Native port setup
Three projects built on the same idea, with three different installers and one shared eboot requirement.
The native ports all need a decrypted 1.09 dump including the eboot, and bbhost checks that eboot against a known SHA-256. bbhost and the Windows port ship packaged releases; bbport builds from source on Linux.
Quick answer: all three native ports want the same thing — a decrypted 1.09 dump including the eboot, which bbhost checks against a known SHA-256 and refuses otherwise. bbhost and the Windows port ship packaged releases with a setup window or launcher; bbport builds from source on Linux or runs from an AppImage, and is the project the other two derive from.
Official Bloodborne screenshot, PlayStation.
What "native port" means here
None of these projects is a rewrite of Bloodborne's source code — nobody has it. A port here means a build for one game: the PS4 executable is converted offline into a flat memory image with the console's libc and file-system libraries linked in, then a small loader maps it and jumps in. The CPU does no translation work while you play. What differs between the three is the graphics and system work layered on top.
bbhost — Windows and Linux
bbhost reimplements all 660 of the named PS4 functions the game imports, and hooks FromSoftware's own graphics layer instead of emulating the console's command processor, so draws are built from the engine's objects. Shaders are decompiled — "lifted" — to typed SPIR-V as the game creates them: 3,206 of 3,209 pixel shader programs, plus every vertex and tessellation program.
What you need
- A dump with the 1.09 update copied over it — the folder containing
dvdroot_ps4, whose
sce_sys/param.sfo reads APP_VER 01.09. The update may also sit beside it named -UPDATE or -patch, the layout shadPS4 uses.
- The 1.09
eboot.bin, decrypted to an ELF. bbhost checks it against SHA-256
941f887a562aae054fac35af8cc8f27cf075f3d4cc2e029fb5ae2a663aaa5ae7 and stops on anything else.
- x86-64 Windows 10/11 or Linux, a Vulkan 1.3 GPU, and — the project's recommendation — 16 GB of
RAM with 8 GB of video memory. 6 GB NVIDIA cards play at 1080p.
First run
- Download the release for your platform, or build with CMake.
- Start bbhost. With no configuration present it opens a setup window that asks for the game
folder and the eboot, checks both as you go, and writes the per-user bbhost.toml.
- Choose the online server here if you want it, then press Play.
bbhost --setupreopens it.
Configuration is layered: the per-user file, then a bbhost.toml beside the executable, then --config, then switches such as --app0, --data and --eboot. Saves live in <data>/saves/SPRJ0005 — %LOCALAPPDATA%\bbhost\data on Windows — and every save is also copied to a backup folder keeping the newest eight.
Official Bloodborne screenshot, PlayStation.
The Windows port
The Windows port adapts bbport's Linux code to native Win32, and ships Python embedded so release users install nothing else.
| OS | Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit |
| GPU | Vulkan 1.3 with current drivers — GTX 10-series, RX 400-series, Arc A-series or newer |
| CPU | x86-64 with AVX 1.0 and SSE4.2 — Sandy Bridge / Bulldozer or newer |
| Game files | A decrypted CUSA03173 folder containing eboot.bin, version 1.09 |
AVX2 is not required; AVX 1.0 is, because the game's own libraries are compiled with VEX instructions. Processors without it fail the launcher's pre-flight check instead of crashing mysteriously, and inside a virtual machine AVX and XSAVE passthrough must be enabled.
Launch BloodborneLauncher.exe, pick your eboot.bin or game folder, your frame rate (60 is the recommended starting point), your internal resolution and any community patches, then press Launch — or run run.bat "C:\Games\Bloodborne\CUSA03173". Saves and shader caches land in user/, settings in bbport.ini, and the in-game overlay opens with F1, Insert or L3 + R3. Building from source needs MinGW-w64 with CMake and Ninja, and a deep folder path can overrun Windows' 260-character limit because of the upscaler's nested shader files.
bbport — Linux
bbport is where this architecture started, and its status is experimental but playable, tested in depth on an AMD RX 7800 XT with Mesa and RADV.
git clone --recursive https://github.com/deadinside28/bloodborne_pc.git bbportbash build.sh— produces the loader and the Vulkan renderer library.BB_GAME_DIR=/path/to/CUSA03173 bash run.sh, orbash launcher/bb-launcher.shfor its GTK4
launcher.
The game folder defaults to ../CUSA03173 beside the repository; saves and the shader cache go to user/, settings to bbport.ini. Building needs GCC, CMake, Ninja, Python 3, glslang, SDL3 and the Vulkan headers — with Nix, shell.nix supplies everything. Two Linux-specific things: the base 1.00 game crashes at start at guest offset 0x20348b8, so the 1.09 update is mandatory; and some dumps carry a baked-in 60 fps patch that crashes when the gestures menu opens, so bbport asks for a clean eboot.bin. The other retail releases — US CUSA00900, Asian CUSA03023 — run the same 1.09 executable, so your dump's region does not matter.
Which one, quickly
The Windows port is the least friction on Windows, bbhost the deepest and the only one with online play out of the box, and bbport the one to build on Linux. All three are compared against the emulator route in the version comparison; once one boots, go on to performance settings and mods.
