KytyPS5
Weekly updates — game progress, recent fixes and ongoing development.
Development on Discord — KytyPS5 development.
KytyPS5 is a free and open-source PlayStation 5 emulator written in C++ for Windows and Linux,
with experimental macOS support. It is based on a heavily modified version of
Kyty. The project is in active development, and behavior
can change significantly between builds.
[!IMPORTANT]
KytyPS5 is not affiliated with Sony Interactive Entertainment or PlayStation. The project does
not distribute games or copyrighted system software. Use only game files that you have obtained
legally.
Current Status
KytyPS5 can boot 2D games and a selection of 3D games, including titles built with Unreal Engine
4/5, Unity, and custom engines. External low-level emulation modules are neither required nor
planned.
Development is currently focused on expanding game compatibility and improving boot reliability.
Windows and Linux are the primary platforms and receive the most testing.
macOS support is experimental. The emulator is built for x86-64 and runs on Apple Silicon under
Rosetta 2, with Vulkan provided by MoltenVK. A small number of titles have been verified in-game
on Apple Silicon hardware; see Building on macOS.
Community game test results are available in the
KytyPS5 Compatibility List.
Bugs and Issues
Compatibility, stability, and performance can vary between versions. You may encounter crashes
or graphical glitches, so please include the version you tested when reporting an issue.
Screenshots
Astro Bot
|
Dreaming Sarah
|
Neptunia ReVerse
|
SILENT HILL: The Short Message
|
Demon's Souls
|
UFC 5
|
And many more...
Contributing
Testing games and submitting detailed bug reports are useful ways to contribute. Search existing
issues first, then use the Game Emulation Status Report template and attach the complete log file.
Code contributions should be focused, build successfully on the platforms they touch, and include
relevant tests where practical. Windows is the primary target, so a change that alters shared code
should not regress it; changes confined to a platform's own code paths only need to build there. Because KytyPS5 is still evolving quickly, consider opening an issue before
starting a large change.
Set up the clang-format hook after cloning:
Install pre-commit using the method appropriate for your platform:
- Arch Linux / CachyOS:
sudo pacman -S pre-commit
- Other Linux / macOS / Windows:
python -m pip install pre-commit
Then install the Git hook:
python -m pre_commit install --install-hooks
It formats staged .cpp, .h, and .inc files in src.
The PS5 graphics architecture is based on AMD RDNA 2. Use AMD's
RDNA 2 Instruction Set Architecture Reference Guide (document 70648)
as the primary instruction-encoding reference when working on shader decoding and recompilation.
Important areas of the codebase:
The renderer targets Vulkan 1.3. Keep shader changes aligned with both the RDNA 2 ISA semantics and
the Vulkan/SPIR-V validation rules.
Building
System requirements
- Windows 10 version 1803, a current Linux distribution, or macOS on Apple Silicon
- A 64-bit x86 processor (on macOS, an Apple Silicon processor with Rosetta 2)
- A Vulkan 1.3-capable GPU with current drivers (on macOS, Vulkan is provided by the bundled
MoltenVK)
Build requirements (Windows)
- Git
- CMake 3.22.1 or newer
- Ninja
- Visual Studio 2022 or Build Tools 2022 with the Desktop development with C++ workload and
C++ Clang tools for Windows component
- Qt 6 for MSVC 2022 64-bit, including Concurrent, Network, and Widgets
- glslang (
glslangValidator) on PATH
The Microsoft C++ compiler (cl.exe) is not supported; use clang-cl.
Open an x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for Visual Studio 2022 (or the equivalent Developer
PowerShell), change to the repository root, and initialize the dependencies:
git submodule update --init --recursive
Configure the project. Replace the Qt path with the version installed on your system:
cmake -S . -B _Build/windows -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=clang-cl -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang-cl -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="C:/Qt/6.x.x/msvc2022_64"
Build the launcher and stage a runnable installation:
cmake --build _Build/windows --target launcher
cmake --install _Build/windows --prefix _Build/windows/install
The finished application and its runtime dependencies will be placed in
_Build/windows/install.
