Game-specific ePSXe guides and the hardware worth buying for PS1 emulation.
A memory card file weighs a few hundred kilobytes and can hold a hundred hours of RPG. It is the most valuable file in your emulation folder, and the easiest to lose with a phone. ePSXe for Android v2.0.19 made protecting it a built-in feature — here is how to use it, plus the PC-side…
Some games earn their own troubleshooting page. These three come up constantly — and two of them were named in ePSXe’s own changelogs, which is where this guide starts: with what the emulator team itself fixed, then the settings folklore that actually holds up. First: be on the current version Windows v2.0.18 (December 2025) lists…
CHD (Compressed Hunks of Data) squeezes a PS1 disc image into a single, smaller, lossless file — and it is now a first-class ePSXe format: Windows v2.0.18 added CHD support for ISOs, and Android v2.0.19 improved CHD support (with a CDDA fix in 2.0.19.5). This guide converts your own rips correctly. What you need The…
PS1 games are small by modern standards — a CD is at most ~700 MB uncompressed, and CHD compression shrinks that substantially — so storage for emulation is a reliability question, not a capacity arms race. This guide covers sizing, the one specification that matters, and why the cheapest card is a false economy. Some…
The cheapest legal foundation for PS1 emulation is a used original PlayStation. It gives you two things no download can: a BIOS you are entitled to dump, and a legitimate source of games to rip. This guide covers what to buy, what to check, and where. Some links below are affiliate links — they may…
Every emulator guide on this site assumes games you ripped yourself from discs you own. This is that process, end to end: what you need, which format to choose, and the mistakes that produce black screens and broken disc swaps. What you need The process Format choices, honestly Multi-disc games Rip every disc of a…
A dedicated retro handheld is the other way to play PS1 games — no phone notifications, real controls, and a battery that is not your daily driver’s. Important framing first: these devices run Linux-based emulation stacks (usually PCSX ReARMed via RetroArch), not ePSXe — Android-based handhelds are the exception and can run the actual ePSXe…
A PS1 game is only as good as its d-pad. Touchscreen controls are a compromise and a keyboard is worse, so a controller is the first purchase that actually changes ePSXe — on Windows, Android, or Android TV. These are the sensible tiers, with the trade-offs stated and no invented test scores. Some links below…
