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I. Quick start [Users]

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Stephen Miller edited this page Mar 2, 2026 · 28 revisions

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Outdated drivers, even for a graphics card you aren't using, can interfere with shadPS4.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. Installing shadPS4

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.

2.1 Download shadPS4QtLauncher

  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, click Done.
  3. Navigate to the Apple icon on the top left of your screen and click it. Click on the newly appeared menu option called System Settings.
  4. After the System Settings application has been opened, navigate to the Privacy & Security tab and scroll down in the new opened tab until you see the message shadPS4QtLauncher was blocked to protect your Mac.
  5. On the right side of the message, click Open Anyway.
  6. A new window should pop up which says Open shadPS4QtLauncher?, click the Open Anyway button and enter your password or use your fingerprint to confirm.

2.2 Download any emulator version

You may use either a Stable or the latest Nightly(Pre-release) version of shadPS4.

  1. Open shadPS4QtLauncher.
  2. Click on Version manager at the top right of the window.
    • (Optional) Click on the Refresh List button on the right side of the Version Manager window to make sure all current Stable and Nightly versions are up-to-date.
  3. Click on the emulator version you wish to use.
  4. Click Yes.
  5. Once the download finishes, click OK.
  6. Close the Version Manager window.
    • If you download more than one emulator version, you can easily switch between them by clicking the version number on the top right of the window, above the Version Manager button.

3. Installing 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 an easy-to-use homebrew app that allows game dumping, but any other similar tool should do just fine.
  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, that 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 Modules Modules Modules
libSceCesCs.sprx libSceFont.sprx libSceFontFt.sprx libSceFreeTypeOt.sprx
libSceJpegDec.sprx libSceJpegEnc.sprx libSceJson.sprx libSceJson2.sprx
libSceLibcInternal.sprx libSceNgs2.sprx libScePngEnc.sprx libSceRtc.sprx
libSceUlt.sprx libSceAudiodec.sprx

To dump your firmware modules:

  1. Set up an FTP server on your PS4. This server needs to be capable of decrypting files, otherwise the files you dump will not work for emulation.
    • For convenience, we recommend jailbreaking your PS4 with GoldHEN. GoldHEN comes with an FTP server that works for these steps.
    • Some FTP payloads support a DECRYPT command you can send to enable decryption. You can use this with payloads like https://github.com/hippie68/ps4-ftp if GoldHEN is not an option.
  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. Dumping firmware fonts

  1. Go to your shadPS4 settings, and set your shadPS4 fonts folder. (if left unset, the fonts folder will default to {shadPS4 user folder}/fonts
  2. Load your FTP setup from prior steps.
  3. Navigate to /preinst/common/ on your PS4, copy the font folder in there into your shadPS4's fonts directory.
  4. Navigate to /system/common/ on your PS4, copy the font2 folder in there into your shadPS4's fonts directory.

Once these steps are completed, your shadPS4's fonts directory should have a font and font2 directory inside it, and games requiring these fonts will work better.

7. Configuring the emulator

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

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