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[Bojji]

So PS5 was strong enough to run PS3 emulation? This is kinda embarrassing for Sony.

Not all games would work full speed, especially those SPU heavy.

But MOST games could run 60fps on that CPU, I had 3600 (so very comparable power) few years ago

 

[Shadowstar39]

interesting and very good news, but not really a surprise PS3 can be emulated in a PS5, we have seen it running in steamdeck and people already played in bc250 boards(a cut down recycled ps5 for crypto mining) in fact I think its way more preferable to keep a ps5 original and buy a bc250 as a linux gaming machine(despite some bugs that need to be fixed in some unity games) I have 5 of these boards if you give a decent DIY cooling you have a very capable little machine that is cheaper than a ps5, in a bc 250 you can even play switch emulator and even ps4, so a PS5 with linux can do it even better

How can you case that? It's a server board, do they sell a case that would fit it with psu and cooling or is it all DIY? I want a mini pc for ps1 to ps3 era emulation.

 

[Fess]

Side topic kinda.

I miss old Sony with their openess pre-hacked. PS3 was what the Xbox One wanted to be.

An all in one system at your TV that could dual boot PS OS/Linux. It had a good blu-ray player. It had card slots for viewing pictures on the TV and managing them. It had a web browser where you could download stuff and a built in media player for that too. It could've been your main device for nearly everything. That vision was pretty cool and sadly is gone. I actually used a lot of those features on the PS3 (Although never Linux).

Steam Frame will kinda do that to an extent I suppose. With accessories you can get it nearly there (card readers, bluray players etc). Streaming services will have to get on board though.

I've been with PlayStation since the beginning, and I'll be honest: I still play on my PS3 regularly. In fact, I use it more often than my PS4 these days. My current setup is a cluttered mess of consoles and cables simply because I refuse to let go of my PS3 library.

Seeing the community achieve 4K results through Linux only highlights what we're missing. I would give anything for official support—being able to play these classics on PS5 with native trophy support and my existing save files would be the ultimate quality-of-life improvement.

It's a shame that, while the hardware is clearly more than capable of handling it, we're forced to keep multiple devices hooked up or rely on "DIY" scene solutions to enjoy games we already own. For those of us who value our legacy libraries, a "next-gen" console will always feel somewhat incomplete without true, local hardware BC.

Now we're talking! Why are there so few console fans who understand that this would be great?

That one-device-that-does-it-all thing is really the ultimate box to have under a TV.

Sadly Steam Machine looks like it's going to be too weak. And Xbox Helix may have the power but won't have PlayStation games if Sony pull out from having Steam ports. And regular PCs won't hide the PC side of it all well enough to feel 100% like a console. And even if that would happen they won't have full console emulation up to current gen hardware and not all games get PC ports.

So in the end we're stuck with these closed bubble boxes that we have to stack on each other to not lose access to any game we own.

I still have PS1, DC, Xbox, GC, PS2, PS3, 360, Wii, WiiU, discs on shelves that I literally can't play without pulling out some old box from the attic. And now that I think about it I'm not sure I can even connect them to a modern TV.

I have invested a lot of money to still have access to everything from the early gaming computers Commodore days. I press a button and it's all there. But consoles from roughly 1995 to 2015, that's a problematic era.

Microsoft has talked about 4 generations of backwards compatibility for Xbox games on Helix. Time will tell if that's actually true, I suspect it won't even have a disc drive, might just be about repurchasing select titles.

 

[Badlucktroll]

i bet sony could code a fully optimized ps3 emulator in a week! i bet ps4 could have done it to!

 

[Elginer]

I´ll never understand why companies act like that. PS3 BC at least on certain games it´s something users has been asked for several years. Now community themselves proves PS3 can be emulated on the regular PS5, not even the Pro and at 4K. Stupid Sony, at least release Killzone and Resistance trilogy remastered for PS5, ain´t that hard....But of course they are obssesed with Killzone, TLoU and soon will be with that game of the ARROGANT bald girl boss upcoming.

