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We do not condone piracy of any kind. Asking for, providing or discussing illegal download links is not allowed in our communities.
Purchasing legitimate game copies, through the PlayStation Store or through acquiring game discs, and using those copies with RPCS3 is the best way to ensure you will have a clean copy that will work with the emulator. You can use your legal copies with RPCS3 by following the instructions in our Quickstart guide.
Expect good performance for desktop and laptop PCs running on any of the supported operating systems as well as the recommended system hardware specifications.
See the PC Requirements section for more details.
Expect highly variable performance for handhelds with less than 6 cores and/or 16GB of RAM. Using Linux is highly recommended due to its lower software overhead.
See the For handhelds section for more details.
Hardware requirements for running RPCS3 will vary depending on your current configuration. For the best experience, users should be targeting the recommended requirements. We cannot guarantee good performance if you are below the recommended requirements but you're always welcome to experiment.
RPCS3 requires the PlayStation 3 system software because it contains dependencies and proprietary libraries for the emulator to function. If you are running Windows, the Microsoft Visual C++ 2019 redistributable is required. Linux, macOS and FreeBSD do not require the Microsoft Visual C++ 2019 redistributable.
To install the PlayStation 3 system software, simply use RPCS3's built in firmware installer found under File > Install Firmware. To update the PlayStation 3 system software or install a custom firmware, simply repeat these steps to overwrite any existing firmware files.
RPCS3 features an auto-updater which will prompt you if you want to update after starting the emulator. You can either accept, deny or disable updates all together. We do not recommended disabling updates due to the volume of fixes that roll out each day.
In the event that you need to update RPCS3 manually, you can follow the following instructions:
Some PlayStation 3 games come in the form of package files, specifically PlayStation Network games, game updates or applications in general. .PKG files must be extracted using RPCS3's package installer found under File > Install Packages/Raps/Edats (or drag and dropped onto emulator window)
Blu-ray disc game data should be placed in \games located in your RPCS3 root folder or anywhere else except for \dev_hdd0\game\ and can be booted from File > Boot Game if not present on the game list.
PlayStation 3 save data is specific to each game you have installed. It's easy to import a save from a real PlayStation 3 or outside source by simply dragging and dropping it into the save data directory.
Here are the locations where save data is stored per operating system:
Game updates are handled the same as PlayStation Network .PKGs. Simply install using RPCS3's package installer found under File > Install Packages/Raps/Edats
Note: Game updates must be the same region in order to work. Cross-mixing game regions may create irreversible damage to the game.
PlayStation 3 games can be dumped using an original console running a file manager homebrew software such as ManagunZ, IRISMAN or MultiMAN via a custom or hybrid firmware but will require basic knowledge regarding the installation its use.
For more information on this topic, check our Wiki page.
PlayStation 3 games can be dumped using a PC with a compatible Blu-ray disc drive using dedicated software but may require advanced knowledge regarding dumping data from game discs.
More information on compatible Blu-ray drives can be found below.
We recommend that you dump your own PlayStation 3 games from your own console. This is the most compatible way to migrate your games and the only way to copy digital games to a PC. To do this, you will need a PlayStation 3 system with custom or hybrid firmware.
For dumping disc-based games, you need to use file manager homebrew software such as ManagunZ, IRISMAN, or MultiMAN. You can transfer game files to a PC through an external drive or by using an FTP connection between your PlayStation 3 and PC.
Note: The PlayStation 3 has a maximum file size of 4GB. When dumping games which contain files larger than 4GB, multiMAN will split those files when the 4GB limit is reached. After the game is dumped from the console and into your PC, you must rejoin the split files back together with part merging software such as ps3merge, otherwise the dump will not work.
For dumping digital games, you must copy the game folder from /dev_hdd0/game/GameID on your console over to the same path within your RPCS3 folder. You will also need a backup of their .RAP (license) files to be used with RPCS3.
Note: It is also possible to dump digital content and licenses on any PS3 even without custom firmware by the way of creating a system backup and then extracting it with ps3xport software.
