RetroArch (PS2 – v1.8.8) – Utilizing New PS2 SDK / Toolchain adds performance upgrades

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There has been some great work being done in the PS2 community, First off i would like to give two PS2 developer a big shoutout and some recognition (I failed in doing so in my previous coverage back in April, thanks to @TnA for pointing that out ) with work done on the PS2 SDK / Toolchain as PS2 developer’s @uyjulian and @Maximus32 have been working and progressing the toolchain and SDK for sometime as you can read about some of that progress and follow some of the development in this thread.

Developer @fjtrujy has also put in some great work to the project and has utilized and adopted the improved toolchain for the RetroArch PS2 port and can be seen with the release of RetroArch v1.8.8 and its been a good descion for the homebrew (multi-system emulator) as it has been getting significant performance increases, right now we only have one new core and its a classic from the 80’s (theodore libretro core), but the existing cores have an incredible performance boost for instance the QuickNES libretro core now is powerful enough to include runahead support and we know that MAME was showing some signs of life in our previous coverage so maybe we could see some more core in the future(?) ..

This improved toolchain is not just good for RetroArch but for the PS2 community in general for future homebrew and development as it does untap some new potentials, so it will be interesting to see what else this toolchain fuels in the future for the PS2 community that is still very active and thriving in 2020 a testament of the iconic PS2 console and the homebrew community that still keeps this console in the news and forefront of innovation., ​

 

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  • via retroarch.com
    RetroArch P2 – New SDK/toolchain – big improvements
    @fjtrujy spent a lot of time adapting RetroArch PlayStation2 to the latest PS2 SDK. RetroArch PS2 is now being built with a modern version of the GCC compiler, and certain cores are already seeing massive speedups as a result.​
    As can be seen by the tweet (listed below), QuickNES went from 255fps with the old SDK to 429fps with the new SDK. This makes the core more than fast enough to use runahead – on a PlayStation2 of all things!​
    A newer C/C++ toolchain also will make it much easier to port over software to PS2, it was previously quite difficult to port C++ cores over to PS2.
    ​
    @fjtrujy also added Theodore to the list of cores supported.​

    via @fjtrujy Twitter (RetroArch PS2 Developer)

    • May 21 – #RetroArch for #PS2 has been adapted to the latest changes in the #PS2SDK now we follow better standards making easier to port apps. As improvement #RetroArch load/save faster the current configuration. This is already available in the nightly releases @libretro
      #ps2dev
    • May 21– honestly didn’t expect this, but it looks that new releases also have better performance in some cores. #QuickNes is one of them #RetroArch ⁦ @libretro
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