Maximizing the Compatibility on Xperia Play

It is known that the Native Xperia Play emulator isn't completely compatible with all the PS1 games. You can see graphical glitches everywhere. In fact you can use FPse which is a better emulator (and has got the "Dual Shock" to boot). But I've had a problem with it. I couldn't play Silent Hill, because it had sound issues. I wanted to play this game, so had to use the ISO to Play converter (Awesome tool by yifanlu) and had a bit of a problem with the graphics. Squares surrounding the character, trees, basically every model.


UGLY! (click for larger view) So, I read that it's been using the Hardware Renderer, but you can change it. First of all, you will need to download a notepad clone (I'm using Jota Text Editor, simple but as good as notepad) and open preferences.xml in the ucc folder, which is inside the game's content.

The highlighted folder, is Silent Hill. Make sure to remember the game's id and open it. There's a ucc folder and if it isn't there, play the game first and access the Emulator's settings. It should appear.

I've opened the ucc folder and there's some random hexadecimal code as the next folder's name. Open it and there are some .xml files. Now open preferences.xml.

By default, the game is using the Hardware renderer, as the highlighted line says "SW-Renderer = False" all you have to do is to change it to true and save.

BETTER! (click for larger view) Now enjoy a much better looking emulated PS1 game. It probably won't work with all games, but will make the native emulator a much more enjoyable emulator. There will be a bit of dithering and the gameplay will be just a bit slower than the Hardware Rendering, but at least you can play the game.