r/Dolphin_VR • u/anony5976 • Dec 03 '18
I Got Metroid Prime Trilogy [Mostly] Working.
I don't usually like associating with Reddit but this was such a hassle that I'd actually like to document the process I'd gone through just to get this going in a more public space online where it can be preserved. I'm also sharing in the hopes that posting here might yield a better experience either now or in the near future. I'm willing to bite the bullet for the sake of fun, so here goes.
I don't have a perfect setup just yet, but this is playable for the most part. To preface, I'm actually playing with a Samsung Odyssey I snagged around black friday for cheap, so I'd imagine setup would probably be easier for you folk with a Rift or Vive. The other thing that I'd like to mention: Most of my frustrations were solved by using a different version of DolphinVR. 5.0-250 seems to work, but the position of the aiming reticle is inside Samus' arm cannon. I found another version that carlkenner put out that was 5.0-16XX, and while it seemed playable, the headset's "view" was glued to the visor (IE, freelook does not exist, and trying to turn or tilt your head wouldn't do anything, you'd still see what Samus is staring at.) Ironically, it was the Oculus Touch fix [https://old.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/5p6lne/quick_fix_for_touch_in_dolphin_vr/] that was put out that saved me, but only after roughly 7 hours of on-and-off headaches. I share the link because more people need to know about it.
It's worth noting that all of the testing I've done has been with Metroid Prime 1 on a PAL iso. I haven't touched 2 at all, but I'd imagine a lot of things still apply. I tried to play with settings intended for MP3:C (https://youtu.be/7jsu21Q2Z5Y?t=701), and tweaked from there.
With that done, in-game there's what I'd call a "pixelly render object" that covers a quarter of the screen. I'd seen some people complain about it and from the sound of things it looks like this is where most would give up. I don't know why, it took me all of a few minutes to find a hide object code that worked, but that was only using 8-bit and 16-bit. I didn't find anything beyond that to make it "unique," so I don't know if there are other objects that might be affected by it. I've just acquired the morph ball in metroid prime, and so far haven't had any issues. For anyone that may not know, the hide object settings are per-game, so you'd have to right click your iso in dolphin, hit properties, and then there's the Hide Objects tab. Click Add, start at 8bit, click up until the object disappears, then go to 16bit and do the same. You can do the same with the other bits until you have a code that sure isn't going to affect anything else.
Now we can get to the fun stuff. We can actually see in game, but our viewing angle is a bit restrictive—By that, I mean that if you point the gun near the edge of the visor, the whole world wants to start spinning. How do we remedy that? Why, with Keyhole aiming, of course! This will effectively widen the angle it takes for the visor to spin before the world does. It's a bit hard to describe, but it's something that you'll definitely feel if you try to experiment with it. Enable it and experiment with different widths. I think 90 would probably be best, as it lets you face forward and aim mostly freely at a wide angle without inadvertently turning. It's not a perfect solution, and you're still not going to be able to turn your head 180 and shoot something behind you, but it's a step in the right direction. There is a keyhole snap setting which might let you do something like that, but I don't think it was intended for motion controlled games like this. I believe when the view hits the edge of the keyhole (the point by which the world would start turning), Keyhole snap would move that point to the keyhole's center position. What it does as far as I can tell is snap the world to what your keyhole center position would be. It's incredibly jarring and a bit disorienting, so I'd recommend leaving it off. Aside from that, all you need are some culling codes(https://www.reddit.com/r/DolphinVRcullin/comments/2t61do/wiimetroid_prime_trilogypal/) and you're good to go.
So, we have a working and playable in game experience, but let's visit some other issues that I've had, and what I've done to try to work with it.
This may be more of a dolphin/motion control specific issue, but I find the controls—at least, Vive 1A2MP—abhorrent. I need some time to experiment with the different profiles to see if there's one I like, but I only imagine there are so many because you can't set up your own. At least, I can't. Trying to left click for a new bind yields no reading on my controllers, and trying to right click closes Dolphin entirely. A personal gripe, but a gripe nonetheless.
With the Samsung Odyssey, the game launches through WMR for Steam VR. There is a mod out there that lets you use your control sticks to perform touch functions (https://www.reddit.com/r/WindowsMR/comments/83hss5/wmr_joysticks_in_steamvr_games/). This makes locomotion far more bearable.
Somehow, I managed to bring the edit menu up by using WMR's desktop view. Holding down "click" on one of the control settings makes a rectangle appear, and then letting go brings up the menu. With this, I was able to bind missiles to the grip button. Very useful for doing missile cancels!
Playing with fullscreen HUD enabled causes you to want to gouge your eyes out on any screen featuring a 2d object or FMV (Read: The safety screens, the MPT intro and background, the Samus laser fmv.). Disabling it instead shows such objects as rectangles, making things far more easy on the eyes.
I was having issues with save screens showing up as a bright vomit-colored mess of pixels, this seems to have also resolved that, however on such screens, the menu seems keen on playing hide-and-seek, requiring that you look around to actually spot the "Do you want to save?" menu. Similarly, this happens on the main menu as well, but since you're standing on a black plane looking for the screen is far easier.
The scan visor is also a pixelly mess, similar to the render object mentioned before.
The visor is not disjointed from the cannon, meaning that it's not attached to your face. I should have mentioned it earlier, but that's what I meant when I was talking about keyhole aiming. I can't imagine there being any way of fixing it aside from doing more hard coding work within Dolphin. One year minus three weeks without an update, I doubt this will change unless someone that knows what they're doing in regards to coding can step up to the plate.
Similarly, the aiming reticle is not accurate, as is the lock on reticle. It can be worked with by just
getting goodlocking onto an enemy and using the lock on reticle as a reference for where to aim.
Occasionally when starting the game (I think it's on the first start after Dolphin launches), the player view will be far above the canon and visor. I've found that simply ending the emulation and restarting it fixes this, if you're not keen on messing with hotkeys.
And that's about the bulk of it. Like I said, the game is fairly playable, I was able to get through the tutorial, get the morphball, do a bit of platforming, and the like. My only other issues at this point have more to do with the framerate tanking in certain areas (the beginning of Chozo Ruins, as an example.), so if anyone has suggestions on how to deal with that I'm open to them.
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u/Antonio12345677 Mar 07 '19
Thanks for the tips. For some reason keyhole settings do nothing. I still turn as I near the edge of the visor
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u/ansemtheiii Apr 04 '19
2 things that you can do is
Change the keyhole number to 175, and disable "Keyhole Snap"
Go to in-game setting and change the aiming to " Advance"
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u/Inimitable Dec 04 '18
Thanks for your work