Update, October 30, 2026

Unfortunately, I no longer have the time to keep working on this project, and I don’t know when or if I’ll return to it. There may be small updates here and there if I get the chance, but this is likely the last big update for a while. I hate to do this, but as I said before, this was meant to be a fun side project, not a full-time job.

The builds stay available on the releases page, and docs/GT7.md has the recommended settings and the known problems. New issues may go unanswered for a while.

If anyone wants to take over, you’re free to fork the repository and carry on. All I ask is that you credit the work that’s already been done and link back here.

Thank you to everyone who has been part of this, by testing, reporting bugs or sending fixes. I hope I can return at some point, either here or working on other games and emulator performance in general. 💜

No shaders compile again after this update: your shader cache from the last build is kept.

What's new

Thanks to SakuraLainMaid for both changes in this build (#35, #33).

Smoother on cards with less video memory. When video memory gets full, the emulator throws away buffers it hasn't used for a while. It used to make the graphics thread wait for the GPU first. Now that happens in the background. In SakuraLainMaid's test on a 6 GB card at 1440p, that wait had taken about 37 ms of each frame in a race.

The game's GPU work is sent before the clean-up, so the game no longer waits for the results of its own GPU work behind the clean-up's image copies.

Two optional settings for cards with little video memory:

• KYTY_VMA_BLOCK_MB=64 makes the emulator reserve video memory in smaller blocks. On the 6 GB card at 1440p, video memory use went from about 6.0 to 4.35 GB.
• KYTY_HOLD_COMPILING=1 keeps the last frame on the screen while many draws wait for new pipelines to compile (for up to 5 seconds), instead of showing frames with parts missing.

On an RTX 5090 the frame rate is unchanged: 27.2 fps both ways in a test race at Tokyo.

For people who build the emulator themselves: setting up an existing build folder again no longer fails on the ZArchive download.

⚠️ Pop-in on new tracks is expected

The first time you drive a track, or a part of one, its shaders compile while you drive. Scenery, car details and reflections appear a moment late instead of the game freezing. They're cached afterwards, so the second time on that track everything is there from the start.

Known problems

• Racing wheels: hitting a wall gives little or no force on the wheel yet.
• Scapes: the controls stop working after Olivier offers the drift photography tutorial (#19). The tutorial waits for the game's online servers, which the emulator has no stand-in for, so the Menu Book "Take a Photo of Your Car in Scapes" can't be finished yet. Closing the emulator is the only way out of it.
• AMD RX 9070 XT: races crash while they load, inside the AMD driver's shader compiler (#12). Workaround: start the emulator with KYTY_SKIP_SHADER_HASHES=daced64c72398e80 (the steps are in #12). That shader does some of the game's calculations, so something in races may be a little off.
• AMD RX 6950 XT: cars in the garage show spikes, the game slows down there, and after a while the driver resets (#21). It comes from the cars' tessellated parts (the detail the GPU adds to their bodies). Being looked into.
• Intel Arc, GTX 10xx and RX 5000 cards: the emulator gets past start-up, but the game itself is untested on them (#20).
• NVIDIA: the driver's shader compiler can crash while compiling new pipelines (#18). Being looked into; the crash report names the pipeline.
• Some distant trees (about 150 m away and further) look brighter and flatter than up close, because they get no shadow from far away. Being looked into.
• Livery editor: leaving it shows error CE-210717 (the game uploads the livery to its online service, which the emulator has no stand-in for). Some parts of a saved livery's picture can have the wrong colour.
• Tokyo: at twilight and night, the picture can turn green at some tunnel exits and under some overpasses. It depends on the camera angle, so the same replay can be green one time and not the next.
• Tokyo at night: some shadows on tunnel ceilings and walls move with the camera.
• Ray tracing mode: the frame rate is low, about 10 to 20 fps in the garage. Reflections can still flicker a little and look a bit jagged, most of all right after switching between the cockpit and outside views.
• In-game videos can play out of sync with their sound (#4). Being looked into.
• A graphics driver crash, seen after many license test retries (#3), is not fixed yet.

Frame rate

On an RTX 5090 in performance mode: the world map runs at the 60 fps frame cap. A race at Tokyo against 11 AI cars averages about 27 to 28 fps, from about 22 in the heaviest spots to peaks around 40. With 32 GB of RAM, close other programs before playing: in a race the emulator uses about 20 to 25 GB.

Settings and help

Recommended launcher and in-game settings are in [docs/GT7.md](https://github.com/usa-ratt/KytyPS5-GT7/blob/gt7-eqaa/docs/GT7.md). In-game, use performance mode to play. The launcher starts with the recommended settings.

Found a bug? Open an issue with the [Bug report form](https://github.com/usa-ratt/KytyPS5-GT7/issues/new/choose) and attach your zipped _kyty.txt log.

Full Changelog: KytyPS5-2026-10-28-29802da...KytyPS5-2026-10-28-f908636