The PSVita didn’t get a native port of a Grand Theft Auto game which, in my opinion, is very unfortunate as I believe that a Vita port could’ve given a much better gaming experience than GTA’s ports on iOS/Android. Apparently, more people think the same and now, TheFlow is doing the work of the gods by creating a NATIVE RESOLUTION patch for the PSP’s Grand Theft Auto series when run on the PSVita!

What does TheFlow’s native resolution GTA patch do?

As its title suggests, this patch makes the PSP’s Grand Theft Auto games (GTA Vice City Stories and GTA Liberty City Stories) render at native resolution on the PSVita (960×544).

This allows for a sharper and much-nicer looking image without the blurriness that upscaling a 480×272 (PSP’s native resolution) image brings about. Work on this patch started a short while ago with TheFlow first mentioning it publicly on March 1st and yesterday, he made another Reddit thread demonstrating his progress. As of right now, the following is known about the patch:

• This patch, which will run inside Adrenaline, will allow the PSP’s GTA games to run at 960×544 (native resolution of the Vita; double that of the PSP) on the PSVita and PSTV
• TheFlow says that performance will not be greatly affected as he only mentioned a small bit of slowdown that doesn’t affect playbility
• As the PSP only has 2MB Video RAM, the games will run at a reduced colour space of 16-bits rather than 32-bits.
  • However, this will not really affect the picture’s quality as demonstrated in the comparison screenshots that TheFlow provided (below)
• Currently, the plugin isn’t available for download
• These type of patches are game-specific so don’t expect the ability to render all games at a higher resolution similar to what PPSSPP does

When will it be available for download?

As of right now, TheFlow hasn’t given an ETA but knowing his fast pace of work on the Vita, the plugin may be released in a few weeks to a few months. In the past, TheFlow has released some patches on Patreon before doing so publicly so this native resolution patch will probably be released there first as well according to a Patreon post of his. If he chooses to do so, you’ll have to donate a few bucks (which he totally deserves) in order to get access to the patch a few weeks earlier.

Obviously, you shouldn’t pester him for an ETA and just wait patiently for him to do his work even if you support him via Patreon!

Conclusion

If you’re excited about this and want to read more, you can check the in-line links above and /u/Kabuto_Kun’s comment on TheFlow’s latest Reddit thread discussing his attempts to render PSP games, such as the GTA games and Lego Batman, at different resolutions. Furthermore, you can check out some screenshots of the patch below!

There is also a dual-analogue stick patch for the PSP’s GTA games when run in Adrenaline on the Vita which can be obtained by following this link.

GIF demonstrating the difference between rendering at normal PSP resolution, PSVita resolution and PSVita resolution with a mipmap patch (in this order): https://imgur.com/a/FkRb36g

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TheFlow’s Patreon (for donating a few bucks and getting early access to this plugin and future projects): https://www.patreon.com/TheOfficialFloW

TheFlow’s Twitter (further updates): https://twitter.com/theflow0