The PlayStation is one of the most played systems on Recalbox, and also one of the most confusing: games come in half a dozen formats, there are several BIOS files to choose from, and saves wander between competing conventions. This section sorts it all out.
Recalbox 10.1 ships several emulators for the psx system, from the lightest to the most accurate:
| Emulator | Core | Availability |
|---|---|---|
| PCSX-ReARMed (Libretro) | pcsx_rearmed |
every board — default emulator |
| Beetle PSX (Libretro) | mednafen_psx |
Pi 4/400, Pi 5/500, RG353x, PC |
| Beetle PSX HW (Libretro) | mednafen_psx_hw |
PC (default emulator on PC) |
| SwanStation (Libretro) | swanstation |
every board |
| DuckStation (standalone) | duckstation |
every board |
Accepted extensions (they vary slightly between emulators): .bin, .cue, .img, .iso, .chd, .ccd, .mdf, .pbp, .m3u, .ecm, .exe.
PlayStation BIOS files go straight into /recalbox/share/bios/. None of them is strictly mandatory with PCSX-ReARMed, but an original BIOS noticeably improves compatibility.
| File | Used by |
|---|---|
scph5500.bin (JAP) |
Beetle PSX, SwanStation, DuckStation |
scph5501.bin (USA) |
PCSX-ReARMed, Beetle PSX, SwanStation, DuckStation |
scph5502.bin (EUR) |
Beetle PSX, SwanStation, DuckStation |
scph1001.bin, scph7001.bin, scph101.bin |
PCSX-ReARMed (recommended) |
ps1_rom.bin |
SwanStation, DuckStation — all regions |
The ps1_rom.bin file is a special case: it comes from PlayStation 3 system updates, works for every region and can replace all the others. See Extracting the ps1_rom.bin BIOS from the PS3 firmware.
Recalbox's built-in BIOS checker tells you at a glance what is missing.
.PBP.Multi-disc games work exactly like on any other CD-based system: see Managing multi-disc games with an .m3u file.