wraggster
May 21st, 2019, 20:15
The PlayStation 3 console was released over a decade ago and developers are still working hard on improving the main PC emulator for it. Thanks to this, a lot of work has been going on recently and in their recently published March progress report (https://rpcs3.net/blog/2019/05/05/progress-report-march-2019/), the RPCS3 folks have been up to the following:
39.6% of the games in RPCS3’s streamlined 3003-large game database are now rated as playable while 46.2% can get in-game which means that they can be played to varying degrees
This is a significant improvement compared to their statistics in March of last year (http://wololo.net/2018/04/11/rpcs3-march-2018-nutshell-major-rsx-rendering-improvements-performance-stability-improvements-many-compatible-games-like-asuras-wrath-drakengard-3/) where only 27.5% of games in their database were marked as playable!
Significant RSX Texturing improvements by kd-11 in the form of a rewritten texture cache that’s much more accurate and improvements to the blit engine (2D rendering part of the GPU) which translated to graphical improvements in many titles and the eradication of flickering in Demon’s Souls and fixing the water reflections Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time along making some stages in Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMIX work properly.
For more information about how the texture cache work, check out RPCS3 article on the matter (https://rpcs3.net/blog/2018/11/04/progress-report-september-2018/#texcacheprimer)
Thanks to the blit engine improvements, some games like Saints Row III/IV also registered performance improvements as CPU emulation of the blit engine is no longer needed for themhttp://cdn-7.wololo.net/wagic/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/RidgeRacer7-300x169.jpg (http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/RidgeRacer7.jpg)Petrolheads unite because a bunch of racing games, like Ridge Racer 7, are now playable in RPCS3!
Nekotekina overhauled the SPU Interpreter (fast) into an LLVM-based interpreter which translated into performance boosts of up to 20% in some games and also upgraded the version of LLVM used in RPCS3 from 7.0 to 9.0
RPCS3 now natively supports the DualShock 3 controller and all its features, such as motion controls, but using it requires you to sacrifice Bluetooth compatibility (i.e wireless) and currently, it only works on Windows
God Of War 3 performance on a Windows system with an HDD has been improved by fixing a flushing to disk issue
VSH (XMB) emulation has seen a lot of progress and a special build of RPCS3 (https://wiki.rpcs3.net/index.php?title=Help:Frequently_Asked_Questions#Ru nning_VSH_in_RPCS3) can now run it although games can’t be launched
Games that saw notable improvements are Gran Turismo 6, Supercar & Ferrari series, Ridge Racer 7 and NASCAR Unleashed in the racing department; Doom 3: BFG Edition and some sports games also saw some improvementsConclusionIf you’re interested in more emulation-related news, you should check out Dolphin’s February-April progress report (https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2019/05/07/dolphin-progress-report-february-march-april-2019/) which includes a whopping 3 sub-articles along with normal progress report goodness! It includes information about a new Direct3D12 backend, a NetPlay Server Browser, emulated MotionPlus and much much more so it’ll keep you occupied for quite a while if you read everything. You should also check out recent updates to bsnes’ HD Mode 7 Mod by following this link (https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/bmc9t9/bsneshd_beta_5_bsnes_1073_formally_hd_mode_7_mod/).
On a concluding note, it seems that interest in emulation will never quite fade away and you can always support the hard-working teams mentioned in this article by donating a few bucks on their Patreon links which can be found below!RetroArch’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/libretro
RPCS3’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Nekotekina
The Dolphin Folks don’t accept donations so if you want to help, get coding or testing
http://wololo.net/2019/05/11/emulation-round-up-retroarch-1-7-7-released-with-experimental-xbox-one-build-improved-desktop-ui-and-bluetooth-keyboard-mouse-support-on-the-psvita-and-a-look-at-the-rpcs3-progress-report-for-march/
39.6% of the games in RPCS3’s streamlined 3003-large game database are now rated as playable while 46.2% can get in-game which means that they can be played to varying degrees
This is a significant improvement compared to their statistics in March of last year (http://wololo.net/2018/04/11/rpcs3-march-2018-nutshell-major-rsx-rendering-improvements-performance-stability-improvements-many-compatible-games-like-asuras-wrath-drakengard-3/) where only 27.5% of games in their database were marked as playable!
Significant RSX Texturing improvements by kd-11 in the form of a rewritten texture cache that’s much more accurate and improvements to the blit engine (2D rendering part of the GPU) which translated to graphical improvements in many titles and the eradication of flickering in Demon’s Souls and fixing the water reflections Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time along making some stages in Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMIX work properly.
For more information about how the texture cache work, check out RPCS3 article on the matter (https://rpcs3.net/blog/2018/11/04/progress-report-september-2018/#texcacheprimer)
Thanks to the blit engine improvements, some games like Saints Row III/IV also registered performance improvements as CPU emulation of the blit engine is no longer needed for themhttp://cdn-7.wololo.net/wagic/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/RidgeRacer7-300x169.jpg (http://wololo.net/wagic/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/RidgeRacer7.jpg)Petrolheads unite because a bunch of racing games, like Ridge Racer 7, are now playable in RPCS3!
Nekotekina overhauled the SPU Interpreter (fast) into an LLVM-based interpreter which translated into performance boosts of up to 20% in some games and also upgraded the version of LLVM used in RPCS3 from 7.0 to 9.0
RPCS3 now natively supports the DualShock 3 controller and all its features, such as motion controls, but using it requires you to sacrifice Bluetooth compatibility (i.e wireless) and currently, it only works on Windows
God Of War 3 performance on a Windows system with an HDD has been improved by fixing a flushing to disk issue
VSH (XMB) emulation has seen a lot of progress and a special build of RPCS3 (https://wiki.rpcs3.net/index.php?title=Help:Frequently_Asked_Questions#Ru nning_VSH_in_RPCS3) can now run it although games can’t be launched
Games that saw notable improvements are Gran Turismo 6, Supercar & Ferrari series, Ridge Racer 7 and NASCAR Unleashed in the racing department; Doom 3: BFG Edition and some sports games also saw some improvementsConclusionIf you’re interested in more emulation-related news, you should check out Dolphin’s February-April progress report (https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2019/05/07/dolphin-progress-report-february-march-april-2019/) which includes a whopping 3 sub-articles along with normal progress report goodness! It includes information about a new Direct3D12 backend, a NetPlay Server Browser, emulated MotionPlus and much much more so it’ll keep you occupied for quite a while if you read everything. You should also check out recent updates to bsnes’ HD Mode 7 Mod by following this link (https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/bmc9t9/bsneshd_beta_5_bsnes_1073_formally_hd_mode_7_mod/).
On a concluding note, it seems that interest in emulation will never quite fade away and you can always support the hard-working teams mentioned in this article by donating a few bucks on their Patreon links which can be found below!RetroArch’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/libretro
RPCS3’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Nekotekina
The Dolphin Folks don’t accept donations so if you want to help, get coding or testing
http://wololo.net/2019/05/11/emulation-round-up-retroarch-1-7-7-released-with-experimental-xbox-one-build-improved-desktop-ui-and-bluetooth-keyboard-mouse-support-on-the-psvita-and-a-look-at-the-rpcs3-progress-report-for-march/