Skip to main content

​
Prerequisites

PSL1GHT requires a complete PlayStation 3 toolchain to compile homebrew applications. You’ll need:
  • ps3toolchain - A GCC toolchain supporting PowerPC 64-bit architecture with patched newlib
  • Host GCC - For building SDK tools (raw2h, ps3load, sprxlinker)
  • Python 2.x - For packaging tools (fself.py, sfo.py, pkg.py)
  • libelf - Required by sprxlinker
  • zlib - Required by ps3load
  • libgmp - Required by signing tools
  • Nvidia Cg Toolkit - For compiling vertex programs (optional)
PSL1GHT only works with the ps3toolchain from ps3dev/ps3toolchain. Other PowerPC toolchains will not work as they lack the required patched newlib environment.

​
Installing ps3toolchain

1

Install system dependencies

Install the required packages for your platform:
sudo apt-get install build-essential git autoconf bison flex \
  libelf-dev libtool pkg-config texinfo libncurses5-dev \
  libz-dev python-dev libgmp-dev
2

Clone and build ps3toolchain

git clone https://github.com/ps3dev/ps3toolchain.git
cd ps3toolchain
./toolchain.sh
This will build and install the complete toolchain to /usr/local/ps3dev by default.
The toolchain build can take 30-60 minutes depending on your system. The script will download and compile binutils, gcc, newlib, and other essential components.
3

Set up environment variables

Add these variables to your ~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc, or equivalent:
export PS3DEV=/usr/local/ps3dev
export PSL1GHT=$PS3DEV/psl1ght
export PATH=$PATH:$PS3DEV/bin
export PATH=$PATH:$PS3DEV/ppu/bin
export PATH=$PATH:$PS3DEV/spu/bin
Then reload your shell configuration:
source ~/.bashrc

​
Installing PSL1GHT

1

Clone the PSL1GHT repository

cd $PS3DEV
git clone https://github.com/ps3dev/PSL1GHT.git psl1ght
cd psl1ght
2

Install build rules

The SDK uses several makefile rule files that must be installed first:
export PSL1GHT=$PS3DEV/psl1ght
make install-ctrl
This copies the build system files to $PSL1GHT:
  • base_rules - Common build rules for C/C++ compilation
  • ppu_rules - PowerPC (PPU) specific rules and packaging tools
  • spu_rules - SPU specific rules for Cell processor
  • data_rules - Rules for embedding binary data (images, shaders, etc.)
3

Build and install the SDK

make
make install
This builds and installs:
  • PPU libraries - Runtime libraries for the PowerPC processor
  • SPU libraries - Libraries for the Synergistic Processing Units
  • Common libraries - Shared code (vectormath, SIMD math)
  • Tools - Build utilities (sprxlinker, cgcomp, ps3load, etc.)
The build system will compile:
  • ppu/ - PPU runtime and SPRX stub libraries
  • spu/ - SPU runtime libraries
  • common/ - Shared libraries (vectormath, libspumars, simdmath)
  • tools/ - SDK utilities and Python scripts

​
Installing ps3libraries (Optional)

Most PSL1GHT samples require additional libraries: 
cd $PS3DEV
git clone https://github.com/ps3dev/ps3libraries.git
cd ps3libraries
./libraries.sh
This installs common libraries like:
  • libpng, libjpeg, zlib
  • freetype, cairo
  • SDL and other multimedia libraries

​
Verify Installation

Check that the toolchain is properly installed: 
ppu-gcc --version
spu-gcc --version
echo $PSL1GHT
ls $PSL1GHT/ppu/lib
You should see:
  • PPU and SPU gcc compilers responding
  • $PSL1GHT pointing to your installation directory
  • Library files in $PSL1GHT/ppu/lib including liblv2.a, librsx.a, etc.

​
Local Development Build

For development, you can build PSL1GHT locally instead of system-wide: 
cd /path/to/psl1ght.git/
export PSL1GHT=/path/to/psl1ght.git/build
make install-ctrl
make
make install
Remember to set $PSL1GHT in your environment whenever you build PSL1GHT applications. The build system checks for this variable and will fail if it’s not set.

​
Next Steps

Quickstart Guide

Build your first PS3 application

Project Structure

Understand the SDK layout and build system

Build docs developers (and LLMs) love

Get started for freeTalk to us