5 ms·

PS5 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 ago
The 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 ago
  I 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 ago
    It 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 ago
    Yeah, 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 ago
      Excellent 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.
      - jwells89 3y ago
        At the end of the day it all depends on the will of the individuals involved with the projects. Dolphin got a native Metal port for instance.
      - pjmlp 3y ago
        > The problem with Apple Silicon is that nobody wants to use Metal. iOS games market begs to differ.
        smoldesu 3y ago
        The iOS games market speaks for itself. It's littered with freemium games and low-effort asset flips, the number of shitty 2D lottery/lootbox games outnumber Monument Valleys 100:1. The vast majority of substantial game experiences are not getting ported to iOS. The reason for this is mostly Metal-related. Apple has acknowledged this themselves on many occasions, like the last WWDC with their Game Porting Toolkit.
- zirgs 3y ago
  OG 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 ago
    Also 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 ago
      Consoles 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.

The 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 ago
I 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 ago
  It 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 ago
  Yeah, 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 ago
    Excellent 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.
    - jwells89 3y ago
      At the end of the day it all depends on the will of the individuals involved with the projects. Dolphin got a native Metal port for instance.
    - pjmlp 3y ago
      > The problem with Apple Silicon is that nobody wants to use Metal. iOS games market begs to differ.
      - smoldesu 3y ago
        The iOS games market speaks for itself. It's littered with freemium games and low-effort asset flips, the number of shitty 2D lottery/lootbox games outnumber Monument Valleys 100:1. The vast majority of substantial game experiences are not getting ported to iOS. The reason for this is mostly Metal-related. Apple has acknowledged this themselves on many occasions, like the last WWDC with their Game Porting Toolkit.
zirgs 3y ago
OG 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 ago
  Also 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 ago
    Consoles 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.