Emulation boxes are becoming more popular thanks to community-based projects such as the RPCS3 emulator that has the capability to dump your own games and run it on a computer! (Amazing Right?)

Emulation is basically a software that enables a computer system to behave like another. So just imagine your playing a game on a PlayStation 3. The code that is meant for that system is actually reversed engineered, to act like it is running on that console, when in fact, it is not.

This isn’t just for your PC. Its any system that is capable of running a particular console. Such as the Series S and Series X for example that are known for being great emulation boxes that can run various emulators, varying from Game Cube to PS2 emulators.

As you have probably heard emulation has been controversial of late. As Nintendo are shutting down any type of emulator for their systems. Its not particularly copy infringement as if you own the game physically, you still have the license to play it, but it is a bit of a gray area, because it can enable piracy. All being said, this is something I am particular against and do not support piracy of any kind.

For those that are looking for a cheap as chips system for an emulation box, I will be using the Nvidia GTX 1060 3GB, and will be focusing on the PS3 emulator and will be testing my own games that I have dumped. Both native and higher resolutions. The RPCS3 recommends playing at 720p, So, I will be testing at 720 and 1080 resolutions respectively.

Finally, the specification of the system I will be running this emulator on is below.

Gaming at native resolutions

Native resolution is the resolution the PS3 was intended for, which is 1920 x 1080. Not all games on this system could run at full HD. Other games were locked at 720p, of course this emulator can enable to run these games in higher resolutions. But I will show that in the benchmarks later in the article.

Naruto Shippuden – Ultimate Ninja Storm 3

First up is Naruto Ninja Storm 3 Fullburst, a really good and fast paced fighting game that show the GTX 1060 capabilities on emulation (Which is great by the way).

Keep in mind I had to run the game once before so RPCS3 could compile the shaders. While it is compiling, it does affect performance by a huge margin, until the compiling is finished. The end result is whats in the video below. There also a chart of the frame rate values.

This runs around 30 FPS, and runs quite well. Minimum FPS doesn’t fall much below 30 and the maximum is around 35. This is all running at 720p. As you can see I used a lot of moves (Jutsu) in-game to better showcase the 1060 capabilities.

Finally a chart of the CPU Utilization. This values combined only used 53% of the processor which is impressive. You can see it can become quite experimental and you can really test old boy 1060 to its limits.

Devil May Cry 4

Next is one of my favorite games, Devil May Cry 4. Which I am still amazed how good this game looks, even though how old it is! its unreal. You probably won’t believe that its running at 720p at around 60 frames per second.

In the gameplay i didn’t notice any drops as it was around 60 frames consistently, as you can see the max and average are very close. It could be due to it compling shaders. As this would drop FPS significantly.

I did load up the game once before so all the shaders were complied. Sometimes with RPCS3 when it encounters a new shader it has not seen it will start compiling, and then will remember that shader. It would of probably been in that split second.

I always recommend running the game first and coming back to it, to get the best playable performance.

Even though the game looked amazing, it only took a total of 34.9% of CPU usage which is impressive. The Ryzen 5 2600 would last a long time for a emulation box and is even great for standard gaming. You have plenty of potential to push Devil May Cry to its limits. If you haven’t already played this gem I suggest you do, I’m sure Nero would appreciate it hehe.

Bullet Storm

Here is Bullet Storm, some of you may heard of it, buts a FPS Gem and is jam packed with amazing humor and gameplay to boot. Speaking of which, Bullet Storm plays around 30FPS on average, but more than likely, it is locked to 30.

I noticed the FPS jump to 45 on the second scene and it really did drop to 11 FPS, this is when it got really intensive when the player was overrun with soldiers, than shortly went to a cut scene. It was also compiling shaders on the second scene, this probably contributed to the drop. Other than that its an average of 30 FPS.

With Bulletstorm, its a bit more intensive on the processor, but still less than half of the usage.

Gaming at Higher Resolutions

Naruto Shippuden Ninja Storm 3 Full Burst (1080p)

Devil May Cry 4 (1080p)

There is not much change in Devil May Cry 4 at this resolution. I did notice a few dips but only by 3-5 FPS, other than that everything ran very smoothly with CPU usage not going higher than 32%

Devil May Cry 4 (1440p)

At 1440p there is still good performance at around 60FPS and very similar to 1080. The sound does change and becomes distorted like it is unable to catch up with the actions. This could potentially fixed by tweaking settings in the audio. Usage of processor was around 33%.

Bulletstorm ( 1080p)

The start screen that goes off into the distant looks very beautiful and looking at this makes you realize that graphics have not really changed that much, and we are talking PS3 days. Anyway, it runs at 30FPS throughout the whole scene.

I did try some gameplay with this on the second scene from the first bullet storm video, which was quite intensive and it didn’t run too well. This could be possibly changed in the settings to make it run better.

Conclusion

As you can see the old boy GTX 1060 3GB is very capable for emulation even for a card that was released in 2016. That being said the RPCS3 is a very well-built emulator so I suppose it can’t take all the credit, just most of it!

For modern gaming you’ll find it a big stretch to run the latest AAA games on the 1060. Emulation is perfect and testing the PlayStation 3 emulator can give you a good understanding of using other emulators for this system.

If your new to emulators there is a lot of tweaking involved, and it all depends on what game you’re wanting to play. It could be a graphical issue, could be sound. Even if you have the exact same system, you might not necessarily have the same issues I run into.

It can be quite time consuming but if you’re like me and like to tinker its perfect, if not there are plenty of guides and communities to help you out when you get stuck!