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POPStarter Documentation & Stuff / compatibility

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Game Compatibility

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POPS is able to emulate a large range of games perfectly fine with the POPStarter fixes – which makes it superior to PS2PSXE. Best results are expected in internal HDD mode.
Unfortunately, some famous and epic games are still unplayable. Here’s a short list of them :

  • Tekken 3 (extreme flickering) :
  • Spyro 2 & 3 (crashes) ;
  • Parasite Eve II (crashes, and no SFX/music until a cutscene is played) ;

Compatibility lists and forms :

  • ElOtroLado Compatibility List : [UPDATED – 20/01/2023]

This compatibility list is managed by El_Patas.

Device Compatibility list (read-only)
Internal HDD, USB & SMB here
  • Official Compatibility Lists : [OBSOLETE & DEATH]

These compatibility lists are managed by AlGollan84 (aka Algol aka Allan58) and krHACKen.

Device Compatibility list (read-only) The form for submitting reports
Internal HDD here here
USB Device here here
SMB here here

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Compatibility modes :

If your game is poorly emulated, you can enable a compatibility mode to try to fix your issue.

Compatibility mode Description
0×01 Helps restoring the music/voices in several games.
0×02 A variant of mode 0×01, with a second hack for not breaking the MDECoding of FMVs (was designed for the Colony Wars series).
0×03 Can be used if the mode 0×01 doesn’t provide the expected results.
0×04 Fixes slowdowns, flickering, and many other glitches (prevents the emulator from writing a garbage value in two of the virtual GPU registers).
0×05 Made for fixing the cutscenes of the PAL Resident Evil: Director’s Cut.
0×06 Disables the OSD shell of the emulator’s built-in BIOS, making some games that freeze on startup run.
0×07 Fixes the missing textures problems (example : Tomb Raider III ). Unfinished (breaks the gamma) [NOTE: This Mode is obsolete].

Notes :

  • Modes 0×01, 0×02, 0×03 and 0×05 cannot be enabled in the same time or combined. These are variants of the same hack and they are conflicting, so use only use one of them at a time.

How to enable a compatibility mode :

  • using a PATCH_#.BIN file from the compatibility mode archive : place the PATCH_#.BIN file in the VMC directory of your problematic game and test.
  • using a CHEATS.TXT file : see the cheat engine section to know how to enable a mode using the cheat engine.
  • hardcoding the mode in POPStarter (advanced user) : read POPStarter configuration table.

Note : if your game lags badly or stalls randomly and that mode 0×04 doesn’t fix that, you can try to use $CODECACHE_ADDON_0 command in a GAME/CHEATS.TXT file. Do not use it by default on all your games because most games will stop working with it.

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Automated fixes :

POPStarter has an internal database containing various fixes (compatibility modes, LibCrypt cracks and miscellaneous fixes) for a big amount of games. These fixes will be automatically applied to your game, as long as you use proper dumps (for identification).

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Index

Updated