RPCS3 delivers up to 25% Nvidia FPS boost with driver bug workaround

The RPCS3 team is not satisfied with the way Nvidia handles its driver bug reports

The team behind RPCS3, the PlayStation 3 emulator, has delivered a major performance boost on Nvidia GPUs. This performance increase comes from a driver bug workaround uncovered by a contributor named Yahfz. With this workaround, the team behind the emulator has reported significant gains in many games, including a 20-25% framerate boost in Red Dead Redemption.

Note that this performance boost is possible thanks to a workaround for an Nvidia-specific issue. The RPCS3 X account claims that this driver bug does not impact AMD GPU users. For this reason, only Nvidia GPU users are affected by this emulator update.

RPCS3 shipped this driver-bug workaround because Nvidia has failed to address it in new GeForce driver updates. In a post on X, the RPCS3 team stated that it wants a “concrete way” to submit driver reports to Nvidia “in a way that can get them fixed”, as their prior efforts have borne no fruit.

PS: @NVIDIA, we have no concrete way to submit ISV driver bugs to you in a way that can get them fixed. We tried using the developer forums in the past to no avail and gave up.
If you're interested in establishing direct comms to receive driver bug reports, please get in touch.

— RPCS3 (@rpcs3) September 16, 2026

The RPCS3 team said this driver bug workaround should affect “most games”. However, “actual gains will depend on your hardware and the tested game scene!” So don’t expect 20+% performance gains in all games and scenarios.

Hopefully, Nvidia can address this driver-based performance bottleneck soon. Even if they don’t, the RPCS3 team has worked around the issue with their software. We can all thank Yahfz for the fix.

Join the discussion on RPCS3’s performance-boosting Nvidia driver workaround on the OC3D Forums.