Play the PlayStation VR game on a Meta Quest 3 through Virtual Desktop (or any OpenXR headset), from your own copy of the game, through a PS4 emulator.
EVERYTHING WILL BE OUT FOR FREE AT THE v1.0 RELEASE
Download · Quick start · Settings · Troubleshooting · Changelog
Important
No game files are included or distributed. You need your own copy of Until Dawn: Rush of Blood, dumped from your own PlayStation 4.
RushVR is shadPS4, a PlayStation 4 emulator, plus what the game needs from a PlayStation VR: the headset, its tracking and reprojection, the controller the game expects, and fixes that let this one title run under emulation (its streaming copies, its depth buffers, its timing and resolution).
| One file | RushVR.exe is the whole download. It unpacks itself on first start and remembers your game. |
| Start-up window | Low / Medium / High picture buttons, field of view, sharpness, edge smoothing, frame rate, and what the monitor shows. |
| Sharper than the console | The game can draw up to 2880 x 3240 pixels an eye (the console draws 1152 x 1296). |
| Made for Virtual Desktop | Held to 60 fps against a 120 Hz stream (90 and 120 fps to try, experimental), with the console's own speed kept so captions stay with the voice. SteamVR works too. |
| Your choice of controllers | The DualSense (buttons, sticks, touchpad, motion sensors), or your Quest controllers playing as the game's two PlayStation Move wands, with reach, aim angle and turning sliders. |
Note
Early work in progress, version 0.5.0, built and tested by one person on one PC and one Quest 3. Expect rough edges, and please report what you find (Troubleshooting).
Works: the title screen, the intro and levels 1 to 4 play through. Later levels are untested. On a high-end laptop (Core i9-14900HX, RTX 4080 Laptop) at 2304 pixels an eye the game ran at a median of about 50 fps in level 1, mostly between 43 and 60.
Known problems:
- The picture can still look pixelated or soft in the headset, especially in dark scenes. The effects that read the depth buffer as a colour are shaded differently from the console, and textures whose largest level has not loaded show one level lower.
- Small stutters now and then, and the game can freeze for a second or more. See Slow or stuttering for how to help find the cause.
- The player's arms can look dark in the intro.
- The game sometimes stops after level 1.
- The Quest controller support has been tried by one person on one Quest 3.
Controllers: the start-up window has a "Controllers" card. By default the game is played with the DualSense. Switch on Quest controllers as Move wands to play with the headset's own controllers instead: unplug the DualSense first (while one is connected the game uses it and ignores the Quest controllers), and in the game's own start-up question choose the Move controllers. The card's three sliders set how high the guns are aimed, how far your hands reach and how far the guns turn.
| You need | Details |
|---|---|
| Headset | A Meta Quest 3 with Virtual Desktop (the app on the headset and the Streamer on the PC). Other OpenXR headsets may work; nobody has tried. |
| Controllers | A PS5 DualSense connected to the PC itself (USB, or Bluetooth paired with the PC, not the headset: paired with the headset it reaches the PC without motion sensors and touchpad), or just the Quest controllers (see Status). |
| Game | Until Dawn: Rush of Blood, US release CUSA03683, version 1.00, dumped from your own console and game: the game's folder (the one with eboot.bin, sce_sys and sce_module) or the .pkg made from the dump. A package downloaded from the PlayStation Store is encrypted and cannot be used. The European release (CUSA02350 1.00) has been reported to start and play as well; other versions are untested. |
| PC | Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit), a graphics card with Vulkan 1.3, 16 GB of memory or more, and the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable (x64) (the launcher says so if it is missing). |
- Download
RushVR.exefrom Releases and put it anywhere (a short folder such asC:\Games\RushVRis fine). The first start unpacks the emulator and its tools to%LOCALAPPDATA%\RushVR(setRUSHVR_HOMEfirst to use another folder or drive) and opens the start-up window. To update, download the newerRushVR.exeand start it: your settings and saves stay. Windows may warn about an unknown publisher (the file is not signed): choose More info, then Run anyway. - Show it your game. The first time, choose Show where it is... and pick the
eboot.binin the game's folder, or the.pkg(unpacked once into the RushVR folder, about 13 GB, a minute or so). The game can stay where it is; RushVR remembers it. A short path (C:\Games\Rush) is the safest, though since 0.4.1 paths over Windows' 260 characters open too. - Set up Virtual Desktop. Install the Streamer on the PC and choose VDXR as its OpenXR runtime. In the headset, set the streaming frame rate to 120. (SteamVR works instead: choose it under "Headset connection" with the headset connected to SteamVR first; tested through level 4.)
