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The PS5 is already emulated on computers today to some degree. Kyty doesn’t run any commercial PS5 games but it can run some homebrew PS5 apps.
by Wingy 3y ago
The PS5 is already emulated on computers today to some degree. Kyty doesn’t run any commercial PS5 games but it can run some homebrew PS5 apps.
- kevincox 3y agoThe PS5 is basically a regular old desktop computer. The PS3 has a quite unique multi-"cell" architecture.
- hypercube33 3y agoPS5 and Xbox SX are AMD Ryzen 4000 series x86 and a GPU slapped on a die with some memory so emulation isnt so far off
- dagmx 3y agoThe original Xbox proved that hardware similarity doesn’t necessarily make emulation easy. It took a long while for OG Xbox emulation to be decent , and that was with it using fairly commodity hardware and a very DirectX api. The PS5 has custom APIs that would need to be reversed out, especially graphics APIs. It also has a large-ish pool of shared memory that makes it difficult to map to most PCs which don’t have that setup. There’s several custom hardware blocks for bespoke decompression that are routinely used and the equivalent to direct storage to speed up resource access. It’s not impossible to port those games over as has been seen, but it’s also not easy to emulate that if the specific game builds make use of those features (and many many games do)
- xienze 3y agoI think what we'll likely see is that it's (relatively) easy to get PS5 games running in a PC emulator, but running them _well_ will take ages. Primarily because PCs will have to be able to out-horsepower the PS5 by a wide margin to make up for things like the shared memory setup, texture streaming stuff, etc.
- dagmx 3y agoIt would be interesting to me to see an emulator that specifically required APUs to run to not have to design around the unshared memory pool of a discrete GPU. Either an AMD APU or, if Rosetta sticks around, the Apple Silicon chips.
- jwells89 3y agoYeah, PS5 games expect to have up to 16GB of VRAM available, and thanks to GPU vendors being stingy with VRAM to upsell to get that you’d need to buy expensive high end cards. But that doesn’t do anything to help with the PS5’s shared memory architecture, where because VRAM and RAM are one in the same, textures that need to be in memory aren’t duplicated between RAM and VRAM like on bog standard PCs, which has performance implications. Windows has support for streaming assets directly from SSDs like the PS5 does now (at least if you have a fast enough NVMe SSD installed, SATA SSDs or older NVMe drives won’t cut it), but PCs still lack the hardware texture decompression of the PS5 which once again impacts performance. The mass market computers closest in architecture to PS5s are actually M-series Macs, with how they also have a large pool of memory serving as both RAM and VRAM. Once the integrated GPUs on M-series SoCs achieves parity with the PS5’s onboard Radeon, they might actually be the most straightforward to emulate a PS5 on despite needing x86-to-ARM translation.
- dagmx 3y agoExcellent points on memory architecture. Though I’d posit that the non-base M series GPUs are actually already equal or higher performing than the fairly aging Radeons on a PS4/5, depending on the respective SKUs The wild cards will be translation overhead , differences in TBDR access and thermal headroom.
- smoldesu 3y ago> PCs still lack the hardware texture decompression of the PS5 which once again impacts performance. They might not implement it the same, but hardware-accelerated texture decompression has been around on PC for as long as SIMD has existed. With tech like ATSC floating around I'm not sure if it's appropriate to say PCs really "lack" the technology. > they might actually be the most straightforward to emulate a PS5 on despite needing x86-to-ARM translation. The problem with Apple Silicon is that nobody wants to use Metal. The big Switch emulator Yuzu should have also been a perfect fit for Apple Silicon too, but it took years to get "ported" and the end result used MoltenVK for the GPU API. Now that it's here, systems like the Steam Deck are hitting 60fps where M2 struggles to hold 50: https://youtu.be/pubEj1yLknI?t=414 https://youtu.be/pubEj1yLknI?t=414 https://youtu.be/5BeYYuLnS3I https://youtu.be/5BeYYuLnS3I It would be cool to see, but nothing I've witnessed surrounding these sorts of emulators suggests that will be the case.
- zirgs 3y agoOG Xbox took so long, because most of its exclusives were also available on PC. Halo 1 & 2, for example. So there wasn't much interest. Developers focused on more interesting systems like the PS2 and the GameCube at the time.
- wolrah 3y agoAlso OG Xboxes were cheap and trivial to mod including converting in to debug consoles, so the homebrew community that often drives emulation didn't have as much reason to care. They could just install a debug BIOS, find a copy of the XDK floating around the ol' interwebs, and have basically the same toolset commercial game developers had. Now that unmodified OG Xboxes are being irreparably damaged by failing clock capacitors and the used market is drying up as a result the people who still care about the platform have more reason to want a good emulator.
- filoleg 3y ago> most of its exclusives were also available on PC. Halo 1 & 2, for example While I agree with your point about most Xbox "exclusives" being available on PC as well, Halo 2 didn't arrive on PC (Windows Vista only too iirc) until 3 years after the original Xbox release, which was after Xbox 360 was already released and in full-swing. So I think there was a bit more to it than just lack of interest. Especially considering how massively popular Halo 2 was.
- zirgs 3y agoConsoles usually get working emulators well after their generation ends. Recent Nintendo consoles are an exception to that rule due to their low power compared to their competitors. When Halo 2 was released - it was too early for a working emulator to be developed. Back then PS2 and GC emulators also weren't working properly yet. Though they were better than xbox emulators.
- xela79 3y agoI can really recommend this tech talk regarding PS4 and PS5 hardware by their lead hardware architect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph8LyNIT9sg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph8LyNIT9sg some really interesting topics related to what kind of performance they wanted as a baseline and how to optimize to make the PS5 do what it currently does... like no other platform. a $700 console that: - outputs 4k / HDR (upscaled from lower native res. ofc) - renders games steadily at 30 / 60fps - no hitches, framedrops - always records your gameplay - live video sharing of stream with PS friends - live streaming to youtube - updates of games being installed - downloads of games/data all simultaneous, instant game switches, quick loading times. the experience cannot be replicated with a 1k gaming PC, not even a $2000 machine. They really delivered a device which is imho, more than just "an AMD gaming PC with a custom GUI and some DRM" would have loved to have widescale keyboard/mouse support, as playing Far Cry with a controller is frustrating at best. And keyboard/mouse support is in hands of the game dev if they want to support it or not.
- MikusR 3y ago- no hitches, framedrops This statement alone is pure bullshit. So the rest should be taken with a pound of salt.