The Game Shell from Clockwork is an amazing open source module handheld that plays a large number of emulators, standalone games, and even your favorite dos games. Unfortunately, there are plenty of people who might not be tech-savvy, knowledgeable about command line (terminal) or networking. The Game Shell requires the user to connect to the Game Shell via command line, be knowledgeable about commands and even requires a little programming. Even though it may be frustrating at first, the whole process is a learning experience and it can be very rewarding when it all comes together.
Now there is a forum on the Clockwork website full of tutorials and a large community of helpful people but I myself find some of the tutorial difficult to understand at times. I have been putting myself through the process, the frustration and the time to get things to work correctly. I have put the SNES emulator, the genesis emulator and recently the PlayStation emulator. Today I want to take a look at how to install the PlayStation emulator, there are many people stating in the Forum that you have to install a standalone emulator but I have found it to work just like the SNES or Genesis. If you’re interested in learning how to get the SNES or Genesis emulator and ROMs onto the Game Shell be sure to check out the video below.
Ok, it’s time to get started…
Getting the PlayStation emulator on the Game Shell is the same process as the SNES and Genesis. The first step is to connect to the GameShell via SSH and we do that by opening a command prompt in Windows or the terminal in Linux.
Before installing the PlayStation Emulator on the GameShell I suggest building an up to date RetroArch (remember I have learned all this on the forum over at Clockwork’s website).
Building an Up-to-date RetroArch
The first step is to setup the build environment and we do that by using the sudo command. The purpose of the sudo is to execute the command given by the user with root privileges. The prefix su switches the current user context, and if there is no specific username it then switches to root.
Open a command prompt in windows 10:
On the taskbar click the halo or circle icon, then type cmd and hit enter. After entering a command prompt you will
want to connect to ssh (Secure Shell)but don’t forget to update Windows 10 because thanks to an update Microsoft sent out in April there is now SSH support in Windows 10.
Use your IP address found in the Tiny Cloud App on the Game Shell
To Connect to the Game Shell via SSH:
ssh cpi@yourip address !which can be found on the TinyCloud app on the GameShell!
It will ask you for a password after you hit enter and that password is cpi… Then hit enter again…
If everything was entered correctly you will get a screen similar to the one you get when you power on the Game Shell.
Now that we have login to the Game Shell via ssh we need to start the command to setup the build environment by using the sudo command, I know finally!
Type sudo apt-get install git build-essential and click enter.
Next type sudo apt-get build-dep retroarch and then click enter.
Now each process will take their own length of time so just sit back, relax and wait till it completes. if there are any issues during the process if nothing happens, check the command for any errors.
After building the environment it is time to clone the repository and we do this by using the git command.
The git clone command copies an existing Git repository. This is sort of like SVN checkout, except the “working copy” isa full-fledged Git repository—it has its own history, manages its own files, and is a completely isolated environment from the original repository. Source: Atlassian
In command line type git clone https://github.com/libretro/RetroArch.git retroarch and hit enter.
Now we have to enter the retroarch directory and run the ./configure command to adjust RetroArch app for better performance by disabling certain features that aren’t being used currently.
To enter the RetroArch directory type cd retroarch …
Now type ./configure –disable-vulkan –disable-ffmpeg –enable-xmb –disable-materialui –disable-flac –disable-parport –disable-vulkan_display –disable-videocore –disable-videoprocessor –disable-v4l2 –enable-x11 –disable-wayland –disable-vg –disable-jack –enable-kms –disable-discord make -j4
Last step is to type sudo make install…
These last steps will take a while but the wait will be worth it and make RetroArch run smoother.
Now the RetroArch Megathread on the forum dives deeper into configuration but that last thing I myself changed was a few inputs. On the main menu navigate to the RetroArch app and load it. After you’re in the RetroArch navigate to the setting and then input. In input you want to change:
Blind Timeout: 5, Max Users: Your Choice – I used 2 and Unified Controls: On
Now the Retro Arch Megathread will instruct you on how to change the button and key layout. It also helps you change the audio and video setting for better performance so if you interested in that do head over to the forum.
