Slightly unrelated but emulators have been a big part of my childhood because I grew up in a country where a PlayStation was unaffordable for the middle class and Nintendo simply didn't sell their consoles there.<p>Luckily emulation has always been legal thanks to a case 2 decades ago [1]. I see it as one of the "big wins" of the (US) judiciary because it has made the lives of many children joyous, across the globe.<p>Plenty of old games on now obsolete platforms can still be enjoyed thanks to emulation. I hope the precedent never goes away.<p>[1] <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/02/biztech/articles/11sony.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/tech/00/...</a>
The fact they managed to achieve this astounds me.<p>I grew up with the PS3 as a teenager, and I just remember being told how complex the architecture was, as well as just how powerful the system was. Keep in mind, the US Air force connected 1000+ of these together for super computing purposes.<p>...and now a large part of it has been emulated to a high degree and it kind of blows my mind. Will be crazy to think that the ps5 will likely be emulated on a computer within the next 20 years; perhaps easier so because of the simpler architecture.
For some reason, I am very fascinated by the architecture of PS3. Its complexity makes RPCS3 the most impressive emulator in my eyes. Though to be fair, all emulators are impressive one way or another.
This CPU tier list by the r/rpcs3 sub should be helpful (specifically the "What do i buy" tab) :<p><a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1Rpq_2D4Rf3g6O-x2R1fwTSKWvJH7X63kExsVxHnT2Mc/htmlview?pli=1#gid=0" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1Rpq_2D4Rf3g6O-x2...</a>
Related. Others?<p><i>Playstation 3 Emulator Adds AMD FSR Upscaling</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28114817">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28114817</a> - Aug 2021 (1 comment)<p><i>RPCS3 Inside Look: A Deep-Dive into Hardware and Performance Scaling</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24247586">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24247586</a> - Aug 2020 (11 comments)<p><i>RPCS3 PS3 Emulator – January 2019 Progress Report</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19415445">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19415445</a> - March 2019 (61 comments)<p><i>RPCS3: An open-source PlayStation 3 emulator for Windows written in C++</i> - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7457764">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7457764</a> - March 2014 (48 comments)<p>(note: links to past threads like the above are just to satisfy extra-curious readers)
Am I right in thinking that the PS4 and Xbox One (and later) consoles and should be easier to emulate by virtue of being based on a more standard x86 architecture?
I recently purchased an old Guitar Hero controller and connected it to RPCS3 emulating Rock Band 3. It worked shockingly well. It felt like playing on a real PS3.<p>This is a super impressive achievement from the RPCS3 team, because rhythm games are horrible with even a little latency.
I've been using this to play a silly japanese arcade game, Gundam Extreme Vs. Full Boost -- with my friends, online, over an emulated PSN. Worked immediately on all our PCs. Some random guy even joined our lobby one time. Tested it and Tekken Tag Tournament 2 also worked online. Walked away unbelievably impressed, tbqh.
I still have a collection of cherry-picked PS3 games I kept so that I could play them one day, upscaled and potentially at better performance than the PS3 was capable of.<p>Despite having hardware that could now play those better than a PS3 using this emulator, I can't get the games from the discs; When my OG 60GB PS3 died I disposed of it and got a slim, which also died, so I bought a new slim, which as far as I can tell now can't/hasn't been hacked, so there's no way to dump my disks.<p>I wasn't too lucky with PS3s to have had so many; I _still_ have my original childhood PS1, sold both my PS2s (OG and Satin Silver) to fund other purchases as a kid, gave away my PS4 to my nephew (who tore it down and couldn't reassemble it) when I got PS5. Same generation as PS3, my 360 also died.
I'm wondering - heard that PS3 architecture is so complex, and PS4 is back to x86 - so what is it that makes PS4 emulators so hard to implement?<p>Surely nowadays hardware such as 7000 ryzen series and 4090 gpus are leaps and bounds above PS4 hardware.
Eventually, people will learn that dulling enthusiasm for a thing by limiting it to only people who can afford it is actually more hurtful to your success in the long run. There's literally millions of kids who can't afford your concert ticket/game/movie/whatever but who would become lifelong fans if they could experience the thing NOW.
I wonder if the PS5 could emulate the PS3 with reasonable performance. It’s sad that Sony seems to have just abandoned 90% of their library rather than putting forth the investment to develop and maintain their emulators like Microsoft has.
> Motorstorm at 60 fps<p>I just remembered how undesirable the ps3 was when it came out. Then as blu ray depreciated as a consumer media format the console slowly became a less popular Xbox 360