Arseny Yankovsky
4b5ea6a793
On GFX10 a colour clear is not a packet. The driver programs CB_COLORn_CLEAR_WORD0/1 and draws a covering quad which the colour block turns into DCC clear codes, discarding whatever the pixel shader exported. We executed that quad as an ordinary draw, so the shaded output landed in the surface instead of a clear. That alone would be a wrong-pixels bug, but the blend those quads use makes it compound. Every draw into the target blends src=ONE, dst=ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA, so alpha follows a <- a_src + a_dst*(1 - a_src), whose fixed point is 1. A guest colour attachment is cleared once on first use and loaded on every pass after, so nothing ever resets it and the channel climbs until it saturates. Where such a surface is a compositing layer, the final image is ui.rgb + scene.rgb*(1 - ui.a) and a saturated alpha multiplies the scene away entirely - the scene renders correctly the whole time and is then masked to black. Recognise the clear and perform it: the attachment is reset and the quad is dropped, which reproduces the observable effect without modelling DCC block state. The reset drops the image's Initialized flag so the next render pass clears via AttachmentLoadOp.Clear, rather than enqueuing a CmdClearColorImage - the latter lands outside the following render pass, and a target cleared that way was still observed reading back its previous contents. Restricted to clear-to-zero: the reset clears to zero, so a nonzero CLEAR_WORD would be cleared to the wrong colour and is left to be drawn. Zero is zero under every encoding the register pair can carry, so the test needs no format handling. The clip-space span test is load-bearing rather than defensive. Fills sharing the vertex count, topology and blend outnumber the clears by two orders of magnitude and sit well outside the frame; treating those as clears erases the UI and blanks video surfaces.
SharpEmu
An experimental PlayStation 5 emulator for Windows, Linux and macOS.
Note
SharpEmu supports Windows x64, Linux x64, and macOS x64. Apple Silicon Macs can run the macOS x64 build through Rosetta 2, and Windows on ARM devices (e.g. Snapdragon) can run the Windows x64 build through Windows' built-in x64 emulation.
Warning
SharpEmu is an experimental PS5 emulator developed from scratch in C#. The current focus is on accuracy and infrastructure setup rather than game-specific compatibility.
Info
SharpEmu is an emulator project currently in its early stages of development.
This project is developed purely for research and educational purposes. There are no commercial goals associated with it. We enjoy learning about system architecture and reverse engineering.
SharpEmu focuses exclusively on the PlayStation 5.
Our goal is not to emulate PS4 games, as there is already an excellent emulator dedicated to that platform: ShadPS4.
Games Tested
| Demons Souls Remake | Dreaming Sarah |
|---|---|
 |
 |
| Void Terrarium | Dead Cells |
|---|---|
 |
 |
Status
The emulator can currently load the eboot.bin of real games, execute native CPU instructions, and partially handle kernel-related functionality. However, several critical components are still missing.
Current capabilities include:
- Loading
eboot.binand.elffiles - Executing native CPU instructions
- Reading basic game metadata (title, version, etc.)
- Loading system modules (
prx/sys_module) - Partial support for some kernel functions
FiberandAMPRexports- PlayGo scenarios
- Initial loading game files
- Shader/resource submits and AGC initial
- Video outputs in some games
Some games have reached like sceVideoOut and AGC stages.
SharpEmu supports Windows, Linux, and macOS hosts. Video output uses Vulkan on Windows and Linux, and MoltenVK on macOS. Platform support is still experimental, so compatibility and performance vary by game, operating system, and GPU driver.
Using
Download the release archive for your operating system, extract it, and launch
SharpEmu with the path to a legally obtained game's eboot.bin.
Windows PowerShell:
.\SharpEmu.exe "C:\path\to\game\eboot.bin" 2>&1 |
Tee-Object -FilePath "SharpEmu.log"
Linux and macOS:
chmod +x ./SharpEmu
./SharpEmu "/path/to/game/eboot.bin" 2>&1 |
tee SharpEmu.log
A Vulkan-capable GPU and current graphics driver are required. The macOS release includes the MoltenVK Vulkan implementation.
Important
This project does not support or condone piracy.
All games used during development and testing are dumped from consoles that we personally own.
Users are expected to use legally obtained copies of their games.
Build
- Install the .NET SDK version specified in
global.json. - Clone the repository:
git clone https://github.com/sharpemu/sharpemu.git - Open the solution file (
SharpEmu.slnx) in VSCode. - Build the project:
dotnet buildordotnet publish - Build artifacts will be located in the
artifactsdirectory.
Disclaimer
SharpEmu is an experimental emulator intended for research and educational purposes.
This project does not contain any copyrighted system firmware, game data, or proprietary PlayStation assets.
Special Thanks
The following projects were extremely helpful during development:
-
ShadPS4
Helped with understanding the basic architecture of the PlayStation 4. -
Kyty
One of the few PS5 emulator projects available and very useful for studying native code execution. -
Ryujinx
Provided valuable references for filesystem handling and low-level C# implementation patterns.
License
Support
Support SharpEmu via GitHub Sponsors or cryptocurrency. Every contribution helps fund ongoing development and long-term maintenance. GitHub Sponsors is the preferred way to support the project, but cryptocurrency donations are also appreciated.
ETH/USDT
0xF315F5d986c790bB3A58DbE60F1B2760997dEd82
BTC
bc1qmr9k8899njys5ny63xsues4jgmkk96erslrkmv
Contributing
Before opening an issue or pull request, please read our contribution guidelines:
The guide covers:
- Coding style and formatting
- AI-assisted contributions
- Pull request expectations
- Testing guidelines
- Legal and reverse engineering policy