caching enabled).

- for sound, the output of Eternal spu is roughly equivalent to from PEOPS'. PEOPS generally would be considered the least troublesome to use among the two (not that there's any confusing configurability in either of them, but...)

[kjf1138]

on Windows and a Geforce 6600 or higher

[jonc2006]

the OGL1 will give better performance than the d3d but if your system is powerful enough you can just use the OGL2 and not worry about either of them. i prefer the ePSXe CDR WNT/W2K core 1.5.2. cdrom plugin w/subchannel reading enabled but if you are using images a cdrom plugin aside from mooby's isnt really needed.

what windows, vista? what about your cpu?

[Crowmeister]

I'd also like to know which GPU plugin would be best for me.
I have a pretty sweet rig:
Intel Core 2 Duo E8200
ATI 3870 X2
4GB DDR2 PC2-6400
Using Vista 64bit SP1

Pete recommends OpenGL, but the epsxe 1.7.0 tutorial recommends DX6 plugin.
Any thoughts which I should use?

[karas81]

What are the best plugins for videos, sounds and CD-ROMs on ePSXe? What are the settings for those plugins?

At least understand the fact of that there are no best/better/perfect plugin, even those supposed to work and fix games perfectly they have always a hidden BUG somewhere else, so please dont ask the question that way, so that people will fix their attention on one plugin, while they have the choice to experience other coders work instead of the adviced ones.

And the fact that plugins are a taste that you've to experience, say ammm my game works better with this plugin (means less BUGs), but lets give a try to another one just to find out/experience new ideas, ways of fixing bugs, new emulation/game looks. :onthepull

[jonc2006]

im assuming you are new to either epsxe or psx emulation in general (do correct me if wrong here though) so ill explain a few things that are important to know beforehand. right now there is an issue between the ATI catalyst drivers and the OGL1/2 plugins, it causes graphical artifacts to appear all over the place. however, you can fix this by either downgrading your drivers to something below 7.4 or use the 8.5 drivers that came out recently (most logical).

since you are using a dual core cpu, when using epsxe you want to have the cpu affinity set to 1. if you dont know how to do this, open up the task manager, in the "processes" tab find the epsxe.exe, right click that and go to "set affinity". multi-core cpus have been known to cause several types of performance issues when the affinity is set to 1 so it is in your best intrest to do so.

i also suggest disabling DEP because it seems to cause issues with epsxe more often when using vista. for what plugin to use, i would go with the OGL2 plugin if you can get the ATI/OGL issue fixed. if not use the d3d take note that alot of this depends on what games you are playing, some plugins work better with some games than others do. if you can give me a rough idea of what you are intending to play eventually i can see if there is anything else you should know.

[Crowmeister]

im assuming you are new to either epsxe or psx emulation in general (do correct me if wrong here though)


Correcting you right here ;) I've been using epsxe since 2002, but I've always used nvidia cards and the pete's OpenGL plugin. I've never had any touble with it, but now I have an ATI card. And as I said epsxe recommends DX6 plugin and Pete recommends his OpenGL. So the inconsistency in that made me ask the question here.

so ill explain a few things that are important to know beforehand. right now there is an issue between the ATI catalyst drivers and the OGL1/2 plugins, it causes graphical artifacts to appear all over the place. however, you can fix this by either downgrading your drivers to something below 7.4 or use the 8.5 drivers that came out recently (most logical).

Great good to know, I got the 8.5 version as soon as it came out so that's not a problem


since you are using a dual core cpu, when using epsxe you want to have the cpu affinity set to 1. if you dont know how to do this, open up the task manager, in the "processes" tab find the epsxe.exe, right click that and go to "set affinity". multi-core cpus have been known to cause several types of performance issues when the affinity is set to 1 so it is in your best intrest to do so.

Good tip, never had any trouble with it though.

i also suggest disabling DEP because it seems to cause issues with epsxe more often when using vista.

Yeah thats one of vista's features I've got disabled. Superfetch, search indexing etc. I have no use for it and it only strains the system.


for what plugin to use, i would go with the OGL2 plugin if you can get the ATI/OGL issue fixed. if not use the d3d take note that alot of this depends on what games you are playing, some plugins work better with some games than others do. if you can give me a rough idea of what you are intending to play eventually i can see if there is anything else you should know.

Thanks, I'll keep with the OGL2 then.

[jonc2006]

Correcting you right here ;) I've been using epsxe since 2002, but I've always used nvidia cards and the pete's OpenGL plugin. I've never had any touble with it, but now I have an ATI card. And as I said epsxe recommends DX6 plugin and Pete recommends his OpenGL. So the inconsistency in that made me ask the question here.

my bad then, reason i was under that assumption was usually thats a question thats brought up by newer users.

[Squall-Leonhart]

you will also need to specify the memory amount manually, (a new amd bug it seems iin memory reporting)

[Crowmeister]

you will also need to specify the memory amount manually, (a new amd bug it seems iin memory reporting)

Hmm yeah, but seeing as I've got a crossfire card that's sure to be trouble as well.