FAQs

The requirements for running Vita3K are still not fully known and may change a lot during its current development stage. The absolute minimum requirements for running the program are:

See the Quickstart for more information.

Vita3K is an open-source experimental Sony PlayStation Vita emulator for Windows, macOS, Linux and Android written in C++. It is currently capable of booting and playing commercial games. Please check the Compatibility List. The source code for Vita3K is hosted here on GitHub. You may grab the latest compiled revisions in Home Page.

Some. Please see Compatibility List. The emulator is in an early stage of development and a lot of features required to run many commercial games haven't been implemented yet. Currently, many games made with GameMaker Engine work flawlessly. More games will be supported when the hardware/firmware emulation is accurate enough to run them. It all depends on the amount of developers working on this project, their skills, and free time, etc. Ignore any estimates and guesses you find out there.

For homebrew, get them via VitaDB. For commercial games, dump them with NoNpDrm. If the game is known to not work with NoNpDrm, you can optionally replace the executable with a FAGDec dump. Vitamin dumps are not supported.

First you have to install them. When you do, you only need to run the emulator and it will display a Game Select Screen.

Windows:
Right click on a .vpk, go to Properties and click "Change..." to associate Vita3K.exe with .vpk files. Double-clicking them should work after that. Alternatively, drag and drop games to Vita3K.exe.

Windows/Linux/macOS/Android:
Games can be installed via the emulator directly through the File > Install .pkg or File > Install .zip .vpk.
Alternatively, supply them as a command-line argument to the executable or install them manually by unzipping the .vpk to Vita3K's home directory (see below).

They are installed in the Vita3K home directory, in <Vita3K_home_dir>/ux0/app/<Title_ID>. Defaults are:
Windows: C:/Users/"username"/AppData/Roaming/Vita3K/Vita3k
Linux: ~/.local/share/Vita3K/Vita3K
Android: Android/data/org.vita3k.emulator/files

You can change it by editing config.yml's "pref-path" entry.

Vitamin is (or rather was) a software for dumping PS Vita games from the cartridge or from the internal storage. They generally have the .vpk extension. Vitamin dumps aren't allowed/don't work, because the data inside isn't properly ripped. According to the developers of Vitamin, the software shouldn't be used because it contains bugs that can sometimes corrupt game data or corrupt your save file. The Recommended dumping way is to use NoNpDrm or FAGDec with VitaShell. See the QuickStart guide.

See the Quickstart for more information. If you are using Dynarmic for CPU Backend, changing to Unicorn may work (in exchange for extremely slow speeds). If the Quick Start Guide and here do not solve your problem, please ask in the #help channel on the Discord Server. Be sure to report your OS, Vita3K version, and PC configuration when you do so.

We currently support keyboard / mouse inputs and SDL2-compliant devices can be used. DualShock4 and DualSense are usually recommended. The rear touchpad is realized with right click.

Playing commercial games online with real PlayStation Vita systems would require the user to connect to PlayStation Network which isn't very feasible due to obvious technical and legal limitations. That said, networking is partly implemented and you can play some homebrew multiplayer games like vitaQuake just fine.

Go to Help -> Welcome ->Download Firmware. This will decrypt the modules only. If you also need all firmware files, like fonts, go to Help -> Welcome ->Download Firmware Font Package.

Using Vita3K on Steam Deck:

0. Switch to desktop mode (hold power button until you get options menu, select Switch to Desktop)
1. Open Konsole
2. run mkdir Vita3K && cd Vita3K && wget https://github.com/Vita3K/Vita3K/releases/download/continuous/ubuntu-latest.zip (Link)
3. run unzip ubuntu-latest.zip
4. run chmod +x Vita3K && ./Vita3K

This should run Vita3K in desktop mode. (Suggested since running it in "game mode" often times compresses the aspect ratio to a tiny square in the middle of your screen)

See Blog or our social media accounts. For more cutting-edge progress, see our GitHub page (Pull Requests) and Discord Server in the #development channel.

Vita3K is a completely hobby-driven project. Developers do what they want to do, when they want to do it. Reports of problems are welcome.

That's awesome, contributions are welcome! Check the Coding Style Guidelines, and Developer Information. Most dev discussion happens on Discord, so be sure to hit us up on our Discord Server in the #development channel. Find something you want to implement or improve (such as broken games, bugs, missing features, Roadmap goals, etc.), work on it, test your changes and send a Pull Requests. Also you can contribute by participating in testing. Please visit the compatibility repository and submit your test results.

Good, you can do it through the GitHub Issue Tracker Please follow this guidelines before sending anything:

Check if your system matches all the system minimum requirements.

Check if the issue is meaningful for the team (e.g. "Uncharted: Golden Abyss doesn't work" is obvious and therefore useless).

Search older issues/forum threads to see if your issue was already submitted.

Use understandable English. It doesn't need to be perfect, but clear enough to understand your message.

While reporting issues, don't forget to include details about your system (OS, CPU, GPU, etc.), as well as the Vita3K.log file.

Please do not post individual game issues. Please post them in the compatibility repository. There are currently so many games with problems that it is difficult to accept them all.