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PlayStation 4 emulation on the PC is here | SPINE emulator

tusharngf

Member
300 games playable !BETA update released recently


List of games running on emulator

Spine Compatibility List (September 2021).xlsx - Google Sheets





The Spine PlayStation 4 emulator on PC recently received a major update. Spine’s v20210901 version significantly increases the emulator’s compatibility with commercial PlayStation 4 games. While performance still isn’t anywhere near playable in 3D titles, Spine can now actually run over 300 PlayStation 4 games.
 

yurinka

Member
Is there a point to PS4 emulation? Aren't most of the games either already on PC or coming to PC?
There is a point. There are a lot of PS4 exclusive games and many multiplatform console only games that never will be ported to PC.

Sony only plans to port some old games, not all of them. And there are also many 3rd party console only games that after not being ported to PC for years very likely won't be ported now.
 
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FStubbs

Member
No, there are many console only or PS4 only games that never won't be on PC.
I'm assuming you mean "will never be on PC".

I wonder what kind of monster rig you'd need to emulate a PS4. Probably a 3090 and top line 11th generation i9 would barely do it.
 

yurinka

Member
I'm assuming you mean "will never be on PC".

I wonder what kind of monster rig you'd need to emulate a PS4. Probably a 3090 and top line 11th generation i9 would barely do it.
Yep sorry, I'm not a native speaker. English is my 3rd language.

I don't remember if the console had some crazy custom hardware but regarding CPU and GPU emualtion it shouldn't be too complicated because as I know they are pretty much PC CPU and GPU so I assume most instructions wouldn't need to be emulated on a modern CPU and GPU of the same family (AMD) because they would share the same instructions (unless Sony introduced extra stuff, this would need to be emulated). I assume than in AMD with a somewhat more powerful than a PS4 PC would be enough in a perfect case where an emulator is made will all the documentation and so on. I assume Nvidia GPUs would have to emulate more AMD specific stuff so I assume it wouldn't be possible to emulate it with current top hardware.
 

junguler

Banned
i'm conflicted about this emulator, it's on linux but it's closed source currently which is a red flag for me and makes me not want to test it even if i had access to it. we'll see how this develops and if it's paid or free and if it's going to come to windows and mac or not.
 

killatopak

Gold Member
Probably will take a couple more years to be stable.

I know PS3 is a lot harder to emulate but it’s only ramping up quite recently and we’re two generations away from it already.
 

old-parts

Member
i'm conflicted about this emulator, it's on linux but it's closed source currently which is a red flag for me and makes me not want to test it even if i had access to it. we'll see how this develops and if it's paid or free and if it's going to come to windows and mac or not.

Dev has said on reddit its only closed source while heavy work is going on and to prevent forks popping up all over the place (you see this with Android emulators using open source work), will be open source in future. Someone else can make windows version at that point but Linux has come a long way try Manjaro on a PC its a functional replacement for Windows (not 100% but most of the way).

Also according to the dev PS4 is not really fully emulated, its more akin to wine (Windows to Linux API translation layer) so similar to what Valve is doing with Proton.
 

manfestival

Member
Fortunately many of these niche titles that I have sought after the years are also coming on PC. For example: SRW 30 is releasing on PC next month and I bought SD Gundam G Generations Cross Rays on PC. These were only really options on random consoles here and there. Now it seems we can the console + PC option. Here is to hoping that this trend continues to spread so I have to buy less imports.
 

junguler

Banned
Dev has said on reddit its only closed source while heavy work is going on and to prevent forks popping up all over the place (you see this with Android emulators using open source work), will be open source in future. Someone else can make windows version at that point but Linux has come a long way try Manjaro on a PC its a functional replacement for Windows (not 100% but most of the way).

Also according to the dev PS4 is not really fully emulated, its more akin to wine (Windows to Linux API translation layer) so similar to what Valve is doing with Proton.
good to know about them wanting to eventually go open source, i'm also on linux but i wish they made the effort to work on a windows version as well, not everyone is able to or want to switch to linux and it would be a shame not having access to an amazing project like this for the majority of pc gamers.
 

Notabueno

Banned
Fuck Spine: no vulkan/dx but their "own proprietary driver", "closed source"? This is going nowhere and is going to be a drag for too many years like previous loser PS emulators....
 

FStubbs

Member
Yep sorry, I'm not a native speaker. English is my 3rd language.