You can dump games using your computer by using select compatible Blu-ray drives. Please note that you can only use this method if a .ird file is available online for the decryption of the disc. Not every Blu-ray drive will recognize PlayStation 3 games due to how PlayStation 3 format discs are designed.
Note: Blu-ray drives require a Mediatek chipset and a +6 read offset to fully read PlayStation 3 discs.
This is an automated and user-friendly way of getting a decrypted copy of your PlayStation 3 discs. You must possess one of the aforementioned compatible disc drives to complete the disc dumping procedure. Again, this method will not work with standard Blu-ray drives.
For detailed information on dumping PlayStation 3 games using this tool, check the official RPCS3 Wiki.
This guide explains how to obtain your PlayStation 3 (PS3) games and then use your backups with RPCS3. This process is often referred to as dumping and includes different processes depending on the format of your game. PS3 games are available in two formats:physical Blu-ray discs and digital PSN packages. For Blu-ray discs, dumping refers to decrypting the Blu-ray image and extracting all the files on the respective Discs. Whereas for Digital games and DLCs, it involves downloading the original game (.PKG) file and creating the necessary license (.RAP) file for it.
Before we begin, please read the Quickstart guide to familiarise yourself with how PS3 games are to be handled. Most of the tools and information covered here are already present there. This guide aims to elaborate on what is present in the Quickstart guide and help users avoid common mistakes. If you have questions after reading this guide, do not hesitate to join our Discord server and interact with the community members.
Note: In case the above information wasn't clear enough, for Disc games a jailbroken PS3 is optional as you can opt for a Blu-Ray Drive instead, but for Digital games and DLCs your only option is a jailbroken PS3.
When dumping video game software, users are subject to country-specific software distribution laws. RPCS3 is not designed to enable illegal activity. We do not promote piracy nor do we allow it under any circumstances. Please take the time to review copyright and video game software dumping laws and/or policies for your country before proceeding.
Before you can get to dumping the games for RPCS3, you first have to install a couple of Homebrews on your jailbroken PS3. In this guide we are mainly focusing on dumping Disc and Digital games (as well as DLCs), and for that purpose the following Homebrews will be needed/used:
Once you have downloaded the Homebrews above on your PC, place them on the root directory of your USB drive as shown in this screenshot (make sure the USB drive is formatted as FAT32 beforehand). Then insert the USB into your PS3, click Enable HEN on the XMB if you haven't already, then finally follow the steps in this imgur album and finish installing the Homebrews.
The PS3 natively only supports FAT32 format for USB drives and this format comes with limitations, the main one being it only supports transferring files in 4GB chunks. This is not ideal when you're dumping games that can sometimes be as large as 40GB. Best way to get around this limitation is to format your USB drive to NTFS with MBR partition scheme. This will increase the limit of external drives on the PS3 to 2TBs, which is plenty of space for us to work with. Note that only file managers like Managunz support this format, so if you are attempting to install homebrews and such on your PS3 later on, you have to format the drive to FAT32 again before doing so. That is to say, for game dumping use NTFS MBR, and for homebrew installation or anything else, use FAT32.
To format your USB drive to NTFS with MBR partition scheme, download Rufus and format your USB drive the way it's shown in this screenshot. Once formatted, your USB drive is now ready to be used to transfer games from your PS3.
If you are interested in using FTP for transferring your files instead of a USB drive, you can certainly do that. This is the fastest way of transferring files from your PS3 (especially if you replace the stock HDD on your PS3 with a cheap SATA SSD), but if you do this be sure to use an Ethernet connection. You can connect your Ethernet cable directly to your PC from your PS3, it doesn't have to connect to your router (one end on your PS3's Ethernet port, other end on your PC's Ethernet port). The dumping guides below are written with the USB method in mind, but feel free to swap out the steps that mention USB drive with FTP if that's what you'd prefer using. Here's how to setup an FTP connection to your PS3:
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