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Case study

Crash Bandicoot 2 Recompiled: a PSXRecomp native build

A Windows launcher that uses the PSXRecomp recompiler and runtime to translate the user’s Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back disc to C and compile it locally, so the game runs as native code with an emulated PlayStation hardware layer. The repository holds the launcher, a patched vendored runtime and a long bring-up log; it distributes no game code or data.

Requirements and limitations

  • Needs a disc image the user owns of the North American release (serial SCUS-94154), as .cue/.bin or .chd; the launcher checks tracks, sectors and boot serial and hashes the image. No PlayStation BIOS is required because MIT-licensed OpenBIOS is included, and locally generated files derived from the disc must not be redistributed.
  • Release v0.9.6 (2026-10-08) is a 64-bit Windows 10+ bundle; a first build takes about 3 GB of disk space and five to twenty minutes. Source use needs Python 3.11+ with PySide6 and the PSXRecomp MinGW-w64 Clang toolchain; the notes say MSVC is unsupported, and 59 runtime patches are kept in tuning/patches.
  • The README calls the game completable from start to finish but a work-in-progress preview with minor sound and graphical issues. Streamed level-code overlays are compiled natively when possible and otherwise fall back to a MIPS interpreter; the opt-in 60 FPS mode runs the emulated CPU at 200% and is not verified across the whole game.
  • Published checks are launcher settings and UI smoke tests, scenario scripts and a harness comparing its own Direct3D 12 and OpenGL renderers; none claims equivalence with original hardware, and no result was rerun here.
  • There is no top-level license file. The README lists PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 for PSXRecomp, MIT for OpenBIOS, zlib for SDL3 and LGPLv3 for Qt/PySide6; the game and its trademarks belong to their owners. No REA or coding-agent involvement is documented.

About this entry

Type
Case study
Category
Independent reconstruction cases
Relationship
Independent reconstruction project
Targets
Game

Sources reviewed

The description was reviewed against primary sources. This does not establish runtime testing, security auditing or verified compatibility.

Primary sources

  1. README.md GitHub · Zumbo06/Crash2Recomp · Revision 48036cf
  2. tuning/NOTES.md GitHub · Zumbo06/Crash2Recomp · Revision 48036cf
  3. _build/Crash2Recomp/README.md GitHub · Zumbo06/Crash2Recomp · Revision 48036cf
  4. _build/Crash2Recomp/CMakeLists.txt GitHub · Zumbo06/Crash2Recomp · Revision 48036cf
  5. _build/build_recompiler.ps1 GitHub · Zumbo06/Crash2Recomp · Revision 48036cf
  6. tuning/patches GitHub · Zumbo06/Crash2Recomp · Revision 48036cf
  7. tuning/renderer_parity GitHub · Zumbo06/Crash2Recomp · Revision 48036cf
  8. https://github.com/Zumbo06/Crash2Recomp/releases/tag/v0.9.6