The goal of this project is to experiment, research, and educate on the topic of PlayStation 3 emulation that can be performed on compatible devices and operating systems. All information was obtained legally by purchasing PlayStation 3 hardware and software. Additional information was obtained from various sources on the internet that include but is not limited to system hardware and software documentation.
RPCS3 is an open-source Sony PlayStation 3 emulator and debugger written in C++ for Windows and Linux. The emulator has been in development since early 2011 and currently supports modern Vulkan, OpenGL and Direct3D 12 renderers. The emulator is capable of booting and playing a decent amount of commercial games and many more are becoming playable with future developments. The source code for RPCS3 is hosted publicly on our GitHub. You're welcome to grab the latest compiled revisions from our AppVeyor or compile your own build for personal use.
High Resolution Rendering
One of the most anticipated features has just been added to RPCS3! High resolution rendering allows users to play at resolutions far exceeding what the PS3 could handle. If you thought your favourite PS3 games were starting to look a bit dated, just wait until you get to experience them in up to 10k! Although, we doubt many users will have the setup necessary to benefit from 10k today, emulation is all about preserving for tomorrow.
Performance
Rendering a modern PC game in high resolutions such as 4k, while beautiful, is quite taxing on your hardware and there is often a massive hit in performance. However, since most of the workload for RPCS3 is on the CPU and GPU usage is low, there is a lot of untapped performance just waiting to be used. All processing is done CPU side, and as far as the GPU is concerned it is simply rendering 2006 era graphics (yes, the PS3 is 11 years old now). We're happy to report that anyone with a dedicated graphics card that has Vulkan support can expect identical performance at 4k.
Anisotropic Filtering (AF)
High resolution support wasn't the only thing that was added in this update! Another reason for such a massive upgrade in visual fidelity is having full 16x AF support. This greatly improves how textures can look, especially when viewed at an angle. Take a look at the below screenshots of Ni no Kuni as an example of the default AF vs forced 16x. The difference is especially noticeable on the ground inside the gate.
RPCS3 Compatibility List
These are the current compatible games that have been tested with the emulator. This list is subject to change frequently
