RPCS3 says hundreds of PS3 games now work correctly on ARM64

RPCS3 has announced a new batch of ARM64 optimizations for PlayStation 3 emulation. Contributor Whatcookie has optimized parts of the emulator responsible for translating Cell processor code. The team has not published benchmark results yet.

PS3 code is translated into ARM instructions

RPCS3 already runs natively on ARM64 versions of Linux, macOS and Windows. This covers systems such as Apple Silicon Macs, Windows on Arm PCs and compatible Linux devices. Native support means the emulator does not need an x86-to-ARM translation layer.

However, PlayStation 3 software does not run natively on these processors. RPCS3 must still translate instructions designed for the PS3 Cell processor into code supported by the host CPU. The Cell processor combines a PowerPC-based PPU with several specialized SPUs.

Whatcookie’s optimizations add code paths designed around ARM instructions. Some Cell operations can now be converted into shorter or more efficient instruction sequences. This reduces CPU overhead and can improve performance in games limited by Cell emulation.

Hundreds of games receive ARM64 compatibility fixes

In a second post, RPCS3 said an ARM64 change allows several hundred games to work correctly. The team named the Ratchet & Clank series as one example. Previous ARM64 builds had crashes and execution errors that did not occur when using x86-64 builds.

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This does not mean every ARM device can now run all PlayStation 3 games at full speed. Performance will still depend on CPU features, GPU performance, memory bandwidth and graphics drivers. RPCS3 says Whatcookie will publish a technical breakdown and performance demonstration later.

What this all means is that RPCS3 games will now be optimized for ARM64 systems, including Apple M-Silicon based, Qualcomm Snapdragon X-series and soon NVIDIA RTX Spark systems.

Source: RPCS3 (X) , RPCS3 ARM64 compatiblity thread (Github)

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