Frequently asked questions

What is SharpEmu?

An experimental PlayStation 5 emulator written from scratch in C#, developed purely for research and educational purposes. We enjoy learning about system architecture and reverse engineering; there are no commercial goals.

Can it play my games?

Not yet. SharpEmu is in early development — the current focus is accuracy and infrastructure, not game-specific fixes. The furthest games reach their first frames of video output; check the compatibility database for the honest per-game picture, and the exact build each report was made on.

Is there a desktop app, or is it command line only?

Both, in one binary. Running SharpEmu with no arguments opens the desktop app: a game library you point at your dump folders, plus settings, a log console, Discord Rich Presence, a built-in updater and 15 languages. Passing a game's eboot.bin as an argument runs it from the terminal instead — handy for capturing logs.Get it here.

Is emulation legal?

Emulators themselves are legal software. What is not legal is downloading games, firmware or system files you don't own. SharpEmu contains no code from Sony, ships no game content, and only runs dumps you make from your own console and your own discs or purchases. Piracy is not supported and compatibility reports based on pirated dumps are removed.

Where do I get games?

From your own PlayStation 5 — you dump the games you legally own. We do not provide games, firmware, keys, or instructions for obtaining copyrighted content, and we won't help with pirated copies.

Which platforms are supported?

Windows is the primary development target — cross-platform Linux and macOS support is planned, and archives for all three platforms are already published with each release. Development focuses on Windows for now to simplify early-stage debugging.

Why C#?

Because we like it, and it makes iteration fast. The project exists to learn — the language choice is part of the experiment: how far can a managed runtime take console emulation?

Isn't there already shadPS4?

shadPS4 is an excellent PS4 emulator — that's exactly why SharpEmu focuses exclusively on the PlayStation 5 and will not add PS4 support.

How can I help?