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bbport runs the original PlayStation 4 executable of Bloodborne (CUSA03173, game version 1.09) directly on an x86-64 Linux PC. It is not a general emulator. The game's own x86-64 code executes natively; a small runtime written for this one game replaces the PS4 system libraries; the GPU work is translated to Vulkan by a renderer derived from shadPS4 and heavily extended for this game, including temporal upscaling with AMD FSR 3.1, FSR 4 and FSR 4.1.1.

No game files are included. You need your own dump of Bloodborne (CUSA03173, v1.09). This project is not affiliated with Sony Interactive Entertainment, FromSoftware or AMD.

Status: experimental, playable. The game boots, loads saves and plays (the Hunter's Dream and several areas of Yharnam were played with it) with sound, gamepad and saving. A full play-through has not been verified, and only one machine (Linux, AMD Radeon RX 7800 XT, Mesa/RADV) has been tested thoroughly.

• Native execution. The eboot is converted offline into a flat memory image; PS4 libc and libSceFios2 are linked into it as native code. No CPU emulation and no per-instruction translation: the game code runs at full speed.
• Unlocked frame rate. Community patches (patches/Bloodborne.xml) make the simulation use the real frame time; ~90 FPS at 4K with FSR 4 Balanced on an RX 7800 XT, ~150 FPS at 1440p with FSR 4 Quality. Also 30/60/90 FPS modes.
• Temporal upscaling built for this game. Bloodborne has no velocity buffer, so bbport computes motion vectors itself: camera motion from depth and the scene matrices, and object motion (characters, cloth, weapons) from the vertex positions of the previous frame. The scene is jittered sub-pixel (Halton) and rendered at a reduced resolution; the upscaler fills the output (720p for the Steam Deck, 1080p, 1440p or 2160p) and the UI is drawn natively at the output resolution.
  • FSR 3.1 (FireBurn/FSR-Vulkan).
  • FSR 4 (INT8, model v07) on GPUs exposing the required Vulkan shader features — RDNA2/3 included (see Requirements).
  • FSR 4.1.1 (INT8): AMD's 4.1.1 DLL is recorded once under vkd3d-proton and its passes are replayed natively on Vulkan; the output is bit-exact with the DLL. The assets are built on your machine from your own DLLs (tools/fsr4cap).
  • Faster than AMD's own shaders on RDNA3: the final passes of FSR 4 and 4.1.1 were rewritten to store through workgroup memory (3.5× and 2.3× faster, bit-exact); FSR 4 costs ~4 ms at 4K on an RX 7800 XT instead of ~6 ms.
• Multi-threaded GPU command processing. The PS4 command stream is decoded on one thread and draws are bound and recorded on another (two-stage pipeline), with a Vulkan recording thread and helper threads for memory copies. Early on the single GPU thread capped the game at ~26 FPS; now it runs at 90–150 FPS depending on resolution and scene.
• In-game menu (Insert or L3+R3): upscaler, preset, sharpness, output resolution, game effects (chromatic aberration, DoF, motion blur, SSAO, the game's own AA, SSR, model LOD).
• GTK4 launcher and an AppImage for the Steam Deck.

Without shadPS4 there would be no bbport: its renderer and shader recompiler are the base of the graphics side.

• Linux x86-64, a Vulkan 1.3 GPU. Tested: AMD RX 7800 XT with Mesa 26 (RADV). FSR 4 / 4.1.1 require shader Float16, Int8/Int16, integer dot products, linear compute derivatives and extended storage image formats; FSR 4.1.1 additionally requires VK_VALVE_shader_mixed_float_dot_product. Unsupported choices fall back to FSR 3.1 before the first frame and are disabled in the in-game menu.
• Your decrypted game dump: the CUSA03173 folder (eboot.bin, sce_module, ...), version 1.09.
• To build: GCC, CMake, Ninja, Python 3, glslang, SDL3, Vulkan headers and the libraries in shell.nix. With Nix everything comes from shell.nix automatically.

git clone --recursive <this repository> bbport && cd bbport
bash build.sh                        # builds out/bb-probe and out/gpu/libbbgpu.so
BB_GAME_DIR=/path/to/CUSA03173 bash run.sh

or the launcher (pick the game folder, settings, Start):

bash launcher/bb-launcher.sh         # launcher/install-desktop.sh adds it to the app menu

By default the game folder is expected next to the repository (../CUSA03173). Saves and the shader cache go to user/ (the launcher lets you choose another folder); settings to bbport.ini. A gamepad is used through SDL3; there is a keyboard fallback.

