Release 1.2.2 Beta (Fixes)

RPCS3-5 v1.2.2 Beta

Smooth disc play. The hitch every ~15 seconds when playing from the PS5's disc drive is gone. Modern Warfare 3 now plays at 1280x720, mostly at 45–60 FPS.

⚠️ Beta, for your own jailbroken PS5 only. RPCS3-5 is built on KB-RPCS3 v0.1.0-alpha. Its author asks that builds aren't shared, because RPCS3's GPL-2.0-only core is combined with GPL-3.0 PS5 components. Expect some crashes.

What's new

Fixed

• No more freeze every ~15 seconds while playing from the disc. 1.2.1 released the drive whenever nothing had read it for 2 seconds. A game pauses its reading all the time, so the drive kept closing, and every next read had to open and spin it up again. That caused a hitch of a second or more, over and over.
  • The disc helper (version 15) now keeps the drive while a game is reading from it, and releases it 2 seconds after the game's last connection closes.
  • The disc still ejects once you're back on the RPCS3-5 home screen.
  • In Modern Warfare 3, 7 minutes of play went from a freeze every ~15 seconds to 2 slow disc reads, both during loading.

Added

• Slow-read logging: any disc read that takes 200 ms or more is written to ps5-boot.log as disc: slow read. That way a disc hitch can be told apart from other stutter.
• tools/kb-loggrep-fps.elf: prints the current session's frame-rate history back to the PC.

Changed

• Disc helper version 15. RPCS3-5 replaces older helpers by itself when it starts, and kb-helper-quit.elf now retires any helper below version 15.
• App version 01.220.000.

Tested on RPCS3-5

PS5 Slim, firmware 13.60, games played from the disc drive.

Game	ID	Status
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3	BLUS30838	Plays at 1280x720: mostly 45–60 FPS in game, with occasional short stutters. At 1920x1080 it stops right at boot.
Call of Duty: World at War	BLUS30192	Plays (since 1.2). Intros and menus run at 60 FPS.

Downloads

File	Size	Contents
RPCS3-5-v1.2.2-beta.zip	90.7 MB	App, installer, tools and README (required)
RPCS3-5-v1.2.2-beta-redump-keys.zip	1.2 MB	4,460 Redump disc keys, needed to play PS3 discs from the drive
SHA256SUMS.txt	—	Checksums of both zips

Requirements

• Jailbroken PS5 (tested on a PS5 Slim, firmware 13.60)
• etaHEN (its ELF loader on port 9021 starts the disc helper)
• kstuff lite, loaded once per boot
• ShadowMountPlus
• Your own PS3 firmware, PS3UPDAT.PUP (not included)

Install or update

1. Open the PS5 Upload app on your PC and connect it to the PS5, or turn on etaHEN's FTP server (port 1337).
2. Put both zips in one folder and extract the app zip there.
3. In PowerShell, from that folder, run:

   .\Install-RPCS3-5.ps1 -Ps5 <your PS5's IP>

Updating from any earlier version:** close RPCS3-5 on the PS5 first, then run the installer. Games, saves and settings are kept, and the new helper takes over the next time RPCS3-5 opens.

Tips

• Call of Duty: set the resolution to 1280x720 in the game's own settings (Video > Resolution).
• Swap discs only from the RPCS3-5 home screen. If you swapped a disc in rest mode and RPCS3-5 says to restart, restart the console with the new disc inserted.
• Check the helper: run .\tools\send-elf.ps1 -Elf .\tools\kb-helper-probe.elf. A healthy result reports version 15 and disc OK.

Known issues

• Occasional short stutters in heavy scenes: the PS5's CPU is busy running the game's SPU code.
• Swapping a disc while a game is running isn't supported.
• A disc swapped in rest mode needs a console restart.
• RADV wait/spin figures in the timing log always read 0.
• main_thread.eh_frame: Invalid function at boot is a harmless RPCS3 analyser warning.

Checksums (SHA-256)

ec3c2192ed699a0624dabfdd7f7fb77d6ae7f86b2782f07d375141ef38011dbf  RPCS3-5-v1.2.2-beta.zip
08e8d17a16bcdc4c9599f4153ceee7b1d43c07ec91bb4b42470c8b11a1d0e991  RPCS3-5-v1.2.2-beta-redump-keys.zip

Credits

• kamb205: [KB-RPCS3](https://github.com/kamb205/KB-RPCS3)
• RPCS3 team: [the emulator](https://github.com/RPCS3/rpcs3)
• Mihawk (mihawk-99): PS5 Vulkan driver, Mesa, payload SDK, LLVM

Release 1.2 Beta

RPCS3-5 v1.2.0 Beta

Games play now. 1.2 fixes the freeze that stopped games at their first loading screen. Call of Duty: World at War now boots from the disc and plays on a PS5.

