PlayStation

The PlayStation is the platform that best shows what RetroXR does with saves. Your save is not a hidden file in a folder — it is on a memory card, and the card is an object you hold, slot in, and can lose.

The PlayStation — a modelled shell as of v0.4.0, replacing the procedural box. The lid springs, the buttons press, and both card slots and both controller ports take real objects.

The BIOS is optional

You do not need a PlayStation BIOS to play. pcsx_rearmed declares all three region BIOSes as optional and emulates the firmware itself, so a game will boot without one.

A real BIOS is still worth having. It is more accurate than the built-in stand-in, it is what a few awkward titles want, and it is the only way to get the console’s own startup screen — the one that boots to the CD player and memory card manager when you power the machine on with no disc in it.

RetroXR cannot ship those files. Open CORES → BIOS / Extras and pick PlayStation to see which ones it knows about, and which of them your chosen core marks as required.

The filenames have to match exactly — scph5500.bin, scph5501.bin, scph5502.bin and psxonpsp660.bin. A file that is right in every way except its name will not be found.

Required-or-optional is not RetroXR’s judgement: it is read out of each core’s own metadata, so a different PlayStation core can be stricter than pcsx_rearmed is.

If you run a RomM server holding your firmware, RetroXR can pull these down directly. Otherwise copy them in the usual way — see adding your games and BIOS files.

Memory cards

A memory card. Slot it into the console's card port; your saves live on it, not in a folder.

① The connector edge goes into the console’s card slot. ② The label names the card, which is how you tell two of them apart on a shelf.

Using one

1. Spawn a memory card from SPAWN → Objects.

2. Push it into one of the console’s two card slots.

3. Play. The game saves to that card, in that slot.

Because a card is a real object rather than a setting, the things you could do with a real one work here:

• Keep several saves on one card, until it runs out of blocks.
• Move a save from one card to another.
• Delete a save to free blocks.
• Back a card up to your RomM server.

There is a manager for all of this, reachable from the card itself: point at it and press clicking the left thumbstick.

As of v0.4.0 the running game notices when card slot 1 is emptied, the way the console did — pull the card mid-game and the machine sees it go.

If a game cannot find your save

Saves are per card, and per slot. The usual cause is a different card in the slot, or the right card in the wrong slot. Check the card before suspecting the emulator.

You cannot delete a save while the console is on

Power the machine down first. It is the same rule cartridge saves follow — see game saves and backups.

Where a card lives on disk

Each card is one ordinary .mcr image — the same 128 KB format any PlayStation memory card tool on your PC will open.

libretro/save/memcards/playstation/<card name>.mcr

Platform	Full path
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\retroxr\libretro\save\memcards\playstation\
Linux / macOS	~/retroxr/libretro/save/memcards/playstation/
Quest	libretro/save/memcards/playstation/ in the web file manager

Two things about that path are deliberate and worth knowing.

The card’s name is its filename. Renaming a card in the manager renames the file, so the folder reads as a shelf of cards rather than a pile of hashes. Which also means the name has to survive being a filename — the manager strips characters your operating system would refuse.

There is no core in the path. Compare that with everything else under libretro/, which is filed per core — BIOS, core assets, cartridge battery saves. A card is hardware, and the raw image is identical for every PlayStation core, so a card follows you when you switch cores exactly as a real one follows you when you switch consoles. Cartridge saves do not; see the libretro folder.

On Quest, copy cards OUT but not back IN

Reading a card off the headset is fine. Copying one back is not — a file pushed from a PC lands owned by the shell rather than the app, and RetroXR can no longer write your saves into it. A card it cannot update looks exactly like a card that was wiped. Use RomM to restore, or let the app write a fresh card.

Backing a card up to RomM

A card you can lose is a card worth backing up, and this is the reason to connect a RomM server even if you copy your games across by hand.

1. Connect RomM.

2. Back the card up from its own manager.

3. The card’s contents live on your server, not only on the headset.

That matters more here than for most saves: on a Quest you cannot safely copy save files back in from a PC — files pushed from a computer land owned by the shell rather than the app, and RetroXR can no longer write to them. RomM is the route that avoids the problem entirely.

Full detail on game saves and backups.

Discs

Spawn a game from SPAWN → Games and it arrives as a disc rather than a cartridge. Open the console’s lid, set the disc in the tray, close it, and power on.

Multi-disc games work — RetroXR retrieves the right image for each disc rather than handing every disc the first one, which was a real bug fixed in v0.3.0.

Multi-disc games can also be swapped mid-game on cores that support disc control: take disc 1 out and put disc 2 in, and the game carries on. Pulling a disc no longer switches the machine off either — see cartridges and discs.

Controllers

Both PlayStation pads are modelled, and which one you plug in is what decides how the console reads it — there is no controller-type setting to find.

The original digital pad. Plug it in and the core switches to the standard controller.

The DualShock. Plug it in and the core switches to the dual-shock controller — sticks and all.

Push either into one of the two controller ports on the front:

• The original pad selects the standard controller.
• The DualShock selects the dual-shock controller.

The ANALOG button works. Put a fingertip on it and press, and the DualShock drops back to behaving as a standard controller, exactly as the real one toggled — which is the fix for games that predate the sticks and get confused by them.

For a real gamepad, spawn a Controller Receiver and plug that in instead — see controllers and peripherals.

The serial link

The PlayStation’s SERIAL I/O socket on the back is wired. Run a link cable between two consoles and games that supported it will see each other — see link cables.

Cores

The PlayStation has several libretro cores with different accuracy and speed trade-offs. Pick the default in CORES → Manager — see downloading and managing cores.

Needs an in-headset pass

The memory card manager’s exact controls, and the lid and tray interaction, are written from the code and the v0.3.0 release notes rather than from a session in the headset.