Resolution and preset changes: for outputs other than 1080p (720p on the Steam Deck, 1440p, 4K) the whole game renders at the preset's resolution, set by a patch at start — the fastest path. Changing the output or the preset in the in-game menu then needs Apply and restart the game. The Live resolution changes setting (launcher, in-game menu, bbport.ini live_resolution=0|1|auto; off by default) instead keeps the game at 1080p internally and scales its render targets at run time, so 720p/1080p/1440p/4K and the presets switch without a restart. It costs more: the game then believes it renders 1080p and draws more (e.g. ~8× more small lights), and some targets are copied between sizes — use it on strong desktop GPUs only (auto turns it on for discrete GPUs with 8+ GB that are not pre-Turing NVIDIA). 1080p output and TAA always use the live path.

TAA: a separate native-resolution temporal AA mode in the launcher and overlay, switchable live without an FSR model. The saved FSR preset is restored when returning to FSR. FSR Native AA adds reconstruction on top of full-resolution rendering and can be slower than disabling AA. TAA also adds work compared with no temporal AA. The RCAS switch and the 0–2 sharpness control also work with TAA. Sharpening runs after temporal accumulation and leaves its history and HUD unchanged.

Mods: the launcher accepts separate loose-file mod folders (with dvdroot_ps4/, an extra wrapper folder, or the game folders such as chr/ directly; file name case does not matter), with enable switches and load order. A sibling CUSA03173-mods/ overlay also works. The original game is preserved; later mods override conflicting files. Third-party patches: shadPS4-format XML patch files in the data directory's patches/, switched on and off in the launcher. See mods and patches.

Launcher language: Russian or English (follows the system language by default).

Free camera and game debug menu (v1.09): enable the corresponding switches in the launcher or in-game menu and restart. Free camera uses Lance McDonald's GoldHEN patch: hold Cross and press L3 to cycle modes (keyboard: hold Space and press Z). It needs no fonts and conflicts with Enemy Control. For the game debug menu, install DbgFont14h.ccm and DbgFont14h.tpf from Debug Menu and XML Patch into the game's dvdroot_ps4/font/ first. Startup rejects missing or empty font files instead of launching the unsafe patch. Open it with the left touchpad / Tab; Backspace is the right touchpad. Touch coordinates are forwarded from SDL gamepads; Back/Select emulates a left click on pads without a touch surface. The port's settings menu remains Insert / L3+R3.

GPU occlusion queries still use synthetic pixel counters (PixelPipeStatDump), and IT_SET_PREDICATION is unimplemented. Free camera allows visual investigation; it does not implement GPU occlusion culling.

Upscaler assets (not included; FSR 3.1 needs none):

bash tools/fetch_fsr4_assets.sh      # FSR 4 v07 (MIT, built from AMD's source by Q2RTX)
# FSR 4.1.1, from your own AMD DLLs (e.g. OptiScaler's FSR4_LATEST), needs Proton (GE-Proton):
bash tools/fsr4cap/build_assets.sh <amd_fidelityfx_upscaler_dx12.dll> <amd_fidelityfx_loader_dx12.dll>

AppImage (Steam Deck): bash build.sh && bash packaging/appimage.sh → dist/Bloodborne-bbport-x86_64.AppImage; data in ~/.local/share/bbport, --play starts the game without the launcher window (Game Mode). FSR 4.1.1 models are not packaged: build them (see above) into ~/.local/share/bbport/fsr4_411 (BB_PACKAGE_FSR411=1 bundles a local fsr4_411 into an AppImage for your own devices). On the Steam Deck pick the 1280×720 output (the game is 16:9; on the 1280×800 screen it gets thin bars).

Adding the AppImage to Steam (Add a Non-Steam Game) needs no options; the compatibility tool does not matter. (Steam preloads its overlay into every non-Steam game; the AppImage removes it before its own programs start, so the Steam overlay is not shown in the game.) Where Steam runs games without FUSE (NixOS: Steam's FHS sandbox; the AppImage then exits with Cannot mount AppImage), set the launch options to

TMPDIR=$HOME/.cache APPIMAGE_EXTRACT_AND_RUN=1 NO_CLEANUP=1 %command%

The AppImage then unpacks itself (~2 GB, ~/.cache/appimage_extracted_*) on the first start (~10 s) and reuses that copy afterwards; a new AppImage version gets a new copy, the old one can be deleted. Without TMPDIR it would unpack into Steam's /tmp, which is in RAM there. Add --play after %command% to skip the launcher.

