Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator - Forums

Any news or alpha release about this?

I'm playing SMG2 with the old DolphinVR in two config:
- with Oculus Quest 2 over Oculus Link (by mapping Oculus Touch). I previously played with ALVR (open-source wireless Oculus Link alternative) with success.
- with Pimax 5K+ (by mapping Valve Index controller).

It works, apart glitches and some issue related to missing controller profile files.

(09-17-2019, 02:34 AM)JosJuice Wrote: [ -> ]Please don't discuss that fork here. It violates Dolphin's license.

I was curious to know what part of the Dolphin license is violated by the Dolphin VR fork. I was a very big fan of that fork and was sad to hear that their developers were blocked. Not trolling, just curious, hoping to have VR functionality back sometime.

Thanks.

(12-03-2020, 05:12 AM)sgtkellogg Wrote: [ -> ]I was curious to know what part of the Dolphin license is violated by the Dolphin VR fork. I was a very big fan of that fork and was sad to hear that their developers were blocked. Not trolling, just curious, hoping to have VR functionality back sometime.

Thanks.

From the GNU GPL 2.0:

6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.

While the source code of the fork is publicly available, it links to a library (the Oculus SDK) which is licensed under terms which would impose such further restrictions. Since the GPL is the only thing that gives you the right to copy Dolphin code in the first place, any distribution of the Dolphin VR program as a whole is likely illegal.

The author of the fork claims that the following section of the GPL makes it not a license violation, but that interpretation seems somewhat strange to me since Oculus's software isn't part of the operating system you are using (unless you're running Dolphin on an Oculus Quest I guess):

However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.

(12-03-2020, 05:59 AM)JosJuice Wrote: [ -> ]From the GNU GPL 2.0:

6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.

While the source code of the fork is publicly available, it links to a library (the Oculus SDK) which is licensed under terms which would impose such further restrictions. Since the GPL is the only thing that gives you the right to copy Dolphin code in the first place, any distribution of the Dolphin VR program as a whole is likely illegal.

The author of the fork claims that the following section of the GPL makes it not a license violation, but that interpretation seems somewhat strange to me since Oculus's software isn't part of the operating system you are using (unless you're running Dolphin on an Oculus Quest I guess):

However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.

Thank you for the detailed reply! It sounds like it comes down to this: "unless that component itself accompanies the executable." Since Windows does not come with the Oculus SDK preinstalled, nor is the SDK necessary for Windows to operate, I can see the argument against Dolphin VR. I would counter argue, however, that there is no real victim here, and that actually they've hurt a large number of Dolphin VR fans for no reason. I'm pretty sure this would never come to court, and if it did, then a cease and desist from Oculus should be sufficient, as they are the only party that I could possibly imagine bringing suit. I understand the Dolphin developers are within their rights to deny the Dolphin VR devs access, but this feels heavy handed. Also, I happen to be an Oculus Quest 2 owner, so I should still be allowed to use the Dolphin VR fork without any legal violation.

Lastly, its fairly funny that producers of emulators which are widely used to break licensing agreements are such strong enforcers of licenses. I know the official stance of the developers is that no licenses are ever to be broken, but they know full well that it happens on a massive scale.

At any rate, thanks for the response, I do hope the Dolphin VR fork is either allowed back into development or that the open source VR options pan out. Until then, we've got a very buggy and mostly broken Dolphin VR experience that hasn't been updated in 4 years.

(12-03-2020, 06:13 AM)sgtkellogg Wrote: [ -> ]Thank you for the detailed reply! It sounds like it comes down to this: "unless that component itself accompanies the executable." Since Windows does not come with the Oculus SDK preinstalled, nor is the SDK necessary for Windows to operate, I can see the argument against Dolphin VR. I would counter argue, however, that there is no real victim here, and that actually they've hurt a large number of Dolphin VR fans for no reason.

Keep in mind that in order for us to be able to grant an exception for Dolphin VR, we would have to get permission from essentially every single person who ever has contributed to Dolphin, which there are hundreds of. If we don't, we would be violating the law and any of those contributors would be able to bring claims if they wanted to.

(12-03-2020, 06:13 AM)sgtkellogg Wrote: [ -> ]Also, I happen to be an Oculus Quest 2 owner, so I should still be allowed to use the Dolphin VR fork without any legal violation.

Can Dolphin VR actually run on the Quest 2 itself, as opposed to being streamed to the Quest 2 from a PC? If not, then I don't believe it's relevant.

