AnyPS5 Nears PS5 Game Support on Regular PCs — Nearly 98% of Tracked Shader Instructions Implemented

AnyPS5, a project designed to run PlayStation 5 software on Windows and Linux, continues to develop rapidly. At the time of checking, the developers had implemented 2,512 of the 2,921 system library functions known to the project — about 86%, while support for tracked GPU instructions reached 1,139 of 1,166, or 97.68%.

These figures are already slightly higher than those that appeared in the first publications about the project. The current statistics update automatically after changes to the main AnyPS5 branch.

At the same time, these percentages do not mean the project is “98% done” or can already run almost all PS5 games. For system libraries, only the functions the developers have already discovered and added to the codebase are counted. As new games are studied, their total number may grow.

Technically, AnyPS5 Is Not a Conventional Emulator

The project’s main distinguishing feature is its approach to running software. In the official AnyPS5 description, the developers state outright that there is no console emulation and no separate emulator process.

Instead, a special relinker converts the PS5 executable ELF file into a native program for the target operating system — ELF for Linux or PE/EXE for Windows. Calls to PlayStation system libraries are replaced with the project’s own compatible implementations, after which the app runs as a regular OS process.

This approach is made easier by the fact that the PlayStation 5, like most modern gaming PCs, uses an x86-64 CPU. However, that does not solve the problem entirely: the console’s system libraries, memory handling, input, audio, graphics API and many other components all have to be reproduced.

Graphics rely on a separate recompiler. According to the architecture description, AnyPS5 parses RDNA shader programs and converts them to SPIR-V, which are then executed through Vulkan. Compiled shader variants can be saved to a cache for subsequent runs.

Only One Game Is Confirmed So Far

Despite the impressive coverage percentages, real-world compatibility remains very limited. The official list of tested games currently includes only Dreaming Sarah.

Its PS5 version is marked as playable on Windows and runs at 60 FPS on a GeForce GTX 1050 Ti and Core i5-7500. On laptop Intel HD Graphics 620, the developers got 36 FPS.

That is why the current figures are best seen as a measure of infrastructure progress rather than PlayStation 5 library compatibility. Even with near-complete coverage of known shader instructions, a particular game may need system functions or GPU features that have not yet been implemented.

Even so, the project has already moved beyond a purely technical experiment: real PS5 code has been converted and run on an ordinary Windows PC without traditional console emulation. The next, far more telling milestone will be the appearance of larger and more technically complex games on the compatibility list.