I don't remember if the console had some crazy custom hardware but regarding CPU and GPU emualtion it shouldn't be too complicated because as I know they are pretty much PC CPU and GPU so I assume most instructions wouldn't need to be emulated on a modern CPU and GPU of the same family (AMD) because they would share the same instructions (unless Sony introduced extra stuff, this would need to be emulated). I assume than in AMD with a somewhat more powerful than a PS4 PC would be enough in a perfect case where an emulator is made will all the documentation and so on. I assume Nvidia GPUs would have to emulate more AMD specific stuff so I assume it wouldn't be possible to emulate it with current top hardware.
I remember people said that about the OG Xbox too ... turned out x86 emulating x86 was surprisingly difficult.
 

GHG

Gold Member
Call me pessimistic, but I think we'll more likely see an official PC port sooner than emulation running at 4K/60.

I'm more pessimistic of the prospect of an official Bloodborne port/remaster than I am of the PC community making it a priority to get the game up and running on this emulator.
 
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DrAspirino

Banned
Yep sorry, I'm not a native speaker. English is my 3rd language.

I don't remember if the console had some crazy custom hardware but regarding CPU and GPU emualtion it shouldn't be too complicated because as I know they are pretty much PC CPU and GPU so I assume most instructions wouldn't need to be emulated on a modern CPU and GPU of the same family (AMD) because they would share the same instructions (unless Sony introduced extra stuff, this would need to be emulated). I assume than in AMD with a somewhat more powerful than a PS4 PC would be enough in a perfect case where an emulator is made will all the documentation and so on. I assume Nvidia GPUs would have to emulate more AMD specific stuff so I assume it wouldn't be possible to emulate it with current top hardware.
I'm actually surprised it took people this long to emulate PS4. It has exactly the same architecture as a regular PC, so in theory, the only differentiating factor is the OS and drivers (which handle all the hardware calls).

It should be rather easy to develop a PS4 emulator in FreeBSD, as the emulator would simply have to catch calls to PS4 kernel and point them to FreeBSD kernel.

Now, FreeBSD is kind of an obscure OS, so for the emulator to work, would have to work within a Virtual Machine (like VirtualBox) with full hardware acceleration, inside of a more popular OS (like Windows, MacOS or Linux).

Heck, it should be even easier to avoid that and just create a Virtual Machine that has the entire PS4 OS inside; no need for emulation. The problem with that is that it wouldn't be an emulator using instructions, but actually a ToS violation by using the PS4 OS outside of the PS4 console.
 
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McCheese

Member
Heck, it should be even easier to avoid that and just create a Virtual Machine that has the entire PS4 OS inside; no need for emulation. The problem with that is that it wouldn't be an emulator using instructions, but actually a ToS violation by using the PS4 OS outside of the PS4 console.

I thought this is pretty much what Orbital and Spine are doing, they are a VM that running a reverse-engineered kernel rewrite with custom linux drivers.
 
Would be nice to play Persona 5 Royal, though i don't know if it's worth it since i've already played the original on RPCS3 to completion.
 

JLB

Banned
its not here. It will definitely take many years to run the most demanding games. And it will require a massive pc.
 

FStubbs

Member
If by “most” you mean like 5, then sure, it’s time to sell your PS4.
Pretty sure people play third party games on emulators. Counting third party games, then yes, I'd think most PS4 games are already on PC. This wasn't necessarily the case in past generations.
 

JayDucker

Member
P.T._cover.jpg


Some day :messenger_ghost:
 

Ezquimacore

Banned
Wii U emulation, after a few years you can play breath of the wild at 8k, started like this. Switch emulation started like this, after a few years you can play xenoblade 2 at 4k. Ps3 emulation you can play every game at 4k too. This will take a few years but it will be possible.
 

coffinbirth

Member
How long untill Xbox Series X can play PlayStation 4 games lol
Honestly, once (if) this goes open source and a Windows port comes along, probably not long after that. That being said, there still isn't a PCSX3 port though, so perhaps not. I think the standalone emulator scene on Xbox isn't quite there yet, if it ever will be, so it's a matter of it being a part of RetroArch as it currently stands.

Does anybody know if a PCSX3 core (or CEMU for that matter) is being worked on for RetroArch by anyone yet?
 
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Not easy job. You gotta have some spine to do this kind of emulation.













Ok im out. Cant stay in this thread after posting such a cringe post
 
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