RPCS3’s May 2019 Progress Report in a nutshell – 1337 games are now playable and another 1337 are in-game!
As usual, the RPCS3 folks have come up with yet another progress report and this one is particularly noteworthy because it has the largest monthly difference ever in playable games with a sizeable ~6.3% increase. In this article, the main points of the report and games improved will be summarised for a shorter read.
Improvements to RPCS3 in May 2019
Compared to some other progress reports, May’s one doesn’t tackle as many points as work was mostly focused on two important areas namely SPU optimisation and improvements to the framebuffer.
These improvements include:
- Improvements to the surface cache which has to do with framebuffer rendering
- Initially, kd-11 took an approach using variable-sized framebuffers but that was eventually scrapped as issues with memory ordering popped up which led to overwriting data you didn’t want to discard
- Then, a solution that performs intersections for all reads and writes was adopted and this fixed black screens in certain scenarios of a variety of games including Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time, Resistance 3 and Nascar 14 along with fixing the split-screen issue with NeverDead
- Support for position-independent code (PIC) has been added to the SPU recompiler which greatly reduces stuttering in certain games while improving performance
- The SPU recompiler works by taking code in PS3 machine code and translates it to code that your computer can understand. This is done on-the-fly but most of it is done within the first few minutes of playing a game as only unique chunks of code need to be translated since chunks of code already encountered get cached
- Up till this improvement, the SPU recompiler didn’t detect the scenario in which a game used the same chunk of code but loaded it into a different memory address. This led to a large amount of redundant SPU program translation which hurt performance.
- After this improvement, support for SPU program generation in a position (address)-independent way has been added which reduces the amount of SPU modules/programs built in titles like BioShock Infinite by almost 90%!
- Better support for game collections (i.e multiple games on a single disc)
- Now, collections using a less-used directory layout that makes use of PS3_GMx (x is a number) are supported
- Among these, we find The Disgaea Triple Play Collection, Ultimate Stealth Triple Pack and Ultimate Action Triple Pack
- Through an added GUI option, the PPU caches for all games can now be compiled at once meaning you can go grab a cup of coffee and have all your newly-added games ready to be played!
- Numerous other bug fixes and minor improvements such as an improved DualShock 3 handler on Windows, some visual bugs getting fixed, enabling window resizing on Linux when using amdvlk/amdgpu-pro drivers and inaccurate FPS counter figures on Windows when the detail level is set to high
Games that saw improvement in May
Among the games that saw improvement or got tested in May, we find:
- Yakuza 3 and Yakuza 4 no longer have exploding vertices on AMD GPUs
- These games are reported as in-game not playable due to other issues
- Genji: Days of the Blade is now playable
- Cash Gun Chaos DLX is playable
- SIREN: Blood Curse, a survival horror game that’s a PS3 exclusive, is now fully playable
- You need a DualShock 3/4 to play it as it makes use of gyroscope controls
- One Piece: Pirate Warriors works well for the most part but intense battles cause significant audio stutters
- Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe is now playable
- Cross Edge, a PS3/X360 exclusive game with mediocre reviews, is playable
- Dark Mist is playable but you must use the OpenGL renderer
Conclusion
For more information on which games and which don’t, make sure to check out RPCS3’s compatibility list below. Furthermore, if you want to help out the emulator’s development, the emulator’s team also has a Patreon page to which you do a monthly financial contribution.
On the other hand, if you want to read more about recent developments in emulation, you should check out Cxbx-Reloaded’s June progress report or wait for Reicast progress report via live stream on Thursday!
RPCS3’s Compatibility List: https://rpcs3.net/compatibility
RPCS3’s Patreon Page: https://www.patreon.com/Nekotekina
RPCS3’s May 2019 Full Progress Report: https://rpcs3.net/blog/2019/07/09/progress-report-may-2019/
Remember, you need a mid-range laptop/PC to play less-demanding PS3 games and a high-end system to run more-demanding titles or to render them at higher resolutions
man im really happy for Ratchet & Clank ACiT, ToD is also playable just a bit slow on the first level 🙂 love to read your articles btw
A
U
R
O
Z
E
T
T
nice.