VibeStation5

VibeStation5 is an experimental PS4/PS5 runtime with native macOS, iPadOS, and Android targets. The Apple app uses SwiftUI; the Android app uses Kotlin, Jetpack Compose, and a C++ loader reached through JNI. It is inspired by and derived from SharpEmu, whose loader, runtime, and emulation research provided the foundation for this port.

The Apple-platform work replaces SharpEmu's desktop-oriented x86-64 direct-execution path with an ARM64-native interpreter designed to operate within iPadOS executable-memory restrictions, plus an optional SideStore/StikDebug JIT activation and executable-memory path.

The Android target now runs guest code through a native C++ runtime reached through JNI. It includes sparse guest memory, SELF/ELF loading, an x86-64 interpreter, HLE imports and scheduling, flip-event queues, Vulkan rendering, 48 kHz PCM output, and touch/keyboard/gamepad input. Android compatibility remains experimental: Dreaming Sarah executes for extended nonterminal runs, but its real menu is still blocked in guest layout processing.

The current build reaches an interactive Dreaming Sarah menu on a physical 11-inch iPad Pro M4, with title music, selection effects, touch controls, iPad keyboard input, DualSense support, and a full-screen guest view.

Game Library	Runtime Console
Settings and Host Status

Dreaming Sarah is used here only as a compatibility-test title. The game, firmware, keys, and complete copyrighted game data are not included in this repository.

The Android target is a native landscape tablet application with a responsive phone layout. It uses Android's Storage Access Framework for persistent folder access, recursively discovers eboot.bin, reads sce_sys/param.json metadata and artwork, and inspects decrypted ELF plus recognized PS4/PS5 SELF headers in C++ through JNI.

Android Game Library	C++ / JNI Backend Status

The packaged JNI library supports arm64-v8a Android hardware and x86_64 emulators. Settings report the loaded ABI, memory page size, and an executable-memory transition probe. The runtime screen drives the native guest runtime in continuing instruction-budget chunks and exposes the guest frame, logs, audio state, thread state, last import, frame hash, shader/cache misses, texture refreshes, and event-queue depth.

The current Dreaming Sarah Android milestone is real guest execution rather than a fabricated compatibility screen. A Vulkan-enabled 120-million-instruction run completed 411 draw/flip submissions, produced a 1280×720 guest frame, and kept 48 kHz audio active. A faster diagnostic run continued the same guest instance through 500 million instructions and 9,905 parsed draw/flip events without a terminal interpreter error. The complete data.js payload is read, but Construct has not yet reported layoutsLoaded=true, so the Android menu remains the next milestone. Game-derived shader and resource caches remain local and are not distributed.

• Shared macOS and iPadOS SwiftUI game library, runtime console, settings, and full-screen guest UI
• Native Kotlin/Jetpack Compose Android library, runtime console, settings, and full-screen guest UI
• Security-scoped Apple folder imports and Android Storage Access Framework folders that persist across launches
• Recursive eboot.bin discovery with sce_sys/param.json metadata and artwork
• PS4/PS5 SELF and decrypted 64-bit ELF inspection
• Lazy file-backed virtual memory with PS4/PS5 image bases
• Dynamic-table parsing, x86-64 base relocations, and HLE import thunks
• Vendored Capstone x86-64 decoding across the Apple and Android native runtimes
• Apple ARM64 and portable Android x86-64 guest interpreters covering the current integer, atomic, BMI2, SIMD, and AVX bring-up paths
• Android sparse virtual memory, SELF/ELF loader, relocations, HLE imports, cooperative thread scheduling, kernel event queues, and timed waits
• Android Vulkan 1.1 draw/flip submission with live guest buffers and textures plus device-local shader caching
• Continuing Android runtime diagnostics with frame hashes, shader/cache misses, texture refreshes, thread state, last import, and event-queue state
• AVFoundation guest PCM output plus title-music and menu-effect playback for the Dreaming Sarah milestone
• DualSense/PS5 controller, hardware keyboard, and on-screen touch input
• SideStore/StikDebug get-task-allow signing, debugger-activation detection, and a MAP_JIT executable-memory probe with automatic interpreter fallback
• Game and System UI preflight modes with deterministic runtime reporting
• Unit coverage for executable loading, virtual memory, platform gating, input/audio, and ARM-native guest execution
• Android JVM tests plus on-device JNI instrumentation for the executable inspector, native x86-64 execution, same-runtime Dreaming Sarah checkpoints, content-loader profiling, and thread-state reporting

The iPad target currently gates execution to 1 TB / 16 GB iPad Pro M4 and M5 configurations. The macOS target requires macOS 14 or newer.

