DuckStation Settings for Gran Turismo (PS1 Emulator)
My original PlayStation 1 (SCPH-7502) and physical copy of Gran Turismo (711719723523) were still working in 2024. However, the emulated experience with DuckStation looks and feels amazing in 60fps 16:9 widescreen with functioning VRR at 144Hz.
The best way I’ve found to run this iconic and revolutionary racing game from the late 1990s, specifically:
- DuckStation version 0.1-7371-gb2577ef8b (dev)
- 19th August 2024. (Download from the bottom of that page.)
Why an old version? DuckStation version 0.1-8153-g31c1cfa65 (dev) from 19th December 2024 is buggy for me. I went back to 7371 and the game ran nicely again. I’ll try new versions from time to time, updating this section if they work better for me.
Review the hardware I’m using and the various system settings I use for Windows and my graphics driver.
Contact me if there are any settings you want to know.
My Settings for GT1 in DuckStation
Summary
| Value | Reason | |
|---|---|---|
| Image Path | Gran_Turismo_v1.1_PS_ROM_USA
| The ISO is normally called this, so I followed that pattern for my own. |
| Serial | SCUS-94194 | Just so you know the exact version I’m playing. |
| Region | NTSC-U/C (US, Canada) | 30fps but with the GT Hi-Fi cheat code from Silent, unlocks true 60fps. PAL (UK) only has 25fps/50fps. |
Interface
| Value | Reason | |
|---|---|---|
| Enable Discord Presence | Ticked | Playing games from the 1990s makes you look cool on the Internet. |
| Render To Separate Window | Ticked | Game is on my big gaming screen, with everything else on my office screen. |
BIOS
| Value | Reason | |
|---|---|---|
| NTSC-U/C (US, Canada) | SCPH1001.bin
| It’s usually called this so I called mine the same. |
| Fast Boot | Ticked | Skips some of the console boot animation, maybe? It’s a nice nostalgia trip every time so maybe untick this. |
Console
| Value | Reason | |
|---|---|---|
| Enable 8MB RAM (Dev Console) | Ticked | A bigger help in GT2, it can still smooth out frame rates in GT. |
| Enable Cheats | Enabled | Native 60fps is unlocked by a cheat code using GT Hi-Fi mode. |
| Execution Mode | Recompiler (Fastest) | It says it’s the fastest. |
| Enable Clock Speed Control (Overclocking/Underclocking) | 1000% | Helps complete all work every frame. Preventing late frames is nice at just 60fps. |
| Async Readahead | 32 sectors (213kB / 64ms) | Maximum value to reduce lag during menu scene changes. |
| Read Speedup | 10× (20× Speed) | Fastest read speed. |
| Seek Speedup | Infinite/ Instantaneous | With the game loaded into RAM (below) we can load everything straight away. |
| Preload Image To RAM | Ticked | Maximum performance. Menus and even starting a race is almost instant on a 2017 laptop. |
Emulation
| Value | Reason | |
|---|---|---|
| Emulation Speed | 100% | Make sure the game is timing things correctly. |
| Vertical Sync (Vsync) | Unticked | The below setting optimises frame timings for G-Sync/Freesync monitors, like my Asus PG329Q. |
| Optimal Frame Pacing | Ticked | Game will run as close to 60fps as possible. My screen is at 144Hz. Slightly late frames will be displayed in the next 144Hz interval, instead of that frame being late/dropped/tearing. |
| Sync To Host Refresh Rate | Unticked | DuckStation says: Users with variable refresh displays should disable this option. |
| Reduce Input Latency | Unticked | Processing from the start of each frame means more difficult scenes should still complete in time. |
| Enable Rewinding | Unticked | DuckStation says: Please note that enabling rewind may significantly increase system requirements. |
Graphics
| Value | Reason | |
|---|---|---|
| Renderer | Direct3D 11 | Probably the most well-tested option. |
| Adapter | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 | Make sure to select your actual GPU and not the CPU or APU graphics package. |
Graphics > Rendering
| Value | Reason | |
|---|---|---|
| Internal Resolution | 6x Native (for 1440p) | Scale up to the picture size of my gaming monitor. |
| Down-Sampling | Unticked | Gran Turismo is a 3D game during races. |
| Texture Filtering | Bilinear | All textured surfaces look better and it’s efficient, too. |
| Sprite Texture Filtering | Bilinear | Trees and trackside objects look way better! Fast to process, too. |
