Light guns
Point and shoot. The shot lands where the barrel points, you reload by pointing off the screen, and you feel the recoil. Each game gets the gun it was made for, held in a grip hand.
Open source · GPL-3.0 · in development
Step inside the game.
AC VR Hub is a free, open-source Windows app that brings arcade and console light gun and racing games into VR. It runs on your desk and as a panel inside SteamVR: pick a game, press Play, and it opens in the headset. Bring your own games; none are included.
New game profiles and emulator wrappers are added all the time.
▼ Scroll to walk in
143games in the Hub library
279ways to play them (views)
12systems, from Model 3 to Wii
3accepted in the headset so far
How you play
Your hands are the cabinet.
Your motion controllers stand in for whatever the cabinet had: a light gun, a wheel to grab, or a pointer.
Racing
Racers steer with the stick and pedal with the triggers by default. Roll and tilt steering, and Model 3's two-handed wheel, are opt-in views, never the default.
Rules from real headset sessions
Game controls stay off the left Menu and the right headset button, since SteamVR and the headset own them; the left Menu opens the SteamVR dashboard, where the Hub panel is. Every game uses the same stick clicks: Left stick click = Start. Right stick click = Select or Coin. Click both sticks together = put the screen in front of you again. Hold both stick clicks for 3 seconds = quit and save. Exit game in the Hub panel also ends the game cleanly (not yet checked in the headset).
Four ways to see a game
- Real 3D: the game's own world drawn in true depth, one picture per eye.
- Inside the game: you sit in the game's camera and look around with your head.
- Open frame: the picture is not boxed to an old 4:3 screen; the world carries on past its edges where the game draws it.
- Big screen: a large flat screen in a room, with the gun in your hand.
Gun models
The right gun in your hand.
Every gun, controller and control on this page is the project's own model, the same file the Hub's setups draw in the headset. Twelve of the fifteen built guns and controllers are new designs: nine from 21 October, reworked after a four-specialist studio review, and three special guns (an energy gun, a heavy revolver and a cutter) that are built and wired in but not yet given to a game. The grip hands now put the index finger on every pistol's trigger. None of the new shapes or the new hand pose has a headset verdict yet.
Model bench
Pick a model to see it at its real size. Drag to turn it.
Original designs, no logos, released under CC0.
Which gun for which game
- PlayStation: the slim console pistol
- PlayStation 2: the D-pad console pistol
- Saturn: the chunky revolver
- Wii: the remote shell, with a pointer remote for motion games
- Namco arcade: the blowback pistol; Sega arcade: the twin pistol
- Mounted-gun cabinets: the heavy machine gun
Parts that move
Each model names its moving parts: the trigger, the slide that kicks back on a shot, the revolver cylinder, buttons and sticks. The hosts drive them from your controller, so the gun in your hand reacts the way the cabinet's did.
Twelve guns and controllers are built as models so far; the project's gun data lists 27, and the rest follow.
Sit-down racers
Ghost controls.
Racing cabinets appear around you as see-through controls where your hands and feet go: the wheel, shifter and pedals on the racer beside these panels are the project's own models.
Wheels and shifters
A three-spoke wheel, a sequential shifter and a four-gate shifter, each with its own grab points.
Pedals, bars and sticks
Accelerator and brake pedals, motorcycle handlebars, an arcade stick and a flight stick, plus button panels.
Sixteen control models
All original and CC0. Six of them are on the model bench above, listed after the guns.
Arcade boards
The arcade, in the headset.
Each board has its own emulator and its own way into VR. E3 means the developer played it in the headset and accepted it; E2 means it works in a hidden offline proof, with controls and pictures checked.
Sega Model 3
Supermodel, patched · 11 games, 54 viewsOpen frame, Inside the game (head-tracked) and a two-handed wheel. Sega Rally 2 DX inside with the wheel is accepted. Star Wars Trilogy's aim was off in the headset and has not been rechecked.
E3 Sega Rally 2 DX · rest E2Arcade guns and motion
MAME, patched · 26 games, 34 viewsBig screen, open frame where the game draws it, and opt-in body motion for motion cabinets. Time Crisis on the big screen is accepted.
E3 Time Crisis big screen · rest E2Sega Model 2
MAME 0.289, patched · 14 games, 25 viewsReal 3D and open frame, with the game's own sound since 21 October. Aim error in The House of the Dead cut from 7.3% to 0.3% of the screen.
E2 · Sky Target firing unprovenNamco System 22
Time Crisis VR · 1 game, 5 viewsTime Crisis in open frame or inside the game.
E2 · offline proofAtomiswave
Flycast, patched · 5 games, 10 viewsReal 3D, with the world around the frame part of it. Title and menu screens still show stray art around the frame.
E2 · offline proofVisual Pinball X
Your own VPX · the tables in your foldersDesk or headset. The Hub scans your tables folder, subfolders included, and rescans when tables or ROMs change. At the last headset check most VR tables were missing from the Hub page; the fixes since are not rechecked.