Ive been asking for this for years. Gimme Infamous one and two while we at it

 

[LordCBH]

I´ll never understand why companies act like that. PS3 BC at least on certain games it´s something users has been asked for several years. Now community themselves proves PS3 can be emulated on the regular PS5, not even the Pro and at 4K. Stupid Sony, at least release Killzone and Resistance trilogy remastered for PS5, ain´t that hard....But of course they are obssesed with Killzone, TLoU and soon will be with that game of the ARROGANT bald girl boss upcoming.

Crappy PlayStation can't even make a lot of their first party ps2 games available on PS5. I think the "why would anyone play this?" attitude towards BC of Jim Ryan is still there.

 

[Fafalada]

dropping PS2 back compat on later PS3 revisions was also a questionable move, because we know that more than 1300 games work without issue on their emulator out of the box

The limitation there was never about compatibility - the moment they decided to put those games on PSN, they were limited by licensing rights. The exact same reason why XB emulator was limited on 360, and so forth.

Obviously - had they actually released BC openly (without requiring those games to be online) that would have led to further improvements in compatibility - but the emulator only gets tested against what they sell online, so there's no reason for them to fix games that will never see the light of day.

 

[saintjules]

Someone explain to me why people go at lengths to change OS like this?

 

[kevboard]

Someone explain to me why people go at lengths to change OS like this?

for most modders it's a hobby to see what can be done.
for others it's just to have a more open system for homebrew.

you already need to have a modded PS5 to do this, so now you have a modded PS5 that can play PS5 games and PC games.

or, PS3 games... speaking of which

 

[kevboard]

i bet sony could code a fully optimized ps3 emulator in a week! i bet ps4 could have done it to!

nah, the PS4 could not do it. the CPU would be far too slow.

emulation already has a CPU overhead, but trying to emulate a 3.2GHz CPU on a 1.6GHz CPU is essentially impossible without doing what Microsoft did to overcome that issue on Xbox One, and recompiling every single game as an x86 app, and having built in hardware compatibility to alleviate some of the emulation overhead you'd have for the GPU tasks.

and the Xbox 360 CPU is comparatively simple. it's just 3 PPEs that all do the same thing.
the PS3 has 1 PPE and 7 SPEs. it's not as simple as mapping each PPE thread to a CPU thread on the Jaguar, like Microsoft could on Xbox One... for one the PS4 doesn't even have enough CPU threads available for games to map 2 PPE and 7 SPE threads to the Jaguar in the first place. so they would need to emulate the SPEs on the GPU probably...

so, it's far more complicated basically.
that's why the PS5's CPU is right on the edge of what is useable for PS3 emulation.

 

[MazingerDUDE]

Not all games would work full speed, especially those SPU heavy.

But MOST games could run 60fps on that CPU, I had 3600 (so very comparable power) few years ago

That makes me wonder, what's the heaviest PS3 game to emulate on PC?

 

[Bojji]

That makes me wonder, what's the heaviest PS3 game to emulate on PC?

I can't single out one game but all Sony games were hard to run on emulation (and still require powerful CPUs) - GOW3/A, LoU, U2/3, KZ2/3 etc.

While most of third part games were lighter on the CPU, this tells us what developers actually pushed Cell SPUs.

 

[Aretak]

That makes me wonder, what's the heaviest PS3 game to emulate on PC?

Aside from the big-name exclusives like the Naughty Dog stuff, Red Dead Redemption is really demanding - especially if you want to push it to 60fps. There's no real reason to emulate the PS3 version these days of course though, since it finally got a PC release and even before that the Switch version could be emulated much more easily.

Twisted Metal (2012) is another really demanding one that people might not expect. Developers were really pushing the limits of the PS3 hardware late in its life, even for a "mere" car combat game.

 

[Guilty_AI]

That makes me wonder, what's the heaviest PS3 game to emulate on PC?

From my research, Midnight Club LA and Uncharted 3 can be on the tougher side to run

 

[MazingerDUDE]

Aside from the big-name exclusives like the Naughty Dog stuff, Red Dead Redemption is really demanding - especially if you want to push it to 60fps. There's no real reason to emulate the PS3 version these days of course though, since it finally got a PC release and even before that the Switch version could be emulated much more easily.

Twisted Metal (2012) is another really demanding one that people might not expect. Developers were really pushing the limits of the PS3 hardware late in its life, even for a "mere" car combat game.

