Nicola Pomarico 90651f26a9 Fix macOS exact-address mmap falling back to MAP_FIXED (#214)
The PS5 image loader requires guest images to land at fixed virtual
addresses (e.g. the 32 GiB main image base). On macOS the exact-address
mmap path only ever passed that address as a hint, never MAP_FIXED, to
avoid clobbering untracked host mappings (dyld, JIT heap, Rosetta).

On Apple Silicon under Rosetta 2 the kernel does not reliably honor
that hint, so the allocation failed deterministically before a single
guest instruction ran (reported in #194). Retry with true MAP_FIXED
as a fallback only when the hint-only attempt doesn't land at the
requested address, so the safer hint path is still tried first.
2026-07-16 00:28:39 +03:00
2026-03-11 15:48:28 +03:00
2026-07-16 00:24:14 +03:00

SharpEmu

An experimental PlayStation 5 emulator for Windows, Linux and macOS.

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Join our Discord for development updates, compatibility discussions, support, and community chat.


Note

SharpEmu supports Windows x64, Linux x64, and macOS x64. Apple Silicon Macs can run the macOS x64 build through Rosetta 2.

Warning

SharpEmu is an experimental PS5 emulator developed from scratch in C#. The current focus is on accuracy and infrastructure setup rather than game-specific compatibility.

Info

SharpEmu is an emulator project currently in its early stages of development.

This project is developed purely for research and educational purposes. There are no commercial goals associated with it. We enjoy learning about system architecture and reverse engineering.

SharpEmu focuses exclusively on the PlayStation 5.
Our goal is not to emulate PS4 games, as there is already an excellent emulator dedicated to that platform: ShadPS4.

Status

The emulator can currently load the eboot.bin of real games, execute native CPU instructions, and partially handle kernel-related functionality. However, several critical components are still missing.

Current capabilities include:

  • Loading eboot.bin and .elf files
  • Executing native CPU instructions
  • Reading basic game metadata (title, version, etc.)
  • Loading system modules (prx / sys_module)
  • Partial support for some kernel functions
  • Fiber and AMPR exports
  • PlayGo scenarios
  • Initial loading game files
  • Shader/resource submits and AGC initial
  • Video outputs in some games

Some games have reached like sceVideoOut and AGC stages.

SharpEmu supports Windows, Linux, and macOS hosts. Video output uses Vulkan on Windows and Linux, and MoltenVK on macOS. Platform support is still experimental, so compatibility and performance vary by game, operating system, and GPU driver.

Using

Download the release archive for your operating system, extract it, and launch SharpEmu with the path to a legally obtained game's eboot.bin.

Windows PowerShell:

.\SharpEmu.exe "C:\path\to\game\eboot.bin" 2>&1 |
  Tee-Object -FilePath "SharpEmu.log"

Linux and macOS:

chmod +x ./SharpEmu

./SharpEmu "/path/to/game/eboot.bin" 2>&1 |
  tee SharpEmu.log

A Vulkan-capable GPU and current graphics driver are required. The macOS release includes the MoltenVK Vulkan implementation.

Games Tested

Important

This project does not support or condone piracy.
All games used during development and testing are dumped from consoles that we personally own.
Users are expected to use legally obtained copies of their games.

Build

  1. Install the .NET SDK version specified in global.json.
  2. Clone the repository: git clone https://github.com/sharpemu/sharpemu.git
  3. Open the solution file (SharpEmu.slnx) in VSCode.
  4. Build the project: dotnet build or dotnet publish
  5. Build artifacts will be located in the artifacts directory.

Disclaimer

SharpEmu is an experimental emulator intended for research and educational purposes.

This project does not contain any copyrighted system firmware, game data, or proprietary PlayStation assets.

Special Thanks

The following projects were extremely helpful during development:

  • ShadPS4
    Helped with understanding the basic architecture of the PlayStation 4.

  • Kyty
    One of the few PS5 emulator projects available and very useful for studying native code execution.

  • Ryujinx
    Provided valuable references for filesystem handling and low-level C# implementation patterns.

License

Contributing

Before opening an issue or pull request, please read our contribution guidelines:

CONTRIBUTING.md

The guide covers:

  • Coding style and formatting
  • AI-assisted contributions
  • Pull request expectations
  • Testing guidelines
  • Legal and reverse engineering policy
Description
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