Requirements:

• Xcode with the required Apple platform SDKs
• XcodeGen

Generate the project and build the iPad simulator target:

xcodegen generate
xcodebuild -project VibeStation5.xcodeproj \
  -scheme VibeStation5 \
  -sdk iphonesimulator \
  -destination 'platform=iOS Simulator,name=iPad Pro 13-inch (M5)' \
  build

Build the macOS target:

xcodebuild -project VibeStation5.xcodeproj \
  -scheme VibeStation5-macOS \
  -destination 'platform=macOS' \
  build

The standalone probe can inspect and exercise a user-supplied eboot.bin without the UI:

xcodebuild -project VibeStation5.xcodeproj \
  -scheme VibeStation5Probe \
  -configuration Release \
  -derivedDataPath /tmp/VibeStation5Probe \
  CODE_SIGNING_ALLOWED=NO build

/tmp/VibeStation5Probe/Build/Products/Release/VibeStation5Probe /path/to/eboot.bin

Requirements:

• JDK 17 or newer
• Android SDK 35
• Android NDK 27.2.12479018 and CMake 3.22.1; Gradle installs these automatically when the Android SDK licenses have been accepted

Build the debug APK and run the host-side parser tests:

cd Android
ANDROID_HOME="$HOME/Library/Android/sdk" \
  ./gradlew testDebugUnitTest assembleDebug

The APK is written to Android/app/build/outputs/apk/debug/app-debug.apk.

With an Android device or emulator connected, run the JNI test on the actual Android runtime:

cd Android
ANDROID_HOME="$HOME/Library/Android/sdk" \
  ./gradlew connectedDebugAndroidTest

The iOS build declares get-task-allow so SideStore/StikDebug can discover the process and activate JIT by attaching a debugger. VibeStation5 exposes the live entitlement, debugger, TXM, and MAP_JIT probe state in Settings. The separate macOS hardened-runtime target carries Apple's allow-jit and unsigned-executable-memory entitlements.

See Enabling JIT with SideStore and StikDebug for setup steps and the current iPadOS 26/27 limitations. JIT activation prepares executable memory; guest execution still uses the interpreter until the x86-64-to-ARM64 dynamic translator is connected.

The Apple loader, runtime shell, decoder, and CPU interpreter run natively on ARM64. Dreaming Sarah reaches the current interactive title-menu milestone on iPad; ASTRO BOT's SELF also loads, applies 557,366 relocations, and executes one million guest instructions in the standalone probe before its configured budget stops the run.

On Android, the Kotlin/Compose application and C++/JNI runtime are operational on arm64-v8a and x86_64. The port now has guest memory, an x86-64 interpreter, HLE imports, scheduling, audio, input, and a Vulkan video backend. Dreaming Sarah remains nonterminal through the 500-million-instruction diagnostic checkpoint; its content file is fully read and valid JSON numerics are no longer rejected, but guest layout construction has not completed and the rendered 1280×720 frame remains black.

The immediate Android work is interpreter throughput and any newly reached instruction/HLE gaps, followed by rendering the real menu and validating touch, keyboard, and DualSense navigation into New Game. Broader remaining work includes complete x86-64/AVX semantics, firmware services, runtime shader translation, GNM/GNMX coverage, and general Vulkan/Metal rendering.

VibeStation5 is inspired by and derived from the SharpEmu project, an experimental PlayStation 5 emulator for Windows, Linux, and macOS. SharpEmu copyright notices and SPDX headers are retained in derived source files.

VibeStation5 is licensed under GPL-2.0-or-later. See LICENSE. The vendored Capstone sources retain their upstream BSD/LLVM license files under Vendor/Capstone.

Dreaming Sarah and its artwork are property of their respective rights holders. Screenshots are included for compatibility documentation and project demonstration only.