From my research, Midnight Club LA and Uncharted 3 can be on the tougher side to run

Now that's very interesting, both the RDR and Midnight Club LA were supposedly the 'lazy dev' games that ran a lot worse on PS3 than 360

 

[kevboard]

Now that's very interesting, both the RDR and Midnight Club LA were supposedly the 'lazy dev' games that ran a lot worse on PS3 than 360

it's almost like the PS3 was just less powerful lol.

I think people didn't accept that and always thought the Cell processor is some magical piece of tech that makes it a super computer

at least by the time GTA5 released they were able to have near parity between the systems. slight advantage for the 360 still, but not by much anymore, like 5% advantage for the 360.

 

[MidgarBlowedUp]

Someone explain to me why people go at lengths to change OS like this?

Check out how far modders have came with the old PS2.

New Plug and Play PS2 Memory Cards are Unbelievable - Macho Nacho Gaming

Aftermarket PS2 memory cards are nothing new, as these multi-use gadgets have been an excellent source of soft modding on the system for years. With the

macho-nacho.com

It's just wild to me because i retired mine about 4 years ago so i haven't kept up with the community.

 

[Moses85]

 

[kevboard]

Black Myth Wukong runs on par on Linux as on the PS5 Native version.
with Proton translation happening and everything...

I feel like this shows once and for all that "console optimisation" these days is often not a thing anymore in a world where devs use UE5 and just slap on a PS5 profile

but even Crimson Desert shows possibly better CPU performance in the Linux version than in the native port (hard to say if it's a fully accurate test due to the buggy nature of the rendering)

and Control in the settings used by DF is a superior experience than the RT mode on the PS5 Native version.
better RT, better framerate.
showing again that devs often chose the wrong settings for their ports.
DF's settings are 1080p with RT reflections and low settings, and it's very close to 60fps at all times.
PS5 uses 1440p, checkerboarded RT reflections and low settings at 30/40fps

 

[Bojji]

Black Myth Wukong runs on par on Linux as on the PS5 Native version.
with Proton translation happening and everything...

I feel like this shows once and for all that "console optimisation" these days is often not a thing anymore in a world where devs use UE5 and just slap on a PS5 profile

but even Crimson Desert shows possibly better CPU performance in the Linux version than in the native port (hard to say if it's a fully accurate test due to the buggy nature of the rendering)

I still see people with Carmack quote about "2x better performance on consoles". This was untrue for at least two gens now...

Previous DF test with 6700 as "PS5" PC GPU told us this already.

 

[Wolzard]

That's because they used Ubuntu, which uses the Gnome desktop environment, and it doesn't perform as well as Plasma. It would be interesting to see how CachyOS would perform on that system. We'll probably see more later.

 

[Bojji]

 

[kevboard]

it's crazy that the base clock on Linux is matching the native version that has access to boost clocks...

 

[Bojji]

it's crazy that the base clock on Linux is matching the native version that has access to boost clocks...

Exactly.

Control is also pretty crazy with that 60fps RT mode unavailable on base PS5

And first Linux testing also showed GTA5 running with expanded RT settings compared to PS5 version. Developers this gen are disappointing...

 

[kevboard]

Exactly.

Control is also pretty crazy with that 60fps RT mode unavailable on base PS5

And first Linux testing also showed GTA5 running with expanded RT settings compared to PS5 version. Developers this gen are disappointing...

this is exactly why I want cheat codes in games that unlock full graphics settings... so much potential to fix those weird ass choices made by developers.
Remedy even fucked up their recent "unlocked" quality mode by locking it to 40fps... UNLOCKED MODE... locked to 40fps. like... wtf?

And Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth could probably be instantly fixed by just turning on 4k TAAU at 1080p internal res.

 

[Hugare]

I was expecting it to emulate Joe Danger, Flower or something. But Killzone 3 is wild lol

Freaking Sony

 

[SmokSmog]

 

[SABRE220]

Exactly.

Control is also pretty crazy with that 60fps RT mode unavailable on base PS5

And first Linux testing also showed GTA5 running with expanded RT settings compared to PS5 version. Developers this gen are disappointing...

