Ridge Racer PS1 Recomp

An unofficial recompilation of Ridge Racer for the original PlayStation (USA, SCUS-94300), with an enhanced renderer for Apple Silicon Macs and Windows 11 x64 PCs. Build it locally using your own copy of the game.

The project uses PSXRecomp to generate native code from the supplied disc. An independent renderer adds higher resolutions, 4:3 and 16:9 output, perspective-correct textures, expanded scene visibility and interpolated rendering at selectable frame rates. The original game continues to control physics, simulation timing, race progression, audio and replay behaviour. Increasing the rendering frame rate does not increase the physics rate.

Development of this project was carried out using OpenAI Codex, directed and playtested by Rob Green. Codex was used for implementation, debugging, build tooling, tests and documentation. The supporting projects credited below are the work of their respective authors and contributors.

Game files and copyright

No copyrighted Ridge Racer game files are included in this repository. This includes BIN/CUE disc images, the original game executable, extracted textures, models, music and other game assets. Generated game code and playable game builds are also excluded. You must supply your own supported USA disc dump; the build tools generate the necessary code and assets locally.

No Sony PlayStation BIOS is supplied. The framework uses the separately licensed OpenBIOS replacement. Project source and third-party dependencies retain their applicable copyrights and licences; this is not a claim that all source code is copyright-free. Ridge Racer and its game content and trademarks belong to their respective owners. This project is unofficial and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the game's rights holders.

Get the source and supply your disc

Install the tools for your platform using the guides below, then clone the repository with its submodules:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/RobGreenUK/Ridge-Racer-PS1-Recomp.git
cd Ridge-Racer-PS1-Recomp

If you already cloned without submodules, run:

git submodule update --init --recursive

Create Ridge Racer (USA)/ inside the repository and place your CUE and all 14 referenced BIN tracks there. The expected layout is:

Ridge-Racer-PS1-Recomp/
  Ridge Racer (USA)/
    Ridge Racer (USA).cue
    Ridge Racer (USA) (Track 01).bin
    ...
    Ridge Racer (USA) (Track 14).bin

Keep track filenames consistent with the CUE. Other regions and revisions are not supported. The build checks the configured USA disc identity. An Internet connection is needed initially to obtain build dependencies; there is no step that downloads the game or its assets.

Build on macOS

Requires an Apple Silicon Mac, macOS 26 or newer, Apple's command-line tools and Homebrew. See the complete macOS guide for setup and troubleshooting. From the repository root:

brew install cmake ninja python@3.13 pkg-config sdl3
sh scripts/build-macos.sh
sh scripts/prepare-native-scene.sh
sh scripts/build-pacing-test.sh
. scripts/macos-env.sh
python3 tools/package_macos.py

Open dist/macos/Play.command. The local package includes its Python and library dependencies. The optional Mac display-callback pacing launcher and its required settings are explained in the macOS guide.

Build on Windows

Build directly on a Windows 11 x64 PC using the MSYS2 UCRT64 terminal; a Mac is not required. Follow the complete Windows guide to install MSYS2 and the compiler, CMake, Ninja, Python and pkg-config packages. After cloning and supplying your disc, run from the repository root in UCRT64:

bash scripts/build-windows.sh

Open dist/windows/Play.cmd in Explorer. The script generates game code, builds the runtime and renderer, prepares assets from your disc and stages the local playable folder. Python is needed to build, but not to play this Windows output.

Validation status: the Mac workflow has been checked from a clean checkout. Windows executables have been cross-compiled, but the Windows-native workflow still needs end-to-end validation on Windows. Graphics and presentation behaviour can vary with Windows hardware and drivers.

Playing and local data

See Playing and settings for controls, rendering options and save locations. Keep the entire playable folder together. Packaging refuses to overwrite an existing output: preserve its saves and preferences before replacing it with a new build.

Disc files, generated/, disc/, build-*/, dist/, saves and diagnostics are ignored by Git. They are local inputs or outputs, not source release material. Do not upload game-derived files or playable packages to GitHub, including Releases, Actions artifacts or Git LFS.

Technical documentation

The technical documentation explains how this project was built, for human contributors and AI coding agents. It covers the runtime and renderer architecture, local code and asset generation, interpolation and timing, rendering corrections, source navigation, testing and contribution workflow. The aim is to share implementation knowledge that others can inspect, maintain and reuse within the applicable licences.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the authors, maintainers and contributors of the projects that make this work possible:

• PSXRecomp — the PlayStation recompilation framework, code generation tools and runtime on which this project is built.
• recomp-ui — supporting runtime user interface components.
• PCSX-Redux / OpenBIOS and uC-sdk — the replacement BIOS and supporting work used by the framework.
• SDL — cross-platform windowing, input, audio and rendering infrastructure.
• The contributors to fmt, toml11, ELFIO, rabbitizer, libchdr, their supporting libraries, and the Python, CMake, Ninja, MSYS2 and Homebrew toolchains.

Their work remains credited and licensed independently. See third-party notices and the notices within each dependency.

Licence

Original project contributions use the MIT licence, including its warranty and liability disclaimers. PSXRecomp is licensed under PolyForm Noncommercial, and those restrictions remain applicable to the framework and applicable derived work. The complete project is therefore not an unrestricted MIT-only distribution. See third-party notices for the licensing boundaries. No rights to game content are granted.