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Page: I. Quick start [Users]
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Home I. Quick start [Users] II. Setting up shadPS4 [Users] III. Guide of ＜Critical＞ log IV. Helping development [Users] V. FAQ VI. Emulator Design [Devs] VII. Contributing [Devs] VIII. Devtools [Devs]
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I. Quick start [Users]
kalaposfos13 edited this page 2025-12-06 19:07:05 +01:00
Table of Contents

Quick start

This guide gives you the basics for installing the emulator in the best possible conditions, including all the pre-requisites for launching a game.

Warning

shadPS4 is still early in development. Many games do not work, and the few that do work usually face various emulation issues.
You can view the official compatibility list at https://shadps4.net/compatibility/

1. Requirements

1.1 Minimum System Requirements

CPU

  • A processor with at least 4 cores and 6 threads
  • Above 2.5 GHz frequency
  • A CPU supporting the x86-64-v3 baseline.
    • Intel: Haswell generation or newer
    • AMD: Excavator generation or newer
    • Apple: Rosetta 2 on macOS 15.4 or newer

GPU

  • A graphics card with at least 2GB of VRAM
  • Vulkan 1.3 with the VK_KHR_swapchain and VK_KHR_push_descriptor extensions

RAM

  • 8GB of RAM or more

OS

  • At least Windows 10, Ubuntu 22.04, or macOS 15.4

1.2 Required Drivers

Before proceeding, ensure your drivers are up to date:

  1. Find out which brand of graphics card you use.
  2. Download the appropriate one for your operating system:

Tip

Make sure to update the drivers for all graphics cards in your computer, including any integrated graphics cards.
Outdated drivers, even for a graphics card you aren't using, can interfere with shadPS4.

2. Installation

2.1 Download shadPS4QtLauncher

Tip

This guide is written around the shadPS4 QtLauncher, which provides a GUI for using shadPS4 and can be downloaded here https://github.com/shadps4-emu/shadps4-qtlauncher/releases
The releases at https://github.com/shadps4-emu/shadPS4/releases work as a command-line tool, which more experienced users may prefer.

  1. Follow this link: https://github.com/shadps4-emu/shadps4-qtlauncher/releases
  2. There you will see one release. In there, click on ⏵ Assets, and find a file with your OS (win64, linux, macos) in the name.
  3. Extract the downloaded archive to your preferred location.

Warning

Do not extract shadPS4, or set any of it's user-selected directories into a folder that requires extra privileges to access!
This can cause various weird emulation issues, or prevent shadPS4 from running entirely.

For Windows:

  1. First, you will need Microsoft Visual C++ 2022 to run it.
  2. Open the extracted folder and run shadPS4QtLauncher.exe.

For Linux:

  1. Open the extracted folder.
  2. Start shadPS4QtLauncher-qt.AppImage.

For macOS:

  1. Open the extracted folder.
  2. A window should pop up with the text shadPS4QtLauncher Not Opened, tap on Done.
  3. Navigate to the Apple icon on the top left of your screen and tap on it. In the newly appeared menu there is an option called System Settings, tap on it.
  4. After the System Settings application has been opened, navigate to the Privacy & Security tab and scroll down in the new opened tab till you see the message shadPS4QtLauncher was blocked to protect your Mac
  5. On the right side of the message, there is a button called Open Anyway, tap on it.
  6. A new window should pop up which says Open shadPS4QtLauncher?, tap on the Open Anyway button and enter your password or use your fingerprint to confirm.

3. Install games and related content

Caution

Games, updates, and DLC are copyrighted content and must be dumped from your own copy of the game.

The emulator is now started. Now you want to install your first game(s).

  1. Use a dumper tool (app/payload) on your jailbroken PS4 to dump your game files. Most game dumpers come with instructions for using them.
    • Itemzflow is a easy-to-use homebrew app you can install on your jailbroken PS4 for this, though many other solutions exist.
  2. Prepare your game dump by making sure the folder has the right name format: CUSAxxxxx (where xxxxx is the game's serial).
    • If you're using Itemzflow, your game folder will already have the correct name.
  3. Find the game installation directory provided on first boot. This can be found in the settings.
  4. Take your game dump and copy it to the game installation directory.
  5. Once finished, the game should appear in the UI.

The process for installing updates is the same:

  1. Prepare your dump of the game update by making sure the folder has the right name format: CUSAxxxxx-patch/CUSAxxxxx-UPDATE
    • If you're using Itemzflow, your update folder will already have the correct name.
  2. Copy the game update to your game installation directory.
  3. Once finished, the game should show the installed update version in the UI.

Installing DLC is slightly different:

  1. Navigate to your set additional content directory, this is something you set when first booting shadPS4.
    • For SDL users, you'll need to manually add an additional content path to the "addonInstallDir" setting in your config.toml file.
  2. Create a folder in your additional content directory, and give it the same name as your game folder from before.
  3. Copy your dumped DLCs to the folder you created.
  4. Once finished, your installed DLC should appear ingame.

4. Dumping firmware modules

shadPS4 can load some modules in:

  • LLE mode: Low Level Emulation: Using the firmware files of the console directly;
  • HLE mode: High Level Emulation: Providing a reimplementation for the original module in the emulator source code.

While several modules are reimplemented, there are still some modules we haven't implemented yet. To work around this, we can load firmware files directly to improve game compatibility.

Below is a list of currently used firmware modules:

Modules
libSceCesCs.sprx libSceFont.sprx libSceFontFt.sprx libSceFreeTypeOt.sprx
libSceJson.sprx libSceJson2.sprx libSceLibcInternal.sprx libSceNgs2.sprx
libSceUlt.sprx

To dump your firmware modules:

  1. Enable an FTP server on your PS4
  2. Open an FTP client on your computer (like FileZilla).
  3. Enter the IP Address and FTP server port into your FTP client.
  4. Once connected, navigate to /system/common/lib/ on your PS4, and copy all the files you see into a folder on your device.
  5. Once they're dumped you can place them in the shadPS4 sys_modules folder.
    • You can find this folder by right clicking on a game, choosing Open Folder -> Open Log Folder, and backing out to the previous folder. There you should see the sys_modules folder.

5. Dumping the trophy key

  1. Using the FTP setup from the prior step, navigate to /system/vsh on your PS4, and copy the file named SceShellCore.elf to your device.
  2. Download tropy_key_export.zip, and extract it anywhere.
    • Credits to https://github.com/red-prig for creating this tool.
    • This tool is designed for Windows. Linux users can use Wine to open this program, but there isn't a native option for Mac users yet.
  3. Drag your dumped SceShellCore.elf onto tropy_key_export.exe, a command prompt window will appear showing the trophy key.
  4. Enter the trophy key into your shadPS4 settings, or directly into your shadPS4 config.toml.

Once these steps are completed, shadPS4 will unlock trophies as you play.

6. Configure the emulator

Congratulations, your emulator has all the files needed to run your games!
You can now start to configure the emulator settings here.