ePSXe Forum

I'm so close!

I've installed ePSXe, and I've gotten to the stage of configuring plug-ins.

I have suitable plug-ins, and I've placed them in the appropriate 'plug-ins' folder in the ePSXe folder in the appropriate bottle - the problem is, the program doesn't seem able to detect them. I had the same issue with the BIOS, but luckily when configuring the BIOS there is an option to browse for the desired file - the graphics plugin has no such option, only a drop-down list, which in my case appears blank, no matter where I try placing my plug-ins.

Has anybody else encountered this? Can somebody spot if I'm doing something wrong?

Help would be greatly appreciated, as the university break is fast approaching ;)

Cheers,
Joe.

Hi!

Well, I just had a little muck around with it, and it seems to work... but as
noted in the Tips&Tricks, not all plugins might work. The ePSXe emul itself requires
a native zlib1.dll copied into it's installdir, but the only plugins I tried (video
output plugins) seemed to be recognized -- that said, I realized some of those plugins
were for D3D rendering, so knowing this I'd already installed DirectX9 into the bottle.
Which plugins were you mucking around with?

Cheers!

ps: I'll add zlib1.dll into C4 to service this...

Update:

M'kay.... the freely available zlib1.dll is in C4 now, so I just reworked
the ePSXe crosstie to install that as well, and provide the winelib library
override required to make things work. I've also included DirectX9 in the
ePSXe crosstie, as the D3D9 based GPU plugins require it...(some of the
sound plugins may need this too, but I haven't gotten there yet)...

Citing http://www.epsxe.com/files/ePSXe_FAQ.txt

[i]2) Choosing the best GPU plugin
When going after compatibility, you should use Pete's Soft GPU plugin, it's the one
with the highest compatibility. When that one doesn't work with a game others have
gotten working, you've probably made a configuration error. You should also use this
plugin when you've got troubles getting certain game situations to display properly
(for example the FF8 battle menus).

 Now here's a list for the best plugins for the most popular graphic cards:  
   3dfx Voodoo 2        --> Lewpy's Glide plugin (could crash with certain drivers)  
   3dfx Voodoo 3        --> Pete's D3D (DirectX 7) or Lewpy's Glide plugin  
   3dfx Voodoo 4/5        --> Pete's D3D (DirectX 7) or Lewpy's Glide plugin  
   ATI Radeon           --> Pete's OpenGL plugin  
   ATI Rage 128/Expert    --> Pete's D3D (DirectX 7) plugin  
   nVidia GeForce 1/2      --> Pete's OpenGL plugin  
   nVidia TNT/TNT2          --> Pete's OpenGL plugin  
   Matrox G200/G400     --> Pete's D3D (DirectX 6) plugin  
   ... the rest        --> Pete's D3D (DirectX 7) plugin  

[/i]

...I had a look at this area - obviously the textfile itself is a tad dated, but, the most
recent versions of these GPU plugins are freely available and doable in a crosstie. I'll
also add such into C4.....

[i]4) Selecting the best sound plugin
ePSXe SPU Core 1.2.0 --> Good & fast sound, but still has some problems left.
Pete's MIDAS SPU 1.7 --> A good sound plugin which uses the latest SPU API.
Null2's SPU 1.35 --> Slowly became one of the best SPU plugins, recommended.[/i]

...as said, I'll just need check this area over, but, I'd be thinking the same situation
applies to these plugins as exists for the GPU plugins - doable in a crosstie, it just needs
to be entered into C4. If everything pans out 'as expected', the ePSXe crosstie should be
able to install all these runtime bits&pieces - the rest, however, will be up to the user =)

Cheers!

ps: the crosstie here will reappear Monday, when the Ninjas return to work...

Update 2;

Ahhh ... I should have twigged this earlier... just now I was checking out plugins,
and had the same thing happen - stuff not turning up in the dropdown selectors. As
it turns out, it seems the emulator exe file is sensitive to $workdir -- if you use
the 'Run Command' function, navigate to the ePSXe.exe file and open it, and run it
that way, this sets $workdir to that location, and 'missing' plugins will appear =)

....I'll stick that in the crosstie as well...

