HOWTO: Install ePSXe (a freeware Sony Playstation Emulator) with a simple installer!

[NightCrawler03X]

* This installer should work for all GNU/Linux distributions *
* It should be noted that you should run this installer as user, not root, as it will download and install everything to a sub-directory of your /home/user directory *

For all you GNU/Linux users out there that want to use ePSXe, but can't set it up due to either laziness or incompetence, I have written an easy to use installer (a simple shell script) for you.

This installer will download and setup the following things:
- ePSXe 1.52
- Pete's XGL2 video plug in for newer graphics cards.
- Pete's Mesa video plug in for older graphics cards.
- Pete's Software video plugin for those without 3D hardware acceleration
- Pete's O.S.S SPU plug in.
- AmmoHQ's Joypad plugin for those wanting to play with a joypad


Things that this installer will NOT download and set up
- The PSX bios file(s). It is illegal to share it since it's Sony's intellectual property. You'll have to dump one from a PSX that you ACTUALLY OWN. You can just download one by searching for it on Google, but I/we won't help you here for the following reason:
1) I/we could get sued, since it's illegal to download the bios when you don't own one.
2) Because of reason #1, it would probably be against this boards rules.

Click here to download the installer
Click here if the above link does not work

When you have downloaded it, open your command prompt (konsole, rvxt, whatever program you use for terminal emualtion), cd to the folder it's in, so if it was in /home/hesho/installepsxe, you'd type "cd /home/hesho/installepsxe".
Then untar it (tar -xf installepsxe.tar.gz), then type "sh installepsxe" (without the quotes).

The installer will then download all the required files, extract them, and move everything to where it should be.

After that, you'll have everything you need to use ePSXe on your GNU/Linux system.
(the installer will tell you how to run it when you want to)
The only thing you WILL NOT have is the bios, you'll just have to do this yourself.
When wanting to run ePSXe, just type (without the quotes) "~/epsxe/epsxe" or "epsxe" at your command prompt.

It should ne noted that for running it by typing "epsxe", you will have to close your terminal emulator and open it again first. The reason for this, is that the installer will not make a shell script for actually running epsxe, but rather, make an alias by issuing the following:
cd ~
echo alias epsxe="'~/epsxe/epsxe'" >> .bashrc
Your terminal emulator will read ~/.bashrc when opened, and register any commands it finds, so since it hasn't registered the alias yet, you'll need to let it do so before being able to use said alias.

It should also be noted that you still won't be able to play right away. Even after you've got the bios(en), you'll still need to configure all of your plugin settings to get it running correctly on your system. I could also guide you through this myself, but there is a very good guide for it already, on NGemu Forums. Click here

Things you'll need:
- A PC that meets/exceeds ePSXe system requirements
- An internet connection (this installer will download what you need, I'm not distributing the ePSXe binary + plug ins because my web host is a ****ty free one and thus would run out of bandwidth if I did so)
- IMPORTANT! > 3D Video Acceleration (both plug ins that get downloaded use OpenGL extensions)
* The stuff mentioned below you probably already have *
- wget
- tar
- gtk libraries
- and OSS sound sound library
- and other stuff that I can't remember off the top of my head
- and obviously, a running+working graphical server such as Xorg or Xfree86, with a GUI such as Xfce, IceWM, KDE, JWM, etc.
Enjoy!

Extra Note
A lot of Gutsy (Ubuntu 7.10) users are complaining about ePSXe not loading.
This is because the ePSXe binary is upx-compressed, which is the cause of the problem.
So we simply decompress it to get the "real" binary.
Here's how:

sudo apt-get install upx-ucl-beta
upx -d ~/epsxe/epsxe

Assuming that you used my installer or your ePSXe executable is located in ~/epsxe, this should do the trick.

Also
You'll almost definitely have GTK libraries installed, but you probably don't have libgtk version 1.2 installed. ePSXe relies on this older version.
So do this:

sudo apt-get install libgtk1.2

Else it will report "error while loading shared libraries: libgtk-1.2.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory".
You could also create a symbolic link to a newer version of libgtk you have, to what would be the library for version 1.2, to trick ePSXe into thinking that you have the older version, but your mileage may vary. I don't personally recommend it.

Bug Fixes:
- Fixed a bug where the installer deleted every .zip in home directory (thanks crouchingturbo)
- Fixed a bug where the installer had the potential to move around any *.cfg or cfg* files in your home directory (again, thanks crouchingturbo)
To all people who used my old installer and found all your zip files deleted, I apologize.

