The Best PSP Emulator of 2023 | Top 5

If you’re searching for the best PSP emulator, chances are you probably remember being younger and getting down on some PSP games on Sony’s PlayStation Portable back in the day. Or maybe you’re brand new to the PSP and just looking to jump in and play some awesome games that you never had a chance to.

Either way, the retro days may be behind us, but thanks to PSP emulation we can still enjoy classic PSP games on the PC or mobile devices! We’ll be breaking down which PSP emulators you need to check out to based on your particular needs and setup.

Also, be sure to check out our PPSSPP cheats guide for setting up cheat codes for the emulator.

Without further ado, let’s jump on it and get to emulating everyone’s favorite Sony handheld!

Short Summary

• Find out which is the best PSP emulator.
• Learn how to enable upscaled graphics, use save states, and configure external controller support.
• Play classic PSP games like God of War: Chains of Olympus in HD all with emulation!

What Is The Best PSP Emulator?

When it comes to choosing the right PSP emulator for you, it’s going to come down to a mixture of personal preference and your setup that you’ll be using to play games. Let’s dive in a see which are the best options.

PPSSPP

• Price: Free version, paid Gold version available for Android devices
• Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android
• Official website

The holy grail of PSP emulation, PPSSPP, is by far the most popular and versatile emulator, has a quite high compatibility rate, solid HD graphics, and the fact that it is regularly updated across multiple platforms like Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android make it an obvious choice. This open source emulator has a load of additional features like:

• Customizable on-screen controls
• Support for custom external controllers
• Save states
• Texture scaling
• Anisotropic filtering

While PPSSPP is free on most platforms, it does have a premium version available for Android devices known as its Gold version. Be sure to also check out our list of the best PSP emulator Android apps.

The Gold version exists solely for users who want to support the development team behind the PPSSPP emulator, but it’s entirely up to you.

RetroArch

• Price: Free
• Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android, iOS (jailbroken iPhones and iPads)
• Official website

RetroArch is a gaming emulating frontend that allows users to emulate tons of games from various different consoles. This multi-platform emulator supports PSP ROMs through its use of cores. The PSP core for RetroArch uses none other than the emulator that took the number one spot on this list, PPSSPP.

RetroArch is extremely convenient to use. It removes the need for downloading a different emulator for every single game console you want to emulate and instead allows you to only use one main emulation frontend and just Choose which cores best suit your needs.

The PPSSPP core does work pretty well and will run many PSP games at a decent level, however do keep in mind that because this is not the standalone version of the PPSSPP emulator, but rather the core form, it won’t be up-to-date with the one version you would get downloading straight from the official PPSSPP website.

Be sure to check out our guide on how to setup the RetroArch PSP core PPSSPP.

OpenEmu

• Price: Free
• Platform: macOS
• Official website

OpenEmu is a macOS emulator frontend similar to RetroArch that features a more sleek interface, easy USB mapping, and can run PSP games using the PPSSPP core. OpenEmu is a great choice and much detail went into making this multi-console emulator’s user interface.

Not only is it intuitive and easy to use, but it also features external controller support, easy button mapping, the ability to categorize your game collections, and much more. The box art for games is also automatically added for ROMs in your collection.

Rapid PSP Emulator

• Price: Free
• Platform: Android
• Google Play Store

If you’ve tried the PPSSPP emulator on your Android device and found that it didn’t run too well for you, you might want to give the Rapid PSP emulator a shot.

This modified version of PPSSPP is designed specifically for less powerful devices, often times giving a smoother gaming experience for users who have older Android devices and can’t handle the newer PPSSPP emulator.

The Rapid PSP emulator app has the following features available:

• Save states
• Large fps even in any powerful PSP game
• PSS, PSV, PPS and POP settings performance emulated
• ISO, CSO and ROM formats compatible
• Supports external game controllers
• Supports PSP homebrew

Rocket PSP

• Price: Free with ads
• Platform: Android
• Google Play Store

The Rocket PSP emulator app is yet another emulator based on PPSSPP. It’s relatively new and offers decent PSP game compatibility.

We added this emulator to the list not because it’s the greatest option available, but for the sake of offering alternative options if the other two Android emulators didn’t suit your fancy. Being newer, Rocket PSP may not have the best compatibility with all PSP roms you try.

A number of users have left negative reviews recently and the consensus here is that this emulator might be best avoided for now until the developers have had some time to improve it a bit. Performance seems like it might not yet be at a state ready for most quite yet.

In our opinion, if you have an Android phone, you’re better off just going with the Android version of the PPSSPP emulator.