Cheers!

Update 3,

Okay... when the crosstie comes back online here, installing ePSXe that way
will also install the 'basic' plugins as cited above, when using CXG 10 (CXG 9.x
users will need do it manually, but there are install profiles to do that, see
other thread in this forum) ...

...in my test here just now, I used the crosstie to install, the D3D GPU plugin
and dsound SPU plugin, selected the .iso file (create from my original disc) of
Tony Hawks Pro Skater ... and it ran straight-up. Then I realized I should maybe
have configured a control device for it (doh!), so I quit the game, plugged in my
Logitech USB digital gamepad, configured it (it all works) and started the game
again. Then it was just like using my 'real' PSX machine, with everything working
off the pad...

...I might add the newer GPU plugin as well, but, it also supports numerous shader
models...but there's lots of them, and I've no idea how useful/applicable they are.
I might see if the plugin author is interested in distributing a combined archive
of all the shader plugins, which would be much easier to deal with....

...oh...I've enabled emulated virtual desktop in the crosstie now, due to the fact
that most PSX games have lower resolutions, and 800x600 on a widescreen display looks
-=gak=- ... you can turn this off in the wine configuration GUI if you want to run
the emulator/games fullscreen again...

Cheers!

Hi Dot, sorry for reviving this old thread, hope it reaches you somehow.

I used CrossTie to install ePSXe with all the relevant plugins. However, the zlib.dll/zlib1.dll failed to install and hence the whole procedure was stuck.

In order to counter this, I tried manually creating a bottle for ePSXe, and downloaded a zlib.dll (renamed to zlib1.dll) off the net (1st google link i could find) and manually installed the zlib (used the CrossTie link for the zlib125.dll but manually selected the downloaded zlib1.dll). After which I then installed ePSXe via CrossTie in the same bottle, and that seemed to work fine as well (i.e. it actually finished installing).

What happened next continues to puzzle me to no end. I was expecting the zlib1.dll error log when my ePSXe crashed upon opening (after referencing the relevant thread), but the debug log said that the file i was missing was the Dsound.dll file;

[i]error running command (The command shortened_directory/epsxe/epsxe.exe returned 53)

fixme:exec:SHELL_execute flags ignored: 0x00000100
err:module:import_dll Library DSOUND.dll (which is needed by L"C:\Program Files\ePSXe\ePSXe.exe") not found
err:module:LdrInitializeThunk Main exe initialization for L"C:\Program Files\ePSXe\ePSXe.exe" failed, status c0000135[/i]

Assuming it could possibly be the same issue as zlib1.dll, I then copied the dsound plugin from the ePSXe plugin folder into the main ePSXe folder, renamed to DSound.dll, and ran the debug log again. Now, instead of telling me that Dsound.dll was missing, it gave me the same error but with no specification of which file i'm missing:

[i]error running command (The command shortened_directory/epsxe/epsxe.exe returned 80)

fixme:exec:SHELL_execute flags ignored: 0x00000100[/i]

Seeing as to how it was only the zlib CrossTie installation that failed, i cannot fathom why it says i'm missing the DSound.dll file instead of the zlib1.dll like you mentioned in this thread last year.

Any clarification or instructions on how to further identify the root of the problem is greatly appreciated, even more so a solution to this weird problem that seems to be the first time anyone's ever encountered (google yielded no relevant search results).

Thank you (:

..ugh...thanks for the heads-up. Seems the download location
(and version) of zlib1.dll changed ; I've fixed that crosstie
but it won't come back online until it's re-approved. When that
happens, I'll recheck things...

Gosh i'm so sorry for diverting your attention from more important tasks to handle such a small issue. Whatever the case, thank you so much for your quick reply! (:

...no problem -- the dsound.dll stuff is handled by the dsound plugin
tie (basically install appid=4099 + set winelib override for dsound.dll
to native.builtin) ; as said though, I'll recheck the whole of the tie
staging here in a couple of days when everything is live again..