alt Hacker NewsShow HN: PS2 games statically recompiled to WebAssembly
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All of this recomp stuff is pretty amazing. I really don't like how AI changed my profession, but hey at least I get something good from it.
What about compiling the compiler to WebAssembly so it can be hosted anywhere and convert a project directly from a browser?
I did similar for PS Vita over the past few months: https://github.com/cretz/vitaslop
But instead of single games, I "built" an ARM-to-WASM transpiler in WASM. Also cool transcoding of WebGPU shaders, audio, and more.
Only have tested a few games so far, it's early days, but works quite well in Chrome mobile on flagship Android phones.
Who would want to play Gran Turismo without long CD loading screens?
- related thread:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49991243 (God of War on PSP, recompiled to WebAssembly and running in the browser)
- might interest you, if you like the topic you're currently reading: https://thegamingemporium.com/recent/
> This is the sibling of psp-web-recomp and follows the same method
Fucking amazing that this person can prompt to embed an emulator into a binary and call it "no emulation recompilation" and get not one but two threads on the front page. LLMs are such an amazing tool for liars to produce upvotable slop, nobody gives a fuck about verifying whether the claims are true.
With the slew of recomps these days enabled by AI, How much incentive is there for a game studio to pour their heart, soul and money in a product when it can be easily "stolen" and shared for free...
Very cool! I'm working on something similar but am taking it much slower with a focus on accuracy. Mine recompiles into Golang to take advantage of built-in SIMD support.
I've been building the tooling around the PS2 binaries and hope to have a standalone PSS player out soon that can play PSS files as they are encoded, via simulated renderer, and via in-game engine renderer. The future is so bright with LLMs!
ah yes, another recomp that still emulates a core system component.
https://github.com/snuri00/ps2-web-recomp/blob/1066c9eea78c2...
this is sick
I wonder how "legal" hosting this would be given that it would require the host to basically distribute the game for free for everyone else
Pretty cool stuff. Seems like the web build script isn't escaping spaces in the game name.
This is good, I didn't know 3DS could handle PS2 emulation.
What's the performance like on heavier titles?
I will wait for MVG video
AI or no AI, this is amazing.
Recompiling PS2 games to WebAssembly is insane. Have you noticed any major performance bottlenecks when running heavier titles in the browser?
Did Sony know ahead of time?
Physical disc production ending in January 2028
https://blog.playstation.com/2026/07/01/physical-disc-produc...
When a recompilation of Windows free from all the Microsoft slop?
VERY cool. I wish you could make this work for steam deck (and friends) though.
I hope they'll be able to do that with Forza too !
On the PSP recomp, I wish they could somehow target GL 2.1 video cards (ancient Intel iGPU's) so legacy users like me could play most of the games on an n270 netbook.
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Impressive. How are you handling the PS2’s timing sensitive hardware, like the vector units, in a static recompilation? Curious how close you can get to correct behavior without emulating cycle by cycle.
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I don't know. There's suddenly so many decomps that run native (granted this post is about WebAssembly). Is there no concern about hidden malware? IMO it doesn't have the same level of trust and vetting that the emulator scene has. At least not yet.