| Nearest Neighbour | Bad. Scenery looks like original hardware but Bilinear is so much better. | |
| Aspect Ratio | 16:9 | Works brilliantly! |
| De-interlacing | Adaptive (FastMAD) | Seems to work, providing a full-frame progressive appearance. |
| Crop | Only Overscan Area | A good balance to remove dead space around the picture whilst keeping details near the edges. |
| Scaling | Bilinear Sharp | An efficient upscaling method without the blurry look of the simplest upscalers. |
| True Color Rendering | Ticked | Improves the smoothness of colour transitions, text, HUD and UI. |
| PGXP Geometry Correction | Ticked | Very important! Solves much of the wobbly geometery that makes PS1 games look so odd compared to 2000s titles. |
| Force 4:3 For FMVs | Ticked | Not sure if Gran Turismo actually needs this. There is an intro movie and credits movie, though. |
| Disable Interlacing | Ticked | This forces progressive mode at all times. Deinterlacing setting earlier might not be needed. |
| Widescreen Rendering | Ticked | Works great in Gran Turismo! Enables the 16:9 setting, which can have other values for other screen formats. |
| FMV Chroma Smoothing | Ticked | Makes video look slightly better, maybe? |
| Force NTSC Timings | Unticked | Just in case there’s any issue with region selection. That would make the game run 17% faster. |
Graphics > Advanced
| Value | Reason | |
|---|---|---|
| Exclusive Fullscreen | Borderless Fullscreen | Lets the game fill my gaming monitor at the right picture size, even with DuckStation on a different screen. |
| Screen Position | Center | Balances out any hardcoded borders. |
| Threaded Presentation | Ticked | Cannot be switched off. This is simply how GPUs work with contemporary software. |
| Multi-Sampling | Disabled | Can use a lot of GPU which power limits my laptop CPU. Makes it run hot and loud, spoiling my chill retro experience. |
| Line Detection | Unticked | Isn’ needed for this game. |
| True Color Debanding | Ticked | Smoother gradients look better. |
| Threaded Rendering | Ticked | Cannot be switched off. It’s how GPUs work with contemporary software. |
| Scaled Dithering | Ticked | Blends the dithering techniques across the much larger picture size. (6× the game’s original size for 1440p.) |
| Software Rendered Readbacks | Ticked | Not sure this does anything on my hardware. Maybe reduces usage in Task Manager slightly? Everything’s running fine. |
Graphics > PGXP
| Value | Reason | |
|---|---|---|
| Perspective Correct Textures | Ticked | Straightens out some wobble/warp/crooked effects across flat surfaces in PS1 games. |
| Culling Correction | Ticked | Improves the accuracy of selecting which things which do/don’t need to be drawn. |
| Perspective Correct Colours | Ticked | Not sure. Maybe to do with vertex pre-lighting effects at distance, where there’s often a fog or fade-out effect? |
| Preserve Projection Precision | Ticked | Improves the accurate placement of post-processing effects, maybe? |
Graphics > OSD
| Value | Reason | |
|---|---|---|
| Show Emulation Speed | Ticked | Verify and capture that in-game time is matching realtime. |
| Show Frame Times | Ticked | Excellent frametime graph. Makes late processing or lag spikes really visible as they happen. |
| Show FPS | Ticked | Verify the game is at 60fps. |
Audio
| Value | Reason | |
|---|---|---|
| Backend | Cubeb | Seems to be the most feature-rich implementation and lowest latency. |
| Expansion Mode | Disabled (Stereo) | I only use earphones (Koss KSC75x) or laptop speakers for DuckStation. No surrround sound. |
| Stretch Mode | Time Stretch (Tempo Change, Best Sound) | Makes sounds seem correct even if frame rates are varying a bit. |
| Buffer Size | 20ms | Seems to stop rare sound stutter on scene changes. |
| Output Latency | 9ms | Might be ignored because I’m using Cubeb backend. |
| Mude CD Audio | Unticked | The songs in Gran Turismo are from commercial releases in the 1990s. I have this Ticked when recording. |
The music can cause copyright checks if you share video — it happened to me on YouTube. There is a cheat code to enable/disable music on a button press. That will be good for streaming to make the menus more entertaining.
