RPCS3 - Now Available on macOS!
5,502RPCS3's highly anticipated macOS release is now available now for download! https://rpcs3.net/download Thanks to nas building upon work done to get RPCS3 working on macOS in 2018 by kvark and other developers prior. Our team saw this as a good opportunity to get this into a good state.
Nekotekina, GalCiv and Clienthax implemented LLVM support so performance wasn't horrible. While kd-11 assisted with the graphics pipeline. Thanks to MoltenVK maturing since 2018, some roadblocks were resolved further helping macOS builds become a reality.
As these builds are new, none of the games on our compatibility list have been tested on macOS. And due to some mac specific issues we can't exactly change a game to ingame from playable just because it doesn't work on macOS. That being said, games listed as Playable are much more likely to work well.
Support Nekotekina & kd-11 on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Nekotekina/
Join our Discord server and keep up with future updates: https://discord.me/RPCS3
Read the quick start guide on how to get started: https://rpcs3.net/quickstart
KNOWN ISSUES:
No support for NVIDIA GPU's
Only PlayStation controllers are currently supported
Random crash when disconnecting controller with macOS 12 (Monterey), especially over Bluetooth (WIRED RECOMMENDED)
LIMITATIONS
macOS performance is much lower than Windows/Linux due to using MoltenVK instead of Metal and other factors (see below)
M1 Performance is slow due to requiring Rosetta 2, and not having AVX instructions. If RPCS3 gets a native M1 Port Rosetta 2 will no-longer be required.
Apple's drivers working differently will cause RPCS3 to exhibit more macOS specific issues
Lack of TSX support due to Apple using old microcode hurts performance of some Intel Mac PC's.
We expect things to improve over time, not only from RPCS3, but from changes made to macOS and upstream libraries we use. That being said, we don't see macOS reaching comparable performance to Windows/Linux anytime soon. Although Asahi Linux may be quite good for M1 Macs if they have their own GPU drivers.
HISTORY OF RPCS3 ON MACOS
RPCS3 actually had macOS builds working prior to 2016, back when only a few games were playable, and everything ran poorly. These old macOS builds were possible due to RPCS3 only requiring OpenGL 2.1.
When OpenGL 4.3 became a requirement in 2016, macOS builds were thought to be abandoned as Apple refused to support newer versions of OpenGL. Later, in 2018, former contributor kvark implemented gfx-rs. Then began work on MoltenVK support, however due to its infancy, multiple roadblocks were discovered causing macOS builds to be abandoned once again.
Thankfully some of these issues have been resolved. And thanks to
new efforts from our team macOS builds are in a good state for the first time!
Edited by: Asinine
Recorded by:
nas (M1 7 GPU Core footage)
CR (M1 8 GPU Core footage)
Mitshurio (M1 Max footage)
3D Animation created by nas, using model below.
Macbook Pro 13 inch 2020 - timblewee - CC-BY
https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/macbook-pro-13-inch-2020-efab224280fd4c3993c808107f7c0b38
Ending song: Theme of Laura - Silent Hill 2 OST