iHaiDeeZ/HENkaku-PS4

⬇ Get the latest release · Getting started · PKGj · Controls · HENkaku menu · Performance · FAQ · Credits

HENkaku brings Vita3K, the PlayStation Vita emulator, to jailbroken PS4 consoles. The Vita's ARM code runs on the PS4's CPU through the dynarmic JIT, and its GXM graphics through Vita3K's Vulkan renderer on Mesa's RADV driver, ported to submit work straight to the PS4's AMD GPU.

It installs as an app on the home screen and opens on a home screen like the Vita's own: bubbles, each game's LiveArea, and the firmware's Settings, Content Manager and Trophy Collection. Games install from the PS4's storage, a USB drive or PKGj, and L3 + R3 opens the HENkaku menu while you play.

You bring your own games: no games, firmware or other Sony files are in this repository or its releases. HENkaku downloads the PS Vita firmware from Sony's own update server the first time it starts.

A PS Vita on your PS4

• The Vita's home screen: bubbles in pages of ten, each game's LiveArea, drawn with the installed firmware's own pictures.
• The firmware's apps: Settings opens HENkaku's settings, Content Manager installs games, and Trophy Collection shows each game's trophies with their pictures, grades and dates.
• Your games, saves and trophies stay in /data/HENkaku across updates.

Installing games

• .vpk and .zip archives, dumped game folders, .pkg files with their zRIF or license, and NoNpDrm dumps, decrypted in place.
• From /data/HENkaku/install (copy them over FTP), anywhere on the PS4's storage, or a USB drive.
• PKGj works as on a Vita with NoNpDrm: its downloads come down in the background and install by themselves.

Made for the PS4

• FidelityFX Super Resolution 1 upscales the Vita's picture to 1080p, with adjustable sharpness.
• Frame generation shows a made frame between every two of a game's under 50 fps, so the screen changes every vblank.
• The FPS hack, for games that can run at 60 instead of 30.
• Every setting for all games, or for one game only.

Controls your way

• Any DualShock 4 button can be any Vita button, a PS TV button, or a touch at one of nine places of the front screen or the rear touch pad. The touch pad is the front screen, the rear pad, or both.

When something goes wrong

• Logs, a crash report and the last game's own log in /data/HENkaku, and profilers in HENkaku > Diagnostics, each with its own off switch.

You need: a jailbroken PS4 with GoldHEN, an FTP connection to it, an internet connection on the PS4 the first time (or Sony's update files), and your own PS Vita games.

1. Download HENkaku-vXX.XX.pkg from the releases page, copy it to the PS4 (for example to /data/pkg over FTP), install it with GoldHEN's Package Installer and start HENkaku from the home screen.
2. The first time, HENkaku downloads the PS Vita firmware (3.74, 128 MB) and its font package (54 MB) from Sony's update server and installs them. Circle stops the download and Square starts it again. Without a connection, copy Sony's update files (PSVUPDAT.PUP, PSP2UPDAT.PUP) to /data/HENkaku/install/ and install them like a game.
3. Copy your games to /data/HENkaku/install/ over FTP, anywhere else under /data, or onto a USB drive.
4. On the home screen, open Install (or press Triangle). Cross installs the file you picked (or opens a folder), Square installs everything in the folder, and Circle goes up to the list of places. What installs from the install folder moves to install/done/.
5. The game you just installed is picked: Cross opens its LiveArea, and Cross again starts it.

HENkaku downloads both from Sony the first time it starts. Without an internet connection on the PS4, or when the download keeps failing, download them on a PC and install them yourself:

1. Download Sony's two update files (keep their names):

   • PS Vita firmware 3.74: PSVUPDAT.PUP, 133,834,240 bytes
   • PS Vita font package: PSP2UPDAT.PUP, 56,768,512 bytes

   They come from Sony's own update server, which only offers plain HTTP: if your browser warns about that, keep the file. A file of another size didn't download completely.

2. Copy both to /data/HENkaku/install/ on the PS4 over FTP (or onto a USB drive).

3. Start HENkaku and press Triangle (or open Install): Square installs both, or pick one and press Cross. Each moves to install/done/ once it's in.

4. With both in, the home screen no longer says the firmware is missing, and games start.

What installs: .vpk and .zip archives; dumped game folders (with sce_sys/param.sfo); .pkg files with a .zrif text file of the same name holding the zRIF (or their .rif license installed first); NoNpDrm dumps (with sce_sys/package/work.bin). A NoNpDrm dump copied straight into /data/HENkaku/fs/ux0/app/ is decrypted in place the first time it starts.