Not only does the Oculus SDK violate Dolphin's license, but Dolphin's license violates the Oculus SDK agreement. First of all the Oculus SDK license strictly states that anything that violates their Content Guidelines will immediately have its license revoked. Since Dolphin can run whatever within itself, so we're absolutely disqualified. Furthermore, oculus reserves the right to cancel any license for "health and safety issues", which is a vague and scary power. Since GameCube and Wii games were not made for VR and are very likely to make someone vom, it violates that too. And that's not even getting into their Intellectual Property causes, which I bet they would say we violate and also leads to an immediate revoked license. The SDK rules are -heavily- tilted toward making sure that if anyone does anything that might harm oculus or oculus's reputation, the developer gets their access to oculus hardware and software revoked.

And of course on the Dolphin side, the violations to the GPL that the oculus SDK does are so many that the Free Software Foundation stopped counting.

Hi,

I'm new to Dolphin development, I'm willing to help with OpenXR support and I would appreciate some help.

I have captured a few frames and I don't know why everything beside 2D elements is not rendered.



This is the same FIFO played without stero:




Any idea of what could it be?

Here is my repository:
https://github.com/LordVulkan/dolphin/tree/openxr

EDIT 2021/04/26:

I have inspected both frames with renderdoc and now I know it is a problem with the geometry shader, as it is only being applied when OpenXR is enabled.

Hey @LordVulkan.
First of all. THANK YOU FOR YOUR EFFORT! I really look forward to some VR F-Zero GZ sessions again. I tried sooo many different VR racing games and the one and only VR experience I had by now was F-Zero GX on Carl's OOOOOLD DolphinVR builds.

I built your fork yesterday and confirm it working sort of with my Index. Sort of means that I have rendered 3D in games like F-Zero GX now and it looks quite nice already. But with some flaws which might already be well known anyways:

- Starting position is... somewhere, but not where I would expect it. Means I get into a race and sit under the race track for example. Maybe some reset to zero on start would be needed here.
- Good ol' left eye only problem of course ^^

Sidenote for ppl who wanna try: Use DX11 renderer or not much will happen at all on your VR glasses.

(04-27-2021, 08:09 PM)dreimer Wrote: [ -> ]Hey @LordVulkan.
First of all. THANK YOU FOR YOUR EFFORT! I really look forward to some VR F-Zero GZ sessions again. I tried sooo many different VR racing games and the one and only VR experience I had by now was F-Zero GX on Carl's OOOOOLD DolphinVR builds.

I built your fork yesterday and confirm it working sort of with my Index. Sort of means that I have rendered 3D in games like F-Zero GX now and it looks quite nice already. But with some flaws which might already be well known anyways:

- Starting position is... somewhere, but not where I would expect it. Means I get into a race and sit under the race track for example. Maybe some reset to zero on start would be needed here.
- Good ol' left eye only problem of course ^^

Sidenote for ppl who wanna try: Use DX11 renderer or not much will happen at all on your VR glasses.

Thank you for taking the time to build and try this changes. You can read more info about current problems in this PR I took as a starting point: https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin/pull/8380

I'm new to Dolphin and VR development, also most likely I will only have time to work on this during weekends, but I will be posting my progress here as often as I can.

(04-27-2021, 08:09 PM)dreimer Wrote: [ -> ]Hey @LordVulkan.
First of all. THANK YOU FOR YOUR EFFORT! I really look forward to some VR F-Zero GZ sessions again. I tried sooo many different VR racing games and the one and only VR experience I had by now was F-Zero GX on Carl's OOOOOLD DolphinVR builds.

I built your fork yesterday and confirm it working sort of with my Index. Sort of means that I have rendered 3D in games like F-Zero GX now and it looks quite nice already. But with some flaws which might already be well known anyways:

- Starting position is... somewhere, but not where I would expect it. Means I get into a race and sit under the race track for example. Maybe some reset to zero on start would be needed here.
- Good ol' left eye only problem of course ^^

Sidenote for ppl who wanna try: Use DX11 renderer or not much will happen at all on your VR glasses.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who appreciates how much of an AMAZING experience it was to play F-Zero GX on that "old build". Was an experience I'll  never forget.

Lord Vulkan......despite being new to Dolphin development, I'm happy to hear you're at least willing to make an attempt at reviving VR in Dolphin. I don't really care about any other game besides F-Zero GX. It's still very early and we know you just got started, but since Carl is nowhere to be found these days, you are our only hope brother.

Lord Vulkan......We stand behind and fully support you brother!! There is no rush, as I won't be in a position to play any VR games for at least another 9 months or so(I need to get the vision in my left eye improved and the money I need to afford the surgery for that is going to take time). But one day it will happen and I look forward to the day I can experience F-Zero GX in VR without too many glitches(the "old build" has too many jarring perspective and camera changes when playing in VR, making for an unpleasant experience).

I don't plan on using any Oculus headsets going forward. I own a StarVR One and a Pimax 8K-X VR headset, both of which have wide field of view. I can't begin to imagine what it will be like playing F-Zero GX on a 210º VR headset like the Star VR One. I hope you will support that headset once your VR plugin is released.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwqFvusWPII