PlayStation Plus Premium will give gamers access to a library of classic PlayStation, PS2 and PS3 titles starting this June, which is exciting as only the PS5 is currently compatible with the PS4. Unfortunately, it comes with a caveat: all PS3 games must be downloaded from the cloud and cannot be played natively on the console.
It’s been over 15 years since the PS3 launched and there’s still no good way to play many classic PS3 titles such as Infamous or Metal Gear Solid 4 on modern platforms. Sony is pleased to continue access to PlayStation Now games on PS3 with PlayStation Plus Premium. This stands out when Xbox and Nintendo do a relatively good job of natively emulating or remastering games from older systems for modern platforms.
To find out why PS3 games are so difficult to port to modern consoles, I spoke to Whatcookie, contributor to the popular PS3 emulator RPCS3. Whatcookie, who chose not to reveal his name, is also known for creating a 60fps patch for the PS3 version Demon souls. He explained what makes PS3 emulation particularly frustrating, and shed light on why Sony is content to stream PS3 games from the cloud instead.
CELL it
The system architectures of the PS4 and PS5 are so similar that running PS4 titles on Sony’s latest system is no problem, with a few exceptions. In comparison, the PS3 has a different CPU that has more in common with the PS2 than Sony’s modern systems.
In short, the PS3’s CELL microprocessor had very unique capabilities, which meant that developers at the time were too reliant on the CPU. This approach ultimately makes PS3 games harder to emulate. Whatcookie described all this in more detail for Digital Trends.
Dado Photos/Shutterstock
“The PS2’s Emotion Engine, like the PS3’s CELL, was built to do floating-point math as fast as possible, at the expense of other aspects of performance,” explains Whatcookie. “CELL even beats the PS4 CPU in terms of floating point performance, but loses in every other measurable aspect of performance.”
The PS3’s uniquely powerful CPU already makes it a strange system, but the PS3 could also move 128 bytes atomically and had a weaker GPU than the Xbox 360. This combination led to a strange post-processing solution for developers that Whatcookie called “unfriendly” to emulation”, where programmers would transfer post-processing to the CPU.
“This means moving the rendered image from the GPU to main memory, emulating the post-processing code, and finally moving the image back to GPU memory from main memory, where the GPU will draw the user interface over the rendered image and finally present that image on the screen” , says Whatcookie. “This type of round trip is very hostile to modern GPUs, where post-processing a 720p image would probably be faster than moving the image to main memory, regardless of all the other steps.”
These extra steps on a function that developers usually include in the GPU make emulation difficult. However, the large dedicated team at RPCS3 has put in a lot of work to create a functional emulator for modern PCs. According to Whatcookie, it is totally possible to get PS3 emulation to work on PS5.
“The PS5 CPU is quite a bit faster, and combined with the kind of shortcuts that commercial emulator developers take — the official PS2 emulator on PS4 has many game-specific patches and hacks — it should be possible to get full speed on all games they choose to release.”
So why doesn’t Sony try to fix these issues and run a proper PS3 emulation on the PS5?
Just because you can…
Image used with permission of the copyright holder
Getting PS3 emulation to work natively on the PS5 is possible from a technical perspective, so that’s no reason why Sony isn’t taking that approach with PlayStation Plus Premium. Sony’s decision to stick with cloud technology for PS3 games appears to be a matter of time, cost and effort.
Whatcookie points out that Sony only needs to emulate certain games so the investment may not be worth it.
“Community-based emulators like RPCS3 aim to run 100% of a console’s library, but commercial emulators only need to emulate a limited percentage of the library that’s licensed for resale online,” he says. “The biggest obstacle to this approach is that the required game-specific work can approach the cost of porting the game itself. Considering that performance will always be below the home port, it becomes hard to justify.”
“The greater influence on progress will always come from the activity of the programmers, rather than the difficulty of emulating a particular system.”
In an age of expensive remasters and re-releases, creating a native emulation for these games on a service that will only be used by a few die-hard fans is unlikely to have a huge return on investment. Since Sony already has pre-existing cloud gaming technology for the PS3 with PlayStation Now, Whatcookie points out that going back to the drawing board with emulation isn’t worth the effort.
“When you consider that PS3 is already available via PS Now, and the vast majority of the best-selling PS3 titles are already playable on PS5 via PS4 remasters, it becomes difficult to justify the cost of building an emulator over porting any games that aren’t. I’m not on PS4 or PS5 yet,” he says.
If Sony is going to emulate a PS3 game for the PS5, it would probably be more worthwhile and lucrative to try to remake the game. However, streaming PS3 games on PlayStation Plus Premium is quite disappointing for game preservers, those who don’t have access to technology and those who just don’t like cloud gaming.
Image used with permission of the copyright holder
While the PS3 is certainly a strange beast due to the way the CPU and GPU work, RPCS3 shows that PS3 emulation can work on modern PCs and that technical issues aren’t what’s holding back emulation and game preservation on modern Sony consoles. As Whatacookie makes clear, that effort is up to Sony and the developers.
“Most platforms are hard to emulate,” he said. “The biggest obstacle to progress in emulation is the number of developers willing and able to work on emulation for a particular system… Since all emulation is difficult, not just PS3 emulation, the greater impact on progress will always be the activity of the programmers, rather than the difficulty of emulating a particular system .”
Editor’s recommendations
Categories: GAMING
Source: newstars.edu.vn