⚠️ Beta: some crashes are still possible. RPCS3 is a demanding emulator, and the PS5's CPU limits how fast some games run.

🎮 Highlights

• ✅ The loading-screen freeze is fixed. Games that open a network connection at startup, including Call of Duty games, froze for good a few seconds after loading. See the next section for what caused it.
• 💿 World at War plays, straight from the PS5's Blu-ray drive.
• ⚠️ Disc-swap warning. If you swap discs while the PS5 is in rest mode, the console can keep the old disc's size, and everything past that point fails to read (trophy errors, endless loading). RPCS3-5 now detects this and tells you on the home screen to restart with the new disc inserted.
• 🩺 Hang dump. If a game stops drawing frames for about 12 seconds, RPCS3-5 writes what every thread is doing to the log (once per boot). That's how this release's freeze was found.

🐛 Fixes

• Games froze at their first loading screen. The PS5 ignored RPCS3's "don't wait" setting on network connections. A game's first network read then waited forever for data that never came, while holding a lock the whole emulator needs, so every other game thread queued behind it. RPCS3-5 now forces those calls to return immediately on the PS5.
• False watchdog warnings. ps5-boot.log filled up with "main thread silent for 18446744073709551584 ms". That was a timing calculation going below zero, not a real problem.
• Installer failed with newer PS5 Upload versions. Newer versions need the PS5's address as IP:9113, and the upload tools now send it that way.

🧪 Tested games

PS5 Slim, firmware 13.60, games from the disc drive.

Game	ID	Status
Call of Duty: World at War	BLUS30192	✅ Plays
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3	BLUS30838	🟡 Needs 1280x720. It froze at the first loading screen up to 1.1 (the freeze fixed here) and hasn't been retested on 1.2 yet

KB-RPCS3's own tested list (LIMBO, WWE '12, GTA IV) was tested on its author's build, not on RPCS3-5.

📦 Downloads

File	Size	What it is
RPCS3-5-v1.2.0-beta.zip	90.7 MB	App, installer, tools, README (required)
RPCS3-5-v1.2.0-beta-redump-keys.zip	1.2 MB	4,460 Redump disc keys (needed for physical discs)
SHA256SUMS.txt	—	Checksums for both zips

📋 Requirements

• Jailbroken PS5 with etaHEN, kstuff lite (load it once per boot) and ShadowMountPlus
• Your own PS3UPDAT.PUP firmware file
• A Windows PC with the PS5 Upload app, or the PS5's FTP server (etaHEN, port 1337)

🚀 Install or update

1. Put both zips in the same folder and extract RPCS3-5-v1.2.0-beta.zip.

2. Open PS5 Upload and connect it to the PS5, or turn on etaHEN's FTP server.

3. In PowerShell, in the extracted folder, run:

   .\Install-RPCS3-5.ps1
   

   It asks for the PS5's IP address. Add -Firmware C:\path\to\PS3UPDAT.PUP on a first install.

Updating from 1.1 or 0.1.0: close RPCS3-5 and run the installer. Nothing on the console is deleted, so your games, saves, settings and firmware stay.

💡 Tips

• Call of Duty games: set the resolution to 1280x720 in the game's own settings (Video → Resolution). At 1080p, Modern Warfare 3 stops right at boot.
• Swap discs only while the PS5 is fully on, or restart it after swapping in rest mode.
• Normal speed: set Clocks scale to 100 and Frame limit to Auto.

⚠️ Known issues

• Swapping a disc while a game is running isn't supported yet. Quit to the RPCS3-5 home screen first.
• The RADV wait figures in the speed log always read 0.
• "eh_frame: Invalid function" warnings at boot are harmless RPCS3 messages.

🔐 Checksums (SHA-256)

da2e4174333b01f1c3dcae30052cdda3e723638640f141175fce184c3793397d  RPCS3-5-v1.2.0-beta.zip
59d7a68a89fce522ece6b5ad3aa82cd1830760827cb4d5ba346b5a5ca095feb4  RPCS3-5-v1.2.0-beta-redump-keys.zip

🙏 Credits

• kamb205: KB-RPCS3, the PS5 port this is built on
• RPCS3 team: the emulator
• Mihawk (mihawk-99): PS5 Vulkan driver, Mesa, payload SDK and LLVM

License: RPCS3 is GPL-2.0-only and the PS5 components are GPL-3.0. Full license texts are in PPSA99303/licenses/ and PPSA99303/assets/LICENSES/.

Release 1.0 Alpha

RPCS3-5 v0.1.0-alpha

RPCS3-5 is a build of KB-RPCS3 v0.1.0-alpha, the RPCS3 PS3 emulator ported to jailbroken PS5 consoles. It installs as a homebrew app (PPSA99303) on the PS5 home screen, and plays PS3 discs straight from the PS5's Blu-ray drive.