Achievements
| Value | Reason | |
|---|---|---|
| Enable Achievements | Ticked | Gotta catch ’em all. |
| Show Achievement Notifications | Ticked | Gotta know when I catch ’em. |
| Show Leaderboard Notifications | Ticked | Doesn’t seem to do anything? (Probably a skill issue.) |
| Enable In-Game Overlays | Ticked | Shows progress on a challenge or preset achievement. Haven’t used this yet. |
My System Specs
For context, here are the 2017 gaming laptop components I use the emulator on:
- CPU:
- Intel i7-7700HQ (4 cores, 8 threads)
- RAM:
- 16GB DDR4 2400MT/s Kingston HyperX
- GPU:
- nVidia GeForce GTX 1060 Mobile (6GB)
- GPU Driver Version:
- 451.67
- GPU Driver Date:
- July 2020 via Windows Update
- OS Storage:
- 500GB Samsung 960 Evo-like (NVMe m.2)
- Game Storage:
- 500GB Crucial MX100 (SATA SSD)
My System Tuning
Laptop Performance
- Power mode:
- Best performance
Throttlestop
- Speed Shift EPP:
- 0
- Disable Turbo:
- Unticked
- 1 Core Turbo Ratio:
- 38
- 2 Cores Turbo Ratio:
- 36
- 3 Cores Turbo Ratio:
- 32
- 4 Cores Turbo Ratio:
- 30
- CPU Core Offset Voltage:
- -99.6mV (-0.0996V)
- CPU Cache Offset Voltage:
- -99.6mV (-0.0996V)
Afterburner
- Core Clock Curve:
- Flat-lined above 1050MHz
G-Sync
These settings can be found by right-clicking your desktop and clicking NVIDIA Control Panel:
- From the left menu, Set Up G-SYNC:
- Apply the following changes:
- Enable G-SYNC, G-SYNC Compatible
- Enabled for windows and full screen mode
- Select each screen to apply this to them all.
- Apply the following changes:
Global 3D Profile
Do these matter?
- Power management mode:
- Optimal power
- Threaded optimisation:
- On
DuckStation profile
Firstly, how to create a profile for DuckStation:
- Start DuckStation and then close it.
- Return to nVidia Control Panel.
- From left menu Manage 3D settings.
- Tab Program Settings.
- Button Add – can take several seconds to respond.
- Window called Add appears
- Make sure Sort by is set to Recently used.
- Select DuckStation PS1 Emulator.
- Button Add Selected Program.
Now, settings which seem to matter. Latency gains are very nice with such a low frame rate:
- GPU Power:
- Maximum Performance
- Low Latency Mode:
- On (1 pre-rendered frame in queue)
- Low Latency Mode:
- Ultra (started testing this in 2025)
- Max Frame Rate:
- Off
- G-Sync:
- On (Global)
- Vertical sync:
- Use the 3D application setting (Global)
- Vertical sync:
- Fast (Program Settings)
Remember that my monitor is running at 144Hz in Windows and in the nVidia panel and in its hardware OSD. The game runs at 60Hz with slower frame pacing at times. Sending all the frames the game renders and letting the screen display them all in its shorter intervals is achieved with these settings. It’s a unique advantage to having VRR support in a low-refresh game with a high-refresh monitor. Made possible by DuckStation. It really is a fast and modern emulator.