carmadroid-x86

Runs the Android version of Carmageddon (Stainless Games, 2013, v1.8.507) natively on 64-bit Windows, with analog gamepad support, up to 1080p rendering, an unlocked frame rate and restored content. It can also use the original PC Carmageddon's cockpit graphics for the in-car view, and unpack the game data for modding.

The Android release is a 32-bit ARM-only app that no longer runs on modern 64-bit-only phones. This project loads the game's original ARM libraries from the APK, runs them through an ARM-to-x86-64 JIT, and replaces every Android system service the game uses (graphics, audio, input, files, Java calls) with Windows equivalents.

No game data is included. You need your own copy of the game's APK and OBB files.

What you need

File	Notes
carmageddon.apk (any file name ending in .apk)	Carmageddon for Android version 1.8.507, armeabi-v7a
main.507.com.stainlessgames.carmageddon.obb	The game's expansion data file (about 78 MB)

Only version 1.8.507 is supported: the port patches the game's code at fixed offsets. The APK is checked at startup and other versions are rejected (--skip-version-check overrides this, at your own risk).

Download

Prebuilt Windows builds are on the Releases page. Every push to main is also built automatically (see the Actions tab for the latest build artifact).

What's new in 0.4.0

• Steering deadzone slider on the controls options screen (0-50%), for the gamepad's steering. Needs the unpacked game data (--extract-data).
• Splat Pack cars handle like their stock counterparts: each one takes the handling and collision shape of the stock car nearest to it in size (the Monster Masher: the Twister's, scaled up), so they no longer sink into the road. The Monster Masher is back.
• Car reflections on the Splat Pack cars, and the striped reflections on AMD/ATI graphics are fixed.
• Action replay from the D-pad now shows its playback controls and no longer rewinds endlessly.
• "WASTED" messages for the Splat Pack drivers.

What's new in 0.3.0

• Splat Pack cars (optional). With the PC game's CARMA and CARSPLAT folders, the game converts the 18 Splat Pack cars the Android version lacks and adds them to the car list and the opponents, with menu pictures, grid pictures, driver portraits, damage HUD, descriptions and their own cockpits. It needs the unpacked game data: run carmadroid.exe --extract-data once (see below).
• Up to 64 cars in the roster (the game's limit was 40).
• Unpacked game data is used automatically from the gamedata folder next to the exe.
• Mouse drags no longer pile up touch events, for drag scrolling on the car select screen.

What's new in 0.2.0

• Look around with the right stick. In the in-car view it snaps to 80 degrees left or right, and pulling back looks behind you.
• PC cockpit (optional). With a copy of the PC game, the in-car view gets the original dashboard, with a working speedo, rev counter, gear display and damage lights, and hands that turn the wheel.
• Map and action replay on the D-pad (up and down), instead of swiping from the screen edges.
• On-screen touch buttons are hidden while a pad is connected.
• Modding: --extract-data unpacks the game data into a folder, and --game-dir runs from it.

Running

1. Put carmadroid.exe, SDL2.dll, the APK and the OBB in the same folder.
2. Run carmadroid.exe.

Saves, settings and a log file (carmadroid.log) are kept in the userdata folder next to the exe. The APK and OBB can also be passed explicitly: carmadroid.exe --apk <file> --obb <file>.

Controls

Menus are driven with the mouse (it acts as your finger on the touchscreen). Esc is the Android back button. F11 or Alt+Enter toggles fullscreen.

In races, a gamepad (anything SDL recognises: Xbox, PlayStation, and so on) drives the car with analog steering and throttle:

Pad	Action
Left stick / D-pad left-right	Steer (analog)
Right trigger	Accelerate (analog)
Left trigger	Brake / reverse (analog)
A or RB (hold)	Handbrake
B	Repair
X	Change camera
Y	Recover car
Right stick	Look around. In-car view: left/right snaps to 80 degrees, pull back to look behind
D-pad up	Track map on/off
D-pad down	Action replay on/off
LB	Pratcam on/off
Start	Pause / resume
Back	Android back

While a pad is connected, the game's control settings show TILT: that is how the analog input is fed in. If looking around goes the wrong way, use --look-invert-x / --look-invert-y. Unplugging the pad restores your touch control settings. The on-screen touch buttons are hidden while a pad is connected.

Options

Option	Effect
--fullscreen	Start in fullscreen
--render WxH	Render at an exact resolution (default: desktop aspect ratio, capped at 1920x1080)
--max-res WxH	Change the render resolution cap
--vsync	Enable vsync (default off: unlocked frame rate in races)
--race-fps N / --menu-fps N	Frame rate caps (defaults: races uncapped, menus 120)
--audio-rate N	FMOD mix rate in Hz (default 48000; the game's original is 24000)
--pc-data DIR	Use content from the PC Carmageddon (the folder containing DATA, e.g. ...\Carmageddon1\CARMA); see below
--splat-data DIR	The PC Splat Pack's folder (e.g. ...\Carmageddon1\CARSPLAT), if it isn't next to CARMA or the exe
--no-pc-data / --no-cockpit	Don't use PC content / don't draw the PC cockpit
--look-invert-x / --look-invert-y	Invert right-stick look-around
--unlock-all-cars	Unlock every car (the game's own cheat; not saved)
--censored	Keep the Android version's pickup substitutions (see below)
--jit-opt MASK	dynarmic JIT optimization flags (default 0, off; 0xFFFF loads faster but garbles some sounds)
--record-audio [FILE]	Record the audio output to a WAV file (default userdata\audio.wav)
--extract-data [DIR]	Unpack the APK and OBB into a folder (default: gamedata next to the exe), then exit (see below)
--game-dir DIR	Run from an unpacked folder instead of the APK and OBB
--data DIR	Use a different user data folder
-v / -vv	More logging

Optional: PC Carmageddon content

If you own the original PC Carmageddon, the port can use some of its assets for things the Android version lacks. Either pass --pc-data <folder> or put the PC game's CARMA folder next to carmadroid.exe. Currently this adds the in-car cockpit to the Android game's in-car camera: the car's dashboard with a working speedo, rev counter, gear display and damage lights, side views when looking around with the right stick, and hands that turn the wheel. While the dashboard is shown, the HUD's own damage graph and speedo are hidden, since the dashboard shows them. As in the PC game, a damage light only comes on once that part is more than 20% damaged. Cars that don't exist in the PC game keep the normal Android view.

