Talking Point #4: Future of Emulation

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The current state of emulation has never been better. PCSX2 1.7 was a gift from the heavens, DuckStation was a welcome surprise, the Steam Deck is a retro beast, emulators on mobile are better than ever and even PS4 emulation is making healthy progress in recent times. What more could one ask? Well, maybe a few things.

For starters, perhaps a less-hardware demanding PS3 emulation would be a good start. Although do keep in mind it’s been well-documented how tricky that would be, so keep your expectations leveled. For now, seeing progress with ShadPS4 would be something to look forward to.

Alright, thank you for reading the article. If you’ve got something to add, leave a comment below. Hasta luego!

Nah nah, I’m just kidding​

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Obviously, this is not where the article ends, as there’s still a lot to go over. While the near future of PS3 and PS4 emulation is unknown, both in terms of compatibility and performance, it has made a ton of healthy progress as 2D games seem to run decently with 3D games being on the way.

While it would be nice to play the obvious big hitters, there is merit in highlighting a sleeper hit no one seems to be aware is also stuck on the Sony PlayStation 4! Don’t worry, it’s not the silly Ratchet & Clank 2016 movie tie-in. Rather, we’re talking about none other than the elusive Sakura Wars, a game that’s been stuck on the console through no fault of its own.

You see, Sakura Wars 6 was released in the unfortunate year of 2019. Why was it so unfortunate? Why, none other than the face it was crunched right between Sega being comfortable releasing their lesser popular games exclusively for the PS4 but right before Sega had magically developed the foresight to port most of their games to PC! For this reason, Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise (released in 2018) is also caged on that system!

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“Wow, you love InFamous” Gee, wonder what gave that away…​

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So I really really really really really like the InFamous dualogy, and have been head over heels for it for the past, gee, I dunno, almost two decades? It’s a tough love (to hide), and as an avid Steam Deck user, what I would give for a more Steam Deck friendly RPCS3 experience…

But it’s ok, I’m not sad about it or anything, what gave you that idea? Not like I think about it 30 times per month, okay it’s actually per day, but who’s counting?

Wait, so was this just an excuse to gush about InFamous?​

Alright, did we fill up enough word-count? Good. Here’s what the article is actually about. ​

What? No way! Alright, I’ll come forward. I just reeeally wanna play InFamous 1&2 on my Steam Deck, surely that’s not a crime! If it’s wrong to love InFamous so much, then I don’t wish to be right!

But what do you think? Are there any games that you wish you could emulate, but was never able to? Possibly something under the radar too? Please let us know in the comments below!

Oh and…
RPCS3 devs! Please have InFamous run flawlessly on my Steam Deck and my life is yours!

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[Somnia]

I really need 360 emulation to improve. There aren't many games strictly trapped on it thanks to PC ports and stellar Xbox One/XSX backwards compatibility, but I'd like the handful of games still trapped on 360 to be available to more people, especially when the 360 itself is so hard to just mod and throw games onto like a PS3 or Wii.

 

[pawaclutter]

In my opinion, the Original Xbox has got to be one of the most underrated and overlooked consoles of all time.

Not only did majority of said console's game get better known (and sometimes generally better) PS2 and Gamecube ports, but to this day only a few of it's exclusive titles managed to escape the system, with the better known one (Jet Set Radio Future) pretty much stuck on the system due to lost source code.
So, it makes me pretty sad to see the meh-ish state Xemu is in. Now, i don't mean this as hate to the developer (hell none of that- dude is doing a smash job) it just makes me sad to see that most of the stand out titles i can think of on that console aren't really in playable states or at least without bugs.

With the varied history original xbox emulation has had, it makes me wonder if in the near future we'll see xemu becoming more well known and maybe getting more devs on the project. (maybe? i hope..)

 

[Sackboy]

ps3 emulation is not NEARLY as demanding as people think, its just certain games like infamous and mgs4 that require beefy cpus. most games run better or equivalent to original hardware, even on a rig from 2017. it just takes a lot of tuning in settings for each game as the ps3 is extremely complex

 

[Skeetos]

ps3 emulation is not NEARLY as demanding as people think, its just certain games like infamous and mgs4 that require beefy cpus. most games run better or equivalent to original hardware, even on a rig from 2017. it just takes a lot of tuning in settings for each game as the ps3 is extremely complex

In the case of MGS4 there is a fork of RPCS3 that was specifically designed to play it as well. I got 60fps 720p on a 1060 6gb and i5-6500

 

[DunkeyKong]

ps3 emulation is not NEARLY as demanding as people think, its just certain games like infamous and mgs4 that require beefy cpus. most games run better or equivalent to original hardware, even on a rig from 2017. it just takes a lot of tuning in settings for each game as the ps3 is extremely complex

All credits goes to the developers, back then even the strongest processer couldn't ran a simple game on a playable state. Now you can run most of that with a Raspberry Pi! Insane work from them

 

[Sackboy]

In the case of MGS4 there is a fork of RPCS3 that was specifically designed to play it as well. I got 60fps 720p on a 1060 6gb and i5-6500

my rig was 1650 super and i5-10400f and i got basically ps3 level performance (just with MUCH worse frametimes so i ended up just playing on ps3 lol)

 

[DanCalibur]

Considering 12th gen Intel I3 or newer have good performance on RPCS3, i think PS3 emulation soon will be as trivial as ps2

All credits goes to the developers, back then even the strongest processer couldn't ran a simple game on a playable state. Now you can run most of that with a Raspberry Pi! Insane work from them

 

[DunkeyKong]

Considering 12th gen Intel I3 or newer have good performance on RPCS3, i think PS3 emulation soon will be as trivial as ps2

I hope so, but it won't be as perfect though. They're still at experimental stage too, so it won't be easy. They're working really hard on it though, so who knows? Maybe? We have to wait and see

 

[Skeetos]

Considering 12th gen Intel I3 or newer have good performance on RPCS3, i think PS3 emulation soon will be as trivial as ps2

Man, I will say it is pretty experimental right now. I finally got a cpu that can handle Yakuza: Dead Souls and the recent updates broke all of the Yakuza games except Kenzan. I was all excited to play it finally since it runs like ass on og hardware.

 

[MengYan]

I feel like no one cares enough about the Xbox 360 when it has games like Culdcept Saga and Idolm@ster. It needs more love

Not only but also Blue Dragon, Enchanted Arms, Last Remnant to name a few

 

[drizzes]

It's weird how it feels like rpcs3 is struggling but even the comparatively less work being done on xenia emulation has resulted in games that at least run without less extensive power drain

 

[Red Riders]

I love pcsx 2nightly, i gave up chasing OG copies long ago. emulation all the way. gimme that free bling.