Additions:
- The script now download's Pete's (video) software plugin for those without 3D acceleration (14 May 2008)
- The script now downloads AmmoHQ's Joypad plugin for those wanting to use a joypad (14 May 2008)

Relevant Links:
ePSXe Homepage
Game Emulation How-To Links (Courtesy "Felson")
Install ePSXe playstation emulator (Courtesy "Felson")
Another How-To

Credit:
The user "crouchingturbo" pointed out that my script deletes every *.zip in the person's home directory, and has the potential to move certain files around. These are all things that no ones wants.

Since this has been brought to my attention, I have now fixed this bug. Everyone who downloaded the older script, delete it immediatly, and download it from this thread again.

But yes, thank you, crouchingturbo

[TheIdiotThatIsMe]

I tried downloading the installer, but alas no luck. Is the file still hosted?

[Jose Catre-Vandis]

I tried downloading the installer, but alas no luck. Is the file still hosted?

It's still there, working here

[F-3582]

You should definitely install SPU Eternal instead of PEOpS for various reasons I described here.

The link can be found there as well. In order to make it work, you need to do this:

sudo aptitude install libstdc++2.10-glibc2.2

A littlle configuration advice: The spuEternal.cfg should be look like this:

AudioDevice = 1
SoundBufferSize = 24
AudioOutMethod = 2
AsyncMode = 1
ShowRealtimeConfigWindow = 0
WaitForXABufferIsFree = 1
CacheVagDecode = 0
Finetune = 0
ReverbType = 4
RecOpt = 5
UpdateBeforeRegisterAccess = 1
SPUIRQWaitCPUAction = 0
SPUIRQForceInterruptFlag7 = 0

This sendss the Audio Output to SDL (which needs to be installed, of course) and uses the SPUAsync interface of ePSXe. By doing so and setting it to "Wait" mode it makes the frame limiter of your graphics plugin obsolete, but produces sound stuttering if the frame rate drops too low and the sound buffer is too small. Nevertheless, a sound buffer size of 18 to 24 or even slower should be possible on a conveniently fast machine. If you use PEOpS SoftX plugin, however (my preferred choice, by the way), it could become a little more complicated, since everything, scaling included is done by X and the CPU load increases a lot, of course. Play around with those settings and see for yourself.

[gcrussell1]

Any chance you could attach the installer to the forum post? The freewebtown link is not working for me, which could be because it's a rubbish site or it might be blocked by the Chinese national firewall. Either way though, I'd like to try your installer, if only because it installs 1.52 - the more stable ePSXe version in my experience.

[F-3582]

Any chance you could attach the installer to the forum post? The freewebtown link is not working for me, which could be because it's a rubbish site or it might be blocked by the Chinese national firewall. Either way though, I'd like to try your installer, if only because it installs 1.52 - the more stable ePSXe version in my experience.

There you go.

[Elrian]

Hello,

I have installed ePSXe using your installer and been trying to add a launcher for it in the gnome application menu without success...

Can someone tell me how to do it?

Thanks

[gcrussell1]

Hello,

I have installed ePSXe using your installer and been trying to add a launcher for it in the gnome application menu without success...

Can someone tell me how to do it?

Thanks

Right click on the menu bar and click "Edit Menus", then go to "Games" on the left side (or wherever else you want it), and hit "New Item" - then specify what it is in the small window that pops up (might pop up in the background for you, just select it). You can give a terminal command line or you can set the launcher by navigating to its icon, either way though, that should do it for you.

[NightCrawler03X]

Hey dudes, sorry about that freewebtown link. (Freewebtown is pretty lame).

I'll post it in an attachment here then:

[Ashkc88]

Hi, I am a little bit familiar with Ubuntu, but I'm still unfamiliar enough to be considered a "noob." I've been trying for ages to get this emulator to work. I followed all of the guides I have found and none of them worked. I am pretty sure it's a user error.

I just upgraded to Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy). I'm using an Intel Mac Mini (Duo core, 512 MB of RAM), and I have every device for it working (bluetooth, wireless, etc.).

I used the installer that was posted, I put the Bios in it's respective folder, and I used the...

"sudo apt-get install upx-ucl-beta
upx -d ~/epsxe/epsxe"

...code in the terminal and it still will not let me open the program.

The answer is probably very obvious and I feel like an idiot for asking the question, Does anyone know what I did wrong?