Show HN: PS2 games statically recompiled to WebAssembly

246 points - today at 6:46 AM

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aceazzameen today at 3:23 PM
I don't know. There's suddenly so many decomps that run native (granted this post is about WebAssembly). Is there no concern about hidden malware? IMO it doesn't have the same level of trust and vetting that the emulator scene has. At least not yet.
zuInnp today at 11:52 AM
All of this recomp stuff is pretty amazing. I really don't like how AI changed my profession, but hey at least I get something good from it.
Megabinator today at 12:23 PM
What about compiling the compiler to WebAssembly so it can be hosted anywhere and convert a project directly from a browser?
kodablah today at 12:46 PM
I did similar for PS Vita over the past few months: https://github.com/cretz/vitaslop

But instead of single games, I "built" an ARM-to-WASM transpiler in WASM. Also cool transcoding of WebGPU shaders, audio, and more.

Only have tested a few games so far, it's early days, but works quite well in Chrome mobile on flagship Android phones.

eluusive today at 9:45 AM
Who would want to play Gran Turismo without long CD loading screens?
mamonoleechi today at 4:42 PM
- related thread:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49991243 (God of War on PSP, recompiled to WebAssembly and running in the browser)

- might interest you, if you like the topic you're currently reading: https://thegamingemporium.com/recent/

anonymous908213 today at 6:22 PM
> This is the sibling of psp-web-recomp and follows the same method

Fucking amazing that this person can prompt to embed an emulator into a binary and call it "no emulation recompilation" and get not one but two threads on the front page. LLMs are such an amazing tool for liars to produce upvotable slop, nobody gives a fuck about verifying whether the claims are true.

Elizer0x0309 today at 1:20 PM
With the slew of recomps these days enabled by AI, How much incentive is there for a game studio to pour their heart, soul and money in a product when it can be easily "stolen" and shared for free...
krishhgg today at 9:48 PM
this is sick
Hyperlisk today at 2:56 PM
Very cool! I'm working on something similar but am taking it much slower with a focus on accuracy. Mine recompiles into Golang to take advantage of built-in SIMD support.

I've been building the tooling around the PS2 binaries and hope to have a standalone PSS player out soon that can play PSS files as they are encoded, via simulated renderer, and via in-game engine renderer. The future is so bright with LLMs!

krystalgamer today at 10:57 AM
ah yes, another recomp that still emulates a core system component.

https://github.com/snuri00/ps2-web-recomp/blob/1066c9eea78c2...

khalidkhair today at 3:24 PM
I wonder how "legal" hosting this would be given that it would require the host to basically distribute the game for free for everyone else
Altern4tiveAcc today at 3:36 PM
Pretty cool stuff. Seems like the web build script isn't escaping spaces in the game name.
Benard-dev today at 1:39 PM
This is good, I didn't know 3DS could handle PS2 emulation.

What's the performance like on heavier titles?

gitowiec today at 1:28 PM
I will wait for MVG video
CodeCompost today at 11:44 AM
AI or no AI, this is amazing.
nashtik today at 2:20 PM
Does this means same can happen for ps3?
shan-pafin today at 5:39 PM
Recompiling PS2 games to WebAssembly is insane. Have you noticed any major performance bottlenecks when running heavier titles in the browser?
simonmales today at 10:45 AM
No GitHub pages so I can play?
jgalt212 today at 3:57 PM
Did Sony know ahead of time?

Physical disc production ending in January 2028

https://blog.playstation.com/2026/07/01/physical-disc-produc...

mglvsky today at 1:23 PM
are there clean-room games?
SIMPL_Language today at 4:14 PM
When a recompilation of Windows free from all the Microsoft slop?
spwa4 today at 10:27 AM
VERY cool. I wish you could make this work for steam deck (and friends) though.
fonrex today at 9:38 AM
I hope they'll be able to do that with Forza too !
anthk today at 10:26 AM
On the PSP recomp, I wish they could somehow target GL 2.1 video cards (ancient Intel iGPU's) so legacy users like me could play most of the games on an n270 netbook.
squidmaster today at 10:15 AM
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deleted today at 7:10 AM
ContinuityLab today at 3:31 PM
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Lagoon3384_SWE today at 3:29 PM
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evann-dev today at 3:43 PM
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danxbuild today at 7:01 AM
Impressive. How are you handling the PS2’s timing sensitive hardware, like the vector units, in a static recompilation? Curious how close you can get to correct behavior without emulating cycle by cycle.
DylanMerigaud today at 7:56 AM
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llmbrake today at 3:28 PM
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