The Sony PSP is one of the longest-tenured handheld gaming consoles ever. It enjoyed a seven-year run with various new models coming out at regular intervals. It has a ton of games and Sony even ported some PlayStation games to the system for purchase. Now, you can play PSP games on your mobile phone or tablet. Here are the best PSP emulators for Android. We highly recommend starting with PPSSPP. Most competitors use the PPSSPP source code (it’s open-source, so it’s okay), so it makes the most sense to just start at the source and work your way out.
The best PSP emulators for Android
PPSSPP
Price: Free / $4.99
PPSSPP is, by far, the best of the PSP emulators. Of all the emulators we tested, PPSSPP was the easiest to use, had the best compatibility, and the best performance. We wouldn’t blame you if you thought we were advertising here but we’re really not. PPSSPP gets frequent updates, has a paid version that removes ads, and it’s the one that most other developers copycat from. We highly recommend that you try this one first. The ad-supported free version works fine if you want to test it out. The $4.99 price removes ads. The app is also open-source.
Lemuroid
Price: Free
Lemuroid is an open-source emulator that competes directly with RetroArch. It supports a variety of consoles and PSP is on the list. It works a lot like RetroArch. The app comes vanilla and you download and install cores to make the emulator work for that console. There is a bit of a learning curve compared to other PSP emulators, but it’s definitely worth it if you intend to use multiple emulators. Some features include auto-save and restore, ROM scanning and indexing, fast forward support, hardware gamepad support, local multiplayer, and cloud syncing. This and RetroArch are both excellent options and rival PPSSPP in performance and compatibility.
RetroArch
Price: Free
RetroArch is one of the more unique PSP emulators. It can actually emulate a ton of different gaming systems. RetroArch uses the Libretro system. It essentially runs plugins that act as emulators. Thus, RetroArch can do anything from SNES to PSP as long as you have the required plugin. The emulator seems to work okay, but like most, there are compatibility problems here and there. There is also a learning curve since the system is rather complex. Even so, it’s a good one to try out and it’s completely free and open-source.
Rocket PSP Emulator
Price: Free
Rocket PSP Emulator is a very average emulator. It’s relatively new, still has some bugs, and its compatibility is just okay. It uses the PPSSPP open-source project and has many of the same features. That includes save and load states, a software controller, and, again, decent compatibility. We didn’t have any overwhelming problems during our testing. However, you may want to try something a little more mature, like PPSSPP itself. Still, in the event that it doesn’t work for you, this is still an option. It’s completely free to use, but it does have advertising. The only concern is that it hasn’t been updated since 2020, so we’re unsure if it’s still under active development.
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