Created by Linux, PCSX is an emulator for the first PlayStation games that allows you to use CDs from the legendary Sony console on your Mac OS X. However, you can not use CD images on PCSX so you'll have to burn them to disc first.
Games like Crash Bandicoot, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy 7, Tekken 3, Gran Turismo and MediEvil are just some of the titles compatible with PCSX. To play them, you must first install a BIOS for PlayStation.
CoolROM.com's Sony Playstation / PSX emulators section. Download the highest rated and most compatible emulator here.
Then, when you have it installed, drag and drop it onto the program's interface. PCSX allows you to save and retrieve items (Freeze State and Defrost State), reconfigure the keyboard (in preferences) and load saved games in the CVGS format. Note Only for Mac OS X 10.2 or later.
The PlayStation, which is sometimes refereed to as the PS, PS1 and PSX was Son’y first real foray into the video game console market. Releasing in 1994 in Japan and then 1995 in North America and the rest of the world, the PlayStation went on to become the biggest selling console of the fifth generation of video game consoles, and the first ever video game console to sell over 100 million units. It was the PlayStations and Sony’s jump start into becoming one of the most formidable opponents in the gaming world. The PlayStation’s biggest competitors during the fifth generation of video game consoles was the and the. Despite going up against incredibly stiff competition with video game giants Nintendo and Sega dominating the market, the PlayStation managed to overcome both of them, overtaking that of the Nintendo 64 and leaving the Sega Saturn in distant third place. One of the biggest advantages of the PlayStation was that it relied on discs, though cartridges were an awful lot faster and didn’t suffer as many durability issues, they just didn’t have the same storage space that a CD could provide.
CD’s were an awful lot cheaper to produce, something that appealed heavily to publishers as there wasn’t as significant of a risk to produce large quantities of a game. PlayStation (PSX) emulation is fairly complete, with the vast majority of games able to run flawlessly with no major issues, the focus of most PSX emulators have now turned to focus on increasing the accuracy and speed of their emulation over trying to increase compatibility. This is alongside increasing features such as being able to successfully render PSX games at higher internal resolutions. There is several great PlayStation emulators, though most are plugin based, ePXSE, PCSX-R are both highly capable emulators. – ePSXe is one of, if not the best PlayStation emulator available, while it may not be the most accurate it boasts a high compatibility rate with great emulation speed.
EPSXe even has begun work on fully emulating the BIOS meaning it will eventually no longer require the BIOS files. However at the moment to get the best compatibility you will need to still have the BIOS files. – PCSX Reloaded is a fantastic emulator for the PSX. It is one of the most popular open source emulators and has been in and out of development for years, switching from various developers. Its emulation is about on-par with that of ePSXe, with it also managing to emulate the PlayStations Bios to a degree.
Warning though as the Windows version of PCSX Reloaded lacks the same features that the Mac OS X and Linux port contain. – No$PSX is another fantastic emulator by the author of No$GBA, it is a very no thrills emulator, it comes with no real fancy upscaling features but what it does is emulate the PSX extremely well. It is coded with the ideal that a user should not have to touch any settings or configure per game settings for a game to run. It makes use of a clone bios as well to remove the need to make use of the official copyright PlayStation bios. If you don’t want any upscaling or enhancements, you cant go past No$PSX – pSX is one of the lessor known PlayStation emulators, it had claimed to fully emulate the PSX, while its unsure how true this is, as the websites are now long gone. The emulator did achieve a fairly decent compatibility rate.
– PSXeven was a fast developing and promising PSX Emulator, it proved to be a very good emulator. But suffered the fate of many other emulators, and development ended before PSXeven could be perfected. It however is still a great emulator by any standards, just not as mature as emulators like ePSXe. – SSSPSX is PlayStation 1 emulator developed by a Japanese developer who contributed to PCSX2. Its main focus was on making an effective re-compiler core for the PSX.
– AndriPSX was one of the most promising PlayStation emulators for Windows in the early days of PlayStation emulators, it was one of the few that proved emulation could be done for the system. However sadly despite showing a lot of promise the emulator was never completed and development ceased in 2003, the emulator was only capable of emulating a few PSX games. Was one of the first commercial emulators for the PlayStation, it was very promising but was ultimately brought undone by lawsuits with Sony, while Bleem! Won the lawsuits it left them bankrupt. Bleem! Helped pave the way for the multitude freeware emulators.