Changes set to be introduced soon in the mainline version of the PlayStation 3 emulator RPCS3 bring performance improvements for select games like Killzone 2, Killzone 3, and SSX.
The performance improvements have been made possible by the restructuring of the emulator’s shader cache code, so all games that have a high texture upload and draw call set-up time should see performance improvements.
Killzone 2-3 and SSX saw a large performance uplift thanks to kd-11 restructuring RPCS3’s shader cache code. Games which had very high texture upload / draw call set-up time were affected. Initial testing only identified these three games as having a large improvement. Testers may discover other games were affected as well.
Other changes that let RPCS3 compile PPU modules when launching the game improve the user experience in games like Metal Gear Solid 4 and Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2.
Nekotekina also worked with Eladash, one of RPCS3’s contributors to allow RPCS3 to compile PPU Modules when launching a game, rather than having them compile during gameplay. This greatly improves the user experience when running Metal Gear Solid 4 or Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 for the first time.
The RPCS3 PlayStation 3 emulator can be downloaded from its official website.
RPCS3 is a multi-platform open-source Sony PlayStation 3 emulator and debugger written in C++ for Windows, Linux and BSD. It was founded by programmers DH and Hykem. Initially hosted on Google Code, the project was eventually migrated to GitHub later on in its development. RPCS3’s first successful boots were primarily composed of small homebrew projects and hardware tests. The emulator was later publicly released in June of 2012 and gained substantial attention from both the open-source community and PlayStation enthusiasts alike. Today, RPCS3 is primarily developed by its two lead developers; Nekotekina, kd-11 and backed by flourishing team of GitHub contributors.
