XMB returns with smoother navigation
ARMSX3 1.5.2, released on October 31, 2026, restores startup for the emulated PlayStation 3 XMB. The system interface can once again reach its menu instead of failing before it appears, giving users access to the library and other console-style features.
Animated game icons also receive several related fixes. Decoded video frames now retain information about the source frame, which the icon player uses to keep animations consistent while scrolling quickly through the library. The release also updates video decoding to FFmpeg 8.1.1 and uses its ARM NEON code to make this work faster on supported Android hardware.
Vulkan users should see fewer XMB crashes when switching applications, opening the notification shade, or turning the screen off and on. On OpenGL with Adreno's own driver, ARMSX3 now sends textures through a persistent upload buffer rather than creating a new copy for every upload. The same upload path is used by OpenGL games, reducing the amount of work placed on the render thread according to the release notes.
Game fixes target ARM and Adreno graphics
Far Cry 3 now loads into its world more reliably on ARM. The SPU recompiler prepares every function in each module it compiles, including programs that require a second compilation, addressing the loading problem identified by the project.
South Park: The Stick of Truth receives a significant OpenGL fix for Adreno's own driver. The complete scene should remain visible instead of failing to render correctly, making the game playable in the affected configuration according to the release notes.
Castlevania: Harmony of Despair now communicates what is happening after a player upgrades from the trial edition to the full game. The first load after a save compiles the game's downloadable content across 61 modules, so a progress banner shows the compilation status rather than leaving users to guess whether the application is still working. Once the trials are unlocked, the library identifies the title as the full game, including in Discord Rich Presence.
These changes follow the game-focused fixes in ARMSX3 1.5.1. The earlier build restored normal startup and shutdown for The God of War Collection, Everybody's Golf: World Tour, and other titles using multithreaded RSX. It also allowed Everybody Dance to reach in-game content again. The multithreaded RSX correction changes how each draw call passes its data to the GPU driver, addressing a regression introduced by the RSX rewrite.
Faster video decoding and a smaller application
ARMSX3 now follows RPCS3's FFmpeg 8.1.1 update instead of using FFmpeg 5.1. The Android build keeps the components required by PS3 games while adding ARM NEON support, with the project reporting faster decoding for movies, cutscenes, and animated XMB icons.
The application is also about 5 MB smaller because its FFmpeg build contains only the components used by PS3 games. This is a packaging change rather than a change to the emulated console's media formats, but it reduces the space required by the Android application.
Controller and cache controls are more practical
The game library now gives the Triangle button a dedicated quick menu for the highlighted title. From there, a controller can access play, load state, settings, categories, cache clearing, and the option to add the game to the home screen. Square continues to open the game's settings directly.
Cache management is more precise in 1.5.2. The Clear SPU Cache and Clear PPU Cache commands in a game's settings affect only that game, while every cache-clearing action, including the command in the long-press menu, asks for confirmation before deleting data. This makes it easier to remove problematic compiled data without accidentally clearing caches for other titles.
The in-game menu now reopens on the same tab and option used previously. The library screensaver's default delay is five minutes instead of ten, although an existing custom delay remains unchanged. Users who rely on debugging or visual analysis can also use “Dump this frame” with OpenGL, where frame dumps now work.
The previous 1.5.1 build fixed another settings-related problem: changes made in the in-game menu were not retained after Apply & Restart. Renderer, driver, and other settings now persist through the restart, and switching between Vulkan and OpenGL while a game is running works as intended.
Release availability and project context
ARMSX3 1.5.2 is an Android application for emulating PlayStation 3 software; it is not a modified PlayStation 3 system release. The published build includes APK variants for Android SDK levels 30, 33, and 35, plus a legacy armv8.1 package. The project supports ARM64 Android devices.
The application requires PlayStation 3 firmware to run, and that firmware is not included with the project. The release notes also retain support for regular image and GIF formats, PS3 theme files with the .p3t extension, and CHD images. Those capabilities are part of the broader application context rather than new features introduced specifically by version 1.5.2.
ARMSX3 uses code from the RPCS3 project, including recent ARM64 improvements. Upstream changes included lower-priority shader compilation, removal of an unnecessary shader-cache load during PPU cache construction, Vulkan memory allocator 3.5.0, revised overlay font handling, and reporting for asynchronous online player lookups. The Android build incorporates the upstream FFmpeg update as part of this release.
Version 1.5.1 also updated the app's “What's New” screen so release-note images appear in the page and a controller can scroll through long entries or return to the top. Together with the XMB recovery, renderer-setting persistence, and the 1.5.2 game and media fixes, the two builds focus on making both the emulated PS3 interface and the Android front end easier to use.
