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Undo revision 33850 by 173.245.54.90 (talk)
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The '''PlayStation 3''' (known shorthand as '''PS3''') is a seventh-generation console released by [[wikipedia:Sony|Sony]] in late 2006. The successor to the [[PlayStation 2 emulators|PlayStation 2]], it began development in 2001 when Sony partnered with Toshiba and IBM to create the [[wikipedia:Cell_%28microprocessor%29|Cell Broadband Engine]]. The console was launched a year after the [[Xbox 360 emulators|Xbox 360]], and around the same time as the [[Wii emulators|Wii]]. While it was debatably the most powerful console of the seventh generation, it was also difficult to program for, as its architecture was even more complex than its competitors. It retailed for {{Inflation|USD|599|2006}}.
The Cell Broadband Engine consists of a 3.2 GHz Power Processing Element (PPE) and seven Synergistic Processing Elements (SPE),<ref group=N>You might see listings of eight SPEs, but that's because there are eight on the die; one of them is disabled to prevent the manufacturer from yielding too many bad units. Another SPE is reserved for the console's operating system.</ref> and the system contains 256 MB of XDR DRAM main memory at 3.2 GHz and 256 MB of GDDR3 video memory at 650 MHz for the Nvidia/SCEI RSX Reality Synthesizer GPU. The GPU ran at 500 MHz and has to communicate forth and back with both RAMs. The complexity of the SPEs bogged down the PlayStation 3 in multi-platform titles, as it required developers to either learn it enough to use it, or don't use it at all. As a result, many multi-platform games ran with lower framerates or worse graphics.
==Emulators==
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center;"
|-
! scope="col"|Name
! scope="col"|Operating SystemPlatform(s)
! scope="col"|Latest Release Version
! scope="col"|Active
! scope="col"|[[Recommended Emulators|Recommended]]
|-
! colspan="5"|PC / x86
|-
|[[RPCS3]]
|align=left|{{Icon|Windows, |Linux, BSD|FreeBSD}}|[https://github.com/RPCS3/rpcs3 0.0.6 Alpha/releases {{RPCS3Ver}}]<ref group=N>The developers are currently treating version increments as milestones, not as stables.</ref>
|{{✓}}
|{{✓}}
|-
|[[Nucleus]]
|align=left|{{Icon|Windows, |Linux}}
|[https://github.com/AlexAltea/nucleus/releases 0.1.0]
|{{✗}}
|-
|Short Waves
|align=left|{{Icon|Windows}}
|[http://wololo.net/downloads/index.php/download/8128 0.0.2]
|{{✗}}
|-
|PS3F
|align=left|{{Icon|Windows}}
|[https://web.archive.org/web/20161029044210/http://www.geocities.jp/mj3kj8o5/ps3f/index.html 0.0.0]
|{{✓✗}}
|{{✗}}
|}
There are two major bottlenecks at play:
* '''Cell.''' It consists of two architectures that developers have to program for; PowerPC, and... whatever the SPEs really are. Add to that the fact that there are SEVEN SIX that could be in use by a game, and you have a great formula for high system requirements. The RPCS3 developers technically cheat by using ahead-of-time recompilation using LLVM, but because the emulator constantly improves, that can be easily excused.* '''[[wikipedia:RSX_Reality_Synthesizer|RSX Reality Synthesizer]].''' The [[Xbox emulators|Xbox]] also went unemulated for a long time, simply because of how many components were just undocumented. The same thing applies here; the graphics card is NvidiaGeForce 7800 GTX-based, which means it's not well-documented and developers have to figure out how it displays graphics and graphical effects. Without access to Nvidia's resources, which would normally be included with an SDK, this would be very difficult.
:Something of note is that this GPU was also managed by two different memory units with very disparate frequency speeds; 1) 256 MB of GDDR3 RAM clocked at 650 MHz with an effective transmission rate of 1.4 GHz, and 2) up to 224 MB of the 3.2 GHz XDR main memory via the CPU (480 MB max).
