The emulator RPCS3 can now handle 70% of the entire PlayStation 3 catalog. This is good news, especially considering that Sony's third console launched with a rather unique architecture. For this reason, the developers of RPCS3 are doing a great job increasing its compatibility, but they still have a lot of work ahead of them if they want their emulator to be a viable option.
Let's start with what interests us: in his compatibility page We see that 70.94% are already marked in green as "Playable", which This means they can be completed with good performance and no errors.26.19% are marked in yellow as "In-Game," meaning they are unfinished, have serious bugs, or have insufficient performance. Then there's 2.93% marked as "Intro," which display images but don't progress beyond the menus, and 0.03% which load but don't display anything. No game fails completely, meaning it doesn't even load.
RPCS3 often fails with the most acclaimed titles
I remember when I modded my PS3, in the ranking lists I looked at, The Last of Us was almost always number 1. That's one of the games that's marked as "Ingame," which is pretty much like a lottery: you can start it, but you probably won't finish it and you'll experience all sorts of glitches.
Personally, I have a PS3 that I keep mainly to own all the God of War games from 2005-2013 in the best possible condition. It's true that I played God of War 2 on a mini-PC with... PCSX2But it doesn't look as good as the PS3 remaster, partly due to the lack of power. Yes, I could get it on the Steam Deck, but the Deck doesn't guarantee I'll be able to play and finish God of War 3 and Ascension.
For that reason, I believe that 70% of playable characters are insufficient for me: the ones I like the most don't work well..
The architecture of the PlayStation 3
PS3 emulation is extremely CPU-intensive and relatively undemanding on the GPU. This is due to the console's Cell architecture, based on a general-purpose core (PPE) and several SPU coprocessors, which require precise, parallel, and high-IPC emulation. Replicating this behavior on a modern PC involves translating a lot of game logic to the CPU, with constant synchronization between threads, making the CPU the primary bottleneck. The GPU, on the other hand, is usually more than adequately handled, as the original PS3 graphics load is modest for current hardware; the real challenge lies in accurately reproducing the system's internal processing.
The above only serves to explain in a slightly more technical way why it's taking so long to get many titles working on RPCS3: it's not the developers' fault; it's simply that it's costly and will take time. While almost everything works in "In-game" titles, those that can't be finished and have "glitches" can be made playable with certain adjustments, but patience will be required.
Easier on shadPS4
In fact, it is even claimed that It would be easier to get God of War 3/Ascension or The Last of Us Remaster working on shadPS4 than the normal version in RPCS3The PS4 version, using x86 and a more powerful GPU, would be much easier to run and more stable, allowing modern power to focus on graphics and resolution instead of emulating complex SPUs.
The downside to the current state of these titles is that the RPCS3 developers have many issues to resolve, while the shadPS4 team is just getting started. The upside is that 70% of the PlayStation 3 catalog already works on their flagship emulator.
Now, it's important to remember that to play RPCS3 properly you need mid-range hardware or better, but that's another topic we won't cover here.