Amped2-Recomp

Experimental static recompilation of Amped 2 (original Xbox, 2003) into a native x86-64 PC program, based on xboxrecomp (Git submodule under xboxrecomp/). The game's own code is translated to C once and compiled natively; the xboxrecomp runtime and our own code replace the Xbox kernel, GPU, audio and input. No emulator.

This repo contains no game code and no game data. You need your own, legally obtained Amped 2 Xbox disc. The C code is generated locally from your default.xbe and never committed.

It follows the same route as SSX3-Recomp (our SSX 3 port with the same toolkit): Linux first (Steam Deck), Windows next, macOS later.

Status

Milestone
Repo, toolkit (xboxrecomp v0.14.0 + our runtime patch), scripts	✅
Game data in game_files/ (PAL, title ID 0x4D530041, XDK 5558)	✅
Pipeline: 14,365 functions lifted, 0 translation errors, 1.96 M lines of C	✅
Host and input ported from SSX3-Recomp, Linux build (CPU renderer, multi-threaded)	✅
Boot: XAPI (media check bypassed), D3D, XACT/WMA audio, XNet offline, splash screen	✅
Movies through the NV2A video overlay, real-time (logos, intro)	✅
Legal screen, title, main menu, career menu, level select	✅
Vulkan renderer: 60 fps in the menus (CPU renderer ~6 fps, kept as the reference)	✅
3D rider model in the menus and on the slope (matches the Xbox)	✅
Riding (Millicent 1): HUD, challenge cards, goals board, ~55 fps on Vulkan	✅
Graphics settings: resolution 1x-5x, 4:3 / 16:9 / 16:10 / 21:9, unlocked frame rate, window modes (TUI)	✅
Rider shadow, steady 60 fps	⬜
Music without dropouts (DirectSound DPC race fixed), proper stereo downmix	✅
Releases: v0.1.0, v0.2.0 (Linux x86-64, Windows preview)	✅
Windows build (MinGW): boots, menus and a ride under Wine/Proton, software renderer only (~2-6 fps)	🟡

Plan and open items: docs/TODO.md, running log: docs/notes.md.

Playing a release

1. Download the package for your system from the releases page and unpack it.
2. Put your own game files into its game_files/ folder – see Preparing the game files.
3. Start it with ./run.sh (Linux; ./run.sh --settings for the graphics settings) or on Windows by double-clicking run.bat or with run.ps1 (right-click → Run with PowerShell, or powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\run.ps1); on Windows the console output goes to run.log.

Needs glibc 2.39 or newer (Ubuntu 24.04+, Fedora 40+, Arch, SteamOS 3.6+), SDL2 and a Vulkan driver (sudo apt install libsdl2-2.0-0 libvulkan1 mesa-vulkan-drivers).

Windows (10/11) is experimental and not playable yet: software renderer only (about 4-6 fps in the menus, 2 fps on the slope), no graphics settings yet (--settings does not work there), so far only tested under Wine and Proton, where the movies stay black and the music may be missing.

Preparing the game files

The game data always comes from your own Amped 2 disc; nothing of it is in this repository or in a release. Supported is the PAL/EU version (title ID 4D530041, default.xbe SHA-1 38e63cd016bf084d999e0a911933a52191bfc378); other versions are not tested.

1. Make a disc image (.iso) of your Amped 2 Xbox disc, e.g. on a modded Xbox or with an Xbox-compatible DVD drive. Both a full disc image (Redump style) and a game-partition XISO work.

2. Extract the image with extract-xiso (AUR extract-xiso-git) or xdvdfs (cargo install xdvdfs-cli):

   extract-xiso -x "Amped 2.iso" -d game_files
   

   or xdvdfs unpack "Amped 2.iso" game_files. Already have an extracted disc folder? Copy its contents instead.

3. Put it in the right place: a folder named game_files

   • release package: next to run.sh / run.bat / run.ps1 in the unpacked package folder;
   • build from source: in the repository root (scripts/extract_iso.sh <image.iso | folder> does steps 2–3).

