Still remember how my PC was freezing on VC 20 years ago, and now I can play it in a browser in 120 fps. Wild.
Big kudos to https://github.com/SugaryHull/re3/tree/miami on which this is based on. Wholeheartedly agree with authors, every game older than 10 years, and that is not in active development, should be made open source so that community can keep games alive instead of letting them rot.
I came here hoping to see some technical explanation of what this is. E.g.JavaScript emulation of PS2 version? Recompilation + wasm? Something else entirely?
Crazy! Brought back the summers of my childhood where I mindlessly roamed around the Vice City with my custom MP3 list of songs. For so long, I was stuck on flying the RC helicopter in an abandoned skyscraper level. It has been years, and now I have the itch to try that again!
Thanks to whoever made this possible. There goes my weekend.
This got me thinking that one of my childhood favourites ought to be playable in the browser too, and sure enough, here's GTA 2 if anyone else is as old as I am:
Vice City was originally planned as an add-on to GTA III. Development time was 18 months. Incredible that they put out such a great game in so little time.
> how is this done ?? what engine is used ? it feels exactly like the original
It's most likely using reVC, a reverse-engineering of the original binaries by decompilation, and then built for the web using emscripten, which does a fairly good job making OpenGL code work on WebGL.
My Tomb Raider web build I linked here elsewhere was done the same way (reversing by the amazing people in the TR1X project).
Haven’t tried this yet but I literally just loaded the OG PC version on my steam deck.
The originals are amazing but I have to say for all their faults, the Definitive Editions figured out the camera. For anyone that played the OG versions you were stuck with the “follow cam” unless you had a PC + Mouse
GTA Vice City was released for iOS devices in 2012, and IIRC it ran pretty well. Not surprising that it runs well with WASM/WebGPU, given the massive increase in GPU performance. I'd imagine that the CPU-bound paths are well-optimized for 2002 Pentiums.
I just re-downloaded Vice City on my iPhone yesterday. It runs well, but the on-screen controls are, well, on-screen controls. That limits how much I actually want to play it.
Which was the GTA where you rode around on a dirtbike out in the california mountains, and there was like bootleggers and stuff.... man i have serious memories of that game
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[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 104 ms ] threadBig kudos to https://github.com/SugaryHull/re3/tree/miami on which this is based on. Wholeheartedly agree with authors, every game older than 10 years, and that is not in active development, should be made open source so that community can keep games alive instead of letting them rot.
I feel nostalgic for Vice City the same way people felt nostalgic for the 80s when the game was released.
Thanks to whoever made this possible. There goes my weekend.
https://dos.zone/grand-theft-auto2/
It could be that I'm a bit old-school, but this really seemed to confirm that ready to play fun gameplay trumps realistic graphics any day!
how is this done ?? what engine is used ? it feels exactly like the original
also the whole website dos zone seems to have all these browser versions of half life etc ???
how are people making these things and how are they legal ?
so many questions
It's most likely using reVC, a reverse-engineering of the original binaries by decompilation, and then built for the web using emscripten, which does a fairly good job making OpenGL code work on WebGL.
My Tomb Raider web build I linked here elsewhere was done the same way (reversing by the amazing people in the TR1X project).
The originals are amazing but I have to say for all their faults, the Definitive Editions figured out the camera. For anyone that played the OG versions you were stuck with the “follow cam” unless you had a PC + Mouse
Can't speak to the Deck HW or Steam OS specifically, but the SilentPatch and GInput mods have been working great for me on Proton under Linux Mint.
[0]https://cookieplmonster.github.io/mods/gta-vc/