This week brought exciting news for the emulation community as the developers of the RPCS3 emulator for PlayStation 3 revealed a significant milestone. They’ve successfully integrated stable, native support for Arm64 architecture into RPCS3, available across Windows, macOS, and Linux platforms. Impressively, this upgrade even extends to the Raspberry Pi 5, showcasing its capability to handle emulation tasks previously deemed impossible. The Raspberry Pi 5, known for emulating GameCube and Wii games (with varying degrees of success for the latter), now appears capable of emulating PS3 games, given some meticulous tweaking of settings tailored to the Arm hardware’s capabilities.
In a demonstration of pushing these boundaries, PS3 emulation on the Raspberry Pi 5 replicates the experience at lowered resolutions, comparable to those of the PlayStation Portable—a mere 273p, compared to PS3’s standard 720p. Yet, with these adjustments, iconic 3D game titles like God of War HD, Catherine, and Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm become playable. Naturally, 2D games are much easier to run under these circumstances, but even delivering playable framerates for 3D titles from the PS3 era is quite the feat for the Raspberry Pi 5, shattering previous expectations.
Meanwhile, macOS users can rejoice in the native Arm architecture support for Apple Silicon, which translates into a remarkable leap in performance when playing PS3 games. By bypassing the need for x86 emulation, which is typically piled on top of demanding PS3 hardware emulation, users are experiencing framerate improvements between 50% to 100%. This advancement transforms what was once a distant fantasy—fluid, Arm-powered PS3 emulation—into a tangible, high-performance reality.
In comparison to the diminutive Raspberry Pi 5 tests, Apple’s Silicon reveals a robust emulation prowess, demonstrating impressive performance in handling true PS3 classics like God of War III and Skate 3. While emulating such demanding titles is far more challenging than running PS2-to-PS3 HD ports like God of War HD, Apple’s powerful Arm architecture handles them adeptly, provided the hardware muscle is there to support them.