Updating HENkaku: install the newer package on top of the old one. Your games, saves and settings stay.

Coming from v00.xx? Those versions kept everything in /data/Vita3K. 1.00 moves that folder to /data/HENkaku the first time it starts, with your games, saves and settings in it.

The HENkaku bubble (the ensō) opens the settings of all games.

HENkaku > Themes (or Square on the HENkaku bubble) changes how the home screen looks:

• Style: Bubbles (the PS Vita's home screen), LiveArea cards (each game's LiveArea as a card, side by side: left and right move between them, Cross starts the game, L1 / R1 jump five), or List (Vita3K's list).
• Bubbles: 3D (lit like glass, with a gloss and a shadow) or Flat.
• Theme: ten built-in themes, Custom colours, and every PS Vita theme you install. Install official Vita themes with PKGj, or copy a theme's .pkg with its .zrif to the install folder; a Vita theme brings its own pictures (one per page, scrolling with the pages) and colours.
• Colours: pick the background's top and bottom, the light and the focus from 25 colours. Changing one turns the theme into Custom colours, starting from the theme you had.
• Wallpaper: the theme's own, or a picture: from /data/HENkaku/wallpapers, a USB drive (its top folder or a wallpapers folder on it), or your PS4 screenshots. Each one shows beside the list before you pick it, and a picked picture is copied to /data/HENkaku/wallpapers.

PKGj works as on a Vita with NoNpDrm. Install its .vpk like any game, then use Install game as usual:

• The package comes down while PKGj runs (the bottom right corner shows how far along it is), carries on in HENkaku's home screen when you go back to it, and installs there with the license PKGj gave. The new game's bubble is picked.
• Circle stops a download; HENkaku's settings (OPTIONS) > PKGj downloads carries on with it or cancels it.
• Installing needs about twice the package's size of free space for a while: the package is deleted once its files are out, and each file is decrypted in place.

Change them for all games in HENkaku > Controls, or for one game in its own settings or in the HENkaku menu. Any DualShock 4 button can be any Vita button, a PS TV button, a touch at one of nine places of the front screen or the rear touch pad, or nothing. Sticks sets their range: Square (the default) makes a full diagonal full on both axes, as on the PS2's and PS3's pads the games were made for (Ratchet & Clank needs it for diagonals); Round gives the DualShock 4's own range.

The touch pad has two modes (Touch pad, for all games or one, also in the HENkaku menu's Controls):

• Hover (the default): your finger moves a pointer as on a laptop's touch pad (lifting it leaves the pointer where it is), a tap touches the screen there, and a tap then your finger down again and moving drags a touch (a swipe). A ring shows the pointer, filled while it touches.
• Direct: the touch pad is the screen itself: where you touch is where it touches, with two fingers too.

The rings can be turned off in HENkaku > Display > Touch markers.

When a game asks you to type something (a name, a save's title, a search), the PS4's own keyboard opens with the game's title and text. Type with the DualShock 4 (Cross picks a key) or a USB or Bluetooth keyboard, then choose Done: the text goes to the game. Closing the keyboard cancels, or keeps the text the game started with if the game gives no way to cancel.

The DualShock 4's motion sensors are the Vita's: tilting and turning the controller tilts and turns the Vita for games that use motion (aiming, balancing, steering).

The Vita's cameras (Controls > Camera, for all games or one, also in the HENkaku menu):

• PS4 camera (the default): a PlayStation Camera on the PS4 shows what it sees. Without one, the game sees your picture (below), or grey.
• Picture: a picture of your own: put it in /data/HENkaku/camera.png or /data/HENkaku/camera.jpg.
• Dark or Bright: a solid colour. Bright passes puzzles that want light on the camera (Uncharted: Golden Abyss, chapter 13).

Press L3 + R3 while playing. The game pauses under the menu; Resume goes back to it and Exit to the home screen.

"Next start" settings apply when the game starts again: HENkaku goes back to its home screen after every game, so Exit and start it again.

The PS4's CPU is the limit: the Vita's code is translated on the fly and its graphics turned into Vulkan on the same eight 1.6 GHz Jaguar cores. Lighter games run at full speed; heavier 3D games run at 30 fps or a little under, as some did on the Vita itself.

Games played on the console so far include Mortal Kombat, God of War Collection, Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 Plus and Persona 4 Golden. Vita3K's compatibility list is a good guide: a game that doesn't work in Vita3K won't work here either.

