PPSSPP runs PS1 games through the PSP's own emulator

The development build of PPSSPP boots PS1 EBOOTs with POPS, the PS1 emulator in the PSP's official firmware, which you install yourself.


POPS inside PPSSPP

The PSP played PS1 games from the PlayStation Store thanks to POPS, an emulator built into its firmware. PPSSPP can now run it: the change by hrydgard, which builds on work by frangarcj, was merged on October 21.


How it works

Rather than emulating the PS1 itself, PPSSPP loads the popsman.prx manager and the POPS emulator from Sony's firmware, as a real PSP would. Sound goes through the Media Engine, the PSP's second processor, now emulated at the hardware level (LLE): a little slower, but probably more accurate.

• You need to install an official PSP firmware in PPSSPP: POPS is not included.
• Games run the same on firmware 3.95 through 6.61: 3.95 to 5.55 for converted EBOOTs, and 6.00 or later for Store games, because of their DRM.
• A second change, merged the same day, fixes rendering above the original resolution, where seams appeared between tiles.

Not in a stable release yet

All of this only applies to development builds: the latest stable release is still 1.20.4 from May, and the release date of 1.21 is unknown.


Sources: PPSSPP, pull request 22707 (GitHub) · PPSSPP, pull request 22686 (GitHub) · PPSSPP, pull request 22710 (GitHub)