WiiCompiled OpenXR VR 0.2.43 · Quest app 0.4.0

You can now sit in the cockpit and steer with your own hands, thanks to @heurazy. Two features
Darthcircuit suggested are here too: a Flat Screen mode for races, and switching the camera
from the controller.

You still supply your own clean PAL (RMCP01) disc image. No game code and no game data ships in
any download here.

In the cockpit, by @heurazy

The cockpit and everything in this section were ported from heurazy's
mario-kart-wii-VR-port.

• First person now seats you in the cockpit, hands on the wheel, and the kart's own steering
  wheel or handlebar turns as you steer.
• Hand steering, on by default: squeeze a grip near the wheel or handlebar to grab it, then turn
  it to steer. Let go with both hands and steering goes back to the stick.
• Your hands are drawn in the cockpit: gloves on PC, and the headset's own hand model on a
  Quest 3.
• USB steering wheels and pedals on PC (experimental): calibrate the wheel by moving it and
  pressing its buttons, and it can navigate the menus on its own. It has not been tested with a
  physical wheel yet, so reports are very welcome.

The first-person view now follows the kart's pitch as well as its heading (yaw_pitch), so a spin
or a wheelie moves the view. Choose yaw to keep the horizon level instead.

Suggested by @darthcircuit

• Flat Screen mode. Races stay on the same flat screen as the menus instead of surrounding you,
  as in DolphinXR's mode of the same name. Switch it live under F10 → VR → Flat Screen mode, in
  the headset settings panel's VR tab, or in the Quest app's settings; it takes effect on the next
  frame, even mid-race. First person, hand steering and VR frame interpolation only shape the
  immersive view, so they have no effect while it is on, and the thumbstick camera click below is
  ignored.
• Switch the camera from the controller. Click the right thumbstick to turn first person on or
  off, from the VR controllers or any gamepad.

Headset

• Sharper settings panel. It is now its own compositor layer, so its text stays crisp at any
  render scale instead of being shrunk into the eye image.
• Fixed: your hands could be darkened by the virtual screen behind them.
• The frame-rate counter is now off by default.

Fixes on PC

• Stutter with "Keep scanning for Wii Remotes" on. Each rescan held a lock that stalled the
  headset's frame pacing for 100–230 ms, every couple of seconds (reported on a Pimax). The headset
  no longer waits on it. The game itself still pauses briefly at each rescan, so leave that setting
  off unless you actually play with a real Wii Remote.

Meta Quest (app 0.4.0)

• Passthrough around the menus. The menu screen and every other virtual screen float in your
  room instead of in black. Immersive races are never shown through it, and the cameras pause while
  you race.
• Mods page for Retro Rewind. Import a mod's files, or the .zip it came in, then enable and
  order them. They are copied into Retro Rewind's Patches folder each time it starts, and when two
  mods replace the same file, the one higher in the list wins.
• Cockpit seat and hand steering settings, and heurazy's credit in About.
• The disc step now shows the MD5 hash your clean PAL .iso should have. Compressed images such as
  .wbfs or .rvz hash differently.

Upgrading

• Quest: install the APK over the existing app. Saves, settings, game files and the Retro Rewind
  pack are kept. Your built game will show as out of date, because the runtime changed: press
  Build on the headset, or use Build for Quest on your PC with 0.2.43 and import the result.
• PC: install over your existing installation as usual. Saves, Miis and ghosts are kept.

Downloads

• WiiCompiled-Setup.exe: the PC installer, 0.2.43.
• WiiCompiledVR-Quest-0.4.0.apk: the Quest app, sideloaded over USB.
• The launcher is a separate download, WheelWizard VR 2.5.8, in
  WheelWizard_VR.

WiiCompiled OpenXR VR 0.2.42 · Quest app 0.3.0

Windows Vulkan (new)

• Settings → WiiCompiled → Graphics API now offers DirectX 12 or Vulkan for VR
• The Vulkan binding uses the same pacing, the same layer protocol and the same safety policy as
  DirectX 12. Eyes stay on the GPU, with no copy back through the processor.

Rendering

• Render-first pacing when VR interpolation is off, on DirectX 12, Windows Vulkan and the Quest:
  the frame is drawn for where your head is predicted to be, rather than one step behind.
• Fixed: the immersive view could fall back to a flat, single-eye image.
• Per-pass GPU timing and per-stage OpenXR timings now appear in the logs, which makes a slow frame
  report far easier to act on.

Meta Quest (app 0.3.0)

• A dedicated graphics thread. The work behind each frame now runs beside the game instead of
  inside it ([video] gx_thread: on by default on the Quest, off on PC, where you can turn it on).
• The graphics thread and render-first pacing above apply here too.
• Fixed: building a Retro Rewind game whose translation lacked the Retro-WFC payload produced a
  game that crashed when you entered Retro Rewind online.
• Fixed: a crash that could happen when the game changed the mouse cursor on Android.