• Frame generation (Display): for games under 50 fps, a frame made between every two of the game's, placed at its moment, so motion looks smoother. Fast camera moves can still show some smearing at the edges of moving things. It's off by default.
• FPS hack (Speed): lets a game that waits two vblanks per frame wait one. Some games run at 60 with it; in games whose speed follows their frame rate it makes them run too fast. It's off by default.
• FSR 1 (Display, screen filter): upscales the Vita's 960x544 picture to the TV with a sharpening pass.
• Fast system calls (HENkaku > CPU): calls that never wait (the thread's ID and storage, the clocks, the graphics state setters and draws) run inside the translated code instead of stopping it, and the thread's ID and storage are answered by a few instructions in the game's own code. Some games make hundreds of thousands a second. It's on by default and applies when a game starts.
• Fast atomics (HENkaku > CPU): a game's atomic operations (its locks, counters and queues) run as one host instruction each, without a lock shared by all of its threads. They differ from the Vita only in a case games rarely depend on. It's on by default and applies when a game starts; turn it off if a game hangs or crashes where it didn't before.
• Vita core threads (HENkaku > CPU): One at a time (the default) runs the threads a game puts on one Vita core one at a time, as the Vita does, and a thread of a higher priority takes the core at once; some games deadlock otherwise. Side by side lets them all run at the same time; try it if a game hitches.
• Ordered blending (HENkaku > Graphics): draws that blend with what's already on screen are drawn one triangle at a time. That's exact where triangles overlap, but much slower on the PS4's GPU. It's off by default; turn it on if you see flickering specks in smoke or water effects.

Everything lives in /data/HENkaku/:

• install/: what you copy there to install; done/ afterwards
• fs/: the Vita's storage: ux0 (your games, saves, PKGj), the firmware in vs0, os0, sa0 and pd0
• config.yml, config/: Vita3K's settings, for all games and for each game
• ps4.cfg, controls/, wallpapers/: HENkaku's own settings, controls and wallpaper pictures
• cache/: shaders and pipelines, made again when missing
• vita3k.log, vita3k.prev.log, vita3k.game.log, boot-trace.log, crash.log: logs for bug reports

Where do I get games? From your own PS Vita: dump the games you own with NoNpDrm or a similar tool. This project won't help you find games.

Why isn't the firmware in the package? It's Sony's. HENkaku downloads it from Sony's own update server, as Vita3K does on a PC.

Why does HENkaku start over after every game? A game leaves threads, memory and the GPU in use when it ends. Starting over is the clean way back to the home screen; it takes a few seconds.

PKGj says "database disk image is malformed". Versions before 1.00 could lose the last write to a file a game still had open, which left PKGj's comp pack databases broken. 1.00 fixes the cause. Delete comppack.db and comppack_updates.db from /data/HENkaku/fs/ux0/pkgj/ once, and PKGj makes them again.

A game doesn't start, or crashes. Check Vita3K's compatibility list first. Then open an issue with vita3k.game.log (or vita3k.prev.log), boot-trace.log and crash.log from /data/HENkaku/, the HENkaku version, the game's title ID, and your PS4 model and firmware. Never attach game files.

• HENkaku is Vita3K with PS4 changes: what works in Vita3K generally works here, at the PS4 CPU's speed.
• The first time a game draws something new, its shaders are compiled in the background, so an object can appear a frame late. They're kept for next time.
• PS4 Pro reports are welcome.
• How the port works, and what changed in each version up to 1.00: docs/PORT.md. Building it: docs/BUILDING.md.

• Vita3K and its team: the emulator, everything that runs the games
• dynarmic: the ARM JIT
• Mesa: the RADV Vulkan driver that draws every frame
• OpenOrbis and PacBrew: the PS4 toolchains
• AMD FidelityFX: FSR 1
• team molecule and HENkaku, the PS Vita hack whose name and ensō this app carries

Everyone involved, with licences, is listed in CREDITS.md.

Released under the GNU General Public License v2.0 or later, as Vita3K. See LICENSE. The PS4 runtime pieces come from Resonance, DolphinPS4, M33 and Crema. HENkaku for the PS4 is made by iHaiDeeZ / ShiroKlein.

This is a fan-made project with no ties to Sony Interactive Entertainment, the Vita3K team or team molecule. PlayStation, PS Vita and PS4 are trademarks of Sony Interactive Entertainment. Please only play games you own. This project won't help you find or share games, firmware or keys.