CTR Native

A native PC port of Crash Team Racing (PS1, 1999), built on top of the CTR-ModSDK decompilation project.

Philosophy

• No byte budget. Game source lives in game/ as our own copies. Edit freely.
• No PSX toolchain. Targets Windows and Linux with SDL3. No MIPS compiler needed.
• Clean platform layer. main.c owns process startup; host details stay in platform/native_*.
• No build system nonsense. Just build.bat / build.sh.
• Fully static build. Single executable, zero dependencies. SDL3 is compiled from vendored source and linked statically.

Directory Layout

ctr_native/
  main.c              Entrypoint and unity include manifest
  platform.h          Platform API the game calls through
  platform/           Native-owned audio, input, memcard, CD, and PSX facade glue
  game_includes.h     Ordered include chain for all game source files
  build.bat           Windows build (MinGW32)
  build.sh            Linux build
  README.md           This file
	  game/               Our copies of all decompiled game source (943 files)
	  include/            Project headers (structs, globals, declarations)
	  externals/
	    SDL/              SDL3 source (static build)

Prerequisites

Windows

1. Install MSYS2
2. In an MSYS2 terminal:

   pacman -S mingw-w64-i686-gcc mingw-w64-i686-tools-git
   

3. Add C:\msys64\mingw32\bin to your system PATH

That's it. SDL3 is compiled from vendored source -- no separate install needed.

Linux (Debian/Ubuntu)

sudo apt install gcc-multilib
sudo apt install libx11-dev libxext-dev libgl1-mesa-dev libasound2-dev libudev-dev libdbus-1-dev

Building

build.bat            # Windows
chmod +x build.sh
./build.sh           # Linux

First build compiles SDL3 from source. This is cached as a static library in build/ -- subsequent builds only recompile touched native sources.

Output: build/ctr_native.exe (Windows) or build/ctr_native (Linux)

Clean build

rm -rf build/        # Delete cached libraries
build.bat            # Rebuild everything

Running

1. Create an assets/ directory next to the executable for packaged builds, or next to the source files for development builds run from build/
2. Extract the following from a CTR NTSC-U retail disc image:
   • BIGFILE.BIG
   • SOUNDS/KART.HWL
   • TEST.STR
   • XA/ENG.XNF
   • XA/ENG/EXTRA/S00.XA through S05.XA
   • XA/ENG/GAME/S00.XA through S20.XA
   • XA/MUSIC/S00.XA through S01.XA
3. Run build/ctr_native.exe

Packaged directory structure:

CTR-Native/
  ctr_native.exe
  assets/
    BIGFILE.BIG
    SOUNDS/KART.HWL
    TEST.STR
    XA/
      ENG.XNF
      ENG/EXTRA/S00.XA ... S05.XA
      ENG/GAME/S00.XA ... S20.XA
      MUSIC/S00.XA ... S01.XA

Development directory structure:

ctr_native/
  build/
    ctr_native.exe
  assets/
    BIGFILE.BIG
    SOUNDS/KART.HWL
    TEST.STR
    XA/
      ENG.XNF
      ENG/EXTRA/S00.XA ... S05.XA
      ENG/GAME/S00.XA ... S20.XA
      MUSIC/S00.XA ... S01.XA

Bug Replays

Internal builds can record a small bug report folder. See docs/REPLAYS.md.

Architecture

main.c (entrypoint)
  |
  +-- platform/native_* (platform shell, audio, input, memcard, CD, renderer, PSX facade glue)
  |
  +-- game_includes.h
        |
        +-- game/ (all decompiled game source)
              |
              +-- include/ (headers: structs, globals, declarations)

• CTR_NATIVE is defined for native host/platform-specific code
• The build currently uses 32-bit mode because some native paths still pack host pointers into retail-shaped 24-bit GPU primitive links. See docs/MEMORY_MODEL.md for the roadmap to replace that with an explicit native GPU link bridge.

Roadmap

• Clean up game/ copies strip byte budget hacks and route platform-specific code through CTR_NATIVE
• Replace low-address primitive-link assumptions with an explicit native GPU link bridge, remove the 32-bit constraint, and keep pruning inherited compatibility code now owned in include/ and platform/.

Credits

• CTR-ModSDK — the decompilation project this is built on
• PsyCross — original PS1 compatibility code from which parts of CTR Native's owned platform layer and PsyQ facade headers are derived
• SDL3 — cross-platform multimedia
• Crash Team Racing is a trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment / Naughty Dog