Scan fixes not rechecked in the headsetConsoles
Living-room light guns, in stereo.
Console games reach the headset through VR builds of their emulators: real 3D where the game's world allows it, otherwise a big screen in the room with the gun in your hand.
E3: accepted in the headset. E2: works in a hidden offline proof. E1: started or partly works.
Nintendo 64
acvr-ps1 with mupen64plus · 22 games, 47 viewsReal 3D with the HUD on a panel. Mario Kart 64 in 3D is accepted.
E3 Mario Kart 64 · rest E2PlayStation
acvr-ps1: SwanStation and Beetle · 22 games, 37 viewsBig screen with the gun. Graphics raised on 21 October: 5x resolution and 4x anti-aliasing on SwanStation games.
E2 · offline proofPlayStation 2
PCSX2 VR · 12 games, 27 viewsA screen in the room, or inside the game with real depth. Time Crisis 3 calibration and its inside view are fixed. Wipeout Pulse broke in the headset: games without a gun get no controller input yet.
E2 · non-gun games need controlsNintendo Wii
DolphinXR · 20 games, 28 viewsReal 3D or a screen in the room, with the pointer or motion controls. All 20 games load a saved starting point, which proves a state loads, not that a game plays; no game has a complete pass yet. Mario Kart Wii was wrong in its one headset run.
E2 · offline onlyDreamcast
Flycast, patched · 5 games, 7 viewsReal 3D and open frame. Confidential Mission was rebuilt after headset issues; Death Crimson OX and 2 and Virtua Cop 2 are still early.
E2 · three games E1Saturn and GameCube
Beetle Saturn · 5 games · DolphinXR · F-Zero GXSaturn on the big screen with its gun. F-Zero GX in real 3D with the HUD on a panel did not get past its title screen in the headset; the fix has not been seen since.
E2 · F-Zero GX fix unseenPrize counter
Everything is a file.
Games, VR setups, install recipes, control sets, guns and profiles are plain TOML you can read, copy, share and override. Adding a game takes a new folder and no code.
Built on the people doing this work
Supermodel, MAME, PCSX2, Dolphin and DolphinXR, Flycast, SwanStation, Beetle, mupen64plus, Visual Pinball X, Time Crisis VR, namco22-decompile and many more. We provide VR patches and some installation recipes. Most integrations still need a separately prepared build; setup sources and patches are kept in the repo.
No game content
AC VR Hub never ships, downloads or links to ROMs, BIOS files or disc images. You bring your own legally obtained games; the Hub reads them where they are.
Licences
The Hub is GPL-3.0-only. The shared VR runtime, libacvr, is MIT so any emulator or engine can link it. The project's own gun, hand and control models are CC0; one adapted gun model is CC BY 4.0 and credited in the repo. The ASCII games on the cabinet screens come from ascii-magic-art (MIT). Website notices cover Three.js, the ASCII art, the fonts and the separate music rights; the privacy page says what the site does not collect.
The Hub
One front door.
The Qt Hub for Windows is the only way games are started. It is a desktop window and also a SteamVR dashboard panel, so you can pick the next game without taking the headset off.
The SteamVR panel
A Steam-like grid of system tabs with a game page, a large on-panel Back button and guards against double presses on Play.
Your library, read in place
The Hub finds your games up to six folders deep without moving or copying anything. Artwork is fetched only when you ask, per game or per system.
Nothing left running
When a game ends, a watchdog ends the helper programs it started and never touches anything else on your PC. Games can also appear in your Steam library.
Scoreboard
Where it stands.
Most games work in hidden offline proofs (E2): controls reach the game and pictures are checked. A game only counts as accepted (E3) once the developer has played it in the headset.
Accepted in the headset (E3)
- Mario Kart 64 in real 3D
- Sega Rally 2 DX inside the game, with the wheel
- Time Crisis on the big screen (MAME)
Still open
- Headset verdicts for most games, the new gun shapes and the new hand pose
- Wii: a complete game pass, steady frame pacing in the headset, and Metroid Prime Trilogy without clipping
- Controls for PS2 games that use no gun
- Universal stick-click controls (Start, Select or Coin, recentre, quit): changed, not yet checked in the headset
- Easier system switching in the Hub, and one layout for desk and headset
- A first tester release (0.01): not published yet
From the workshop
- Nintendo 3DS on the bench: in offline tests the game draws both eyes for Star Fox 64 3D, Kid Icarus: Uprising and Mario Kart 7. It is not in the Hub yet and has never been in a headset.
- One set of stick clicks for every game: Start, Select or Coin, recentre and quit are the same everywhere.
- Disc matching identifies discs from shared public data, with exact IDs for more formats. A recognised disc is not yet a playable one.
- Grip hands put the index finger on every pistol's trigger, checked by a geometry test and renders.
- Honest importing: a game with a missing file says so, and the library search can be stopped.
- Three special guns wired in: an energy gun, a heavy revolver and a cutter. They are on the model bench above.
Offline work only. None of these has been checked in the headset yet.