4. Check the layout: default.xbe must sit directly in game_files/, not in a subfolder (no game_files/Amped 2/default.xbe). The whole disc is about 4 GB; keep every file and folder as extracted (the letter case of the names does not matter).

Amped2-Recomp-v0.2.0-linux-x86_64/
├── amped2_recomp
├── run.sh
└── game_files/
    ├── default.xbe
    ├── Audio/
    ├── Levels/
    ├── Movies/
    └── … (the rest of the disc)

Without game_files/default.xbe, ./run.sh (run.bat, run.ps1) stops with a message telling you where the files belong. Saves and the game's cache go to ~/.local/share/xboxrecomp (Windows: %LOCALAPPDATA%\xboxrecomp), not into game_files/.

Quick start (Linux)

git clone --recurse-submodules <this-repo>        # or locally: git submodule update --init --recursive (xboxrecomp, Vulkan-Headers, volk)
cd Amped2-Recomp

scripts/setup.sh                                   # Python venv + capstone, tool check
bash xboxrecomp/tools/linux/install_deps.sh        # SDL2, libepoxy, OpenSSL, ffmpeg (sudo); plus a Vulkan driver and glslc

scripts/extract_iso.sh "/path/to/Amped 2 (Xbox).iso"   # or an already extracted disc folder -> game_files/
scripts/run_pipeline.sh                            # parse, disasm, func_id, abi, recomp -> src/recomp/gen/
scripts/doctor.sh                                  # bring-up report

Without the build dependencies on the host: scripts/docker.sh scripts/run_pipeline.sh and scripts/docker.sh scripts/build.sh do the same in an Ubuntu 24.04 container (docker or podman), the binary goes to build-docker/ and scripts/run.sh picks it up. Release packages: docs/RELEASING.md.

scripts/run.sh starts the game (Vulkan renderer, logos skipped; AMPED2_RENDERER=cpu for the CPU reference). Useful switches: AMPED2_SKIP_INTRO=1 (skip the intro movie too), AMPED2_SKIP_LOGOS=0 (show the MGS/XSN logos). While it runs, scripts/press.sh start (or a, down, a:400, lt+rt …) sends controller input; the keyboard and game controllers work as well (see Controls).

Graphics settings

scripts/run.sh --settings (in a release package ./run.sh --settings) opens the settings screen in the terminal before the game starts. Arrow keys move and change values, Tab switches between the categories and the options, Enter saves and starts, S saves, Q quits. The choices are saved in ~/.config/amped2-recomp/settings.ini (Windows: %APPDATA%\amped2-recomp\settings.ini) and used on every later start.

Category	Options
Resolution Scaling	Internal resolution 1x-5x (640x480 up to 3200x2400 at 4:3)
Aspect Ratio	4:3 (original), 16:9, 16:10, 21:9. Rides become wider (Hor+: more of the slope at the sides, the HUD stays 4:3 in the middle); the menus and movies stay 4:3
Framerate	Original (60 fps) or unlocked, with a limit: the monitor's refresh rate (vsync), 60-360 fps or none. The game runs on its own clock, so gameplay speed does not change
Display	Windowed, fullscreen or borderless fullscreen, and the monitor to use. Alt+Enter or F11 switch in the game

How high an unlocked frame rate gets depends on the CPU: on a ride it is about 90-120 fps for now (menus several hundred), the guest code and the NV2A thread are the limit, not the GPU. One run can override the file with environment variables, e.g. AMPED2_RESOLUTION_SCALE=3 AMPED2_ASPECT_RATIO=21:9 scripts/run.sh (AMPED2_FRAMERATE, AMPED2_FRAME_LIMIT, AMPED2_WINDOW_MODE, AMPED2_DISPLAY; AMPED2_SETTINGS=<file> uses another file). The Vulkan renderer only; the CPU renderer and the Windows build ignore resolution and aspect ratio.

Controls

What the buttons do in Amped 2 (the picture on the level loading screen): left stick = turn / spin / flip / butter, A = accelerate (release to jump), B = jib / rail slide, Y = lip trick, right stick = grabs, Back = reset boarder, Start = pause. In the menus A or Start selects, B goes back. Game Options has vibration and a second button layout.

