| paleface [sys=PC; cat=Emulation; reg=EUR] |
| | | https://rpcs3.net/
https://github.com/RPCS3/rpcs3
The lead developer of this PS3 emulator https://github.com/Nekotekina identifies themselves as Russian.
PS3 discs can be dumped to a PC with a compatible Blu-ray drive. But the rip then needs a decryption file in order to work, and these don't appear to be publicly/legally(?) available: "Please note that you can only use this method if a .ird file is available online for the decryption of the disc." -- https://rpcs3.net/quickstart
The emulator requires PS3 firmware, which can be downloaded from Sony: https://www.playstation.com/en-us/support/hardware/ps3/system-software/ (you may have to tell your browser it's okay to download the file--Firefox says it's "offered over HTTP even though the current document was delivered over a secure HTTPS connection." Then in PCSX3 you do File - Install Firmware.
You can extract Sony's PS1 and PS2 BIOS files from the PS3 firmware once PCSX3 has processed it:
PC BIOS Claim Tool - https://archive.org/details/firmware_bios_claim_release1
Copy the .bat and .ps1 files into the PCSX3 folder and run the .bat. This dumps one ps3_ps1* and a bunch of ps3_ps2* .bin files into the PCSX3 folder. These are PS1 and PS2 BIOS files, which can be used in PS1 and PS2 emulators such as duckstation (see entry 1743) and PCSX2 (see entry 1665), respectively.
Full walkthrough for the process: https://www.xda-developers.com/how-get-ps2-ps1-bios-without-console/ |
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| | | Getting downloaded PS3 games into PCSX3:
- Put a 32 GB FAT32-formatted SD Card in a USB adapter into the PS3 and selected System~ - Backup~
- You can dump the backup using ps3xport https://www.psx-place.com/threads/ps3xport-tool-inject-backups-on-4-83-4-84-ofw.21448/ (Firefox said this had malware; I scanned it with Avast One, which didn't detect anything, so?)
- You can extract non-protected content easily--but for protected stuff like downloaded games, you need the Device ID of your PS3--which you have to get by like desoldering chips! = o Um so I guess I'm not doing that any time soon.
You can also do it by jailbreaking your PS3 and running custom firmware on it. Probably not gonna do that any time soon, either. : P
(I'd tried using a 64 GB thumbdrive formatted with Rufus for the backup, but it kept disappearing from the PS3's display during back up; I could wiggle it to get it to re-appear. 'p') |
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| | | My backup was 12 GB; the PS3 had had 40 GB of space used; it had VF5FS, Sonic the Fighters, and Demon's Souls installed, as well as some themes, and some photos (was able to extract the themes and photos as they weren't copy protected).
The backup is pretty tightly compressed; at least, compressing it with 7z didn't result in any real further space savings. The data is packed in sequential .dat files with a top size of 3.99 GB--FAT32's max file size is 4 GB. |
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| | | | And no, as far as I can tell--did not have the guts to test it--you cannot just take a ripped iso and inject it into a backup and then restore and run it from the PS3 HD on a non-jailbroken PS3; while the injection with ps3xport doesn't require your Device ID, it does require--according to the wiki linked from that thread above--first decrypting and converting the iso into a download-game format, and that decryption requires pirated--as far as I can tell--decryption keys. |
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| paleface 17:43:21 04/20/24 [title updated] |
| | | | Oh it's called RPCS3, not PCSX3. : P |
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| | | | "Configuration - GPU - Write Color Buffers" fixed black screen in Demon's Souls (see entry 1688). |
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| | | RPCS3 says it is compatible with Demon's Souls; the hitch--and it takes a little drilling down to find this--is that it is only compatible with the DISC version of Demon's Souls.
https://forums.rpcs3.net/thread-197387.html:
"Digital versions of Demon's Souls are currently NOT COMPATIBLE.
Settings don't matter, game tries mounting itself as a disc game.
Such behavior has not been found in any other games so far."
And that was in 2017. RPCS3 seems to have come to regard this as the game's problem, not the emulator's problem. ; )
I read something suggesting this might have something to do with the game having started out as a disc-only game, and only later getting a downloadable PSN version.
