Hacking PS3 Full System Emulation?

[Elliander]

I was just wondering it it's possible to emulate the full PS3 console on a PC (not just the individual games) to allow full use of PSN games and updates. If so, what kind of hardware would be required to run the games at full speed? What about synchronizing the PS3 controllers to a PC? I'm guessing that I could use any blue ray player rather than be limiting to installing a PS3 blue ray drive.

My console is dying and I figured I would see if that is a realistic option.

If it isn't, could the PSN games be ported over? and what about synchronizing the PS3 controllers to a PC?

 

[GamerzHell9137]

Nope. So far we only have a PS3 emulator that runs games in 5FPS.

 

[DarkFlare69]

We won't have that for years. Much less one capable of going online.

 

[Vappy]

https://github.com/RPCS3/rpcs3 Gonna be a while before this is capable of running games in a playable way, but if/when it does you should expect it to be capable of running PSN games and games from retail discs the same. Your post makes me think you don't actually know what a console emulator is/does; an emulator doesn't emulate the games, it emulates the system.
To play games from disc, you'd need a BD-drive capable of reading PS3 discs, which I'm pretty sure most models of drive can't. Using your controller would be the same as using any other controller, use any available method for having your PC recognize it and have the inputs recognized by the emulator.
Porting the games won't happen, because we don't have any access to the source code for any of them.

 

[Elliander]

Your post makes me think you don't actually know what a console emulator is/does; an emulator doesn't emulate the games, it emulates the system.

I know it emulates the system. My old PS1 emulators have the boot up animation, and menu for selecting save data, etc. It's just that the emulators I have seen for newer consoles focus entirely on the games rather than the system menu so it seemed like they were working by emulation a portion of the system.

Nope. So far we only have a PS3 emulator that runs games in 5FPS.

Why can't the PSN games be converted to a disc game for use in running on an emulator? And how does the loading of save games and such work?

Why only 5 frames per second? If you took, say, the best i7 processes and loaded the system with say 64 GB of RAM and used the ram as a RAM drive for holding the discs for super fast access times would it make any difference?

 

[GamerzHell9137]

I know it emulates the system. My old PS1 emulators have the boot up animation, and menu for selecting save data, etc. It's just that the emulators I have seen for newer consoles focus entirely on the games rather than the system menu so it seemed like they were working by emulation a portion of the system.



Why can't the PSN games be converted to a disc game for use in running on an emulator? And how does the loading of save games and such work?

Why only 5 frames per second? If you took, say, the best i7 processes and loaded the system with say 64 GB of RAM and used the ram as a RAM drive for holding the discs for super fast access times would it make any difference?

Nope.

 

[Elliander]

Nope.

Any way to savage parts from a legit PS3 to improve it any?

 

[GamerzHell9137]

Any way to savage parts from a legit PS3 to improve it any?

Maybe, you know how to improve it?

 

[Elliander]

Maybe, you know how to improve it?

Well, I think the ideal solution for any current gen emulation would be to have the actual hardware that is most difficult to emulate. Maybe some hypothetical PCIe card with ports in the back which could have another console parts plug directly into it? If the console parts were loaded up as a system resource you could see better rather than inferior performance. Of course, that's just hypothetical and it wouldn't really be emulation if you have the hardware present I guess.

I saw a few dual motherboard systems back before dual processors and dual cores were a thing, but I have no experience working with them and no idea if a console motherboard could be adapted to be used alongside a PC motherboard. I know that's the solution the original PS3 used to run PS2 games though: Put the actual hardware in there.

Now, the PS4 has a paired AMD CPU/GPU and uses graphics card RAM instead of standard RAM. It's the closest thing to using PC hardware though and it can apparently emulate PS3 games (in theory) so maybe a better approach would be to use a PS4 motherboard as a PC motherboard and go from there.

 

[Enigma Hall]

You can use a capture card. It will make the ps3 games run in your pc. And you will still take advantage of the ps3 hardware and with advantages of your gpu and filters6 and record your games.
Ps. You will need a Ps3.

You can also try Nasa. Maybe they have this capacity.

 

[Deleted User]

The bigger issue for emulation is you're working with Cell CPU/GPU. Complicated enough to program for as is.

The overhead to get 8 cell processors synchronized and converted to your standard X86 would be a pretty monumental feat.

Even RPCSPS3 you can see taxes the CPU to 90% and barely manages 5-6FPS.

