DuckStation vs mkpsxiso

DuckStation is a free emulator for Sony PlayStation games, available for Android, Linux, macOS and Windows. Its hardware renderer supports D3D11, D3D12, OpenGL, Vulkan and Metal, with upscaling, texture filtering and 24-bit color among the graphics options. Enhancements include PGXP geometry precision, texture replacement, adaptive downsampling and post-processing shader chains. Play options include save states, rewind, runahead, CPU overclocking and multi-disc support, along with memory-card editing and save importing. DuckStation supports RetroAchievements and Discord Rich Presence. It accepts digital and analog controllers, rumble, and up to eight devices through multitap; GunCon and Justifier lightguns can be simulated with a mouse. Supported formats include bin/cue, MAME CHD, single-track ECM, MDS/MDF, CCD and unencrypted PBP. A PS1 or PS2 BIOS image is required but not supplied, and games are not provided. The maker says users should dump a BIOS from their own console. Desktop requirements include Windows 10/11 and macOS 13.3 or newer.

mkpsxiso builds PlayStation CD images from an XML document, with output in .bin/.cue or .iso formats for emulators or CD burning. File order in the XML sets LBA placement, which the project says can support access-time optimization. The builder handles mixed-mode CD-XA content, including XA audio and STR video, and CDDA tracks sourced from WAV, FLAC, PCM, or MP3 files. Its related tool, dumpsxiso, extracts PlayStation disc images and can generate compatible XML. It supports 2352-sector images and CUE files, and can extract tracks, license data, and raw sectors. Generated XML follows strict LBA order and preserves timestamps and XA attributes. The project targets homebrew development, ROM hacking, and reverse engineering. It runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows, and is GPL-2.0 licensed. Documentation covers command-line use, XML structure, track types, ordering, errors, and validation. Users supply their own Sony license data for injection. On ext4 and xfs, absent XML dates prevent 1:1 rebuilding for certain older files; Windows also has a documented directory-browsing issue with some nested structures.