I’ve been working on an experimental project: running PPSSPP in the browser through WebAssembly.

Demo: https://root-hunter.github.io/ppsspp-web/

Source: https://github.com/root-hunter/ppsspp-web
https://github.com/root-hunter/ppsspp-wasm

The goal is not just “emulation in a tab”, but exploring how far the browser can be pushed as a runtime for complex native-style applications.

This touches several interesting areas:

• compiling a large native/C++ application to WebAssembly
• Emscripten integration
• WebGL rendering constraints
• browser file APIs for loading large local files
• save/settings persistence in browser storage
• audio latency
• gamepad/controller input
• memory limits
• mobile browser behavior
• performance differences between Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Safari
• possible PWA/offline workflows

The project is still experimental and very browser/device dependent, but it’s already useful as a real-world stress test for WebAssembly beyond small demos.

Some of the questions I’m working through:

• What is the best storage layer for this kind of app: IndexedDB, OPFS, or something else?
• How should large local files be handled efficiently in the browser?
• How much can WebGL be optimized before WebGPU becomes necessary?
• How reliable is Gamepad API support across browsers?
• How should save states and virtual filesystem persistence be handled?
• How much does browser tab throttling affect real-time workloads?
• Can this become a usable PWA, or is native still the only serious option?

Important note: this is an unofficial PPSSPP WebAssembly/browser experiment. It does not include or link to games, BIOS files, ISOs, CSOs, ROMs, or copyrighted content. Users provide their own local files.

I’d love feedback from people who have experience with WebAssembly, Emscripten, browser storage, WebGL/WebGPU, or porting native applications to the web.

What would you focus on first to make this kind of browser-native port more stable and performant?