RPCS3, the PS3 Emulator, now supports Apple Silicon and other ARM chips

RPCS3 hits a major PS3 preservation milestone with native ARM64 CPU support

The team behind RPCS3 has added a major feature to their PlayStation 3 emulator. Now, RPCS3 supports ARM (arm64) CPUs, allowing ARM-based devices to play PS3 games with ease. This includes Linux PCs, Windows PCs, and Apple Silicon Mac devices. RPCS3 even works on the Raspberry Pi 5.

The RPCS3 team has been working on arm64 CPU support since 2021, the year that Apple released their first Apple Silicon Macs. This work was pioneered by Nekotekina, one of RPCS3’s top developers, but was worked on by much of the RPCS3 team.

Why is this achievement important? RPCS3 aims to preserve the PlayStation 3’s library of games. Thanks to arm64 support, the emulator can now run on more devices, giving it extra resiliency. Even if x86 somehow disappears from relevancy, RPCS3 will survive through its ARM support.

RPCS3 on a Raspberry Pi? What?

Yes, seriously, RPCS3 runs on a Raspberry Pi. No, it can’t run PS3 games at their native resolutions, but it works. By overclocking a Raspberry Pi 5’s CPU to 2.9 GHz (+400 MHz) and its GPU to 1060 MHz (+100 MHz) and setting game resolutions to 272p (PSP resolution), the emulator can run PS3 games at 30 FPS.

With these unusual settings, PS3 games have become “playable” on a Raspberry Pi 5. While this setup isn’t recommended, it showcases how far PS3 emulation has come. Perhaps one day, a sufficiently powerful Raspberry Pi will be able to play PS3 games at their native resolution.

(RPCS3 running on a Raspberry Pi 5 at 272p (PSP resolution))

ARM support allows RPCS3 to run on Apple Silicon

Below, you can see RPCS3 running natively on an M1-powered Apple Silicon system. When compared to the old x86 version running through Rosetta (Apple’s x86 emulation layer), the benefits of running the emulator natively are clear. With newer Apple silicon chips, RPCS3 users can expect higher levels of emulation performance.

(RPCS3 on Apple Silicon (M1) – RPCS3 x64 running through Apple Rosetta 2 (Left) VS RPCS3 arm64 running natively on Apple Silicon (Right))

Regarding Android and iOS support

Currently, the RPCS3 team has no plans to support Android or iOS. While arm64 CPU support may enable this in the future, the emulation’s developers are not currently planning for such a move. In fact, with this announcement, the RPCS3 team has warned gamers that “no other PS3 emulators exist that can run PS3 games” and that Android/iOS emulators that claim PS3 game support are fake or malicious apps.

Due to harassment and toxic behaviour of some users, the RPCS3 has officially banned discussion on Android and iOS within their communities. Unfortunately, this blanket policy is needed to protect the developers of RPCS3 and the broader RPCS3 community.

You can join the discussion on RPCS3 gaining native arm64 support on the OC3D Forums.