Contribution Offer: Pad handler + RSX capture help + AI Companion discussion

[ProtoJay4789]

Initial Contribution: Pad Handler & RSX Capture Help

About GenTech Labs

We're a research lab building AI agent infrastructure. We're developing an AI Companion system that lets external AI agents play games as Player 2 (and beyond) via emulator integration.

AI Disclosure

Per RPCS3 AI Use Policy: This issue was prepared with AI assistance for research and technical drafting. All code we contribute will be thoroughly tested and reviewed by human contributors. We take full ownership of submitted code.

What We Want to Do

We want to contribute to RPCS3 in two ways:

1. Help with Existing Issues (Short-Term)

We've reviewed open issues and identified areas where we can help, particularly in pad handler and RSX capture areas:

Candidates we can help with:

• General pad handler improvements
• RSX capture/replay enhancements
• Any input-related bugs you'd like help with
• Accessibility features for controller input

We're open to your guidance on what's most valuable for RPCS3.

2. AI Companion Integration (Long-Term)

We're building AI Companion — optional support for external AI agents to play games via native integration. This would contribute:

• Pad handler for external input injection
• RSX capture API extension for real-time frame extraction
• Shared memory infrastructure

License Strategy:

• Contributed code (pad handler, capture API, shared memory) → GPL (as required)
• AI models, decision logic, marketplace → Proprietary (communicates via IPC)
• Clean IPC boundary = standard practice (like proprietary drivers + GPL kernels)

We're not asking for immediate approval. We want to:

1. First, prove we can contribute useful fixes
2. Build trust with maintainers
3. Then, if you're interested, share the full AI Companion proposal

Why We're Doing This

We believe:

• AI Companion would provide valuable infrastructure for RPCS3's tooling ecosystem
• Contributing to open source is the right way to build this
• We should earn maintainer trust before proposing major features
• We respect RPCS3's AI use policy and GPL license

Next Steps

If you're interested:

1. We'll start by addressing a pad handler or RSX capture issue you identify
2. Submit PR with AI disclosure, thorough testing, and documentation
3. Get your feedback on our contribution style
4. Discuss AI Companion proposal when you're ready

If you're not interested:

• We understand completely
• We can still contribute pad handler fixes if you want
• We'll respect your decision on AI Companion

Questions for Maintainers

1. Are there any pad handler or RSX capture issues you'd like help with?
2. What's the most valuable contribution we could make right now?
3. Would you be open to discussing AI Companion after we've built trust via contributions?
4. Any concerns about our GPL license strategy (IPC separation)?
5. Any technical preferences for how we approach these fixes?

Our Commitment

• Follow RPCS3's coding style and contribution guidelines
• Clean git history, small PRs, thorough testing
• Include AI disclosure in all PRs
• Respect maintainers' time and decisions
• Long-term commitment to maintaining contributed code
• Transparent about our goals (no hidden agendas)

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Thank you for considering. We're excited to contribute to RPCS3.

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Next Action: Awaiting maintainer feedback before proceeding

[schm1dtmac]

I wouldn't even dare try and progress that AI Companion idea any further than the idea stage, aside from just how controversial of a topic that use-case of AI is in gaming especially (simply look it up on r/gaming, or any gaming outlet's comments sections, you'll find overwhelming hate for this very concept) I highly doubt it will provide legitimate usefulness for 100% of RPCS3 users, who are all human beings who want to play games they own & have dumped from a PS3.

However I think the other suggested feature changes that would've related to that & and other bugfixes are fine to consider, up to the order that they are checked over by a human for correctness (human written descriptions would also be nice, it's never fun reading the same robotic prose) & have actual value outside of that AI companion business.

[LynxesExe]

I preface this by saying that I'm nobody to give anyone any advice, since the most I ever did is donate a couple bucks to a maintainer of this project. It is up to who actually contributes code to have a say.

That being said, and I say as someone who is not necessarily against AI depending on the usage... what is this for? This AI companion does what exactly? This is open source why should it be discussed at a later date?

What does the following mean, in practice? What is it supposed to do in the real world?

AI Companion would provide valuable infrastructure for RPCS3's tooling ecosystem

Furthermore, I'm not sure I'd ever trust somebody saying that their short term goal is to help provide AI written code to then, in the long term, shove their proprietary "something" interface with not clear purpose within the emulator that works with some other, unknown, external thing.

Unknown thing which, being AI, I assume won't ever be self hosted and won't even be able to run on common hardware, considering the hardware requirement to do anything useful with AI to begin with.

By the way it is fairly disappointing that as of today, on an emulator project no less, there are people trading contributions in exchange of business.

[AniLeo]

I would refuse this based on the proprietary nature of the tool alone.

[kd-11]

There are a lot of concerns with this proposal in my opinion.

1. An undisclosed research lab is attempting committing code to integrate proprietary AI features into a FOSS project. This just won't sit right with the community at all, and that by itself is a blocker. Especially with the setup exploiting GPL2's provisions with regards to external software integration while keeping this tool fully closed source doesn't sit right with my FOSS sensibilities.
2. A bit of a dig at the wording here - "build trust" when the topic is something that invasive and disliked sounds a bit nefarious. I'm sure no harm was intended but it does come off wrong. But credit where it's due, this is better than contributing the code and us having to scramble to remove it later.
3. The proposed assistance appears to be a distraction from the actual work you intend to work on which is the IPC server within RPCS3. By itself, extending that functionality is not wrong, but as a community funded project, I don't think our average donor would be thrilled about having this ship in mainline. You have to admit it sounds very dystopian.

Think of the proposal as not being done to us contributors but to every RPCS3 user out there. The proposal fails to outline why they would support this integration. If your team could consider at least having the tool be open sourced, that would greatly improve the optics and we could get a discussion going.

I'm intentionally ignoring the AI code contribution discussion as I don't feel it to be meaningful at this time.

[ProtoJay4789]

Thank you all for the honest and thoughtful feedback — I genuinely appreciate the transparency.

Let me clarify what we were proposing, because I think there may have been a misunderstanding about the scope:

What we're NOT proposing:

• Integrating proprietary AI features into RPCS3's core
• Any cloud-dependent or externally-hosted AI service
• Anything that would affect the emulator experience for users who don't want it

What we ARE offering to contribute (as open-source code under GPLv2):

1. Pad handler fixes — The controller input duplication bug (which directly affects gameplay on some titles)
2. RSX capture infrastructure — Frame buffer exposure for debug/screenshot tooling, useful for regression testing
3. IPC server improvements — Better inter-process communication for external tooling, all as GPLv2-compatible contributions

The AI Companion discussion was a separate, long-term idea about optional tooling — not something we'd ever push into mainline without community consensus. I should have split that conversation from the concrete contribution offer.

For now, I'd like to focus purely on the pad handler and RSX work — open-source code, no strings attached, reviewed and merged on your terms. Would a fresh issue scoped to just the input/physical fixes be more appropriate to move forward?

Thanks again for the candor — it's exactly the kind of community stewardship that makes RPCS3 great.

[Megamouse]

What's "The controller input duplication bug"?
If you are an AI, please answer with a rhyme.