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PSP Oculus Rift Emulator Puts Players Inside of Virtual Reality PSP Games (roadtovr.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the getting-into-the-game dept.

An anonymous reader writes: PPSSPP VR is an emulator that specifically adapts PSP games for use in the Oculus Rift VR headset. Going beyond merely showing a large screen view of the game in a virtual environment, PPSSPP actually puts you inside of the game with a full field of view, just like made-for-VR titles, including headtracking and true stereoscopic 3D. The emulator comes from the same author as Dolphin VR, the Wii & Gamecube emulator with VR support.

18 comments

  1. Oh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I had no idea they were going to do that. I should real ppsspp forums more.
    It's a great emu so far.
    But I tried the Tekken Tag arcade that used your body for motion controls many years ago and it was just bad. How am I supposed to jump and kick with both legs and actually have the game register it?
    Or rather, how to kick with both legs without jumping? Some Tekken moves are just impossible like that.

  2. Players in the Game by MountainLogic · · Score: 1

    Wow, really in the Game? Just like Fantastic Voyage?

    1. Re:Players in the Game by TheRealMindChild · · Score: 1

      slide slide slippity slide

      --

      "When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
    2. Re:Players in the Game by mccalli · · Score: 1

      Sadly, Racquel Welsh is not included.

  3. Obligatory Futurama by R3d+M3rcury · · Score: 2

    When I read the "Puts Players Inside of Virtual Reality PSP Games," it made me think of Virtual Virtual Skeeball.

  4. Upstram by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    PPSSPP and Dolphin are Open Source, why did he fork them (assuming, by the VR postfix) instead of committing to the projects or making a plugin?

    I hate to have to use an older version of something because of an addition somebody made...

    Keep your shit in sync, at least...

    1. Re:Upstram by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      probably to avoid long talk times with the maintainers, if the original project even has maintainers.. emulators tend to be like that.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  5. How? by manu0601 · · Score: 1

    I understand they added 3D rendering to titles that did not have it, without modifying original code. How did they do that?

    1. Re:How? by safetyinnumbers · · Score: 1

      I'd guess that if the emulator intercepts the system's rendering calls it would have access to everything needed (textures, models, etc) to render a scene from any viewpoint. It could then combine the game's camera with two separate eye viewpoints to render two images for the stereoscopic scene (or even ignore the game's camera position entirely).

      This would not work well if the game optimizes the scene before rendering, by removing or not animating anything out-of-view for its intended camera.

    2. Re:How? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yep something like that. there's a product called vorpx which allows to varying degrees of success directx games to appear to be vr native games.

      mge for morrowind did something similar injecting newer directx capabilities into morrowind, etc ad nauseum as there are also several other more generic injectors for directx as well, but mge goes beyond just injecting.

  6. Think of the possibilities... by Type44Q · · Score: 1

    Put me inside Battle Arena: Toshinden... I'll show that KGB blonde what's what. ;)

    1. Re:Think of the possibilities... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who? You mean the bird lady?

      Eww.

  7. This would be illegal under the TPP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sorry to be the debbie downer. :(

  8. Vomit-inducing? by RogueyWon · · Score: 1

    Isn't this going to be incredibly nausea-inducing to use? My understanding of what's needed for a "pleasant" VR experience in terms of resolution, image quality and framerate does not align with my experience of most PSP games.

    Now sure, you can use emulation to upscale the resolution and - in some cases - increase the framerate. But that's not going to get around boarder issues with PSP games in general.

    First of all, a good number of PSP games tied the game's logic to framerate (Square-Enix games in particular), so unlocking framerates via emulation can cause some very odd effects. If you've tried the PC version of the first Dark Souls with a third party mod to remove the 30fps cap, you'll have seen something similar (animations becoming de-synchronised from actions and so on).

    Second, a lot of PSP 3d games had very short draw distances and used heavy fogging and blur effects to disguise this. That's not too bad on a small screen, but it starts to look fairly unpleasant if you output the video to a monitor or TV, let alone a VR headset

    And finally, the fact that the PSP only had a single analogue stick means that in many 3d games, camera controls were put either on the face or shoulder buttons. These are digital, not analogue inputs, so there is basically only one speed at which the player can rotate the camera. Take a look at the home-console versions of Final Fantasy Type-0 (which are ports of a PSP game with higher resolution art assets but few other changes) if you want to see how jarring this is even on a television and twin-stick controller. That's going to be seriously unpleasant in VR.

    1. Re:Vomit-inducing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly. This is the most stupid thing I've ever read in emulator upscaling attempts, and I've read a lot. A game designed for a 4-inch screen, blown up to the most enormous size there is (namely your entire field of view)?

      This is the pinnacle of emulator users trying to stretch and smear out a game over a higher resolution it was never made for. It shits all over a game designer's hard work. 480x272 games are made for (surprise!) 480x272, you goddamn idiots.

  9. Old School by osswmi · · Score: 1

    Time to break out the Ratchet and Clank games again! :D

  10. I only want one thing from VR by U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M · · Score: 1

    Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball VR.