Installing The PlayStation Emulator
Now let’s finally get into what this tutorial is about and that’s installing the PlayStation Emulator. Now when I first went about getting a PlayStation emulator I choose mednafen_psx_libretro.so.zip and I couldn’t seem to get it to work no matter what I did. So I hit the internet, I found out about PCSX Rearmed (pcsx_rearmed_libretro.so) which you can’t get from RetroArch and must download from an external source.
The first step is to download the PCSX Rearmed emulator from the GitHub website…
Next step is to copy the PCSX Rearmed emulator to the games folder on the sd card in the Game Shell…
To Gain access to the SD card on the Game Shell, click on the halo/circle (search button) on the taskbar, type run and click enter. When the run window comes up type backslash, backslash, your Game Shell’s Ip address that you find on the Tiny Cloud app, backslash, games and click ok.
Example: \\192.168.254.11\games
After clicking ok it will ask you for a username and password which are both cpi. After typing in your credentials, the games folder will open and you can drag the PCSX Rearmed emulator into that folder. While you are here create a New Folder and name it PSX (this is where you will drag Roms)
At this point, if the ssh has disconnected you will have to reconnect again by typing the following:
ssh cpi@your ip address !which can be found on the TinyCloud app on the GameShell!
After you type enter it will ask you for the password and if you remember from the previous step it is the same as the username cpi. Once you are in the Game Shell you have to head over to the Games directory in the 20_Retro and create a new directory for PlayStation in the folder. Type the following:
cd /home/cpi/apps/launcher/Menu/GameShell/20_Retro\ Games/
Next let’s create the PlayStation directory:
mkdir PSX !The mkdir stands for make directory!
After creating the PSX directory you are going to want to enter that directory by typing:
cd PSX
We now have to create the action.config file which will tell the Game Shell where the emulator is located and where the emulator can find the Roms files. This step is where some programming knowledge will come in handy!
Type nano action.config and hit enter. A text-based file will open and you will have to type in the following:
ROM=/home/cpi/games/PSX
ROM_SO=/home/cpi/apps/emulators/pcsx_rearmed_libretro.so
EXT=bin,iso,zip,cue
LAUNCHER=retroarch -L
TITLE=PSX Roms
SO_URL=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cuu/emulators/master/pcsx_rearmed_libretro.so.zip
After type this press control and x. It will ask you if you want to save, click Y and then enter.
Move The PlayStation Emulator
If you remember at the beginning of this tutorial I had you drag the PCSX Rearmed into the games folder on the sd card, well that emulator has to be moved to the emulator folder on the Game Shell and we do this by using the following commands:
Let’s exit out of the PSX directory and back to root.
Cd \ and hit enter
Now let’s navigate to the games folder on the sd card:
cd /home/cpi/games/ and click enter
type mv pcsx_rearmed_libretro.so /home/cpi/apps/emulators
Adding A Menu Icon
The final step is to add an icon to the menu so everything looks organized and beautiful. In order to add an image, you going to have to create your own or download them from the net. I design my own which you can download by click here…
After you find the icon you going to have to drag it to the games folder on the sd card we talked about in an earlier step.
Once it’s in the folder we will have to navigate to that folder in ssh by:
cd /home/cpi/games/
Once in the directory, we will move the image file over to the proper folder using the following command:
mv PSX.png /home/cpi/apps/launcher/skin/default/Menu/GameShell/20_Retro\ Games/
All done now everything should work and you can now enjoy PlayStation One games on your Game Shell. If for any reason it doesn’t work go over the steps and make sure there weren’t any mistakes made. If you still can’t figure it out or have any question feel free to ask any question you might have down below.
HAPPY OPEN SOURCE GAMING!