Ps3 emulation requirements

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 Why playing PS3 games on a PS5 is way harder than it sounds
PlayStation Plus Premium will give players access to a library of classic PlayStation, PS2, and PS3 titles starting this June, which is exciting as the PS5 only is backward compatible with the PS4 currently. Unfortunately, it comes with a caveat: All PS3 games must be streamed from the cloud and can’t be played natively on the console.
We’re over 15 years removed from the PS3’s launch, and there’s still no good way to play many classic PS3 titles like Infamous or Metal Gear Solid 4 on modern platforms. Sony is content to continue PlayStation Now’s approach to PS3 gaming with PlayStation Plus Premium. This stands out when Xbox and Nintendo are doing a relatively good job at natively emulating or remastering games from older systems for modern platforms.
To learn why PS3 games are so hard to bring to modern consoles, I spoke to Whatcookie, a contributor for the popular PS3 emulator RPCS3. Whatcookie, who chose not to share his name, is also known for creating a 60 frames per second patch for the PS3 version of Demon’s Souls. He broke down what makes PS3 emulation particularly frustrating and sheds some light on why Sony is content with streaming PS3 games from the cloud instead.
CELL it
The system architectures of the PS4 and PS5 are so similar that isn’t much of a problem to run PS4 titles on Sony’s latest system, with a couple of exceptions. Compared to that, the PS3 has a different CPU that has more in common with the PS2 than Sony’s modern systems.
In short, PS3’s CELL microprocessor had some very unique capabilities, which meant that developers over-relied on the CPU at the time. This approach ultimately makes PS3 games harder to emulate. Whatcookie broke this all down for Digital Trends in greater detail.
“The Emotion Engine from the PS2 as well as the CELL in the PS3 are both built to do floating point math as fast as possible, to the detriment of other aspects of performance,” Whatcookie explains. “The CELL even surpasses the PS4’s CPU in terms of floating-point performance but loses out on every other measurable aspect of performance.”
The uniquely powerful CPU of the PS3 already makes it an odd system, but the PS3 could also move 128 bytes atomically and had a weaker GPU than the Xbox 360. This combination led to a weird post-processing workaround for developers that Whatcookie called “unfriendly to emulation,” where developers would offload post-processing to the CPU.
“This means moving a rendered image from the GPU over to main memory, emulating the post-processing code, and finally moving the image back to the GPU’s memory from main memory, where the GPU will draw the UI over the processed image and finally present that image to the screen,” Whatcookie says. “This type of round trip is very unfriendly to modern GPUs, where post-processing a 720p image would likely be faster than moving the image to main memory, never mind all the other steps.”
These extra steps on a function that developers would usually contain to the GPU make emulation difficult. Still, a large dedicated team at RPCS3 has put in a lot of work to create a functional emulator for modern PCs. According to Whatcookie, it’s totally possible to get PS3 emulation working on a PS5.
“The PS5’s CPU is a decent deal faster, and combined with the kind of shortcuts that developers of commercial emulators make — the official PS2 emulator on PS4 has many game-specific patches and hacks — it should be possible to achieve full speed on whatever games they choose to release.”
So why doesn’t Sony put in the effort to address these issues and get proper PS3 emulation up and running on PS5?
Just because you can…
Getting PS3 emulation to work natively on PS5 is possible from a technical perspective, so that’s not why Sony isn’t taking that approach with PlayStation Plus Premium. Sony’s decision to stick with cloud technology for PS3 games appears to be a time, cost, and effort problem.
Whatcookie points out that Sony only needs to emulate certain games so that investment might not be worth it.
“Community-based emulators like RPCS3 aim to run 100% of the console’s library, but commercial emulators only need to emulate the limited percentage of the library which is licensed for resale online,” he says. “The biggest barrier to this approach is that the game-specific work needed may approach the cost of just porting the game. Considering that the performance is always going to be below a native port, it becomes difficult to justify.”
“The bigger impact on progress is always going to be the activity of developers, and not the difficulty of emulating a specific system.”