With the Splat Pack too (the PC game's CARSPLAT folder, next to CARMA or to carmadroid.exe), its cars get their cockpits as well, and the game can add the Splat Pack cars themselves (this needs the unpacked game data, see below). Run carmadroid.exe --extract-data once. On the next start, the game converts the 18 Splat Pack cars the Android version lacks and adds them to the car list and to the opponents, with their menu pictures, pre-race grid pictures, driver portraits, damage HUD and descriptions. This takes under a minute, only happens once, and is redone by itself when the converter changes in a new version. The Monster Masher is left out for now: its huge wheels don't work with the Android physics. PC tracks are not converted yet.

Without the PC files, everything is exactly as in the Android game. Nothing from the PC game is included.

Modding: running from unpacked files

carmadroid.exe --extract-data unpacks everything the game uses into the gamedata folder next to the exe (or --extract-data <folder> into another folder):

Folder	Contents
lib/armeabi-v7a/	The game's native libraries
assets/	APK assets (the music)
DATA/	The contents of the OBB: CONTENT (cars, tracks, UI, sounds, text) and SETUP

From then on the game runs from gamedata by itself, with no APK or OBB needed (delete the folder to go back to them). A folder elsewhere is used with carmadroid.exe --game-dir <folder>. The game only reads its data from an OBB, so at startup the DATA folder is packed back into one (userdata\gamedata.obb, uncompressed). That only happens when files in the folder have changed, and takes a few seconds. File and folder names are upper-cased when packing, as in the original. The libraries must stay the 1.8.507 ones.

The data formats are Stainless's own (the engine is an early version of the one used in Carmageddon: Reincarnation): .CNT (model hierarchy), .MDL (meshes), .MTL (materials), .IMG (textures), plus plain text files for car and track setup and compiled Lua (.LOL) for the UI.

When the game installs PC content into the folder, it keeps a list of the files it added and backups of the game files it changed in gamedata\pcimport, so it can undo and redo the install. Unpacking again with --extract-data removes it first. The converter's Python original, handy for experiments, is in tools/pc2android.

Differences from the original Android game

• Gamepad support in races (the Android game only has touch and tilt controls), including looking around with the right stick.
• PC cockpit in the in-car view, if you have the PC game (optional).
• Resolution: renders up to 1920x1080 off-screen and scales to any window size.
• Frame rate: unlocked in races.
• Audio: mixed at 48 kHz with spline resampling instead of 24 kHz linear.
• Restored pickups: the Android build silently swaps three pickup types for others (including Drugs!!!, which becomes Grip-o-matic tyres). This is undone unless --censored is given.
• Modding: the game can be run from unpacked, editable files, and the car roster limit is raised from 40 to 64 (tools/pc2android converts PC Carmageddon cars).
• Online features (store, Facebook, ads, analytics) are disabled.

Building

Requirements: Windows 10/11 x64, Visual Studio 2022 (C++ workload), CMake 3.20+.

cmake -S . -B build -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" -A x64
cmake --build build --config Release

The output is build/Release/carmadroid.exe plus SDL2.dll. CMake downloads the dependencies automatically:

• dynarmic, ARM to x86-64 JIT (0BSD), built from source (A32 frontend only)
• Boost 1.86 headers, needed by dynarmic (Boost Software License)
• SDL2 2.32.10, window, OpenGL, audio and gamepads (zlib license), prebuilt
• miniz, APK (zip) and WAD reading (MIT), vendored in third_party/

How it works

Part	Source
ELF loader: maps the .so files from the APK, applies relocations, links imports	src/elf_loader.cpp
ARM CPU (dynarmic JIT), host-to-guest calls, import thunks, function hooks	src/cpu.cpp
C library, pthreads, stdio, time, wide chars	src/hle/libc_*.cpp, src/hle/pthread.cpp
Android NDK: looper, input queue, sensors, assets, config	src/hle/android.cpp
Fake JVM for the game's Java calls	src/hle/jni.cpp, src/game_java.cpp
OpenGL ES 1.1 to desktop OpenGL, EGL	src/hle/gles.cpp, src/hle/egl.cpp
FMOD audio output (replaces the Java AudioTrack device)	src/audio.cpp
Gamepad input	src/controller.cpp
Right-stick look-around	src/camera_look.cpp
PC cockpit overlay (reads the PC game's PIX images and car files)	src/pc_content.cpp
Content restoration	src/content_patches.cpp
Unpacking and repacking the game data (Stainless WAD)	src/gamedata.cpp
Car roster limit (40 to 64)	src/roster.cpp
Window, rendering, frame pacing	src/platform.cpp

Analog steering and throttle use the game's own tilt-control code: the stick and triggers are converted into the exact accelerometer vector that produces the wanted steering and throttle values. The pad buttons call the game's own handbrake, repair, camera, recover, pratcam, pause, map and action replay functions directly.

Legal

This project contains no code or data from Carmageddon. Carmageddon is a trademark of Stainless Games Ltd. You must own the game to use this project. This is an unofficial fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Stainless Games.

Licensed under the GNU General Public License v2.0 (see LICENSE).