Pretty much says it all about devs this gen, people constantly calling out people who had the audacity to question devs, but this pretty much proves it. They are doing the absolute bare minimum in optimization. The fact that they are basically just using a PS5 performance profile on UE5 and calling it a day is disgusting. They have low-level hardware access via the api but instead of going there, we get this shit. Jesus Christ, I was expecting a middling level of optimization, but even I, at my most cynical didnt expect basically zero effort. I havent watched the video yet but did DF call out the devs or still praise them to for doing the bare minimum? Wont lie, credit to them for breaking this news, but I wish they had the balls to be an actual tech critic again. Imagine the PS3 era programmers having access to this hardware instead of 160mb of shared RAM and a cut back 7800gt.

 

[SABRE220]

I still see people with Carmack quote about "2x better performance on consoles". This was untrue for at least two gens now...

Previous DF test with 6700 as "PS5" PC GPU told us this already.

But don't you dare call out devs and their programmers, they're completely swamped and overworked. must only be praised, but that's what you get when tech reviewers like DF will praise every damn game with cross-gen visuals/tech as long as they shit out a stable 60fps mode.

 

[SABRE220]

it's almost like the PS3 was just less powerful lol.

I think people didn't accept that and always thought the Cell processor is some magical piece of tech that makes it a super computer

at least by the time GTA5 released they were able to have near parity between the systems. slight advantage for the 360 still, but not by much anymore, like 5% advantage for the 360.

It wasn't, it was a painfully complicated design that was incredibly hard to optimize for initially due to it being a completely exotic new architecture with no documentation, but when used fully by the end of the gen had the best-looking and most technically impressive games of that console generation. The GPU was a weakness, but the SPUs were incredibly powerful and were still putting up surprisingly impressive performance even in the PS4 generation, as was referenced by UBISOFT in their dev docs for their Unity engine.

 

[kevboard]

and that single core performance difference there is why the gaming performance of the console CPUs is often closer to a 2600 than a 3600.

 

[Kadve]

No idea but it doesn't matter, Sony ain't going to use an open-source garage dev emulator, it's more likely that they'll stomp all this if it would snowball and become popular.

Um....

Sony's PlayStation Classic uses an open-source emulator to play its games | TechCrunch

The worm has turned, it seems. Emulators, which let people run old console games on their computers, were once the scourge of the gaming industry. Now Sony is using one of the very pieces of software the industry decried as the basis for its PlayStation Classic retro console.

techcrunch.com

 

[KenaiPhoenix]

Come Sony... is not that hard.

WE have the power, we have the disc tray.

Do something good for once

 

[Kadve]

they have an emulator on PS4/5 but you can't use your own discs, only rebuy the games digitally.

PS3 had full back compat with PS1 and PS2, later revisions dropped PS2 support and removed the PS2 hardware inside the PS3.

the PAL launch model already was missing the Emotion Engine, so PS2 games were partially emulated on PAL consoles.

PS1 emulation was kept in every PS3 revision.

dropping PS2 back compat on later PS3 revisions was also a questionable move, because we know that more than 1300 games work without issue on their emulator out of the box, as we know due to the ability to use that Emulator on modded consoles for games not available als download versions.

starting with the PS4, sony dropped backwards compatibility entirely. now there's zero back compat for anything before PS4 anymore.

the PS4/5 emulator for PS2 games runs around 900 games without issue or only minor visual bugs btw., which was also discovered after softmodded PS4s started to be a thing.

Fun fact. There are references in the code of the PS3 firmware that Sony was at one point planning on doing full PS2 BC on later PS3 models aswell, using a fully software-based emulator. But this was dropped for unknown reasons in favor of the classic's emulator, which can't load games from disc.

PS2 Emulation - PS3 Developer wiki

Playstation Development Wiki - PS5, PS4, PS3, PS2, PS1, PSP, Vita Information

www.psdevwiki.com

 

[Three]

Now I need to rewatch that Digital Foundry clip of John Linneman's fake-macho-yet-still-cracking voice insisting that SONY, who have access to all the PS3 technical docs btw, wouldn't be able to do PS3 backwards compatibility on PS5. Muh SPUs!

In fairness the framerate on this emulator is abysmal. No way would anybody be this forgiving if it were an official release.