Aand RE: that settings tweak for the black screen in Demon's Souls, the game also has a load of patches available for it in RPCS3, one of which purports to take care of that for less CPU cost, but perhaps a slightly darker game. Also, another apparently enables 60 fps in the game, which normally runs at 30. |
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| | | | RPCS3 has its own sorta open-source PSN-equivalent: RPCN. ; ) |
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| | | | Loses its DualSense support when run through Steam--you have to switch its controller to XInput, then the DualSense works fine, except for PS-specific stuff like the PS button. |
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| | | https://rpcs3.net/blog/2018/01/
The RPCS3 name: "It is an abbreviation and combination of Personal Computer (PC) and PlayStation 3 (PS3). PC + PS3 = PCS3. What does the R stand for? DH and BlackDemon recollect that it used to stand for Real as back in 2011 there were only fake malware emulators around. Then at some point DH who is from Ukraine started saying the R stood for Russian which is what we roll with today as Nekotekina who joined in late 2013 and quickly became one of the biggest developers and the architect, is from Russia. So RPCS3 stands for Russian Personal Computer Station 3." = o |
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| | | The dumped PS3 games I'll be running in RPCS3 for starters:
- Fighting Vipers (see entry 1393)
- Super Hang-On (see entry 1784)
- Virtua Fighter 2 (see entry 1378)
- Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown (see entry 1376)
Oh huh, all Sega. I'd mostly done the jailbreaking to liberate Demon's Souls (see entry 1688), but turns out RPSC3 only supports the disc versions of that game in particular 'p', so I'm waiting for the disc version I bought off eBay, and I'll rip that from the jailbroken PS3. And I'd put off getting Virtua Tennis 2009 (yeah more Sega) for PS3 'cause I didn't want to be sticking discs in the darn thing, but heck now I'll get it and rip it and I can stop uselessly wishlisting the de-listed Steam version. ... Oops it was Virtua Tennis 4 I had wishlisted on Steam. And that was out for PS3, too. Welp, now I'll have both of 'em on PS3 to compare, oopS! = p ; )
Initially had also dumped PS3 Joust (see entry 1431) and X-Men (see entry 1458), but in emu I could actually see that Joust's playfield is slightly blurred (not its UI though : PPP), and X-Men's obvious PS3 blur is just way more obvious, so nah not on my tortured eyeballs. |
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By an RPCS3 developer. I understand hardly anything of what he's talking about here. ^ _^ But I've definitely been impressed by how well the emulator has run the PS3 games I've tried in it so far, and how little input delay it has. It's got rough edges, and it has crashed on me a time or two, but in terms of just making pixels do stuff like on actual PS3 hardware, it's impressive. |
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Comparing input delay between emulated PS2 and PS3 Sega Model 2 fighting game ports of Virtua Fighter 2 (Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol.19 on PS2) and Fighting Vipers (Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol.19 on PS2), in the PCSX2 and RPCS3 emulators.
I also compared the lag in RPCS3's two renderers: the default Vulkan, and OpenGL.
I was off by one talking about delay variation: the emulated PS2 games varied in their delays by ~4 frames from punch to punch, while the emulated PS3 games varied by ~3 frames.
In past comparisons, I've found that on my set-up, PCSX2 has about the same input delay as the actual PS2. I have not done a comparison between RPCS3 and the actual PS3 because I'm just sick of worrying about the PS3 dying (it's running fine, this is just paranoia on my part) and RPCS3 seems to run be running the games well so I'm just going with RPCS3 for PS3 stuff anyway.
In RPCS3, the OpenGL renderer was *maybe* a hair slower in some cases, but not others. And thanks to accidentally testing it twice for FV, I did notice variation when using it, which could just be down to the different random backgrounds: sometimes 6 or 7 frames delay in the airport stage, with its long-range background view, and sometimes as low as 4 frames in Honey's walled-in stack with oddly projected shadows. Probably kind of a wash but I'd have to do way more testing to verify and I don't feel like doing that; I'll just stick to the default Vulkan renderer.
So overall, in emulation the PS3 games had a response about 2 frames faster than the PS3 games--which to me is pretty significant, so I'll be sticking with RPCS3 for VF2 and FV. I'll miss the funky 3:2 (1.509~) aspect ratio the PS2 ports run in by default (they claim real hard it's the "arcade" aspect ratio; but even the screens on the backs of the game cases are the straight pixel 496/384 1.29 aspect ratio, and all the photos and videos I could find of (US, not sure I found any Japanese ones) have them running at either 1.29 or 4:3 (mostly 4:3 for the actual Model 2 board videos as far as I could tell)), but I won't miss their letterboxed displays, slightly juddery framerates, and--for VF2--lack of move lists. The PS2 versions are good ports, just not as polished as the PS3 ones. (
(Curiously, although they all default to 30 second rounds, the MAX time limits you can set for 2P Vs rounds varies from game to game and port to port, except it's always 60 seconds max for VF2--but you can go up to infinite time for FV on PS2, and 90 seconds for FV on PS3.)
It's definitely emulated rather than actual PS3 for me from here on out. Unlike the PS2 though, the real PS3 is NOT going in the cupboard, 'cause it's used for dumping/ripping the games.
RPCS3 stands for "Russian Personal Computer Station 3" (https://rpcs3.net/blog/2018/01/). |
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| | | For scaling games up--from the usual 1280x720 or whatever--RPCS3 has three options: Nearest, Bilinear, and FidelityFX Super Resolution, which I guess is supposed to be fancier than Bilinear and can also do some sharpening of the upscaled image.
Even with "RCAS Sharpening Strength" at max, though, VF5FS still felt a bit too soft to me. Nearest (Neighbor) is surprisingly smooth, but with maybe just a HINT of pixels here and there, so I'll go with that.
Has a number of themes, or "UI Stylesheets," available. Most of the dark mode ones are too low-contrast for comfortable reading; "Envy" seems to be the easiest to read. |
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