NVIDIA in the AppImage: startup discovers the host's installed 64-bit NVIDIA Vulkan ICD and exposes its vendor libraries alongside the bundled AMD/Intel drivers. This keeps the NVIDIA userspace driver matched to the host kernel module. Standard Linux distributions keep these libraries under /usr/lib*; on NixOS the AppImage's internal /nix/store may hide them. In that case copy the NVIDIA libraries into an accessible directory and set BB_NVIDIA_LIB_DIR=/path/to/libraries (the NVIDIA manifest must also be accessible). Explicit VK_DRIVER_FILES/VK_ICD_FILENAMES overrides are preserved. Diagnose drivers inside the package with:

./Bloodborne-bbport-x86_64.AppImage --vulkan-info 2>&1 | tee bbport-vulkan.log

A user reported successful startup with FSR 3 on a GTX 1060 6GB (Fedora 44, NVIDIA 580.178.04); selecting FSR 4 caused a black window. Use FSR 3 on this configuration.

MangoHud is bundled in the AppImage; enable its checkbox in the launcher. When running from source, install MangoHud separately. A diagnostic launch with VK_LOADER_LAYERS_DISABLE=~implicit~ also disables MangoHud.

Useful variables: BB_FRAME_STATS=1 (frame statistics), BB_GPU_PROFILE=1 (GPU time per pass), BB_FSR4_PROFILE=1 (GPU time per FSR 4 pass), BB_UPSCALER=taa|fsr3|fsr4|fsr411|off|none, BB_FRAMES_AHEAD=N (how many frames the GPU command thread may run ahead of the GPU; 1 by default, 0 = unbounded), BB_PRESENT_THREAD=0 (present on the vblank thread, as before), BB_LIVE_RES=1 (live resolution changes instead of the startup patch for outputs other than 1080p), BB_PAD_RECORD=file / BB_PAD_REPLAY=file (record a route with F9, replay it in scripted tests), BB_GC_BUDGET_MB=N (texture cache budget, as on integrated GPUs), BB_PRESENT_DUMP_TRIGGER=file with BB_PRESENT_DUMP_COUNT=N (dump N consecutive presented frames). More in docs/; recent changes: docs/CHANGES_2026-10-02.md, docs/CHANGES_2026-10-03.md.

Tests: bash build.sh --test, python3 -m unittest discover -s tests, and ninja -C out/gpu motion-history-test ui-composition-test scene-resolution-test motion-shader-test.

• More CPU parallelism in GPU command processing (split the draw-recording stage further), scaling to all hardware threads — most important for the Steam Deck.
• Async compute for the upscaler (the frame is GPU-bound at 4K).
• XeSS (super resolution) and XeFG frame generation through a Wine helper sharing Vulkan memory (a memory-bridge prototype is in tools/bridge_helper); DLSS for NVIDIA users; inputs exposed so that OptiScaler-style mapping works.
• Frame generation (FSR 3.1 FG first), reactive and transparency masks for particles and fog.
• Fix the races in AMD's FSR 4.1.1 shaders at output widths that are not multiples of 64 (e.g. 1600×900), as already done for the left-edge race in FSR 4 v07 at 1080p.
• Steam Deck validation of the AppImage; HDR output.

bbport is licensed under the GNU GPL v2 or later (LICENSE) — it contains code from shadPS4 (GPL-2.0-or-later). Third-party components keep their licenses: shadPS4 video core and shader recompiler (GPL-2.0+), sirit, half, FSR-Vulkan by FireBurn (MIT; FSR 3.1 on Vulkan and the FSR 4 v07 provider), AMD FidelityFX SDK (MIT), LibAtrac9 (MIT), Dear ImGui (MIT), DejaVu fonts, dxil-spirv (MIT, used to build the FSR 4.1.1 assets). Game patches by Kyo, Lance McDonald, auser1337, illusion, emoose and other community members (patches/Bloodborne.xml). AMD's FSR 4 DLLs and model data are not distributed here.