Play Half-Life 1 on your PSVita via vitaXash3D – Fully hardware accelerated thanks to vitaGL!
Thanks to Rinnegatamante’s open-source OpenGL implementation for the Vita called VitaGL, we now got another 3D GPU accelerated game! This time around, it is the legendary Half-Life 1 thanks to the Xash3D engine port by ‘fgsfdsfgs’.
What is vitaXash3D and Half-Life 1?
vitaXash3D is a port of the Xash3D FWGS engine for the PSVita/PSTV. This engine is an open-source Gold Source (GoldSrc) engine written from scratch but it still manages to manages to be compatible with many GoldSrc games and mods! Games that run with the engine are the original Half-Life, Counter Strike and other Half-Life 1 based games including mods and fan remakes.
Currently, the PSVita port of the engine is at this stage:
- It can only run Half-Life right now.
- Sound is a tad flaky and people sound a tad off but not too bad.
- It is a test release so you’ll encounter bugs, glitches and issues!
- Mods currently don’t work but you should able to use custom maps.
- The frame rate fluctuates between 20-60 FPS all the time but it’s still perfectly playable in my opinion!
- The game seems to render at 960×544 so it looks exceptionally good-looking!
- Saving and auto-saving takes a while and your game will seem to freeze so don’t force quit the game!
While it’s still an early release, it’s still great since you can play the famous original Half-Life on your PSVita! Half-Life 1 is a game released in 1998 for Windows PCs and some game consoles such as the PS 2 by Valve. It uses the GoldSrc engine which is a highly modified Quake engine; this engine went on to be used by Counter Strike and other third-party games such as Gunman Chronicles and James Bond 007: Nightfire.
How do I get this on my PSVita?
First of all, you need the data files of the game to play it on your Vita! The demo data files provided by the developer who ported this don’t seem to work, for me at least; this means I had to use the data files from the full game which worked without an issue. You’ll also need about 500MB free space on your Vita for the data files
To install this you need to do the following:
- Get on your computer and install Half-Life if it’s not already installed since you need access to its game files! Remember, getting Half-Life for free is still piracy!
- Download two files from the GitHub link below. These are the VPK file and the supplementary data ZIP file (about a megabyte large) for the game to work
- Connect to your PSVita via FTP/USB and make a folder called ‘xash3d’ in ux0:/data.
- Copy the ‘valve‘ folder from your Half-Life installation to ux0:/data/xash3d.
- Copy the contents of the ‘valve’ folder in the downloaded data ZIP file to the ‘valve’ folder you just copied over to your Vita.
- Delete the files in the ‘cl_dlls’ and ‘dlls’ folders in the ‘valve’ folder you just copied over
- Install the VPK
- Enjoy the game!
Make sure you understand the instructions since it’s quite easy to mess up if you’re not careful!
If you have any issues, report them to the developer by using the Issues tab of the GitHub link below. Make sure that the issue you wish to report hasn’t already been reported since many people have reported issues ever since the port’s release!
vitaXash3D release page (instructions + download link): https://github.com/fgsfdsfgs/vitaXash3D/releases/tag/v1
vitaXash3D readme (I would suggest you give this a read if you to make your life easier!): https://github.com/fgsfdsfgs/vitaXash3D/blob/master/README.md
Very cool! Glad to see this kind of port for the vita.
vita gl is a thing already? I hope retroarch will use it
Counter Strike anyone?
is actually possible. just grab the xash3d stuff from counterstrike for android and apply it.
sadly i cannot try since i don’t have a vita.
UNBELIEVABLE !
You guys are nuts.
Would love to play Opposing Force and Blue Shift again 🙂
Awesome! Can’t wait for more games like this
Now this makes me wonder about native 3D versus emus like pcsx2 PS2 emu
With this I gotta say…HALF LIFE 3 CONFIRMED!!
N64 Emulator?
Now port Jedi Outcast and I can die happily with my vita in hands
Now port Age of Empires 2, Quake 3 and Counter Strike 1.6 and I can die in peace
csgo
This is GREAT!!! Not owning a copy of Half-life is a crime
The dream of a SWDF2: JK on PSV is now a dream I can believe in. Year of Homebrew Dreams 2018! 🙂
WOW!!! Awesome! Gunman Chronicles and Counter Strike are welcome!
yeah, jedi knight 2 or jedi knigh3, that would be something nice.
I don’t think Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast or Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy would run on the VITA, though I’d certainly love to be proven wrong. That would be a grand ol’ time.
But it could definitely Handle Dark Forces 1, Dark Forces 2: Jedi Knight, and Jedi Knight: Mysteries of the Sith. Personally, I prefer DF2 to JO and JA. Pretty interesting use of the Jedi Engine. It sucks we never got more games on it.
(To be clear, Jedi Knight 3 doesn’t exist. JA is a spin-off/Sequel, just like MotS. Not a true Jedi Knight 3)
Correction, “Sith” Engine. Jedi Engine used the DF1/Outlaws. Cool, but not what I meant to be referring to. 🙂
I imagine Vita can run Jedi Outcast/Jedi Academy. Jedi Outcast ran on GameCube, and the Vita’s a more capable machine than that.
Console Does Not Equal Mobile. They’re just different.
Also, Outcast on the GCN was…Well, ***.
Anything is possible, but emulating the PC version on PSV. Not a prayer.
I have major rose colored glasses for Dark Forces 2 (I think I only ever had the demo, but still got countless hours of fun with the one multiplayer map on Zone.com). @wetalo It’s unfortunately not that simple. Engine porting is extremely intense (the major reason why games like Wolf3D, Doom and Quake have homebrew ports on basically every platform is because id actually released the source code for these games as well as the first four id Tech engines) and while the Vita is powerful, it’s not multiple of times more powerful or general purpose for emulation.
Can’t wait for the half life 3 port for Vita.
dreaming about doom3 on vita 🙂
someone tell me if the coming releases soon henkaku 3.65, may play games for the oldest henkaku 3.60?
No f***ing way!
But Half Life 1 is fully playable from the beginning to the end? Can I play until the end of the single player campaign? I have been some time away from playing games because of my focusing on studying game developing and programming (never had time to play many games I would like). So now thanks to my psvita Henkaku I can enjoy many classic and cool games I never had the time to fully play and beat them. I want to play half life 1 completely and its expansion, blue shift and opposing force. Is that possible now?
Does the steam version work for this?
It’s the preferred way to get the files (always read the README :).
I love playing replaying Half-Life on different/odd systems as they are released. My Dreamcast probably still has a Half-Life CD-R in it (although that was a commercial product that was never released) but it’s great to see it finally hit handhelds in a usable form (there was a janky method using the PSP that I wouldn’t consider playable).
Give us Unreal Tournament GOTY.
Half Life Vita…
Half Life V…
V = 5 …
Half Life + Half Life 2 = 2 games
5 – 2 = 3!!!
Half Life 3 confirmed!
Seems legit
This is amazing! …… maybe Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 ? (OpenRCT2 If Possible)
dayuum, okay bro.
My vita is broken and waiting for a part to arrive so that I can fix it. This is the first thing I’ll try.
Holy Moly Graaly!
I’ve just read the title yet but damn that’s a must have on any vita!
Look inversion doesn’t work but other than that, this is bloody fantastic 🙂
I’ve been waiting for this for years : D
This is absolutely amazing, BUT how do I change the controls? I wanna shoot with R and use L for alternate fire, and is it possible to lock the game at 30 fps? Aside from that, this is just insane, I love it!
I’m still trying to find the Half-Life game to be downloaded on my pc. Anyone got a link?