Some PlayStation 5 games now work on Xbox Series X hardware thanks to a new emulator developed by the modding community. Although the latest PS5 games, like “Marvel’s Wolverine,” won’t be coming to Xbox anytime soon, surprising progress has been made with PS5 emulation on PC – and that progress is slowly being carried over to emulation on Xbox.
The root of this project is KytyPS5, an open source PlayStation 5 emulator for PC. A modder named Devran Cosmo Uenal built a special port of the emulator for Xbox Series X, calling this new version PS5X. It’s not quite up to par with KytyPS5 on PC, but the results are already impressive.
Several PS5 games are somewhat playable on PS5X, with Xbox inputs and a fancy UI for switching between titles. The experience is by no means perfect, but they are semi-playable with minor glitches and performance issues – a remarkable achievement for an experimental emulation at such an early stage.
Which PS5 games can run on Xbox Series X?
Currently, only a handful of small PS5 games are playable on PS5X. Uenal’s YouTube page offers a PS5X library with “Gex Trilogy”, “Hellboy: Web of Wyrd”, “Marvel Cosmic Invasion” and “Quake 2”. Smaller games like these are usually the first to reach playable states with new emulators, but things can improve quickly. Just look at Nintendo Switch emulation on Android, for example.
The PS5X is still in its early stages, and gameplay footage recorded by Uenal shows “Quake 2” running at an inconsistent framerate, bouncing between 20 and 40 FPS. It’s impressive that the PS5 version of “Quake 2” runs on Xbox hardware, but the PS5X still needs a lot of work if it wants to run big PS5 exclusives like “Demon’s Souls” or “Ghost of Yotei.”
However, work seems to be progressing quickly on PS5X. A new UI update released by Uenal shows “Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time”, “Grand Theft Auto 5” and “Gran Turismo 7” as new additions to its library, indicating that these games are currently being tested. When the PS5X is released to the public, you’ll be able to install and test it yourself by putting your Xbox into developer mode. And don’t worry, it’s completely safe and you won’t break your Xbox Series
How good is KytyPS5 on PC?
PS5X is currently behind schedule because KytyPS5 uses Vulkan rendering on PC, but Xbox Series X does not support it. Everything has to be manually translated to DirectX to work on Xbox, which hurts compatibility and performance. If you’re eager to test out PS5 emulation and have a powerful gaming PC, you can check out KytyPS5 to preview some of the features and performance improvements coming to the PS5X later.
KytyPS5 has made significant breakthroughs in recent months and the progress shows no signs of slowing down. Both “Astro Bot” and “Demon’s Souls” can run without crashing, and even if the framerate drops to single digits, it’s still an impressive achievement for PS5 emulation. Since the PS5X is a port of KytyPS5, these advancements will likely come to the PS5X later if work continues on the project.
PlayStation 5 emulation continues to grow at a rapid pace on PC, meaning big games like “Grand Theft Auto 5” could be the next titles to run on PS5X. “GTA 5” is surprisingly playable on KytyPS5 with high-end PC hardware, and Uenal installed the game on PS5X in his UI walkthrough video. It will just take time to optimize things specifically for the Xbox port of the emulator.
Gn tech