In an age where high-priced remasters and rereleases are coming, creating native emulation for these games on a service only some hardcore fans will use likely doesn’t have a great return on investment. As Sony already has pre-existing PS3 cloud gaming tech with PlayStation Now, Whatcookie points out that going back to the drawing board with emulation isn’t worth the effort.
“When you consider that the PS3 is already available via PS Now, and a large majority of the best selling PS3 titles are already playable on PS5 via PS4 remasters, it becomes difficult to justify the cost of building an emulator vs. porting whatever games aren’t yet on PS4 or PS5 ,” he says.
If Sony is going to emulate a PS3 game for PS5, it’d likely be a more worthwhile and lucrative effort to remaster the game. Still, sticking with streaming for PS3 games on PlayStation Plus Premium is quite disappointing for fans of game preservation, those who don’t have access to the technology, and those who just don’t like cloud gaming.
While the PS3 is certainly an odd beast due to how its CPU and GPU work, RPCS3 shows PS3 emulation can work on modern PCs and that technical issues aren’t what’s holding emulation and game preservation back on modern Sony consoles. As Whatacookie plainly asserts, that effort is on Sony and developers.
“Most platforms are challenging to emulate,” he said. “The largest barrier to progress in emulation is the number of developers willing and able to work on emulation for a given system … Since all emulation is hard, not just PS3 emulation, the bigger impact on progress is always going to be the activity of developers, and not the difficulty of emulating a specific system.”
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Sony PlayStation 3
The PlayStation 3 is a home console developed by Sony. It was released in 2006.
PS3 emulation is only available on x86_64 (i.e. not on Raspberry Pi, Odroid or other SBCs).
This system scrapes metadata for the ps3 group and loads the ps3 set from the currently selected theme, if available.
Quick reference
BIOS
   MD5 checksum Share file path Description    a0b63a3e4ae92ed176d6b9a67ce447f0 bios/PS3UPDAT.PUP PS3 firmware file
Sony distributes this firmware on their website for installing onto your PlayStation 3; no link can be provided but it's easy enough to find by using a search engine.
PS3UPDAT.PUP is still updated to this day. The MD5 shown here may be for an older firmware, check the MISSING BIOS tool to check the MD5 for your current installation of Batocera.
ROMs
PlayStation 3 ROMs can come in many formats, disc-based, PSN and that other one. Installation differs depending on format.
Disc-based game folder
Batocera accepts these kinds of PS3 games in the following folder structure:
roms/ps3/ └─ Game name.ps3/ ├─ PS3_GAME/ │ ├─ LICDIR/ │ ├─ TROPDIR/ (trophy data) │ ├─ USRDIR/ (the main game data) │ ├─ ICON0.PNG │ ├─ PARAM.SFO │ ├─ PIC0.PNG │ ├─ PS3LOGO.DAT │ └─ (various other metadata files) ├─ PS3_UPDATE/ (built-in firmware update, if applicable) └─ PS3_DISC.SFB
SquashFS folder compression
From Batocera v33 and higher, you can losslessly compress PS3 game folders as SquashFS images and still have RPCS3 read them as if though they weren't compressed at all!
To do so, open up SSH and run the following commands on your already installed disc-based game:
cd /userdata/roms/ps3 mksquashfs "Game name.ps3" "Game name.ps3.squashfs"
cd /userdata/roms/ps3 mksquashfs "Little Big Planet.ps3" "Little Big Planet.ps3.squashfs"
Digital PSN games
PSN games were originally downloaded from the online store and installed onto the hard-drive. Because they are not disc-based games, some manual action is required:
On the system list, press [F1] on the keyboard and click on Applications in the left sidebar
In the file browser, click on Share and navigate to system/configs/rpcs3/dev_hdd0/home/00000001/exdata/ ( how do we find out this number?)
Create a new text file titled after the game's name followed by the .psn extension. For instance, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.psn
The PSN game will be installed to /userdata/system/configs/rpcs3/dev_hdd0/game/ . This is subject to change in the future.
