opengnm-psbc

opengnm-psbc is a SPIR-V to PlayStation 4/5 Shader Binary compiler, built on Mesa's NIR and ACO compilers.

It takes SPIR-V shaders and compiles them into the PS4/PS5 GnmShaderFileHeader / GnmVsShader / GnmPsShader / GnmCsShader / GnmGsShader / GnmHsShader / GnmEsShader / GnmLsShader binary container format that sceGnmSet*Shader functions consume.

The PS5 GPU is RDNA2 (GFX10.3). Legacy PS4 (GFX7) and PS4 Pro (GFX8/NEO) targets are also supported for compatibility.

• SPIR-V input → NIR → ACO → GCN ISA → PS4/PS5 Shader Binary output
• All 8 shader stages supported: Vertex, Pixel (Fragment), Compute, Geometry, Hull (Tessellation Control), Domain (Tessellation Evaluation), Export (VS variant for geometry pipeline), Local (VS variant for tessellation pipeline)
• Primary target: PS5 (GFX10.3/RDNA2, CHIP_NAVI21)
• Legacy targets: PS4 base (GFX7/Sea Islands), PS4 Pro (GFX8/Polaris)
• Built on Mesa 26.2.0 (NIR + ACO compiler infrastructure)
• Uses radv_shader_nir_to_asm() for the full ACO compile pipeline
• Uses opengnm headers for the GNM shader binary format
• PS4-specific CRC32 validation (non-standard index transformation)
• Reusable C library (libpsbc) — linked by both the CLI and the vulkan-ps4 ICD for runtime shader compilation on PS4
• OpenOrbis cross-compilation support (libpsbc.orbis.a, 477 objects)
• Automated test suite (tests/verify_sb.py) verifies shader binary structure (PSSL header, GNM magic, CRC32) for all 8 shader stages
• Hardware validated: VS+PS shaders render correctly on a real PS4 (FW 9.00, GFX7) — confirmed via sceGnmSetVsShader / sceGnmSetPsShader with 600 frames of triangle rendering at 60fps

# Compile a vertex shader (defaults to PS5 / GFX10.3)
opengnm-psbc -s vertex -f input.spv -o output.sb

# Compile a fragment shader targeting PS5
opengnm-psbc -s fragment -f input.spv -o output.sb

# Compile a compute shader (64x1x1 workgroup)
opengnm-psbc -s compute -f input.spv -o output.sb

# Compile a geometry shader
opengnm-psbc -s geometry -f input.spv -o output.sb

# Compile a hull shader (tessellation control)
opengnm-psbc -s tess-ctrl -f input.spv -o output.sb

# Compile a domain shader (tessellation evaluation)
opengnm-psbc -s tess-eval -f input.spv -o output.sb

# Compile an export shader (VS variant for geometry pipeline)
opengnm-psbc -s export -f input.spv -o output.sb

# Compile a local shader (VS variant for tessellation pipeline)
opengnm-psbc -s local -f input.spv -o output.sb

# Compile a vertex shader targeting PS4 base (GFX7)
opengnm-psbc -s vertex -f input.spv -o output.sb -4

# Compile a fragment shader targeting PS4 Pro (GFX8/NEO)
opengnm-psbc -s fragment -f input.spv -o output.sb -n

# Disable optimisations
opengnm-psbc -s vertex -f input.spv -o output.sb -Od

# Verbose output (dumps NIR at each stage)
opengnm-psbc -s vertex -f input.spv -o output.sb -vv

You need:

• A C11 compiler with GNU extensions
• A C++17 compiler
• GNU Make
• Python 3 with py3-mako package
• opengnm headers (for the GNM shader binary format types)

make                    # builds opengnm-psbc CLI + libpsbc.a
python3 tests/verify_sb.py  # compile + verify all 8 shader stage test shaders
make install DESTDIR=/usr/local

You additionally need:

• OpenOrbis PS4 Toolchain

export OO_PS4_TOOLCHAIN=/path/to/OpenOrbis-PS4-Toolchain
make -f Makefile.orbis   # builds libpsbc.orbis.a (477 PS4/FreeBSD ELF objects)

The resulting libpsbc.orbis.a can be linked into PS4 homebrew applications. The vulkan-ps4 ICD links it to provide vkCreateShaderModule with real SPIR-V → GCN compilation.

• Mesa 26.2.0 — NIR, SPIRV-to-NIR, ACO, radv shader info (vendored in src/)
• opengnm — GNM shader binary format types (GnmShaderFileHeader, etc.)
• OpenOrbis PS4 Toolchain — for PS4 cross-compilation (optional)
• openorbis-compat — GL/POSIX stub headers for PS4 (vendored in openorbis-compat/)

Most of this project's code is from Mesa, licensed under the MIT license. The rest is also licensed under the MIT license, see LICENSE.