 

[Bojji]

In fairness the framerate on this emulator is abysmal. No way would anybody be this forgiving if it were an official release.

For SPU heavy games - yes.

But vast majority of PS3 games would run 30-60fps on PS5.

 

[IntentionalPun]

Microsoft has talked about 4 generations of backwards compatibility for Xbox games on Helix. Time will tell if that's actually true, I suspect it won't even have a disc drive, might just be about repurchasing select titles.

It's just going to be what you can do on an XSX right now. The 4th gen is the XS gen and 360/OG XBox games would only work if they are part of the BC program.

 

[kevboard]

It wasn't, it was a painfully complicated design that was incredibly hard to optimize for initially due to it being a completely exotic new architecture with no documentation, but when used fully by the end of the gen had the best-looking and most technically impressive games of that console generation. The GPU was a weakness, but the SPUs were incredibly powerful and were still putting up surprisingly impressive performance even in the PS4 generation, as was referenced by UBISOFT in their dev docs for their Unity engine.

the games that were supposedly amazing graphically ran like ass as they pushed the PS3 far too hard.

TLoU had constant FPS drops the moment any transparencies were on screen, Killzone 2 has insane input lag due to the GPU being pushed too hard (the main reason KZ3 had a significant graphics downgrade), and even after a full generation of devs developing for the PS3, the 360 versions still looked or ran better in 99% of games.

even Halo 4 beats all PS3 games on a technical level easily. solid 30fps, clean AA, low input lag, and visuals that people still bring up in your typical "this is what games looked like 2 generations ago btw." posts on twitter to mock modern graphics/performance.

The PS3 was clearly less powerful. the Cell SPEs helped, but only so far that it could be on par in some games.
the Cell had to make up for both, a lack of GPU performance and 4 missing PPE threads compared to the 360.
and then there was the RAM dilemma, where devs had to jump through hoops to use it efficiently, even an issue for Sony, who were unable to implement a system wide party chat feature due to the memory allocation issues.

 

[kevboard]

Fun fact. There are references in the code of the PS3 firmware that Sony was at one point planning on doing full PS2 BC on later PS3 models aswell using a fully software-based emulator. This was dropped for unknown reasons though in favor of the classic's emulator that can't load games from disc.

PS2 Emulation - PS3 Developer wiki

Playstation Development Wiki - PS5, PS4, PS3, PS2, PS1, PSP, Vita Information

www.psdevwiki.com

"unknown reasons"

I think we do know the reasons lol

 

[Bojji]

the games that were supposedly amazing graphically ran like ass as they pushed the PS3 far too hard.

TLoU had constant FPS drops the moment any transparencies were on screen, Killzone 2 has insane input lag due to the GPU being pushed too hard (the main reason KZ3 had a significant graphics downgrade), and even after a full generation of devs developing for the PS3, the 360 versions still looked or ran better in 99% of games.

even Halo 4 beats all PS3 games on a technical level easily. solid 30fps, clean AA, low input lag, and visuals that people still bring up in your typical "this is what games looked like 2 generations ago btw." posts on twitter to mock modern graphics/performance.

The PS3 was clearly less powerful. the Cell SPEs helped, but only so far that it could be on par in some games.
the Cell had to make up for both, a lack of GPU performance and 4 missing PPE threads compared to the 360.
and then there was the RAM dilemma, where devs had to jump through hoops to use it efficiently, even an issue for Sony, who were unable to implement a system wide party chat feature due to the memory allocation issues.

I can't agree about Halo 4 and PS3 games. No matter if PS3 was weaker than 360 or not (it probably was), Sony exclusives were still np.1 when it comes to graphics quality.

God of War 3 is the best looking game of that generation in my opinion...

 

[kevboard]

I can't agree about Halo 4 and PS3 games. No matter if PS3 was weaker than 360 or not (it probably was), Sony exclusives were still np.1 when it comes to graphics quality.

God of War 3 is the best looking game of that generation in my opinion...

Halo 4 is imo far more impressive than any PS3 game.

yes, God of War 3 looked great, but it had fully automated camera views.
you can do a lot more on screen if you can control every single camer perspective that the player will ever see.

the culling alone is far simpler.

other games with user controllable cameras had lots of issues. TLoU had awful AA, and constantly dropped frames for example.