Enhancing Your PSP Gaming Experience

Now that we’ve explored the different options available for PSP emulation, we’re now going to go over how you can take things up a notch. Upscaling your game’s graphics for improved visuals, save states for easy progress tracking, and external controller support for a more authentic feel can all add to the overall experience you’ll get while getting down on some classic games.

Upscaling Graphics

Upscaling graphics is pretty common practice these days for most emulators as it can drastically improve the visual of older games, especially on larger screens. Doing so requires enlarging an image or video to a higher resolution with no loss to the actual game’s video quality, making images able to be shown in larger formats on a TV or monitor.

Most of the PSP emulators on this list have built in upscaling options that will allow you to adjust the resolution of the games you’re playing to fit your screen size. Some emulators also offer additional features such as anti-aliasing and texture filtering, which can further improve the image quality significantly.

You’ll usually find these options and how to enable them if you look at the official website for each emulator under the documentation or FAQ pages.

Save States and Cheats

Save states are a necessity when playing games and every emulator on our list has this ability. Save states let players save their game’s progress whenever needed and will allow you to pick back up wherever you last left off.

Along with save states, cheat options can also be a whole lot of fun to mess around with. They also give more replay value to games that you may have already beaten. Cheats allow players to modify games to give players an edge, like unlimited lives, invincibility, and tons of other cool features.

External Controller Support

Let’s be real, playing games without a controller and having to use a keyboard and mouse can sometimes kill the experience entirely. It can take a fun session and make it feel more tedious and not as fluid. It’s highly recommended that you get yourself either a USB controller to plug into your computer to use or a Bluetooth controller that you can use with your mobile device as well.

The emulators on this list all support custom controllers so as long as you have one to use, you should be good to go after getting it all setup and the buttons mapped accordingly.

Navigating the World of PSP ROMs

In order to play PSP games, you’ll need to have some ROM files around to use. The ROM files are what hold the games and the emulators use these ROM files to display the gameplay for you.

Legal Considerations

At the end of the day, downloading ROMs of games that you don’t already have in your collection is technically illegal. Really, you should only be playing ROMs for games that you dumped from physical copies of games that you actually own. That being said, we’re aware that most gamers don’t follow this rule and we’re not here to tell you what you should and shouldn’t do.

Just be sure to look into the rules and regulations for where you live to make sure you don’t get yourself into any legal trouble. Because while emulation is legal, ROMs can be a bit of a grey area depending on how you obtain them.

The PlayStation Portable Legacy

It’s no secret that the PSP has a solid library of games. It’s why so many different PSP emulators exist, it’s such a beloved handheld gaming system for many gamers.

The PSP had a wide variety of games, from action-adventure titles like God of War to tons of others.

Notable PSP Games

Some classic PSP games worth mentioning are those like God of War: Chains of Olympus, Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core, and Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories. These PlayStation games all offer something unique to players looking for a fun time and continue to be fan favorites even years after they were initially released for the handheld. The PSP has such a vast collection of Playstation Portable games that it’s no wonder the PSP still to this day remains such a beloved console.

Summary

As we went through and broke down the different PSP emulator options and which we feel are the best ones for you to try out, we covered the hold grail of PSP emulation PPSSPP, the lesser known Rapid PSP Emulator, the all around emulation frontend options RetroArch and OpenEmu and we ended off with one last alternative that’s still on the newer side, Rocket PSP.

Most of these emulation choices offers their own set of unique features, while some of the mobile options can somewhat feel like a bit of a copy paste job. If you’re going to emulate PSP games on Android, our opinion is that you should just go for the PPSSPP Android app. For PC, PPSSPP is also the best option as well.

For macOS users however, we’d definitely recommend checking out Open Emu. Not only is it quite snazzy looking in terms of its user interface, but it’s extremely easy to use and setup and it uses the PPSSPP emulator as a core quite well on Mac computers which is a major win.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which version of PPSSPP is the best?

On PC, the official PPSSPP emulator is the best choice. For Android devices, the PPSSPP Gold app does cost money, but is hands down the best emulator you can find. For macOS, Open Emu is a great option. Regardless of what your setup is, with any of the options mentioned, you’ll be ready to play your favorite PSP games in no time.

What are the best PSP emulators iOS?

Our recommendation for emulating PSP games on iOS would be to download and use the RetroArch emulator. There are other options available such as the Happy Chick emulator, however RetroArch is more reliable and it’s the one we always recommend users go with.

Got a spare Raspberry Pi laying around? Be sure to check out our RetroPie PSP setup guide.