Upgrading

• Quest: install the APK over the existing app. Saves, settings and game files are kept. Your
  built game will show as out of date, because the runtime changed: press Build on the headset,
  or use Build for Quest on your PC with 0.2.42 and import the result.

WiiCompiled OpenXR VR 0.2.41 · Quest app 0.2.0

A performance update for the Meta Quest app, with a matching PC release.

Meta Quest (app 0.2.0)

• Faster start-up after the first launch. Graphics pipelines are now kept between sessions, so
  preparing them takes about 4 seconds instead of up to 38.
• Headset performance level in Settings: Boost (the default), Sustained high, Sustained low,
  Power savings, or the headset's own choice. Lower it if the headset runs hot or battery matters
  more.
• Render scale now defaults to 0.8 on new installations, leaving the GPU some headroom. An
  existing installation keeps its current value; change it in Settings if you want the same.
• Reset installation, on Home and in Settings → About: removes the game files, and if you tick
  them the built games and the Retro Rewind pack, so they can be set up again from scratch. Saves
  and settings stay.
• Fixed: catching up on several Retro Rewind updates at once could delete files that a later
  update had put back. Updates now apply in the same order as on PC.

Controllers (Quest and PC VR)

• Y opens the in-headset settings panel, instead of clicking both thumbsticks. In Gamepad
  controller mode, clicking both thumbsticks still opens it.
• The Wii Remote's − and + are now X and the menu button.

PC

• The PC runtime gets the same frame-pacing fix behind the Quest speed-up, which applies whenever VR
  interpolation is off (the default).
• WheelWizard VR's Build for Quest needs this release: a 0.2.40 installation cannot build for
  Quest app 0.2.0, because the two must come from the same release.

Upgrading

• Quest: install the APK over the existing app. Saves, settings and game files are kept. Your
  built game will show as out of date, because the runtime changed: press Build on the headset,
  or update WiiCompiled on your PC to 0.2.41, use Build for Quest again and import the result.

WiiCompiled OpenXR VR 0.2.40

Mario Kart Wii now runs standalone on Meta Quest. This release adds the Quest app alongside the
PC build, and merges upstream WiiCompiled v0.2.32.

You still supply your own clean PAL (RMCP01) disc image. No game code and no game data ships in
any download here.

Meta Quest (new)

• Standalone Quest app, running on Quest 3 — menus and races, with both Base and Retro Rewind in one
  app.
• The APK contains no game code. You build your game from your own disc, either on the headset
  or on your PC with Build for Quest in the WheelWizard VR launcher, then import the .wcgame.
• Disc extraction on the headset, and Retro Rewind now downloads its pack there automatically.
• A 2D launcher panel with Play and a settings editor.

PC VR

• In-headset OpenXR settings panel and stereo overlay — change VR settings without taking the
  headset off.
• Wii Remote and Nunchuk emulation from your VR controllers, pointer aiming included.
• Split-screen multiplayer: player 1 gets the immersive view.
• OpenXR diagnostics and one-press log export, so a bug report can carry what the runtime saw.

Game

• From upstream v0.2.32: keyboard and mouse support with a rebinding overhaul, analog triggers as
  digital inputs, an Exit button, a controller LED fix, autohide cursor and mute hotkey fixes, and a
  fix for the Item Rain crash.

Downloads

• WiiCompiled-Setup.exe — the PC installer.
• WiiCompiledVR-Quest-0.1.0.apk — the Quest app, sideloaded over USB.
• The launcher is a separate download, in
  WheelWizard_VR.

WiiCompiled OpenXR VR 0.2.38 - VR Frame Interpolation and FPV Online Fix

WiiCompiled OpenXR VR 0.2.38

Installable through WheelWizard VR, which now manages this backend alongside the
normal WiiCompiled one.

New

• VR frame interpolation (experimental) — F10 > VR > VR frame interpolation, with
  Off / Auto / 72 / 90 / 120. Applies immediately, and is independent of the desktop
  Graphics > Race frame interpolation setting.

Fixed

• Mirror Mode Grand Prix.
• First-person camera anchor online — it now follows your own kart.
• Online stability fix in guest thread scheduling.
• A frame-history copying bottleneck in VR interpolation, plus further perf work.

Changed

• Bloom is off by default — its bright bleed is the effect that reads worst in a
  headset.
• First-person default head height lowered to 1.50 m.

WheelWizard Launcher Support

Added support for WheelWizard_VR launcher

VR Preview — first-person camera, 2D virtual screen for the HUD and ortho elements, (upstream v0.2.31)

WiiCompiled VR — experimental OpenXR build

Based on upstream v0.2.31. Windows / D3D12 only. VR stays off until you enable it
in Config.toml or the F10 > VR menu, and OpenXR changes need a full restart.

First-person camera

The headset now sits on the Player 1 driver's kart instead of the chase camera.