- Connect the DualSense to the PC (or, for the Quest controllers, unplug it and pick them in the
"Controllers" card), then connect to the PC with Virtual Desktop and start
RushVR.exeon the desktop you see in the headset. - Pick a picture quality and press Play. The headset switches to the game after a few seconds.
- In the game's own start-up question, choose the DualShock if you play with the DualSense, or the Move controllers if you play with the Quest controllers.
Settings, saves and the log live in %LOCALAPPDATA%\RushVR: settings in pc-vr\settings.txt, the
log in pc-vr\user\log\shad_log.txt, saves in pc-vr\user\home.
The start-up window changes the main ones and writes them to pc-vr\settings.txt, one key=value
a line (menu=0 stops the window from coming up). Lines starting with # are ignored, and each
setting is explained in the file itself.
All settings
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
fov |
How much of the headset's field of view the game draws, in percent. 105 is the default: a little wider than a PlayStation VR's own view, sharp with hardly a border (100 is the PlayStation VR's own view: sharpest, with a dark border). More draws a wider, softer view with no border (120 and up). |
fov_of |
What that percent is of: psvr (a PlayStation VR's own view, the default) or headset. |
runtime |
Which OpenXR runtime the game uses: pc (the one the PC has set up, the default), virtualdesktop, steamvr, or the full path of a runtime's .json file. Also in the start-up window. |
eye_width |
The width in pixels each eye is drawn at, 1152 to 2880 (default 2304). 1152 is what the console draws; larger is sharper, slower and takes more memory. The Low, Medium and High buttons are 1536, 2304 and 2880. |
target_fps |
The frame rate the game is held to, 20 to 120 (0 leaves the game's own timing). 60 is the default, steady with Virtual Desktop at 120 Hz; use 45 at 90 Hz and 40 at 80 Hz. 90 and 120 are experimental: the game keeps its speed and its captions stay with the voice, but the ride can feel a touch faster at times, and only a fast PC gets near 120. Also in the start-up window ("Aim for"). |
aniso |
Anisotropic filtering of the game's textures: 0, 2, 4, 8 or 16 (default). |
fxaa |
Smooths the picture's edges on its way to the headset: 0 off, 0.35 light, 0.65 normal (default), 1 strong. |
sharpen |
Sharpening of the picture on its way to the headset, 0 to 1. |
mask |
Blacks out the coloured corners outside the two lens circles (1 = the circles as drawn, 0 = off; 0.9 is the default, the choices go from 0.82 to 1.05). If the circle's edge looks cut off use a higher value (1.05); if some colour is left at the edge use a lower one. |
layer_scale |
The size of the picture handed to the headset's runtime, in percent of what the game draws: 100, 75 or 50 (when not set: 50 from an eye_width of 2048 up, 100 below). Shrinking it here, with a smoother filter than Virtual Desktop's, gives the PC and the stream less to carry, at some cost in sharpness. The Low, Medium and High buttons set it together with eye_width, aniso, fxaa and sharpen. |
pc_view |
What the game's window on the PC shows (the headset is not affected): left (default) or right, that eye's picture cropped to fill the window; merged, both eyes joined into one flat picture (things very close up can look doubled across the middle); both, the whole picture with both lens circles. |
pc_zoom |
How close in the cropped and merged views are, in percent: 100 (default) is the most that fits the window without black corners. |
msaa, antialias |
Multisampling limits for games that use it. Rush of Blood draws without multisampling, so they change nothing here. |
game |
The game's eboot.bin, its folder or its .pkg, when it is not in the games folder (set by the "Where is the game?" window). |
hands |
0: do not place the controller by your hands. |
env |
Extra environment variables for the emulator, as many lines as needed. env=SHADPS4_HITCH_PROBE=1 turns on the stutter probe (see below). |
fps, pace, real_time and dynamic are in the file but do nothing for this game: it keeps its
own pace and picks its picture by itself. (resolution of older versions is no longer read: it is
eye_width now.)
The game says it was not found
Choose Show where it is... in that window and pick the game's eboot.bin or its .pkg, or put
the game's folder or .pkg in the games folder of the RushVR folder and choose Look again.
Windows or an antivirus warns about RushVR.exe
The file is not signed, and it unpacks other programs, which some antivirus programs look at twice. The source of everything inside is in this repository (see Building from source).
Black or waiting in the headset
The game waits, black, while the headset is off the head or shows something else (Virtual Desktop's
view of the desktop, for one). Put the headset on and make sure Virtual Desktop is streaming;
pause=0 stops the waiting.
