RPCS3


RPCS3 is a free and open-source in-development video game console emulator and debugger for the Sony PlayStation 3. It was developed in the C++ programming language and features OpenGL and Vulkan as its back-end renderers. The emulator currently runs on Windows, Linux and FreeBSD operating systems, allowing PlayStation 3 games and software to be played and debugged on a personal computer.
As of July 12th, 2020, the developer's compatibility list marks 1876 games as playable and 1064 games being able to go in-game.

Development

RPCS3 was initially created on May 23, 2011 by programmers DH and Hykem. The developers initially hosted the project on Google Code and eventually moved it to GitHub on August 27, 2013. The emulator was first able to successfully run simple homebrew projects in September 2011 and got its first public release in June 2012 as v0.0.0.2. Its latest version is v0.0.7, released in August 2019.
On February 9, 2017, RPCS3 received its first implementation of a PPU Thread Scheduler. On February 16, 2017, RPCS3 gained the ability to install official PlayStation 3 firmware directly to its core file system. In May 2017, it was reported that the implementation of the Vulkan graphics API had shown some performance improvements approaching 400%, pushing several games into "playable" status.

Requirements

As of March 21, 2020, the emulator requires a 64-bit version of Windows 7 or later, a modern Linux distribution, or a modern BSD distribution. The PC must have at least 4 GB of RAM, an X86-64 CPU and a GPU supporting one of the supported graphics APIS: OpenGL 4.3 or greater and Vulkan, the latter being recommended. Apart from the game itself to be run, the emulator requires a dump of the PlayStation 3's firmware.

Reception

In March 2014, Cinema Blend's William Usher wrote, "A lot of gamers originally thought that the complexity of the PlayStation 3's Cell architecture would have prevented it from being emulated". In March 2014, Eurogamer's Elio Cossu wrote, "The emulation, even at such an early stage, was a remarkable achievement, considering the complexity of the hardware of the PS3."

Atlus DMCA takedown notice

RPCS3 received significant media attention in April 2017 for its ability to emulate Persona 5, achieving playability prior to the game's Western release date. In September 2017, Persona developer Atlus issued a DMCA takedown notice against RPCS3's Patreon page. The action was motivated by the Patreon page making frequent mentions on the emulator's progress on emulating Persona 5. The demand, however, was settled by only removing all Persona 5 references from the page.