Playstation

[JohnnyChimpo]

Anyone had luck with Playstation games launching in HS with either Retroarch or Duckstation? I have 3 Playstation games and can't get any to work inside HS. They work in Retroarch and Duckstation separately. I have the defualt emulator to duckstation.

[32assassin]

I had multiple systems installed and none of them worked, this was because the retorarch core was not added tot he list

1. click on Platform tab

2.  click on the RetroArch tab

3. click on supported systems

4. make sure that the system you want  is listed and has the core assigned to the system.

I had to manually add a few PSX was one of them.

 

[JohnnyChimpo]

Oh hell yeah. I’ll try this. Thank you!

 

[JohnnyChimpo]

3 hours ago, 32assassin said:

I had multiple systems installed and none of them worked, this was because the retorarch core was not added tot he list

1. click on Platform tab

2.  click on the RetroArch tab

3. click on supported systems

4. make sure that the system you want  is listed and has the core assigned to the system.

I had to manually add a few PSX was one of them.

 

This was needed. I enabled swanstation in Retroarch as you suggested. Now if i try and launch a PS game from HQ it tries then crashes HQ. If i launch a game from HS it goes to the spinning "loading" Hyperspin screen and never loads. I have to quit HS via task manager... Duckstation will launch the games outside of HQ/HS but I can't seem to get HQ to work with Duckstation Emulator either

[rudealleycat]

I am in the same boat. Unfortunately I didn't see this post hours ago when I started troubleshooting the issue. I was able to figure out what @32assassin suggested. 

However I will tell you that the built in BIOS for Swanstation is not good. You MUST source a BIOS to use and place it in the folder below.
C:\HyperSpin\emulators\RetroArch\system

The file path may vary based on where your HyperSpin folder is located.

I've heard of a way to get a usable Playstation BIOS from the PS3 update file. I will not post anymore about that as I am not sure about the legality of this method to obtain the BIOS.

The only problem I have now is getting HyperSpin to work properly after exiting the game that is running in RetroArch...

Edited January 18 by rudealleycat
accidentally submitted post before it was finished

[JohnnyChimpo]

Saved the proper BIOS for PS1, both ps1_rom.bin and scph5501.bin in the C:\HyperSpin\emulators\RetroArch\system folder. Retroarch suggest the BIOS for PS1 US are present, but I can't seem to get any PS1 games to launch in Retroarch via Swanstation and thus not is HS either. Frustrated... thanks for the help @rudealleycat, I've made some progress (i think) but not haven't solved it yet.

Anyone get PS1 games to launch in Retroarch?

Quote

 

 

[32assassin]

what format are your games,

at some point we had to mount bin, cue files on virtual drives in order to play the games.

if you are upgrading your Hyperspin setup, now is the time to replace your files if you don't have CHD files for your disc based games.

CHD = Compressed Hunks of Data ( will save you allot of drive space compared to most of the other formats)

 

 

[JohnnyChimpo]

23 minutes ago, 32assassin said:

what format are your games,

at some point we had to mount bin, cue files on virtual drives in order to play the games.

if you are upgrading your Hyperspin setup, now is the time to replace your files if you don't have CHD files for your disc based games.

CHD = Compressed Hunks of Data ( will save you allot of drive space compared to most of the other formats)

 

 

Ironically I was able to upload most of my old games from previous Hyperspin 1.5 setup to 2.0 without much problem. I only have 3 playstation games thus far which I have sourced recently. They are all bin files with one .cue. Example below. I tried removing all the BIN and Cue files for the games from the sub folders and just having them in the "playstation folder" but that didn't seem to help. Retroarch keeps saying "Failure to boot". These games as organized will play separately in Duckstation... just can't get Retroarch to launch them.

[JohnnyChimpo]

Update: I got HW to launch the Playstation games via Duckstation, but Duckstation and HS don't play great together... When i exit the game it pulls up the Duckstation menu and then HS gets stuck and I have to kill it via task manager. Would love to get Retroarch to work with Playstation... 

[32assassin]

I have the same issue with BigPEmu (Atari Jaguar CD)

the issue is with the emulator not HS or HQ.  The emulator users the EXT key to navigate the emulators system menu

it might need a custom exit script

 so that the emulator closes when you press the EXT key and not bring up the  emulator menu.

[JohnnyChimpo]

19 hours ago, 32assassin said:

I have the same issue with BigPEmu (Atari Jaguar CD)

the issue is with the emulator not HS or HQ.  The emulator users the EXT key to navigate the emulators system menu

it might need a custom exit script

 so that the emulator closes when you press the EXT key and not bring up the  emulator menu.

Oh... interesting. Let me know if you solve it with the exit script. 

 

[32assassin]

I figured out the Exit issue with BigPEmu, it might work for Duckstation too

but Retroarch with the swansation core and CHDs will load and exit for me

 

the guys at Launchbox had the same issue

https://forums.launchbox-app.com/topic/71470-atari-jaguar-on-bigpemu-emulator-what-command-line-is-needed-to-exit-the-game-when-pressing-esc/

unfortunately the script they are using did not work for HQ,  I had to modify it (slightly)

1. click on the platforms icon

2. click on the emulator 

3. click on the running script

4. type in 

$Esc::
{
ProcessClose("BigPEmu.exe")
}

5.  save the changes

 

If you need to access the emulators system menu you will need to load the emulator OUTSIDE of HQ or HS, as this script will  exit the emulator when you press the 

ESC key.

try and see if it works for Duckstation,   obviously you will need to change the ProcessClose("NAME.exe")   to match the name your emulator exe.

[thatman84]

On 1/20/2026 at 3:44 PM, JohnnyChimpo said:

Update: I got HW to launch the Playstation games via Duckstation, but Duckstation and HS don't play great together... When i exit the game it pulls up the Duckstation menu and then HS gets stuck and I have to kill it via task manager. Would love to get Retroarch to work with Playstation... 

I was just playing with this and @32assassin thread linked.

I have set the DuckStation "Open Pause Menu" Hotkey to P instead of Escape. I have set the "Power Off System" Hotkey to Escape

 

In the HyperHQ Platform settings for DuckStation I added the -batch command to the launching.

 

Seems to work fine with latest releases of HQ and HS

[JohnnyChimpo]

Thank you. Made these changes. Duckstation launching games no problem. No luck in Hyperspin. It's telling me the Path to ROMS doesn't exist... its the same path as Duckstation... what  am I missing?

[thatman84]

22 hours ago, JohnnyChimpo said:

Thank you. Made these changes. Duckstation launching games no problem. No luck in Hyperspin. It's telling me the Path to ROMS doesn't exist... its the same path as Duckstation... what  am I missing?

are your games in individual folders? Under the edit pencil on the game in HyperHQ check the game paths see if its got the actual file and extension

[JohnnyChimpo]

6 hours ago, thatman84 said:

are your games in individual folders? Under the edit pencil on the game in HyperHQ check the game paths see if its got the actual file and extension

Here's the path in HyperHQ and the path in Duckstation, and folder on the F drive. Do I need to somehow tell HyperHQ to choose the .cue file?

[thatman84]

Yes HyperHQ is sending the folder not the cue file.

you can try deleting and importing again. Turn on search subfolders in the import wizard

[JohnnyChimpo]

On 1/26/2026 at 11:08 PM, thatman84 said:

Yes HyperHQ is sending the folder not the cue file.

you can try deleting and importing again. Turn on search subfolders in the import wizard

Ugh... tried this. Still no go. Sorta at a loss. I still don't understand why Retroarch won't launch these games either. 

[32assassin]

your game paths don't add up

one is F:\ROMS\Playstation\

and the other is

F:\ROMS\Sony Playstation\

but I guess if you updated that

remove any extra extensions from the system set up and only have the CUE file.

 

 

 

[JohnnyChimpo]

On 1/28/2026 at 7:51 AM, 32assassin said:

your game paths don't add up

one is F:\ROMS\Playstation\

and the other is

F:\ROMS\Sony Playstation\

but I guess if you updated that

remove any extra extensions from the system set up and only have the CUE file.

 

 

 

I did fix this previously...  UPDATE: I converted my game filed to CHDs and messed around with the BIOS setting in Retroarch and manged to get Retroarch to launch the PS1 games via swanstation (Hurray!!). Now, for whatever reason I can't get Hyperspin or HyperHQ to launch them. I have enabled Swanstation in the Supported Systems in Retroarch, I have made sure .chd is in the Extension Filters for Sony Playstation, Retroarch is my default emulator... what do I have wrong? Do I need to somehow set up Swanstation as the default core in Retroarch?

[thatman84]

Glad you got the games running in Retroarch. I assume you were testing by opening Hyperspin/emulators/Retroarch/retroach.exe

 

see what your game paths are showing in HyperHQ systems-> Sony PlayStation -> Games and hit the edit pencil and choose game paths.

 

you may need to rescan if you haven’t done so since updating the games to CHD

[32assassin]

The only thing I could say that is possible wrong with your current set up is

1. remove the bin extension from your list,  Retroarch only uses the Cue file to load the game

you also don't want to add any bin files to your game list

 

2.open the cue file in notepad++ ( do not know if notepad will work) and make sure that all the bin files (with the correct name are listed)

but your game loads directly from the emulator (I do not see how this is could be a problem)

 

3.  Seems like a dumb thing to ask but, this was an issue for me

Open Retroarch and go to the

Online updater -- Core downloader

 make sure that all the cores listed on HQ  are actually downloaded.  I'm only using SwanStation because HQ suggested it,  I had to download the core

because I was using the Beetle or PCSX core on my previous setup

[JohnnyChimpo]

On 1/30/2026 at 1:39 PM, thatman84 said:

Glad you got the games running in Retroarch. I assume you were testing by opening Hyperspin/emulators/Retroarch/retroach.exe

 

see what your game paths are showing in HyperHQ systems-> Sony PlayStation -> Games and hit the edit pencil and choose game paths.

 

you may need to rescan if you haven’t done so since updating the games to CHD

 

2 hours ago, 32assassin said:

The only thing I could say that is possible wrong with your current set up is

1. remove the bin extension from your list,  Retroarch only uses the Cue file to load the game

you also don't want to add any bin files to your game list

 

2.open the cue file in notepad++ ( do not know if notepad will work) and make sure that all the bin files (with the correct name are listed)

but your game loads directly from the emulator (I do not see how this is could be a problem)

 

3.  Seems like a dumb thing to ask but, this was an issue for me

Open Retroarch and go to the

Online updater -- Core downloader

 make sure that all the cores listed on HQ  are actually downloaded.  I'm only using SwanStation because HQ suggested it,  I had to download the core

because I was using the Beetle or PCSX core on my previous setup

Thank you both. Getting closer! I deleted and rescanned the games, removed .bin from the extensions and I got the games to launch from HyperHQ, but with one issue. For some reason Hyper HQ is showing two game options for each (see below). The second launches, the top one doesn't. Default is to try the top one, so if I click "Play Now" or try to launch from HyperSpin it doesn't work as it's trying for that top one. How do I get rid of that version?

[32assassin]

you more than likely have two paths listed on your  game path settings

delete the extra path

or

delete the games and re scan your game directory so it only adds the path to the cue files.

[JohnnyChimpo]

4 hours ago, 32assassin said:

you more than likely have two paths listed on your  game path settings

delete the extra path

or

delete the games and re scan your game directory so it only adds the path to the cue files.

Boom! I deleted the system and games and added fresh. Somehow with only one game path there's still 2 versions, but now the correct version is first so HyperSpin and HyperHQ are both launching them correctly. Thank you! I really appreciate the help... Now if I can just figure out why HyperSpin freezes everytime I exit a game instead of returning to the wheel menu...