• Rotation modes — Yaw only (default, horizon always level), Yaw + Pitch
  (slopes and wheelies tip the view, corners never roll it), Full rotation
  (takes the kart's whole orientation, banking included). Head tracking adds free
  look on top of whichever you pick.
• Hide driver / Hide driver and kart — your own character sits exactly where
  your eyes are, so it is hidden by default. Only your kart is touched; other racers
  are untouched and everything is restored when the race ends.
• Head position sliders — up / forward / right, in the kart's own frame, plus a
  button that restores every first-person default.
• Retuned defaults so the seat feels right out of the box.
• Engages only in a single-screen race. Menus, split-screen, and the desktop mirror
  are unaffected.

Comfort and view control

• Recenter — bound to F9 by default (rebindable), also a button in the VR menu.
• Lean back angle — up to ±45°, for tilting the view without recentering.
• Anchored main menu quad — the menu screen holds its place instead of drifting.
• Head orientation no longer feeds into the view rotation.

Presentation

• Desktop view selector — choose what the desktop window shows while the headset
  is running: Normal, Both, Left, Right, or None. Live, and the F10 bar draws
  over whatever you pick, so you can always change it back.
• Fix: no more black frames during stalls. The XR thread now resubmits the last
  valid frame while waiting on the game, with a 50 ms keep-alive.
• Eager Frame Heartbeat (off by default) — repeats at headset display deadlines
  instead of waiting for new game frames. Try both during the same race and keep
  whichever is smoother on your runtime.
• 2D virtual screen for the HUD and ortho elements, so 2D content keeps its place
  across the menu/race transition.

Other

• VR settings moved out of the Graphics menu into their own VR top-bar menu.

WiiCompiled OpenXR Preview 1

WiiCompiled OpenXR Preview 1

This is the first experimental VR release of Mario Kart Wii Recompile.

Warning

This is an early VR preview intended for testing. Expect rendering issues, missing VR-specific fixes, and compatibility problems.

Highlights

• Experimental OpenXR rendering through Direct3D 12
• Immersive stereoscopic rendering during supported single-camera races
• 6DoF headset tracking
• GPU-only transfer into the OpenXR swapchains
• Menus and unsupported scenes appear on a head-locked virtual screen
• Desktop mirror remains available

You must provide your own legally dumped, clean and unmodified PAL copy of Mario Kart Wii:

• Game ID: RMCP01
• Accepted formats: ISO, GCM, GCZ, CISO, WBFS, WIA and RVZ
• Other regions and modified executables are rejected

Only the Windows Direct3D 12 OpenXR path is currently operational.

Installing the preview

WiiCompiled-Setup.exe is currently a command-line installer. Double-clicking it only displays information about Wheel Wizard.

1. Download and verify the installer

Download WiiCompiled-Setup.exe only from this GitHub release.

Current SHA-256:

293098bfc27e6dff789ec9887ce64af73f620b63cea663d2b512eb9e02bc2d68

To verify it in PowerShell:

(Get-FileHash .\WiiCompiled-Setup.exe -Algorithm SHA256).Hash

The installer is not code-signed yet, so Windows SmartScreen may display a warning. Only continue if it came from this repository and its checksum matches.

2. Validate your disc

Open PowerShell in the directory containing the installer and run:

.\WiiCompiled-Setup.exe --verify-inputs --game "C:\Games\Mario Kart Wii.iso"

Replace the example path with the location of your own disc image.

3. Install and compile the game

.\WiiCompiled-Setup.exe --silent --game "C:\Games\Mario Kart Wii.iso"

The default installation directory is:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\WiiCompiled

Translation and native compilation happen locally and can take a while. The compilation stage is normally the longest one.

When installation finishes, a wiicompiled (base) (beta) shortcut is created on the desktop and in the Start menu.

You can also launch it with:

& "$env:LOCALAPPDATA\Programs\WiiCompiled\WiiCompiled-Setup.exe" --launch-base

Enabling VR

Meta Quest with Virtual Desktop/VDXR

1. Start Virtual Desktop Streamer on the PC.
2. Select VDXR as the active OpenXR runtime.
3. Connect the headset through Virtual Desktop.
4. Launch WiiCompiled using its desktop or Start menu shortcut.
5. Press F10 while the game window has focus.
6. Enable OpenXR VR.
7. Close the game completely.
8. Launch it again while the headset and OpenXR runtime are active.

The OpenXR setting is read at startup, so restarting the game is required.

You can also enable it manually in:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\WiiCompiled\Config.toml

The relevant section is:

[vr]
enabled = true
required = false
render_scale = 1.0
world_units_per_meter = 500.0
hud_distance_meters = 2.0
stop_at_display_copy = true
skip_copy_clears = true

Keep required = false unless you want the game to stop with an error whenever OpenXR cannot start.

What to expect in VR

• Menus and loading screens appear on a head-locked 2D virtual screen.
• A supported single-camera race switches automatically to immersive stereo VR.
• Leaving the race returns to the virtual screen.
• Multiplayer and unclassified scenes currently remain on the virtual screen.
• OpenXR motion controllers are not implemented. Use a normal controller.
• Press F10 to configure controller mappings and graphics settings.