This week brought exciting news for gaming enthusiasts as the team behind the PlayStation 3 emulator, RPCS3, announced that it now boasts stable and native Arm64 architecture support. This means you can run it on Windows, macOS, and Linux platforms, with the Raspberry Pi 5 even getting some love. Yes, you heard that right—the Raspberry Pi 5 can now push the boundaries of what’s possible in emulation, even daring to tackle PS3 emulation. It’s been able to handle GameCube and, somewhat shakily, Wii games before. With some clever tweaking, you can now delve into PS3 emulation on this modest Arm hardware.
If you’re skeptical about the Raspberry Pi 5 taking on a PS3, you’re not alone. Running such intense emulation is akin to squeezing the capabilities of a PlayStation Portable out of it, scaling the output to the PSP’s meager 273p instead of the PS3’s standard 720p. That said, this feat makes some beloved 3D games playable, like God of War, God of War II HD, Catherine, Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm, and others. 2D games are more fluid, but even achieving playable framerates on 3D titles from the PS3 era on a Raspberry Pi 5 is nothing short of remarkable.
Switching over to macOS, the story gets even more interesting. By leveraging Arm architecture natively instead of relying on x86 emulation, Apple Silicon sees some impressive performance boosts while playing PS3 games. Framerates can jump by 50-100%, all thanks to cutting out the x86 translation step. This development makes high-performance PS3 emulation on Arm-powered devices less of a fantasy and more of a tangible reality.
Compared to the Raspberry Pi 5’s attempt, which feels more like a PSP experience, Apple Silicon showcases the power arm architecture can truly harness. It takes on demanding PS3 titles like God of War III and Skate 3—games challenging to emulate, unlike the PS2-to-PS3 ports. Successfully running these powerhouses showcases the potential of Arm architecture when it packs enough punch to back it.
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