PlayStation 3 emulator now supports Arm devices, including the Raspberry Pi 5

[zohaibahd]

Why it matters: The team behind RPCS3, a multi-platform, open-source PlayStation 3 emulator, has reached a significant milestone by successfully implementing support for the Arm64 architecture. This breakthrough unlocks exciting new possibilities for gamers seeking a nostalgic experience.

The road to Arm64 support was a long and winding one, with work kicking off in late 2021, shortly after Apple unveiled its M1 chips. Initially, the developers focused on getting the emulator running on Linux-based Arm systems. However, adapting the complex emulator to work seamlessly on an entirely different architecture was no small feat.

One of the biggest challenges was adapting RPCS3's just-in-time compiler to function correctly on Arm64 systems. The team devised a solution by implementing an IR transformer to analyze the x86-generated code and modify it to meet Arm-specific requirements. This approach spared them the headache of maintaining multiple codebases.

Another major hurdle was addressing the differences in memory management between x86 and Arm systems. While the PS3 and x86 architectures use 4KB memory pages, Arm64 systems typically utilize larger 16KB pages, requiring significant adjustments.

After more than three years of relentless effort, the developers finally succeeded in getting the Arm64 port up and running. The results speak for themselves, proving the struggle was well worth it.

On the Raspberry Pi 5, the emulator can run select 3D games by downscaling them to a resolution of 273p – a nostalgic nod to the PSP era. While this resolution may not appeal to hardcore gamers, it's still an impressive feat, enabling 3D titles like God of War HD, Catherine, Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm, and more to run on a sub-$100 device.

On the Apple Silicon front, native support for the Arm architecture has delivered remarkable performance improvements compared to running x86 emulation. Framerates have doubled – or even tripled – across various games. For instance, screenshots show a Ratchet & Clank title running under Apple's Rosetta 2 x86 emulation at a sluggish ~26 fps, which surged to a smooth ~64 fps with native Arm64 support.

To get started, simply download the binaries for your operating system. However, Windows Arm64 users will need to compile their own binaries for the time being. The development team cites limited hardware availability for testing and development as the reason for this temporary limitation.

This advancement is part of a broader initiative to make gaming more accessible on Arm platforms. For instance, Valve is reportedly working behind the scenes to expand its gaming ecosystem to support Arm-based processors and Android devices.

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PlayStation 3 emulator now supports Arm devices, including the Raspberry Pi 5

 

[VariableSpike]

I know AVX is a massive help for this emulator just due to the nature of the emulation and how the cell processors (including all the various chips that sony used together to run the machine, not just the main cpu), so I wonder how much / how little these devices gain or lose by not having that option through the virtue of being arm / risc

The work on this emulator beggars belief though, so it is an amazing project and good to see it progress like this, even if I don't use an arm device myself (bar a phone, but ps3 emulation on a phone is probably still ages away)

 

[Theinsanegamer]

I know AVX is a massive help for this emulator just due to the nature of the emulation and how the cell processors (including all the various chips that sony used together to run the machine, not just the main cpu), so I wonder how much / how little these devices gain or lose by not having that option through the virtue of being arm / risc

The work on this emulator beggars belief though, so it is an amazing project and good to see it progress like this, even if I don't use an arm device myself (bar a phone, but ps3 emulation on a phone is probably still ages away)

The big deal with AVX512 was moving page size from 16 to 32mb, which ARM's NEON already did.

 

[VariableSpike]

The big deal with AVX512 was moving page size from 16 to 32mb, which ARM's NEON already did.

Thanks for clarifying, I knew there was a technical benefit, but I couldn't remember the specific details to compare directly to ARM

 

[user478318]

Anyone tried PS3 emulators? Are they working good?

 

[VariableSpike]

Anyone tried PS3 emulators? Are they working good?

You will need a good PC for both cpu and GPU (gpu especially, emulating the weird powerpc and multi sub processor structure takes a lot), but any processor with active AVX-512 should run great, or as mentioned, potentially ARM processors too, the work by the RPCS3 devs is amazing, and it beggars belief that we get such good emulation for such a convoluted system structure, it should almost be impossible, but its here, playability varies like most emulatore, but popular titles usually get fixes often, and for example, playing Gran Turismo 5 at the start of the year involved regular crashes as one of the processors being emulated desynced, visual elements would glitch, and it needed tons of resources to run at 60 fps 1080p, bit thesw days I can run it at 4k scaled, full graphics enchancements with next to no crashes, and like 160FPS if I turn off the limiter (and because the limiter is no longer tied to game speed for many games, you can now actually play some at more than 60fps, timing speed up is still available should you need it, but still depends on how much headroom you have for the speedup)

 

[user478318]

You will need a good PC for both cpu and GPU (gpu especially, emulating the weird powerpc and multi sub processor structure takes a lot), but any processor with active AVX-512 should run great, or as mentioned, potentially ARM processors too, the work by the RPCS3 devs is amazing, and it beggars belief that we get such good emulation for such a convoluted system structure, it should almost be impossible, but its here, playability varies like most emulatore, but popular titles usually get fixes often, and for example, playing Gran Turismo 5 at the start of the year involved regular crashes as one of the processors being emulated desynced, visual elements would glitch, and it needed tons of resources to run at 60 fps 1080p, bit thesw days I can run it at 4k scaled, full graphics enchancements with next to no crashes, and like 160FPS if I turn off the limiter (and because the limiter is no longer tied to game speed for many games, you can now actually play some at more than 60fps, timing speed up is still available should you need it, but still depends on how much headroom you have for the speedup)

Thanks for your answer! Seventh generation of consoles is actually the last one I cared about!!