Possibly, the RAP can also be installed using RPCS3's file browser instead of manual placement, needs confirmation.
Here's an example text file (which can be downloaded) that can be placed in rom/ps3 :
For this example text file, the resulting folder structure would look like this:
/userdata/ ├─ roms/ps3/ │ └─ Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.psn └─ system/configs/rpcs3/dev_hdd0/game/NPUB30162/ └─ (the game data)
Emulators
RPCS3
RPCS3 (Russian Personal Computer Station 3) is an experimental emulator for the PS3. Founded in May of 2011 by DH and Hykem, its development has been steadily increasing in activity over time. It's pretty much the only PS3 emulator that can consistently run most commercial games.
It requires more resources than older systems, benefiting from a decent CPU and a Vulkan-capable GPU for hardware acceleration. Games won't run correctly if you don't have GPU acceleration, refer to RPCS3's hardware recommendations on their website. Here's a cool benchmark table: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Rpq_2D4Rf3g6O-x2R1fwTSKWvJH7X63kExsVxHnT2Mc/edit#gid=0
With that said, this is still an experimental emulator, and most games have issues (even if minor). Consult its compatibility list first before making any reports. If one of the games is marked as “playable” on the compatibility list but you're still having issues with it, consult RPCS3's wiki for that specific game.
RPCS3 configuration
Standardized features available to all cores of this emulator: ps3.videomode
   ES setting name batocera.conf key Description » ES option key value    GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE ps3.gui  Display the user interface » Off 0 , On 1 .   GRAPHICS BACKEND ps3.gfxbackend  Choose your graphics rendering » OpenGL OpenGL , Vulkan Vulkan .   SPU DECODER ps3.spudecoder  LLVM used by default. Use ASMJIT if game crashes; then Interpreter (fast) if still crashing. ⇒ Recompiler (LLVM) Recompiler (LLVM) , Recompiler (ASMJIT) Recompiler (ASMJIT) , Interpreter (fast) Interpreter (fast) , Interpreter (precise) Interpreter (precise) .
First RPCS3 run
When RPCS3 is run for the first time (just attempt to launch any game from ES), it will ask to install the provided firmware from the BIOS folder ( userdata/bios/PS3UPDAT.PUP ). Do so. This may take a while, grab a cup of tea while you wait. When it's done, simply exit the program (File → Exit or [Ctrl] + [Q] ) and launch a game again. This will need to be done for every new firmware released. This action can also be invoked manually by going to File → Install firmware.
On the first run of each game, RPCS3 will compile PPU modules. This takes a long time, so grab some tea. In all future launches, wait time is dramatically decreased.
Do not launch games directly from RPCS3's interface. Do so from ES. Otherwise you will not have audio.
It is possible to have RPCS3 compile the PPU for all currently detected games (as opposed to only doing so when the game is launched). In rpcs3-config, go to ( precise instructions) boot menu → compile PPU cache for firmware and all games.
Controls
Here are the Sony PlayStation 3's controls shown on a Batocera Retropad:
Troubleshooting
I have X issue with game Y
For PS3 game specific issues, be sure to check RPCS3's wiki first.
For further troubleshooting, refer to the generic support pages.
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RPCS3 is a popular PlayStation 3 emulator for PCs, which let you play many Sony PS3 titles on your favorite platform. The emulator has serious hardware requirements, and some of its emulation threads constantly need to communicate with each other, which makes it a tough workload for many CPU architectures. RPCS3 also benefits from faster cache and memory speeds, when available. AVX-512 is enabled where supported, including Zen 4.
Nintendo Switch Emulator
Ryujinx is a highly compatible, feature-rich emulator for the Nintendo Switch console. It relies heavily on your CPU, and also comes with some tricks how to use the memory management unit (MMU) of your processor to handle the emulated environment. While it is multi-threaded, higher single-core performance is more important than being able to scale to many cores.