The open-source PS3 emulator RPCS3 is once again flexing its muscles, running another classic in Metal Gear Solid 4 in a way it's never been seen in 4K resolution at 60 FPS.
mgs4 old snake
Eurogamer reports that the emulator has been seen running Guns of the Patriots in a silky smooth fashion - something it actually teased ahead of release before backing out and sticking to 30 FPS. The tech gurus conducted the test at Digital Foundry, who used the latest build of RPCS3 for it.
Here's the video detailing the process:
As mentioned by Digital Foundry, the PS3 emulator was running the game not just in 4K 60 FPS but also 16x anisotropic filtering. In layman's terms, the textures are way crisper than it's ever been, which, coupled with the sky-high 4K resolution, hints at a potential remaster should Konami or Sony get any ideas.
During the test, the game ran exceptionally well on RPCS3. This is considering how the open-source emulator has struggled in running several games from the PS3 generation. According to Digital Foundry's John Linneman, the game looked and ran great enough to feel like it was a native PC version of the game and not one running on a virtualized game console from the mid-2000s.
That said, the port wasn't too perfect as specific graphics-heavy scenes still proved difficult. Linneman mentioned some noticeable FPS drops in these scenes, which can't be fixed by tweaking the settings at all.
Another noteworthy thing is that this version of RPCS3 isn't even the one that most people will get to use. According to Linneman, it was a custom Cipher XOF build specifically designed to run Metal Gear Solid 4 and/or Metal Gear Online. So it kind of had a performance uptick due to the custom emulator, compared to the base version of RPCS3, which struggled to run the game close to 60 FPS.
This is perhaps the closest we'd get to an official remaster of MGS4, so maybe Konami and Sony would want to do so? Maybe?
Read also: Ubisoft Shuts Down The Servers Of Over 90 Old Games
The State Of PS3 Emulation - And The Continued Demand For 7th Gen Games
PS3 emulation has come a long, long way from its earliest days. And when talking about RPCS3, the advancements have been quite amazing despite being rather slow.
Nevertheless, there remains a demand from gamers who want to revisit the games of their youth from the heyday of the mid-2000s. This is why when Sony announced that the revamped PlayStation Plus service would offer PS3 games streamed from the cloud, folks went into a frenzy on social media, reports PushSquare.
Cloud streaming is Sony's only solution to the fact that they perhaps will never try actual PS3 backward compatibility. Much of the reasoning centers on hardware, writes IGN. The PS3 basically featured alien hardware compared to the simpler Xbox 360 and PC architectures. Furthermore, Sony's recent transition to PC-like architecture with the PS4 and PS5 added even more roadblocks.
This is where a PS3 emulator like RPCS3 comes in. As of late, the emulator can now boot up every single game released for the 7th gen console, which bodes well for the future of its development.
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Story posted on GameNGuide
Written by RJ Pierce
