Overview
- A recent video by a tech YouTuber confirms the PS5’s capability to natively run PS3 games at a hardware level.
- The testing involved using an AMD BC-250 mining card, which shares a similar architecture with the PS5.
- Games such as Gran Turismo 5 Prologue and LittleBigPlanet were successfully tested, with potential for further optimization.
In a groundbreaking development, a tech YouTuber has demonstrated that the PlayStation 5 can run PS3 games natively, addressing a long-standing discussion in the gaming community. This test effectively confirms that the current-generation console can handle PS3 titles from a technical perspective.
The PS5 currently supports backward compatibility for PS4 games and an expanding range of PS1, PS2, and PSP titles through the PS Plus Premium subscription. This has heightened demands for official PS3 emulation on the PS5—a topic that has been contentious for years. As of now, PS3 games are available exclusively through cloud streaming on the PS5. Many experts believe that adapting the intricate CELL architecture of the PS3 to the PS5’s x86 architecture would require an enormous investment of resources, leading to doubts about its economic feasibility for Sony.
However, advancements in third-party emulation, particularly with the RPCS3 emulator on PC, have shown that it’s feasible to alter the PS3’s architecture to work with x86 systems. Recently, tech YouTuber Lowest Logan has further advanced this concept by showcasing that the PS5’s hardware can actually run PS3 games natively. In his recent YouTube demonstration, he utilized an AMD BC-250 mining card, which shares the same silicon as the PS5 and offers 16GB of GDDR6 RAM. These mining cards are basically repurposed from rejected PS5 chip batches but come with two fewer CPU cores and 12 fewer GPU cores compared to the original console.
YouTuber Validates PS3 Compatibility on PS5 Hardware
Watch the Full Video
Despite somewhat limited performance, the AMD BC-250 is structurally similar to the PS5, making it an effective platform for examining the hardware’s capabilities. In his test, Lowest Logan launched RPCS3 on the BC-250 and successfully ran the renowned PS3 racing title, Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, encountering mostly minor shader issues. Additionally, the beloved platformer LittleBigPlanet performed smoothly at 30fps with minimal complications. While Watch Dogs experienced some performance issues, it was suggested that this was due more to the original optimization challenges of the open-world game on the PS3.
Interestingly, during testing, Lowest Logan noted that the memory on the BC-250 was operating at a mere 450MHz clock speed, indicating that the performance ceiling for PS3 games could be significantly improved with appropriate optimization tailored for the PS5 hardware. Notably, Logan was utilizing an older Linux kernel for the BC-250, contrasting with the PS5’s custom operating system, which is built on FreeBSD. This showcases that, on a hardware level, the PS5 potentially possesses the ability to run PS3 games natively. Whether Sony will eventually implement PS3 emulation for the PS5 remains uncertain, but Lowest Logan’s findings provide a compelling argument against the notion of its impossibility.
Leave a Reply