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Installation

Prerequisites

  • Unity 6000.0+ with a Universal Render Pipeline (URP) project
  • Git installed and available in your system PATH
  • Windows, Linux, or macOS (Apple Silicon)

Universal Render Pipeline

Your Unity project must use the Universal Render Pipeline. When creating a new project, select the Universal 3D template.

Step 1: Install SplashEdit in Unity

  1. Download the latest SplashEdit release as a .tgz file from the releases page
  2. In Unity, go to Window -> Package Manager
  3. Click the + button and select Add package from tarball...
  4. Select the downloaded .tgz file
  5. Unity imports the package

Step 2: Open the Control Panel

Go to PlayStation 1 -> SplashEdit Control Panel (or press Ctrl+Shift+L).

The Control Panel is your central hub for dependencies, scene management, and building.

Step 3: Install the Native Project

In the Control Panel's Dependencies tab:

  1. Under Native Project, click the release dropdown and select the version that matches your SplashEdit package version
  2. Click Clone to download the psxsplash C++ runtime
  3. Wait for the clone to complete (this uses Git under the hood)

Tip

Alternatively, click Browse to point to a local copy of the psxsplash source if you already have it cloned.

Step 4: Install the Toolchain

Still in the Dependencies tab, the toolchain section shows the status of each required tool:

Tool Purpose Install Method
MIPS Cross-Compiler Compiles C++ to PS1 machine code Click "Install" (Win/Linux)
GNU Make Build system Click "Install" (Win/Linux)
PCSX-Redux PS1 emulator for testing Click "Download"
psxavenc Audio conversion to ADPCM Click "Download"
mkpsxiso ISO image creation Click "Download"

Each tool shows a green Ready badge when installed. On Windows and Linux, SplashEdit handles downloading and setting up all of these for you. On macOS, some tools require manual Terminal commands first — the Dependencies tab shows yellow badges and the exact commands to run (see macOS Setup below).

Minimum requirements

You need at minimum the MIPS compiler and Make to build. PCSX-Redux is needed for emulator testing and Lua compilation. mkpsxiso is only needed for ISO builds.

macOS Setup

On macOS, some tools can't be auto-installed. The Dependencies tab shows yellow badges for anything that requires manual action — Needs setup, Needs CLT (Xcode Command Line Tools), Needs brew (Homebrew), or Needs deps (build dependencies) — with the exact Terminal commands inline. Install the prerequisites below, then click Refresh — the badges will turn green.

Prerequisites (run in Terminal before opening SplashEdit):

# Install Xcode Command Line Tools (provides GNU Make)
xcode-select --install

# Install the MIPS cross-compiler helper
brew install nikitabobko/tap/brew-install-path

# Download the compiler formulas from pcsx-redux
curl -LO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/grumpycoders/pcsx-redux/main/tools/macos-mips/mipsel-none-elf-binutils.rb
curl -LO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/grumpycoders/pcsx-redux/main/tools/macos-mips/mipsel-none-elf-gcc.rb

# Install (builds from source — expect 15-30 minutes)
brew install-path ./mipsel-none-elf-binutils.rb
brew install-path ./mipsel-none-elf-gcc.rb

Don't have Homebrew?

Install it first: /bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Why so many steps?

There is no prebuilt MIPS compiler for macOS. The formulas above are maintained by the pcsx-redux project (the same team behind the PCSX-Redux emulator). The brew-install-path helper is needed because Homebrew no longer supports installing from local formula files directly.

psxavenc build dependencies — psxavenc has no prebuilt macOS binary, so SplashEdit builds it from source. The Dependencies tab will show Needs deps until you install:

brew install meson pkg-config ffmpeg

Once installed, click Refresh, then Download to build psxavenc.

The remaining tools are handled automatically:

  • PCSX-Redux — Click "Download." SplashEdit downloads the macOS ARM build, creates a launcher wrapper, and configures font paths.
  • mkpsxiso — Click "Download." Works the same as Windows/Linux.

Verifying Installation

When all required tools show green badges, the Control Panel status bar shows "Ready". You're good to go.

If SplashEdit detects a missing toolchain on first launch, it automatically opens the Control Panel to guide you through setup.

Troubleshooting

Avoid spaces in the project path

Avoid spaces in the project path. Put your Unity project (and the cloned psxsplash native project) somewhere with no spaces in the full path.