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Compatibility

📎 Recovered from the ShaolinAssassin wiki · snapshot 20170629151818

Game Compatibility

POPS is able to emulate a large range of games perfectly fine with the POPStarter fixes – which makes it superior to PS2PSXE. Best results are expected in internal HDD mode.

(This intro paragraph and the "unplayable games" list below first appeared in the 2019-11-12 snapshot; the original 2017-06-29 snapshot opened directly with the compatibility-rate figures instead.)

Unfortunately, some famous and epic games are still unplayable. Here’s a short list of them :

Compatibility rates (04/21/2016) :

(This section appears only in the original 2017-06-29 snapshot.)


* MODE (Region) : XX% games playable (games partially or perfectly emulated/games tested)

Compatibility lists and forms :

ElOtroLado Compatibility List

(The newest 2024-06-20 snapshot promoted the ElOtroLado list — managed by El_Patas — to the primary, current list and marked the Google-Docs "Official" lists below as obsolete.)

This compatibility list is managed by El_Patas.

Device Compatibility list (read-only)
Internal HDD, USB & SMB here

The El_Patas list has been hosted at several URLs over time (use the most recent):

Official Compatibility Lists (Google Docs)

(In the 2017 snapshot these were titled simply "Rev 13 Official Compatibility Lists"; the 2024 snapshot relabels the whole section [OBSOLETE & DEATH].)

These compatibility lists are managed by AlGollan84 (aka Algol aka Allan58) and krHACKen.

Device Compatibility list (read-only) The form for submitting reports
Internal HDD (older snapshots: "HDD") here here
USB Device (older snapshots: "USB") here here
SMB here here

Old Compatibility Lists (outdated & locked, for history)

(This sub-list appears only in the 2017-06-29 snapshot.)

Compatibility modes :

If your game is poorly emulated, you can enable a compatibility mode to try to fix your issue. (older 2017 snapshot wording: "you can try to enable a compatibility mode to see if it helps.")

Compatibility mode Description
0x01 Helps restoring the music/voices in several games.
0x02 A variant of mode 0x01, with a second hack for not breaking the MDECoding of FMVs (was designed for the Colony Wars series).
0x03 Can be used if the mode 0x01 doesn’t provide the expected results.
0x04 Fixes slowdowns, flickering, and many other glitches (prevents the emulator from writing a garbage value in two of the virtual GPU registers).
0x05 Made for fixing the cutscenes of the PAL Resident Evil: Director’s Cut.
0x06 Disables the OSD shell of the emulator’s built-in BIOS, making some games that freeze on startup run.
0x07 Fixes the missing textures problems (example : Tomb Raider III ). Unfinished (breaks the gamma) [NOTE: This Mode is obsolete].

Notes on mode 0x07 wording across snapshots: the 2017 snapshot had no caveat; the 2019/2020/2022 snapshots added "Unfinished (breaks the gamma)."; the 2024 snapshot added "[NOTE: This Mode is obsolete]".

Caution / Notes :

How to enable / use a compatibility mode :

Note : (added in the 2019-11-12 snapshot and kept since) if your game lags badly or stalls randomly and that mode 0x04 doesn’t fix that, you can try to use $CODECACHE_ADDON_0 command in a GAME/CHEATS.TXT file. Do not use it by default on all your games because most games will stop working with it.

Game fixes (manual) :

(This whole section — the manual TROJAN-file game-fix list — appears only in the original 2017-06-29 snapshot. Later snapshots replaced it with the "Automated fixes" internal database described below.)

In the game fixes archive, you can find some TROJAN files fixing problematic games. Copy the file in the VMC directory of your problematic game.

List of game fixes :

Automated fixes :

(2017 snapshot wording:) A list of all the LC cracks, crash fixes & compatibility modes integrated into POPStarter can be found here. You don’t need to enable them/do something to get them enabled, as POPStarter will detect your game and apply the matching fix all by itself.

(2019-and-later snapshots wording:) POPStarter has an internal database containing various fixes (compatibility modes, LibCrypt cracks and miscellaneous fixes) for a big amount of games. These fixes will be automatically applied to your game, as long as you use proper dumps (for identification).

Related curated section → Patches & TROJANs