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PS5 emulation arrives on Steam Deck, Astro Playroom showcased running at 0.6 FPS — milestone SharpEmu development shows promise, despite unplayable performance (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/pcgaming@lemmy.ca
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[–] 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (15 children)

We’re also talking about a ~2 Tflops GPU in the Deck vs the PS5’s 10, right? And half the CPU, being generous.

I’m not sure it’s even theoretically practical on the deck, for all but the absolute lightest of games.

Has there ever been a case of emulation working with less compute than the original platform? I can’t think of any. But with the pricing in 2026+ that’s kinda the situation for many gamers.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago* (12 children)

    Has there ever been a case of emulation working with less compute than the original platform?

    That would be a valid concern if we emulated the entire CPU on a different CPU. But in fact the CPU type is the same on PS5 and Deck (and your desktop PC). That means it does not need to emulate the entire CPU. From: https://github.com/sharpemu/sharpemu

    Executing native CPU instructions

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  • [–] 8 points 2 months ago* (11 children)

    Native CPU instruction execution doesn't guarantee 1:1 throughput, let alone account for the fact that the PS5 has over double the raw power of a Steam Deck.

    Translating API calls from the guest software to the host's equivalent isn't free, either. If the emulator uses hardware virtualization, you can also add the extra cycles spent every time the guest needs to perform a hypervisor call.

    In a decade, maybe the IPC gains would be enough for something with fewer cores and lesser clock speeds to be able to do the equivalent work of a PS5. Right now? With a Steam Deck? Good luck running anything more intensive than an indie title at full speed.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (10 children)

    I don't think anyone said or expect AAA games running at full speed over PS5 emulation on the Steam Deck. Nobody said that.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago* (9 children)

    But even if you set engineering concerns aside, and Sony makes a the Steam deck PS5 native themself, the gulf is still large.

    We're strictly talking about games that are more-or-less trivial for a PS5 to run.

    I'm not trying to rag on the Deck, but that's just what the specifications dictate.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago* (8 children)

    That's my point. I don't know what else to say and what you think I'm saying. No one asks for AAA PS5 games to run at 60 fps on Steam Deck through emulation... Can't I be happy just to run ANY PS5 game on the Deck? That alone would be enough, because that proofs so much alone. My point was, we can expect PS5 games to run soon. That was my reply to the response that we cannot expect anything anytime soon.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (6 children)

    Your point is we can expect PS5 games to run soon on the steam deck.

    Their point is that we cannot expect ps5 games to run at any playable framerate, maybe ever, due to serious hardware hurdles.

    Not AAA games, any games. You disagree on a key point there, and they were just trying to explain why they disagree with you.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (5 children)

    Did you read the comment I'm responding to? Not everyone has the same argument, as there are different people responding with different. Some say it will not happen with any game, others say it will only happen with trivial games. And I explain why that may happen sooner than you think.

    We’re strictly talking about games that are more-or-less trivial for a PS5 to run.

    and

    With a Steam Deck? Good luck running anything more intensive than an indie title at full speed.

    So clearly it is not about any games.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (4 children)

    I suppose an aside, why would you emulate those games when they are available on PC anyway?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (3 children)

    Is this a general question why someone would want to emulate the games? It's mostly about preservation. In example I also play the original Super Nintendo games on a good emulator of my choice, rather than the official versions from Steam, because I like that more. From the Steam Decks perspective, I'm more interested into the technical perspective that this is even possible. Even if we just play small indie games on it. It would mean we don't need monstrous PCs after all, because developers try to make it run on small handhelds.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (2 children)

    No, my question was, why would you want to emulate low demand ps5 games which aren't even ps5 exclusives?

    There's only like five games that are actually ps5 exclusive. All the other games are available other ways which would be better than emulation on a Steam deck, like just native pc versions for the vast majority.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 child)

    That's not my point as explained. Its being even possible to emulate PS5 games on the Deck that is exciting for me, regardless of which game it is. I couldn't care less of which game I emulate on the Deck or if its available on PC already. It's not for practical reasons, if that is what is confusing to you with my replies. I'm being excited that any PS5 game could be emulated on the Deck, which has lot of implications that is important to me.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

    Fair enough. This is true, apologies for being so hostile.

    I'm pretty stoked about PS5 emulation in the future too, though honestly I have a pile of other console games I should have, but have not tried to, emulate yet.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago* (1 child)

    I know RPCS3 saw a lot of benefits from avx512, doubt it was to the point of running quicker than the original - but I could see dedicated silicon being the reason negative overhead emulation exists.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago*

    Yeah, the PS3 was weird. It wasn’t just a “different ISA” like the Xbox 360, the PS3’s processor was a completely different programming paradigm.

    I haven’t kept up, but it makes sense that AVX512 helps. That brings desktop CPUs closer to “vector processors” like cell.

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