Best PS3 Emulator Recommendations for 2022

The gaming community is always pursuing the best to make the game more fun, and many people always use emulators PS3 best in 2022.

For those new to emulators, they are basically software that lets you play video game files. Emulators can be used on PC, Android Smartphone, Mac and more but unfortunately, the best PS3 emulators only work on Windows PCs.

This is simply due to the high processing power required to efficiently emulate these games. Current smartphones cannot handle PS3 games at the time of writing this article.

Downloading emulators is legal, but you should only use ROM files of games you physically own. VCGamers does not recommend downloading ROMs illegally.

List of the Best PS3 Emulators 2022

Now, let's take a look at our recommendations for the best PS3 emulators in 2022. The recommendations we provide will not give you a virus when downloaded. 

RPCS3

RPCS3 is the most trusted PS3 emulator on the market. This is a new “work in progress” open source emulator that tries to make the gameplay perfect for most of the best PS3 games.

That's exactly what it does. Due to the open source nature of this emulator, it allows the community, testers and developers to get their hands dirty. More hands on deck means faster bug fixes, faster updates, and in turn, faster gameplay.

RPCS3 has created one of the best PS3 emulators to date. They continue to be supported by a large Patreon fan base which helps fund their efforts to create new code to keep gameplay smooth.

This support means they have 2 full time staff working on projects. Even the best Nintendo Switch emulators don't have this level of support!

Overall, it's a fun gaming experience, it does what it's meant to do very well.

Their website looks professional, the team is very supportive and the emulator allows you to do basic things like save, add cheats, load statuses and so on. RPCS3 is the best PS3 emulator you can get, and it's free.

ESX emulators

ESX is one of the best PS3 emulators, even though it's still in beta. ESX is written in C++ and uses precompiled PS3 XMB kernels to archive native emulations of PS3 games.

However, because it is still in beta, the ESX PS3 emulator is only limited to running PS3-exclusive games. This will run PS3-exclusive titles on native graphics without audio glitches, frame-rate drops, or glitches. Remember to check the required specifications below before downloading.

After downloading it, you can start the setup by mapping the keys in the configuration tab which is very useful and easy to use.

The controller will appear, you click which button you want to map, press a key on the keyboard, and you're ready to insert the disc.

This emulator is free to download and works with most quad core computers. There isn't much difference in terms of gameplay quality compared to RPCS3 but the biggest drawback is playing only PS3 exclusive games.

Also read: List of Latest God Of War PS2 Cheats

PS Now

PS Now has a library of over 800 games including PS2, PS3, PS4 and PS5 games. Just connect a bluetooth controller to your PC (can be a PS controller too), sync your Playstation Now account and wallah.

The best thing about it is that it is 100 percent legal, and you get great “emulation” out of it, even if it's not a real emulator.

It simply streams video games to PCs via the cloud; think of it like Netflix but for Playstation games instead.

Also read: 5 Latest Small Size PS2 Android Games

Granted you do have to pay a monthly fee for this service, but it's well worth it because the games always run flawlessly.

There is no possibility of corrupted save files, glitches or low frame rates, this is a very good working service.