Stable, Beta, Test

At a glance

What each one means

Stable means the title holds together: it boots dependably, saves are safe, and a long session is realistic. Astro Bot and Demon's Souls sit here.

Beta means playable with rough edges. It works, people finish it, and you should still expect to meet a fault at some point. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is the example worth reading.

Test means it boots and little more. Crashes or visual faults interrupt play often enough that we will not call it playable, as with Rise of the Ronin.

What no chip ever promises

None of the three says anything about resolution or frame rate. We publish no such targets anywhere, for any title, because they would depend on your CPU, GPU, driver, storage, and the build of the week.

A Stable chip on a machine at the minimum spec can still perform poorly. That is not a contradiction: reliability and speed are separate questions, and the chips only answer the first.

Why statuses move backwards

Emulation progress is uneven. A change that fixes one title can disturb another, so chips are demoted as well as promoted, and we publish the demotions.

A list that only ever improved would be more flattering and less useful. The point of the dashboard is that you can trust it when it says something is rough.