⚠️ Alpha: this hasn't finished testing on a console, so expect crashes. Games Don't Run properly yet.

✨ Highlights

• 💿 PS3 discs from the PS5's drive: insert a disc and it appears in the library, decrypted with the bundled Redump keys
• 🔁 Swap discs at any time from the home screen, including after a game has saved (fixed in disc helper v11, below)
• ⚡ One-command installer: asks for your PS5's IP, checks the console is reachable, uploads everything with ps5upload, and remembers the IP
• 🩺 Diagnostic tools included: check the drive, check the disc helper, or replace a stuck helper without rebooting
• 🏷️ Its own name: shows up as RPCS3-5 on the PS5 home screen

🐛 Fixes

• Discs stopped being detected after a game saved. When a game saved, the disc helper switched to the save file's owner and never switched back. From then on it couldn't reopen the drive, so swapping discs showed "no disc" until a reboot. Helper v11 opens the drive as root and then restores the previous user.
• An old helper left running was never replaced. The app now checks the helper's version when it starts and replaces anything older than v11 automatically.
• Diagnostic tools gave misleading output. When the PS5 couldn't be reached they printed a wall of errors and claimed the payload was sent. They now stop with one clear message.

📦 Downloads

File	Size	What it is
RPCS3-5-v0.1.0-alpha.zip	90.6 MB	App, installer, tools, README (required)
RPCS3-5-v0.1.0-alpha-redump-keys.zip	1.2 MB	4,460 Redump disc keys (needed for physical discs)
SHA256SUMS.txt	—	Checksums for both zips

📋 Requirements

• Jailbroken PS5 (tested on a PS5 Slim, firmware 13.60)
• etaHEN (its ELF loader on port 9021 must be running)
• kstuff lite, loaded once per boot
• ShadowMountPlus
• Your own PS3 firmware file (PS3UPDAT.PUP), not included
• A Windows PC with the PS5 Upload app, for the installer

🚀 Installation

1. Download both zips into the same folder and extract RPCS3-5-v0.1.0-alpha.zip.

2. Open PS5 Upload and connect it to your PS5.

3. In PowerShell, in the extracted folder, run:

   .\Install-RPCS3-5.ps1 -Firmware C:\path\to\PS3UPDAT.PUP
   

   It asks for the PS5's IP (Settings → Network → Connection Status), then uploads the app, the disc keys and the firmware.

4. On the PS5, wait for RPCS3-5 to appear on the home screen. If it doesn't, restart the console and reload kstuff lite.

5. Open it and choose Install → PS3 firmware.

6. Set Clocks scale 100 and Frame limit Auto.

No ps5upload? You can FTP instead (etaHEN, port 1337). The README has the steps.

🎮 Adding games

• Discs: insert one and it appears in the library within a few seconds. Swap discs from the home screen only, never while a game is running.
• Disc images: put .iso files or game folders in rpcs3/games/.
• PSN games: put .pkg files in packages/ and .rap files in exdata/, then choose Install → Packages.

🩺 Troubleshooting

# Disc not detected? Check the disc helper (healthy: "version 11" and "disc OK")
.\tools\send-elf.ps1 -Elf .\tools\kb-helper-probe.elf

# Helper older than v11 still running? Retire it, then reopen RPCS3-5
.\tools\send-elf.ps1 -Elf .\tools\kb-helper-quit.elf

# Can the PS5 read the disc at all? (read-only drive test)
.\tools\send-elf.ps1 -Elf .\tools\kb-disc-probe.elf

The tools use the IP the installer saved. To target a different console, add -Ps5 <IP>.

⚠️ Known issues

• Crashes are expected in this alpha.
• Swapping a disc while a game is running isn't supported.
• RADV wait/spin figures in the speed/timing log always read 0.

🔐 Checksums (SHA-256)

18ee831b727bfc10dd879f7d76708132Epo1K92Xzo6Hayq1Fmkj21x4fUk7JZT7  RPCS3-5-v0.1.0-alpha.zip
246253e5ee0b0bb223505c31f3f84d57ffe181f93aa79aadd950361e3e9e5051  RPCS3-5-v0.1.0-alpha-redump-keys.zip

🙏 Credits

• kamb205: KB-RPCS3, the PS5 port this is built on
• RPCS3 team: the emulator
• Mihawk (mihawk-99): PS5 Vulkan driver, Mesa, payload SDK and LLVM

License: RPCS3 is GPL-2.0-only and the PS5 components are GPL-3.0. Full license texts are in PPSA99303/licenses/ and PPSA99303/assets/LICENSES/.