Early proof of concept homebrew shows Vita apps booting on Nintendo Switch

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Thanks to a new project called vita2hos (Horizon OS being the Switch's operating system), you may soon be able to natively run PS Vita apps on your Nintendo Switch. Developed by a user named xerpi, this project acts as a translation layer, redirecting Vita routines to their Switch equivalents, since the Switch and the Vita run on similar CPUs. The Vita uses a 32-bit ARM7 CPU and the Switch uses a 64-bit ARM8 CPU, but can run in a 32-bit mode. "When loading a PlayStation Vita executable, vita2hos redirects the module imports of said executable to jump to routines that implement the same behavior, by using native Horizon OS services, like the one exposed by the original PlayStation Vita OS modules," explains the GitHub. Since there is no emulation happening, if commercial games are ever playable this way, they should run at full speed with few issues.

Right now, this is a very early test build, and no commercial games are booting yet, let alone playable. This video by Modern Vintage Gamer, however, shows it running simple homebrew software like a cube renderer and a touchscreen sample.

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Edson Arantes do Nascimento
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I saw this news everywhere, but I didn't got if the concept is to flash an OS that run vita apps or if it will run straight from the stock switch os as the "horizon" name implies
 

diggeloid

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This is a cool idea. Even though the translation layer could potentially add some performance overhead, the gap between a Vita and Switch is so huge that it likely won't matter, especially compared to the alternative that is emulation. This same concept could also work to port Vita games to PC and phones without emulation.

This is the same concept as Wine/Proton, i.e. the thing Valve is using to make Windows games run on Linux, except the Vita OS is orders of magnitude simpler and smaller than Windows, and the entire set of existing software is tiny, so there's a much higher chance of achieving perfect compatibility.
 

AxlSt00pid

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I saw this news everywhere, but I didn't got if the concept is to flash an OS that run vita apps or if it will run straight from the stock switch os as the "horizon" name implies
To put it in very simple terms, this homebrew acts as a translator between vita instruction calls and switch instruction calls afaik

So it'd be like having a Spanish speaking person and a Korean speaking person talking to eachother via a 3rd person that acts as a translator for both of them

And iirc this homebrew still can't translate propietary Sony calls like certain graphics initializations or something along those lines
 

Dr_Faustus

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if this ends up working out like that yikes I feel bad for the vita

I wouldn't, Sony already walked away from the Vita years ago and most of the fans keeping it alive are mainly doing so because its a damn decent handheld to mod and emulate games on, its also cheaper than a Switch is.
 

Justinde75

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I wouldn't, Sony already walked away from the Vita years ago and most of the fans keeping it alive are mainly doing so because its a damn decent handheld to mod and emulate games on, its also cheaper than a Switch is.
I more feel bad for it because I actually really like the vita and it didnt deserve to fail like that
 

RAHelllord

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If this fully releases I hope someone makes a switch lite shell that makes it look like the Vita successor that we will never get.
 

Marc_LFD

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That's really cool.

For me, I'm only interested in about 60 games the Vita has since the majority are JRPGs and I'm not too much into that.

Switch owners may get to play the OG God of War 1 and 2 before PS4/PS5 users do. :P
 

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