Hello, I'm new to this forum and have been browsing around it for about half an hour now. But anyway, I want to start developing ps1 games but I don't know where to look and what software to use. any help would be appreciated, thanks!
officially you can buy this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Yaroze but for big games you will need PS1 SDK and stuff
You have a bunch of options, both hardware and software - which one to use depends on what you want to do and if you mind using pirated resources or not. There are 3 basic development systems for the PSX - the first is the official SDK, which is obviously the most complete and capable, but which you can't (legally) use - it was only available to licensed developers, and Sony haven't been issuing licenses for years. If you don't care about that, it's pretty easy to find, though. The second is the Net Yaroze system, which was available to the general public - in software terms, it provides a subset of the features of the official 2.0 development kit, with the bits that didn't make sense in terms of the shipped hardware removed. Finally, you have the open source PSXSDK - this has the big advantage that there are no legal issues with it, but it's got some significant omissions - most notably that it has no 3D support. But if you are interested in writing a 2D game, it's pretty much complete (although back when I played with it, the memory card support was bugged to hell). For hardware, you also have a number of choices - if you are using a Yaroze, and you have the CDs, serial cable and access card, then that's all you need. For a retail unit, then you obviously need some way of running your code on it - the most capable approach is to make sure you get a machine that has an expansion port and use an Xplorer/Xploder cart with a parallel printer cable (and a machine with a real LPT port) - this will let you upload the code fairly quickly and also gives you access to debug it. Note that the "Action Replay" type carts are rather less useful in this context - they normally do have an expansion port on them, but it's designed to plug into a special "comms link" card that only fits into PCs with ISA slots, and they are hard to find now. It's also possible to use a serial link - either to make a "fake yaroze" or just to download code produced by one of the other SDKs - this gives you less debugging capability, though. The final thing it that (with the exception of the PSXSDK) all this stuff is old, and often doesn't like new OSes that much - it's really happiest with Windows 9x, but mostly works OK under XP, too - using it with Vista or anything later is likely to cause you some problems. If you want one recommended approach, then I would say the best combination of cost and capability is to get a retail console, an Xplorer cart and a PC with a parallel port, and then use either the PSXSDK or the leaked official one depending on your tastes.
Wouldn't it make more sense to move it to the "Sony" section? The tag on "Off Topic" says "Anything not gaming" - so this is arguably still in the wrong place.
The latest PsyQ compiler runs fine on Windows 8.1 x64. You have to use gnumake instead of psymake as the later is 16bit only and won't run on 64 bit windows, the same problem affects cpe2x so you need a third party equivalent (I wrote my own years ago). An Xplorer FX flashed with caetla and a compatible parallel port in your PC is the cheapest way to then run your software on real hardware, you just need a retail console with a parallel port. I've only tested catflap with caetla as far as Windows 7 32 bit, due to that being the last computer in my collection that has a parallel port (generic usb parallel adapters don't work). Ideally there would be a usb (or Ethernet) to xplorer adapter, several people have made progress but nothing has ever surfaced. A raspberry pi running as a proxy would be an interesting approach, you could wireless debug from your sofa.
Good thing I've sent nextvolume/tails some of my modules, including something that faithfully replicates GTE operations. Pretty much. I've been using the official compiler/linker for a while with no side effects on Win7. Whatever doesn't work out of the box you can always rewrite from scratch.
I looked at PSXSDK and not being able to find a precompiled windows toolchain was the first drawback. I'm not convinced that the libraries will work on a PS2 in PS1 mode either.
Yeah, I guess being used to embedded development having to roll my own toolchain didn't seem like a major issue, but it could represent a significant impediment to anyone that hadn't ever done it before. I think the main reason I like the PSXSDK Is that I have a personal bias against using pirated tools unless you don't have any choice. It's also a good point about the compatibility with the PS1 emulation in the PS2 - I guess it depends on to what extent they relied on the way the standard Sony libraries did things.
I rarely run any homebrew on the PS2 in PS1 mode because it's inconvenient. It would be great if you could send PS1 (& PS2) homebrew to freemcboot over Ethernet. I would probably make that the first place I tested. POPS would be the last place I would test.
With the NetYaroze you are limited. Its ok for starting something, but if you looking for something professional you need at first a pc based devkit like the DTL-H2x00. Its very complex doing all the parts alone, creating sourcecode, building bitmaps, polygones and so.. I cant talk about the homebrew stuff, i always used the sdk tools and real devhardware.
Despite the original TC having completely disappeared from the place, you can still ask questions here. I'm sure there will be at least a couple users able to help you.
Well I was somewhat interested until I read that. From time to time I get interested in how the PS1 works and want to dabble in making some kind of demo or game but development tools are the problem for me. The programming of a game isn't the hard part, I can handle that and have on the PC. But it would be so much more fun to make something to actually run on something like the PS1.
Years ago I was able to compile PSXSDK with the standard PSY-Q toolchain. Aside from some manual work you need to do first, it's 100% functional and works like a charm.