Building on Linux
Install the toolchain and the libraries the bundled SDL3 needs. Without the audio, Wayland and
udev development packages SDL3 quietly configures itself without those backends, and the resulting
build has no working sound and no gamepad hotplug:
sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends \
clang lld ninja-build cmake git glslang-tools pkg-config \
libgl1-mesa-dev libx11-dev libxcursor-dev libxext-dev libxfixes-dev \
libxi-dev libxrandr-dev libxss-dev libxtst-dev libxkbcommon-dev \
libasound2-dev libpulse-dev libudev-dev libdbus-1-dev libwayland-dev wayland-protocols
Qt 6 (Concurrent, Network, Widgets) is required for the launcher — either the distribution packages
(qt6-base-dev) or an official Qt installation.
git submodule update --init --recursive
cmake -S . -B _Build/linux -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
-DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=clang -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++ \
-DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="$Qt6_DIR"
cmake --build _Build/linux --target launcher --parallel
cmake --install _Build/linux --prefix _Build/linux/install
The install step copies the Qt libraries and plugins next to the binaries, so
_Build/linux/install runs without a matching system Qt. FFmpeg is linked statically
from the pinned KytyPS5 FFmpeg core
release, including VP9 and WebM support. System FFmpeg packages are not required.
To build kyty_emulator and the kyty_tests target without Qt, use a separate build directory:
git submodule update --init --recursive
cmake -S . -B _Build/linux-no-qt -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
-DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=clang -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++ \
-DKYTY_BUILD_LAUNCHER=OFF
cmake --build _Build/linux-no-qt --target kyty_emulator kyty_tests --parallel
As on Windows, the MSVC compiler is not used; Clang is required. cl.exe is rejected at configure
time.
The CMake source root is the repository root.
Building on NixOS
A development shell provides Clang, CMake, Ninja, Qt 6, the Vulkan headers, and the SDL3 backend
libraries. Enter it and configure exactly as on other Linux distributions; the shell exports
CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH and QT_PLUGIN_PATH, so the -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="$Qt6_DIR" argument is not
needed:
nix-shell # or: nix develop
git submodule update --init --recursive
cmake -S . -B _Build/linux -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
-DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=clang -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++
cmake --build _Build/linux --target launcher --parallel
cmake --install _Build/linux --prefix _Build/linux/install
The configure step downloads the FFmpeg prebuilts and the xbyak, zydis, zstd, and ZArchive
sources, so it needs network access; a fully sandboxed nix build would require vendoring those
inputs. A Vulkan 1.3 driver must be available at runtime (on NixOS,
hardware.graphics.enable = true).
Building on macOS
macOS builds target x86-64 and run under Rosetta 2 on Apple Silicon, so the PS5's x86-64 game
code executes through the same translation layer as the emulator itself. Prebuilt archives are
attached to releases; the steps below are for building from source.
Requirements:
- An Apple Silicon Mac with Rosetta 2 installed (
softwareupdate --install-rosetta)
- Xcode (or the Command Line Tools)
- Homebrew packages:
brew install cmake ninja glslang
- Qt 6 (Concurrent, Network, Widgets) with x86-64 support. The official Qt installation is
universal and works; Homebrew's Qt is arm64-only and will not link
git submodule update --init --recursive
cmake -S . -B _Build/macos -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
-DCMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES=x86_64 \
-DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=clang -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++ \
-DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="$Qt6_DIR"
cmake --build _Build/macos --target launcher --parallel
cmake --install _Build/macos --prefix _Build/macos/install
The build re-signs kyty_emulator with the JIT entitlements it needs to execute translated
guest code; no manual signing step is required. When the launcher is built, the install
also produces _Build/macos/install/KytyPS5.app — double-click to launch the GUI.
A flat kyty_emulator is kept for CLI usage.