 

[Wisenheimer]

The bigger issue for emulation is you're working with Cell CPU/GPU. Complicated enough to program for as is.

The overhead to get 8 cell processors synchronized and converted to your standard X86 would be a pretty monumental feat.

Even RPCSPS3 you can see taxes the CPU to 90% and barely manages 5-6FPS.

That is the problem with emulation. Sony engineers could probably do it given a small team and a reasonable time frame because they have the resources and expertise they need. That is why Xbox 360 games are running well on the Xbox 1 emulator, despite the slow CPU.

For a few people to reverse engineer the PS3 and get it running as well as the 360 emulator in a matter of years, much less months would be quite unexpected.

 

[raystriker]

You can also try Nasa. Maybe they have this capacity.

You just reminded me of a guy from the Avengers film who was playing this game on the Shield aircraft

The thing is, our current hardware is waaaaaaaay stronger than the PS3,PS4 or any console out there. The problem arises that the games just aren't made for our computer architecture. Hence for our PC to interpret the console loses steam somewhere down the road.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Just throwing hardware at an emulator isn't going to suddenly make emulation easier. As mentioned earlier, the biggest problem is working with the Cell architecture and the weird way the PS3's hardware was designed, it wouldn't matter if you had an i7 from 10 years in the future, the PS3 emulator (as it currently stands) would still run like garbage.

And you can simply forgot about just chucking a Cell CPU into a PC, "dual motherboard" or some frankenstein PCI-e card or otherwise, that will never happen. Not only would that be insanely expensive to the point you could just buy a PS3 or 10, you'd still be stuck figuring out how to run all of the necessary code and instruction sets just to run PS3 games/the PS3 OS. Plus, I'm pretty sure neither Sony or IBM even bother with Cell anymore and they haven't for a couple years now.

 

[DinohScene]

Just get a new PS3.
Way more cost efficient then buidling a monster PC just to have a shitty framerate on a shit emulator.

Why are people so obsessed with emulating the latest systems?
Especially when the latest systems cost far less then building a beast PC.
Not to mention that keeping it all retail would still outweigh the costs of the PC .-.

 

[G0R3Z]

Just get a new PS3.
Way more cost efficient then buidling a monster PC just to have a shitty framerate on a shit emulator.

Why are people so obsessed with emulating the latest systems?
Especially when the latest systems cost far less then building a beast PC.
Not to mention that keeping it all retail would still outweigh the costs of the PC .-.

People are obsessed with emulation because it's easier to pirate without getting caught. There's loads of amazing PS3 exclusive games, and plenty of people want to play them without paying for them. You can hack a console, but it's normally a lot more hassle and tech know how that a lot of people don't have. Emulation is an easy to way to pirate and play games. I use emulators, but only because I have a good PC capable of high settings - mostly for Gamecube and N64 stuff. I have a lot of physical consoles though, PSP, Gamecube, Wii U, Dreamcast. And I can pirate a game for those consoles if I wish, and I know how to make it work on them. But some people want an easy way out - emulators are normally that answer.

I'm obviously talking about the average emulator user, not the devs. They're genuinely progressing the industry with programming in ways that others haven't thought of and we appreciate their work, normally for free and open source.

I got a PS3 and actually paid for the games, and I'm glad I did. Let me just get back to Ni no Kuni.

 

[DinohScene]

Exactly the same here ._.
Got a fuck ton of consoles, all of them are hacked, have the means to pirate but I rather pay for the amazing titles.

Still, it's about the costs of a monstrous PC versus a legit 360/PS3.

 

[Deleted User]

Maybe someday when quantam computing becomes the norm. In the meantime either buy a hacked PS3 or buy a legit PS3 and the games.

 

[zecoxao]

I was just wondering it it's possible to emulate the full PS3 console on a PC (not just the individual games) to allow full use of PSN games and updates. If so, what kind of hardware would be required to run the games at full speed? What about synchronizing the PS3 controllers to a PC? I'm guessing that I could use any blue ray player rather than be limiting to installing a PS3 blue ray drive.

My console is dying and I figured I would see if that is a realistic option.

If it isn't, could the PSN games be ported over? and what about synchronizing the PS3 controllers to a PC?

https://github.com/AlexAltea/nucleus maybe

 

[Margen67]

Rpcs3 has been running games for a while now..

Not fullspeed, but still.