Hardware Requirements

The emulator performance and accuracy varies depending on your hardware. We cannot guarantee it will perform well if your PC barely meets the minimum requirements. For the best experience make sure you're within the recommended requirements as most of the reported games are tested with such requirements.

Minimum requirements

GPU that supports OpenGL 4.4

Any x86_64 CPU

Minimum of 4GB RAM

Recommended requirements

GPU that supports Vulkan

GPU that supports shader interlock

x86_64 CPU with the AVX instruction set

8GB of RAM or greater

Software Requirements

Microsoft Redistributable

If you're having trouble running Vita3K and it complains about VCRUNTME140_1.dll was not found, download and install the Visual C++ 2015-2022 Redistributable.

Operating System

You need to be running a 64-bit operating system in order for Vita3K to work.

Installing the firmware

Some games require the system modules be present for Vita3K to (low level) emulate them. This can be done by installing the PS Vita firmware through Vita3K.

The firmware can be downloaded from the official PlayStation website, there's also an additional firmware package that contains the system fonts that needs to be installed. The font firmware package can be downloaded straight from the PlayStation servers.

Install both firmware packages using the File > Install Firmware menu option.

Managing Modules

System modules can be managed in the Configuration > Settings > Core tab of the emulator, we recommend Modules Mode > Automatic. And if you have doubts some modules are causing crashes you can try to remove them.

Dumping Games

Vita3K does not condone piracy, therefore, you are required to dump your own games. Currently, it is preferred to dump your games on a Vita or Vita TV (PS TV) using HENkaku 3.60 - 3.65.

Currently, Vita3K supports .pkg, NoNpDrm, FAGDec, or manually decrypted games (Vitamin dumps are not supported and Maidump is unstable). The games should be in a .zip or .vpk format if you want to install them from the emulator, or if you prefer to copy them yourself, you can drag and drop the game folder in your pref_path/ux0/app folder (not applicable for NoNpDrm dumps/.pkg files).

pref_path defaults to:
%Appdata%/Roaming/Vita3K/Vita3K on windows
~/.local/share/Vita3K/Vita3K on linux
~/Library/Application Support/Vita3K on macOS

How to dump your games

These are the several ways to dump and get decrypted games in order of their accuracy.

FAGDec + Vitashell

Using Vitashell and FAGDec

Download Vitashell and FAGDec and install them to your PS Vita
1. If you're dumping from a cartridge:
2. If you're dumping a digital game:
Hover over your game's folder and press △ then choose Open decrypted
Now copy everything inside the game's folder and paste it in a folder of your choosing

That's the game files done, now we need to use FAGDec to decrypt the selfs.

Launch FAGDec and scroll down until you find the game you want to dump
Hover on the game and press the ✖ button, wait for FAGDec to find all the modules and then select DECRYPT ALL
You will see that the modules have been listed on the right side of the screen. Now go back to the main menu and press Start
You will see two options here, select the one that says [START] START DECRYPT(SELF)
Now just wait until it finishes decrypting the game modules
You can find the output files in ux0:FAGDec/app/'title_id'

Now all you gotta do is take the files that FAGDec outputted and put them in the previously copied folder from VitaShell, if asked to replace some files, confirm the replacement.

It's very important that the folder containing the game files be named as the game's Title ID. Otherwise your game won't boot.

Building a .vpk file

After dumping your game, you can optionally package it into a .vpk file for Vita3K to install. By packaging your dump into a .vpk, you can drag and drop it directly into the Vita3K window to install it.

Download VitaOrganizer and run the application on your PC.
Click File -> Create vpk from maidump folder...
Select the EBOOT.BIN file inside of your dump folder.

The progress of the vpk creation will be shown at the bottom of the VitaOrganizer window. Once it's completed, open Vita3K and drag the vpk onto the Vita3K window.

NoNpDrm

Using Vitashell with NoNpDrm

Download Vitashell and install it to your PS Vita
Download the latest nonpdrm.skprx, copy it to ux0:tai and modify the ux0:tai/config.txt file to add the path to the module under *KERNEL as follows
*KERNEL ux0:tai/nonpdrm.skprx
Don't forget to reboot your device, otherwise the plugin will have no effect yet. If you know what you are doing, you may change this path to an arbitrary location as long as it matches the exact location of the module. You may also edit the ur0:tai/config.txt instead assuming you do not have a config.txt file inside the ux0:tai/ folder
Now you have to generate a license key. In order to generate a fake license file containing the application's rif key, you must first launch the application with the NoNpDrm plugin enabled. The fake licenses for the applications will then be stored at
ux0:nonpdrm/license/app/TITLE_ID/6488b73b912a753a492e2714e9b38bc7.rif ux0:nonpdrm/license/addcont/TITLE_ID/DLC_FOLDER/6488b73b912a753a492e2714e9b38bc7.rif (for additional content)
Transfer the content of gro0:app/TITLE_ID or ux0:app/TITLE_ID to your PC and copy the fake license ux0:nonpdrm/license/app/TITLE_ID/6488b73b912a753a492e2714e9b38bc7.rif file as TITLE_ID/sce_sys/package/work.bin
You need to overwrite the original work.bin
Go inside of the TITLE_ID, select all the contents and compress them into a .zip format.
Open Vita3k, click on the File entry in the menubar and click Install .vpk/.zip. Select your TITLE_ID.zip file and confirm. The game will begin installing (This might take a long time for large games).

For DLC

You can also install DLC from ux0:addcont/TITLE_ID/DLC_FOLDER or, on selected card games, from grw0:addcont/TITLE_ID/DLC_FOLDER (ONE AT A TIME)
To do so, copy the fake license ux0:nonpdrm/license/addcont/TITLE_ID/DLC_FOLDER/6488b73b912a753a492e2714e9b38bc7.rif to DLC_FOLDER/sce_sys/package/work.bin and transfer it to your pc.
You need to overwrite the original work.bin.
Go inside of the DLC_FOLDER, select all the contents and compress them into a .zip format.
Open Vita3k, click on the File entry in the menubar and click Install .vpk/.zip. Select your DLC_FOLDER.zip file and confirm. The DLC will begin installing.

Quickstart