Keyboard (pad 1, on by default with RECOMP_KEYBOARD=1; keys only count while the game window has the focus):

Key	Xbox	In the game
W A S D (or keypad 8 4 2 6)	Left stick	Turn, spin, flip, butter
Space (or Z)	A	Accelerate / jump, select
O (or X)	B	Jib / rail slide, back
U (or V)	Y	Lip trick
C	X
I J K L	Right stick	Grabs
Arrows	D-pad	Menus
Enter or Escape	Start	Pause, select
Backspace or Tab	Back	Reset boarder
1 / 3	Left / right trigger
Q / E	White / Black
Shift / Ctrl	Left / right stick click

Space, U, O, Escape and Tab are Amped 2's own additions (src/input/amped2_keys.c, by key position, so the same place on QWERTZ/AZERTY); the rest is the runtime's map for every title (xboxrecomp/src/input/keyboard.c, by key label: on QWERTZ the Z key sits where QWERTY has Y).

Controllers: any XInput-style pad (Xbox 360 / One / Series, 8BitDo in X-input mode, Steam Deck through Steam Input – not yet tested on a Deck) and anything else SDL2 knows as a game controller (Windows: XInput). Pads can be plugged in or switched on at any time; each takes the lowest free Xbox port (PAD: port 1 <- "…" in the log). The keyboard keeps working on port 1 alongside a pad.

Your pad	Xbox (Controller S)
A / B / X / Y	A / B / X / Y
LB / RB	White / Black
LT / RT	Left / right trigger (analog)
Start (Menu) / Back (View)	Start / Back
Sticks, stick clicks, D-pad	Same

• Rumble: the game's vibration goes to the pad's motors (SDL rumble / XInput vibration).
• AMPED2_PAD_TRACE=1 prints every button and rumble change per port – handy to check a new controller.
• config/gamecontrollerdb.txt (or AMPED2_PAD_DB=<file>) adds SDL mappings for unknown pads (SDL_GameControllerDB format).
• scripts/test_pad.sh checks hotplug, the map and rumble with a virtual pad, no hardware needed.

Code: src/input/host_pad.c (same as SSX3-Recomp's ssx3_pad.c; replaces the runtime's xinput_device.c).

Tests and CI: scripts/ci.sh builds with the host tests on and runs them with ctest (settings file, virtual pad); no game data needed. Without generated code it is a host-only build: the patched runtime and all of our sources compile, no game executable is linked. GitHub Actions (.github/workflows/ci.yml) runs it on Linux (GCC, Vulkan) and Windows (MSYS2 MinGW-w64) for every push to main and every pull request.

Optional: scripts/fetch_references.sh (reference ports into reference/), scripts/ghidra.sh (Ghidra names for the generated code, needs Ghidra under /opt/ghidra or GHIDRA_HOME).

Working with Claude Code

Start claude in the repo root: CLAUDE.md explains the goal, layout, workflow and rules.

References

• xboxrecomp: https://github.com/sp00nznet/xboxrecomp (MIT)
• SSX3-Recomp (our SSX 3 port): https://github.com/bertibertig/SSX3-Recomp
• SSX3-recomp by Koen Hendriks and Corné Dorrestijn: https://github.com/koenhendriks/SSX3-recomp (GPL-2.0-or-later, findings only)
• SSX Tricky PC: https://github.com/MatiasRiveraC/SSX-Tricky-PC · OpenTricky: https://github.com/GiZcesi/OpenTricky (GPL-3.0-only)
• xemu as the behaviour reference

Legal

Unofficial fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft. Amped and Xbox are trademarks of Microsoft. The repository holds only original code, tooling and notes.

License

This project's own code is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later – see LICENSE. The xboxrecomp submodule (MIT, LGPL-2.1 parts) and the other third-party code (volk: MIT, Vulkan-Headers: Apache-2.0/MIT) keep their own licenses.