The picture looks soft or pixelated
The console draws each eye at only 1152 x 1296 pixels. Raise eye_width (2304 is the default, 2880
the largest), and in Virtual Desktop try a higher bitrate and HEVC 10-bit or AV1. A smaller fov
(100 is the game's own view) puts the same pixels over fewer degrees: sharper, with a dark border.
sharpen can be raised a little.
Circles in the PC window
The picture the game draws holds one circle for each eye. The window shows one eye cropped to fill
it, like a normal game, unless pc_view ("PC window" in the start-up window) says both (the two
circles) or merged (both eyes joined into one picture).
Windows runs out of memory at a large eye_width
At 2688 and 2880 especially, the log says something like "Insufficient system resources", or the
game closes. Windows has a limit on memory it can promise (RAM plus the page file), and the game
asks for a lot of it. Give Windows a bigger page file (Settings, System, About, Advanced system
settings, Performance, Advanced, Virtual memory: a custom size of 32768 MB initial and 49152 MB
maximum on the system drive) and restart the PC. The emulator also frees pictures nothing has used
for a while when Windows has less than 3 GB of that left, and writes MEMSTAT lines to the log
every ten seconds.
Slow or stuttering
Lower eye_width (1152 is the console's size), and set "Aim for" to half of Virtual Desktop's frame
rate (60 at 120 Hz, 45 at 90 Hz, 40 at 80 Hz). To see where the time goes, add the line
env=SHADPS4_FRAME_STATS=1 to settings.txt and play for a minute: the log then gets a line every
five seconds with draws and render passes per frame, how long the emulator waits for the graphics
card, and how busy each thread is. To help find stutters, add env=SHADPS4_HITCH_PROBE=1 as well:
whenever 45 ms or more pass between two shown frames, the log records what each part of the
emulator was doing. The log is what to send.
Reporting a problem: send pc-vr\user\log\shad_log.txt (and console-errors.txt from the same
folder, if there is one) together with what you were doing.
Build the emulator and the one-file RushVR.exe
The source is in shadps4-arm64-main (the emulator, with the VR layer in src/core/vr). On Windows,
with Visual Studio 2022 (C++ and CMake tools, and the Clang compiler) or any recent Clang, CMake and
Ninja:
git clone --recurse-submodules <this repository>
cd shadps4-arm64-main
cmake --build Build\x64-Clang-Release --target shadps4 -j 4(Open the folder in Visual Studio to make the x64-Clang-Release configuration the first time; it is
described in CMakeSettings.json.) For development, copy the resulting shadps4.exe into pc-vr,
next to launch.ps1 and settings.txt, and start the game with Play Rush of Blood.bat.
To make the one-file RushVR.exe that is released (Windows PowerShell, from the repository folder,
with tools\pkgtool holding PkgTool as tools\make-release.ps1 describes):
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File tools\make-release.ps1 -Version 0.5.0
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File tools\make-single-exe.ps1 `
-From build\release\RushVR-0.5.0-PC-VR-Windows -Out build\single\RushVR-0.5.0.exeThe first command packs the play folder (the emulator, the launcher, PkgTool and the default
settings); the second puts that folder inside RushVR.exe, whose small C# starter is
pc-vr\launcher-stub\RushVR.cs (built with the compiler that comes with Windows). No game files go
in.
RushVR is free software, licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or (at your option) any later version (GPL-2.0-or-later), the license of the shadPS4 it is built on.
The libraries under shadps4-arm64-main/externals keep their own licenses (see
shadps4-arm64-main/LICENSES), and so does the Khronos OpenXR SDK
(Apache-2.0).
Until Dawn: Rush of Blood, PlayStation and PlayStation VR are trademarks of Sony Interactive Entertainment. This project is not affiliated with, endorsed or sponsored by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Supermassive Games or Meta. It contains no game, firmware, keys or other copyrighted console files.
- The shadPS4 team and contributors. None of this would exist without their PlayStation 4 emulator: everything here is built on top of their years of work. Thank you!
- zenithblue-oss/shadps4-arm64, whose tree of shadPS4 this project started from.
- bigmak94/AstroQuest, the PlayStation VR layer for another game that this port was begun from: the virtual headset, its tracking and the OpenXR output.
- LibOrbisPkg, whose PkgTool unpacks game packages for the launcher.
- The Khronos Group for OpenXR and Vulkan, and Virtual Desktop for the PC streaming path.