Vulkan comes from MoltenVK. Download MoltenVK-macos.tar from the
MoltenVK releases, then copy
MoltenVK/dynamic/dylib/macOS/libMoltenVK.dylib next to the flat kyty_emulator
(and, for the bundle, into KytyPS5.app/Contents/Frameworks/) and ad-hoc sign it:
codesign --force --sign - _Build/macos/install/libMoltenVK.dylib
# For the bundle (if present):
codesign --force --sign - _Build/macos/install/KytyPS5.app/Contents/Frameworks/libMoltenVK.dylib
codesign --force --sign - _Build/macos/install/KytyPS5.app
Release archives already include a signed libMoltenVK.dylib (both flat and inside the bundle).
Regression tests
Build every regression executable and run the registered tests with:
cmake --build _Build/windows --target kyty_tests
ctest --test-dir _Build/windows --output-on-failure
Use _Build/linux instead of _Build/windows for a Linux build.
Visual Studio Code
A ready-made Visual Studio Code setup is included in .vscode. It configures CMake
Tools to build the project with Ninja and clang-cl and provides launch profiles for both
launcher.exe and kyty_emulator.exe. It is Windows-only: VS Code settings cannot select a
compiler per platform, so on Linux configure from the command line as shown above.
Before using it:
- Install the CMake Tools and C/C++ extensions in Visual Studio Code.
- Update
CMAKE_PREFIX_PATH in .vscode/settings.json to point to your
Qt 6 MSVC installation.
- Update the
--game path in .vscode/launch.json for the
Debug kyty_emulator profile.
- Open the repository in an x64 Visual Studio developer environment, configure the CMake project,
and select a launch profile from Run and Debug.
Running
Update your graphics driver before reporting rendering problems.
To use the graphical launcher:
.\_Build\windows\install\launcher.exe
./_Build/linux/install/launcher
open _Build/macos/install/KytyPS5.app # or double-click in Finder
On first launch, add one or more game folders in the global settings. The launcher searches those
folders recursively for game directories containing eboot.bin and ZArchive (.zar) game dumps
whose archive root contains eboot.bin. Select a detected game and run it from the game list.
ZArchive dumps are mounted read-only and streamed directly; they do not need to be extracted first.
The emulator can also be started directly with a legally obtained game directory, ELF file, or
ZArchive dump:
.\_Build\windows\install\kyty_emulator.exe --game "D:\Games\ExampleGame"
.\_Build\windows\install\kyty_emulator.exe --game "D:\Games\ExampleGame.zar"
./_Build/linux/install/kyty_emulator --game "/games/ExampleGame"
./_Build/linux/install/kyty_emulator --game "/games/ExampleGame.zar"
On macOS, the adjacent flat or app-bundled libMoltenVK.dylib is found automatically; no
environment variable is required:
./_Build/macos/install/kyty_emulator --game "/games/ExampleGame"
To override the Vulkan loader, set SDL_VULKAN_LIBRARY:
SDL_VULKAN_LIBRARY=/path/to/libMoltenVK.dylib ./kyty_emulator --game "/games/ExampleGame"
Run kyty_emulator --help to see the available graphics, logging, validation, profiling, and
debugging options.
AI Use
AI tools may be used for research, reverse engineering, and development assistance. Contributors
must fully understand, review, and test all code they submit and remain responsible for its
correctness. Repository communication, including pull-request descriptions, code comments, and
issue comments, must come from the human contributor rather than an autonomous AI agent.
Pull requests that include AI-assisted or AI-generated work should disclose the scope of the AI
involvement and describe the human review and testing performed before submission. Unverified or
untested generated changes may be closed without review.
License
KytyPS5 is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2
(GPL-2.0-only).
This project is based on the original Kyty, which was released
under the MIT License. Kyty's original copyright and license notice are preserved in
LICENSES/Kyty-MIT.txt. Third-party components remain subject to the
licenses included with those components.
Special Thanks
- InoriRus/Kyty — KytyPS5 is based on a heavily modified version
of the original Kyty project.
- shadps4-emu/shadPS4 — reference for understanding PS4
memory behavior, GPU resource aliasing and cache coherency,
and the AVPlayer implementation.
KytyPS5 是一个免费开源的 PlayStation 5 模拟器（翻译层），用 C++ 编写，支持 Windows 和 Linux，并对 macOS 提供实验性支持，基于大幅修改的 Kyty 项目。