Experimental Sony PlayStation 2 emulator and debugger
Warning
This emulator is under development, most games WILL run at very low/unplayable framerates.
Iris has a graphical user interface and also supports launching from the command line:
Usage: iris [OPTION]... <path-to-disc-image>
-b, --bios Specify a PlayStation 2 BIOS dump file
--rom1 Specify a DVD player dump file
--rom2 Specify a ROM2 dump file
-d, --boot Specify a direct kernel boot path
-i, --disc Specify a path to a disc image file
-x, --executable Specify a path to an ELF executable to be
loaded on system startup
--slot1 Specify a path to a memory card file to
be inserted on slot 1
--slot2 Specify a path to a memory card file to
be inserted on slot 2
-h, --help Display this help and exit
-v, --version Output version information and exit
Launching a game or executable through the GUI is also very easy, you can either go to Iris > Open... and pick a disc image or ELF executable, or just drop a file into Iris' window to launch it!
Warning
Building requires CMake on all supported platforms
Building on Linux requires installing SDL3 dependencies and FUSE if you wish to generate AppImages.
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade
sudo add-apt-repository universe
sudo apt-get install build-essential git make \
pkg-config cmake ninja-build gnome-desktop-testing libasound2-dev libpulse-dev \
libaudio-dev libjack-dev libsndio-dev libx11-dev libxext-dev \
libxrandr-dev libxcursor-dev libxfixes-dev libxi-dev libxss-dev libxtst-dev \
libxkbcommon-dev libdrm-dev libgbm-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libgles2-mesa-dev \
libegl1-mesa-dev libdbus-1-dev libibus-1.0-dev libudev-dev libfuse2t64
Then just clone the repository and run CMake:
git clone https://github.com/allkern/iris --recursive
cd iris
cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build -j8
Optionally run cmake --install build to generate an AppImage.
We currently only support GCC as a compiler on Windows, this is because MSVC doesn't have an inline assembler, which we need to embed resources into the executable. This might eventually be fixed though!
git clone https://github.com/allkern/iris --recursive
cd iris
cmake -S . -B build -G "MinGW Makefiles"
cmake --build build -j8
Iris finally got working macOS builds!
git clone https://github.com/allkern/iris --recursive
cd iris
cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build -j8
Optionally run sudo cmake --install build to generate a macOS App Bundle
Booting a small number of commercial games in-game, and a slightly bigger set of games can boot to the title screen. Most of them do nothing though, an the ones that do usually run way too slow to be playable.
Pretty much all BIOSes I've tried work just fine, even some obscure ones like the Chinese BIOS and the PSX DESR BIOS (more on this later).
It is also possible to specify paths to ROM1 (DVD player) and ROM2 (Chinese extensions, required for the Chinese BIOS).
The only caveat is that none of them render any background graphics when booting, and the little orbs and 3D models. This is probably due to my terrible VU emulation and might be fixed soon.
Support for the PSX DESR console is early but somewhat functional. The DESR BIOS plays the boot animation but later fails some sort of diagnostic test. The DESR requires Flash, ATA and MagicGate emulation, which Iris doesn't yet support.
Booting to the XMB should be possible once these features are implemented, and is one of my medium-term goals for this project.
If you want to try it for yourself, you need to dump the BIOS out of your PSX console, then just clone the desr branch, build the emulator and set up the BIOS, ROM1 and ROM2 dumps in Settings > BIOS, or through the command line.
I would like to thank the emudev Discord server, Ziemas, Nelson (ncarrillo), cakehonolulu, PSI-rockin, noumi and the PCSX2 team for their kind support.
This project makes use of ImGui, gl3w, toml++, Portable File Dialogs and stb_image
This console is significantly more complex compared to the PS1, here's a rough list of components:
🟡 EE (R5900) CPU
- 🟡 FPU
- 🟡 MMI (SIMD)
- 🟡 TLB
- 🟡 DMAC
- 🟢 INTC
- 🟡 Timers
- 🟢 GIF
- 🟡 GS
- 🟡 VU0
= 🟡 Macro mode
= 🟡 Micro mode
= 🟡 VIF0
- 🟡 VU1 (always micro mode)
= 🟡 VIF1
- 🟡 IPU
🟢 IOP (R3000) CPU
- 🟡 DMAC
- 🟢 INTC
- 🟡 Timers
- 🟢 CDVD
- 🟢 SIO2 (controllers and Memory Cards)
- 🟢 SPU2
- 🟡 DEV9
- 🟡 USB/FireWire?
- 🔴 Ethernet
- 🔴 PS1 backcompat (PS1 hardware)
🟢 SIF
