5 ms·

Why is PS3 emulation so fast: RPCS3 optimizations explained [video]

107 points by alexjplant 1y ago

seam_carver 1y ago
Happy that RPCS3 has added native apple silicon support
- snvzz 1y ago
  Hopeful for RISC-V.
tetrisgm 1y ago
What’s particularly interesting here is that Sony and IBM spent a billion dollars to make the Cell. It was designed to be completely different from previous console CPUs. Even more so than the PS2’s “emotion engine” combo. So the fact that it’s so well emulated and also performant is remarkable!
- deaddodo 1y ago
  > It was designed to be completely different from previous console CPUs. Sure, but they used a PowerPC core with specialized SIMD processors that they then extensively documented: https://arcb.csc.ncsu.edu/~mueller/cluster/ps3/SDK3.0/docs/arch/SPU_ISA_v1.2_27Jan2007_pub.pdf https://arcb.csc.ncsu.edu/~mueller/cluster/ps3/SDK3.0/docs/a... If they hadn't done the latter, it would probably have taken a lot longer to reverse engineer. It also would have made it near impossible for developers to code effectively for it, however.
phoe-krk 1y ago
It's unbelievable that over the whole course of PS3's lifespan we've gone from "we will never be able to emulate this at full speed, the hardware is too slow and the Cell architecture too alien" to "why is PS3 emulation so fast, optimizations explained". I've been loosely tracking various emulators' progress and it's hats off with regards to the ingenuity behind all of the mechanisms that make it possible to emulate things fast enough.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  To be fair PC CPUs and GPUs have evolved leaps and bounds form the beginning of PS3 emulation till today.
- deaddodo 1y ago
  I don't think anyone with knowledge of emulation (from a research and development side) would say it's impossible. The Cell is a standard PPC core with some well-documented[1] coprocessors. A more realistic response would be: "computing hardware would not be powerful enough to emulate the PS3 in it's lifetime". We're now two decades out from it's release, and a decade out from it's final phase-out, so it seems that was a fair assessment. 1 - https://arcb.csc.ncsu.edu/~mueller/cluster/ps3/SDK3.0/docs/arch/SPU_ISA_v1.2_27Jan2007_pub.pdf https://arcb.csc.ncsu.edu/~mueller/cluster/ps3/SDK3.0/docs/a...
- magic_hamster 1y ago
  Sony learned their lesson from what happened with the PS1, where commercial emulators like Bleem became available during the product's lifetime. It was probably not a huge deal in terms of lost sales, but Sony really didn't like this, as evident by their lawsuit (which also failed). The PS2 with its Emotion engine was a huge leap which was pretty hard to emulate for a while. And the PS3 was even harder. Yes the developers hated the Cell architecture, but overall, Sony managed to create a pretty good system which spawned incredible games, while also being so hard to emulate that it took over a decade to reach a point where it's done properly, and almost 20 years to reach a point where it's considered really fast. Compare this to the Switch, which was being emulated pretty well from the get go. This allowed some people to just make do with an emulator instead of buying the console (and the games). Actually this goes for pretty much all Nintendo devices.
  - glimshe 1y ago
    Sony didn't create the cell architecture to prevent efficient emulation. At the time, manufacturers tried to get as much performance as possible from the manufacturing dollar under the assumption that developers would optimize their games for the machine. It was actually a partial failure, as few third party titles made full use of the architecture.
phendrenad2 1y ago
I never thought PS3 emulation would be significantly ahead of Xbox 360 emulation.

107 points by alexjplant 1y ago

seam_carver 1y ago

Happy that RPCS3 has added native apple silicon support

snvzz 1y ago
Hopeful for RISC-V.

tetrisgm 1y ago

What’s particularly interesting here is that Sony and IBM spent a billion dollars to make the Cell. It was designed to be completely different from previous console CPUs. Even more so than the PS2’s “emotion engine” combo. So the fact that it’s so well emulated and also performant is remarkable!

deaddodo 1y ago
> It was designed to be completely different from previous console CPUs. Sure, but they used a PowerPC core with specialized SIMD processors that they then extensively documented: https://arcb.csc.ncsu.edu/~mueller/cluster/ps3/SDK3.0/docs/arch/SPU_ISA_v1.2_27Jan2007_pub.pdf https://arcb.csc.ncsu.edu/~mueller/cluster/ps3/SDK3.0/docs/a... If they hadn't done the latter, it would probably have taken a lot longer to reverse engineer. It also would have made it near impossible for developers to code effectively for it, however.

phoe-krk 1y ago

It's unbelievable that over the whole course of PS3's lifespan we've gone from "we will never be able to emulate this at full speed, the hardware is too slow and the Cell architecture too alien" to "why is PS3 emulation so fast, optimizations explained". I've been loosely tracking various emulators' progress and it's hats off with regards to the ingenuity behind all of the mechanisms that make it possible to emulate things fast enough.

FirmwareBurner 1y ago
To be fair PC CPUs and GPUs have evolved leaps and bounds form the beginning of PS3 emulation till today.
deaddodo 1y ago
I don't think anyone with knowledge of emulation (from a research and development side) would say it's impossible. The Cell is a standard PPC core with some well-documented[1] coprocessors. A more realistic response would be: "computing hardware would not be powerful enough to emulate the PS3 in it's lifetime". We're now two decades out from it's release, and a decade out from it's final phase-out, so it seems that was a fair assessment. 1 - https://arcb.csc.ncsu.edu/~mueller/cluster/ps3/SDK3.0/docs/arch/SPU_ISA_v1.2_27Jan2007_pub.pdf https://arcb.csc.ncsu.edu/~mueller/cluster/ps3/SDK3.0/docs/a...
magic_hamster 1y ago
Sony learned their lesson from what happened with the PS1, where commercial emulators like Bleem became available during the product's lifetime. It was probably not a huge deal in terms of lost sales, but Sony really didn't like this, as evident by their lawsuit (which also failed). The PS2 with its Emotion engine was a huge leap which was pretty hard to emulate for a while. And the PS3 was even harder. Yes the developers hated the Cell architecture, but overall, Sony managed to create a pretty good system which spawned incredible games, while also being so hard to emulate that it took over a decade to reach a point where it's done properly, and almost 20 years to reach a point where it's considered really fast. Compare this to the Switch, which was being emulated pretty well from the get go. This allowed some people to just make do with an emulator instead of buying the console (and the games). Actually this goes for pretty much all Nintendo devices.
- glimshe 1y ago
  Sony didn't create the cell architecture to prevent efficient emulation. At the time, manufacturers tried to get as much performance as possible from the manufacturing dollar under the assumption that developers would optimize their games for the machine. It was actually a partial failure, as few third party titles made full use of the architecture.

phendrenad2 1y ago

I never thought PS3 emulation would be significantly ahead of Xbox 360 emulation.