DuckStation emulator lets Xbox Series X|S play PlayStation classics at 4K

Thanks to a new port of the DuckStation PlayStation 1 emulator, now you can play classic PlayStation 1 games at native 4k 60FPS on Microsoft’s Xbox Series X and S. 

Since the release of the Xbox Series X and S consoles late last year, modders have been utilizing the consoles developer modes in order to easily sideload apps and emulators onto the next-gen machines, and with a new port of the emulator DuckStation, it appears that classic games are looking better than ever. 

Unlike the plethora of other PlayStation 1 emulators on the market, DuckStation supports “internal resolution scaling all the way up to sixteen times, and that is the equivalent of, I believe, about 8K,” Modern Vintage Gamer explains in a YouTube video about the emulator which has recently been ported over to Xbox’s latest hardware. 

Despite being the smaller of the consoles, in the video, Modern Vintage Gamer demonstrates that even the Xbox Series S can handily deliver the scaled 4K resolution at a clean and crisp 60 fps in a testament to the power of the tiny next-gen console. 

On top of the already impressive resolution scaling, DuckStation also features Texture Filtering to smooth out magnified resolution scaling, True Color Rendering to disable dithering and use the full 8 bits per channel of color rendering, and a widescreen hack to increase the aspect ratio beyond the 4:3 aspect ratio of the time. 

With all these fancy features, while also running at 4K, PlayStation 1 games on the Xbox Series X|S look remarkably good when you consider their age. While everything is obviously still a bit blocky all of the textures are at least crisp looking blocks that run better than they did on the original PlayStation 1 hardware. 

If you’re looking to get into PlayStation 1 emulation DuckStation definitely looks like the place to jump in if you want the best results. Not only is it easier than a lot of emulators to set up, but Modern Vintage Gamer says in his video that it’s “probably hands down the best PlayStation experience I’ve had running under emulation.”