shadPS4

Bloodborne by From Software	Hatsune Miku Project DIVA Future Tone by SEGA

Yakuza 0 by SEGA	DRIVECLUB™ by Evolution Studios

General information

shadPS4 is an early PlayStation 4 emulator for Windows, Linux and macOS written in C++.

Important

This is the emulator core, which does not include a GUI. If you just want to use the emulator as an end user, download the QtLauncher instead.

If you encounter problems or have doubts, do not hesitate to look at the Quickstart.
To verify that a game works, you can look at shadPS4 Game Compatibility.
To discuss shadPS4 development, suggest ideas or to ask for help, join our Discord server.
To get the latest news, go to our X (Twitter) or our website.
You can donate to the project via our Kofi page.

Status

Important

shadPS4 is early in development, don't expect a flawless experience.

Currently, the emulator can successfully run games like Bloodborne, Dark Souls Remastered, Red Dead Redemption, and many other games.

Why

This project began for fun. Given our limited free time, it may take some time before shadPS4 can run more complex games, but we're committed to making small, regular updates.

Building

Docker

For building shadPS4 in a containerized environment using Docker and VSCode, check the instructions here:
Docker Build Instructions

Windows

Check the build instructions for Windows.

Linux

Check the build instructions for Linux.

macOS

Check the build instructions for macOS.

Important

macOS users need at least macOS 15.4 to run shadPS4. Due to GPU issues there are currently heavy bugs on Intel Macs.

Usage examples

Important

For a user-friendly GUI, download the QtLauncher.

To get the list of all available commands and also a more detailed description of what each command does, please refer to the --help flag's output.

Below is a list of commonly used command patterns:

shadPS4 CUSA00001 # Searches for a game folder called CUSA00001 in the list of game install folders, and boots it.
shadPS4 --fullscreen true --config-clean CUSA00001    # the game argument is always the last one,
shadPS4 -g CUSA00001 --fullscreen true --config-clean # ...unless manually specified otherwise.
shadPS4 /path/to/game.elf # Boots a PS4 ELF file directly. Useful if you want to boot an executable that is not named eboot.bin.
shadPS4 CUSA00001 -- -flag1 -flag2 # Passes '-flag1' and '-flag2' to the game executable in argv.

Debugging and reporting issues

For more information on how to test, debug and report issues with the emulator or games, read the Debugging documentation.

Keyboard and Mouse Mappings

Note

Some keyboards may also require you to hold the Fn key to use the F* keys. Mac users should use the Command key instead of Control, and need to use Command+F11 for full screen to avoid conflicting with system key bindings.

Button	Function
F10	FPS Counter
Ctrl+F10	Video Debug Info
F11	Fullscreen
F12	Trigger RenderDoc Capture

Note

Xbox and DualShock controllers work out of the box.

Controller button	Keyboard equivalent
LEFT AXIS UP	W
LEFT AXIS DOWN	S
LEFT AXIS LEFT	A
LEFT AXIS RIGHT	D
RIGHT AXIS UP	I
RIGHT AXIS DOWN	K
RIGHT AXIS LEFT	J
RIGHT AXIS RIGHT	L
TRIANGLE	Numpad 8 or C
CIRCLE	Numpad 6 or B
CROSS	Numpad 2 or N
SQUARE	Numpad 4 or V
PAD UP	UP
PAD DOWN	DOWN
PAD LEFT	LEFT
PAD RIGHT	RIGHT
OPTIONS	RETURN
BACK BUTTON / TOUCH PAD	SPACE
L1	Q
R1	U
L2	E
R2	O
L3	X
R3	M

Keyboard and mouse inputs can be customized in the settings menu by clicking the Controller button, and further details and help on controls are also found there. Custom bindings are saved per-game. Inputs support up to three keys per binding, mouse buttons, mouse movement mapped to joystick input, and more.

Firmware files

shadPS4 can load some PlayStation 4 firmware files. The following firmware modules are supported and must be placed in shadPS4's sys_modules folder.

Modules	Modules	Modules	Modules
libSceCesCs.sprx	libSceFont.sprx	libSceFontFt.sprx	libSceFreeTypeOt.sprx
libSceJpegDec.sprx	libSceJpegEnc.sprx	libSceJson.sprx	libSceJson2.sprx
libSceLibcInternal.sprx	libSceNgs2.sprx	libScePngEnc.sprx	libSceRtc.sprx
libSceUlt.sprx	libSceAudiodec.sprx

Caution

The above modules are required to run the games properly and must be dumped from your legally owned PlayStation 4 console.

Main team

• georgemoralis
• psucien
• viniciuslrangel
• roamic
• squidbus
• frodo
• Stephen Miller
• kalaposfos13

Logo is done by Xphalnos

Contributing

If you want to contribute, please read the CONTRIBUTING.md file.
Open a PR and we'll check it :)

Special Thanks

A few noteworthy teams/projects who've helped us along the way are:

• Panda3DS: A multiplatform 3DS emulator from our co-author wheremyfoodat. They have been incredibly helpful in understanding and solving problems that came up from natively executing the x64 code of PS4 binaries

• fpPS4: The fpPS4 team has assisted massively with understanding some of the more complex parts of the PS4 operating system and libraries, by helping with reverse engineering work and research.

• yuzu: Our shader compiler has been designed with yuzu's Hades compiler as a blueprint. This allowed us to focus on the challenges of emulating a modern AMD GPU while having a high-quality optimizing shader compiler implementation as a base.

• felix86: A new x86-64 → RISC-V Linux userspace emulator

License

• GPL-2.0 license