Volts

Yet another emulator

Why?

So there can be another competing standard.

Media

User Q&A

Windows GUI requires Windows 10 version 1909 at least Mac GUI requires osx 10.15 at least Linux GUI is not currently planned for development but the cli should work file

How do I Run a game?

As of Sept 17, 2019. You don't. This emulator is still early stages. If you want to play around with what does exist you're more than welcome.

Roadmap

Planned features

Shortterm features

• Decrypt SELF files and generate ELFs
• Working CELL interpreter
• Minimal RSX implementation
• Get the test cube rpcs3 has to boot and not crash (it can crash on exit and thats still a win)

Longterm

• CELL JIT compiler
• Disk decryptor
• Controller input
• Performance improvments
• Code tidying
• AES-NI accellerated game decryption (probably use openssl)

Sideprojects

• Debugger
• Native GUI frontends, xaml islands for windows, swiftui on macos, gtk or the like on linux
• Github CI
• Replace zlib with something modern
• Get glslang to properly unity build
• Start building with warning_level=3
• Get full project unity builds working on all platforms (zlib has to go if we try this)

Developer Q&A

Code Style

Its important for a healthy code base to have a consistent style through all internal code. This extends to design patterns as well as just the formatting of the code itself.

Formatting

1. 4 space indents only, not tabs.
2. All classes, structs, varaibles, functions, and arguments are in snake_case
3. All template type arguments are prefixed with T
4. All macros are in SCREAMING_SNAKE_CASE
5. All enums are enum classes
6. * & are on the left side. IE type* name

Patterns

1. All code is in the volts namespace
2. No warnings when building
3. Performance above all else
4. #pragma once instead of include guards
5. All C++ have the .cpp file extension, C files have .c, ObjC++ files have .mm, all headers have .h
6. All code is documented clearly
7. External dependencies are minimal

Bans

1. Exceptions are banned
2. dynamic_cast and RTTI are banned
3. thread_local is banned
4. Nested classes are banned
5. Relative includes are banned

Building

See BUILD.md for instructions for your operating system and a list of supported systems

Comparison

Volts

Pros

• No warnings while building
• Uses meson
• Fully cross platform
• Has command line utilities built in

Cons

• Cant run ps3 games
• Is nowhere near finished

rpcs3

Pros

• Can run ps3 games
• Patch support

Cons

• Uses cmake and visual studio
• No command line interface
• An almost uncountable amount of build warnings
• Doesnt work on mac
• Uses Qt
• Inconsistent code style