Halo 4 ran at native 720p, had low latency, a steady framerate, clean looking FXAA, dynamic enemy encounters, large level areas, 2 player splitscreen coop, and some great looking dynamic lighting in some areas.
so even as Halo 4's #1 hater, I just can't see any PS3 game coming close to that.

 

[Bojji]

Halo 4 is imo far more impressive than any PS3 game.

yes, God of War 3 looked great, but it had fully automated camera views.
you can do a lot more on screen if you can control every single camer perspective that the player will ever see.

the culling alone is far simpler.

other games with user controllable cameras had lots of issues. TLoU had awful AA, and constantly dropped frames for example.

Halo 4 ran at native 720p, had low latency, a steady framerate, clean looking FXAA, dynamic enemy encounters, large level areas, 2 player splitscreen coop, and some great looking dynamic lighting in some areas.
so even as Halo 4's #1 hater, I just can't see any PS3 game coming close to that.

I don't see it personally, I think KZ2 and 3 are better looking games.

But it goes into opinions territory here, we don't know how KZ2 would look and run on 360 and same applies to H4 on PS3.

 

[Wolzard]

Halo 4 and other Xbox 360 games are better in purely technical aspects, such as higher resolution textures, image quality, and level of detail.

On the PS3, many games had to be more creative to overcome the limitations and look better. Killzone 2's presentation is better, but if you analyze it objectively, you'll see low-res and repetitive textures.

 

[Trogdor1123]

very frustrating. It makes me really wonder what they could do if they actually optimized. I'm sure it's actually really hard to do and maybe not worth it, but still. Why are so many games performance turds when they clearly have space still to get better?

 

[kevboard]

I don't see it personally, I think KZ2 and 3 are better looking games.

But it goes into opinions territory here, we don't know how KZ2 would look and run on 360 and same applies to H4 on PS3.

to me Halo 4 is more impressive simply due to what is happening while looking the way it does.

KZ2 and 3 are in essence like premium high class AAA Call of Duty games. missions are relatively linear and narrow. enemy encounters are usually cover based shootouts on foot with maybe 5 NPC enemies at once.

Halo 4 has some fights that are on large areas with vehicles, dozens of enemies, realtime physics applied to tons of elements (and the vehicles of course), all running at a steady 720p30.

it's the complete picture that makes Halo 4 impressive to me, even tho it was somewhat reduced in scope compared to Halo 3 and Reach to get to that visual level and framerate stability.

 

[IbizaPocholo]

"Description"

Hardware  Thread 'PS5 turned into Linux Steam Machine, but only on older unpatched firmware'

Mar 6, 2026

Andy Nguyen, known online as theflow0, has shown Linux running on a PlayStation 5 and used it to turn the console into what he describes as a Steam Machine. His clip shows Grand Theft Auto 5 Enhanced running with ray tracing at 1440p and 60 FPS, which is enough to move this project beyond a simple boot demo.

Andy said 4K HDMI video and audio are working, and all USB ports are functional. He also said his current setup runs at 3.2 GHz on the CPU and 2.0 GHz on the GPU, while a higher 3.5 GHz and 2.23 GHz configuration is possible, though his PS5 Slim reportedly overheats too...​

• Thick Thighs Save Lives
• Replies: 74
• Forum: Gaming Discussion

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[Fess]

It's just going to be what you can do on an XSX right now. The 4th gen is the XS gen and 360/OG XBox games would only work if they are part of the BC program.

Not good enough. They need to just go through the full list and get them all working.

 

[existensmaximum]

I still see people with Carmack quote about "2x better performance on consoles". This was untrue for at least two gens now...

Previous DF test with 6700 as "PS5" PC GPU told us this already.

Totally depends on the dev though. Lex Naughty Dog for example.

 

[Esppiral]

I had and old i5 4590 and most PS3 games run just fine on it so I don't see the reason why they are not running officially on os5

 

[Kupfer]

Buuuuut … NeoGAF told me it's technically impossible for Sony to implement PS3 backward compatibility - or did Sony deliberately hold back this feature because they know how few games they release and want to keep players tied to new titles, rather than letting them enjoy their existing games for free on the console?