Cartoon Network Racing Recompiled

At a glance

💿 Install from your own disc, found on your PC by itself	🌍 USA and European discs, each with its own version	🖥️ Up to 4K, with the picture drawn at the size you choose
🏁 True 16:9 that shows more of the track, and 4:3 if you prefer	⚡ Up to 165 frames a second, with the game at its normal speed	✨ FXAA, SMAA, sharpening, TV filters and colour controls
🎮 Any controller with button remapping and vibration	⌨️ Keyboard with your own keys	↩️ Back to the launcher any time: hold Back + Start, or Esc
💾 Saves beside the game, with backups and restore in one click	🛋️ A console style dashboard, made for a controller	🪟 Borderless fullscreen, windowed, any monitor
🔄 Updates itself, and keeps your saves and settings	🚂 Add to Steam with its own artwork	💬 Join the Discord right from Home

The game

Getting started

You need: Windows 10 or 11 (64 bit), a processor with AVX2, a graphics card with Direct3D 11, and a disc image you made from your own USA or European disc (see Which discs work).

1. Download CartoonNetworkRacing-...-windows-x64.zip from the latest release and unzip it anywhere. It holds the launcher and both versions of the game, and everything stays in that folder, so it's portable.
2. Run cnr_launcher.exe. It opens in fullscreen on Home. Windows may warn about an unknown publisher the first time: choose More info, then Run anyway.
3. Pick your region and press Play. The first time, the launcher asks for your disc image: it finds disc images on your PC by itself (or choose the file), checks that it is the right disc and sets the game up.
4. Press Play again, and from then on it starts straight away.

While you play, hold Back and Start on the controller, or hold Esc, to come back to the launcher. No game files are included: they come from your own disc. The launcher keeps your image as games\<region>\game\disc.iso. When the image is on the same drive this is a link to it, so it takes no extra space and stays even if you move or delete the original. Your saves are kept in games\cnr_usa\saves and games\cnr_eu\saves.

Which discs work

Only the disc ID is checked, so any good dump of these discs works. These are the images the port was made and tested with:

Region	Disc ID	Version	Disc image	SHA1	Installed
USA	SLUS_214.38	1.01	3,674,963,968 bytes	C842BFCB98E68F8D453A6D48BBDC8E6A3E35F3EC	about 3.7 GB
Europe	SLES_543.06	1.00	3,672,604,672 bytes	34696933D56D9D4FF4659AC1875470FE748CA069	about 3.7 GB

The launcher's install screen shows every detail for each disc, MD5 and CRC32 too. To check a disc image yourself, run this in PowerShell and compare the result with the SHA1 above:

Get-FileHash "C:\Games\Cartoon Network Racing (USA).iso" -Algorithm SHA1

The launcher

Everything is set up before the game starts, with a controller, the keyboard or the mouse. The USA and European versions each have their own page and settings. It is the TRG Launcher, shared by the TekRantGaming ports.

	Home Both regions side by side, labelled USA and Europe Each one shows at a glance whether it's ready to play Other TRG Projects, Discord and Settings Add to Steam: adds the game to your Steam library with its own artwork. Steam closes for a moment while it's added and opens again afterwards Plays with a controller, the keyboard or the mouse, with interface sounds
Game page Play, the only place the game starts Settings and Saves and install Your save backups and details of your copy
	Install from your own disc The launcher finds disc images on your PC by itself, or you choose the file A card shows exactly which disc works: disc ID, version, size, SHA1, MD5 and CRC32 It checks the disc really is this game and this region, and tells you if it isn't
Display Fullscreen or windowed, on any monitor Resolution: your screen, 720p, 1080p, 1440p or 4K. The game draws at that size, not just the window Frame rate: 60 (the default), 90, 120, 144 or 165 on the USA disc; 50 (the default), 60, 90 or 120 on the European disc. The game still runs at the right speed 16:9 that shows more of the track, or the original 4:3 The race display at the screen edges, or in the middle Vertical sync and a frame rate counter
	Graphics Direct3D 11, Direct3D 12 or Vulkan Render scale from the original picture up to 8x FXAA, SMAA (Direct3D 11) and the PlayStation 2's own edge smoothing Anisotropic filtering up to 16x, plus texture and trilinear filtering Sharpening, TV filters, brightness, contrast, saturation and gamma Blending accuracy, dithering and mipmaps Replacement textures: load your own, or save the game's as a start
Controller and keyboard Remap any button on your controller Stick deadzone and vibration strength Your own keys for every PlayStation 2 button
	Saves and install Back up your saves to a zip and restore them in one click Open the save, backup and game folders Reinstall from your disc, or remove the game. Your saves stay

Updates

When the launcher opens it checks GitHub for new versions of itself and of each game and installs them by themselves, restarting into a new launcher once nothing else is going on. Your disc, saves and settings stay as they are. Turn that off in the launcher's own Settings.

PlayStation 2 vs PC

	PlayStation 2	PC
Resolution	standard definition	up to 4K, drawn at up to 8x
Picture shape	4:3	16:9 that shows more of the track, or 4:3
Frame rate	up to 60 (Europe 50)	up to 165 (Europe up to 120)
Anti aliasing	console	FXAA or SMAA
Texture filtering	console	up to 16x anisotropic
Display	TV	borderless fullscreen or windowed, any monitor, TV filters if you miss it
Controls	DualShock 2	any controller, remapping, keyboard
Saves	memory card	files beside the game, with backups

Good to know

Hotkeys and default keys

Key	Action
Hold Back + Start, or hold Esc	back to the launcher while playing
F11	the launcher fullscreen or windowed
Arrow keys	steer and move through menus
Enter / Backspace	Start / Select
Z X C V	Cross, Square, Circle, Triangle
Q E / 1 3	L1, R1 / L2, R2

Known issues

• Rare freeze on a Loading screen. Now and then the game stays on a Loading screen. Hold Back + Start, or Esc, and start it again.
• In 16:9, markers floating over the track (such as an opponent's tag) sit slightly off their target.
• At high frame rates the minimap fades in faster than it should.
• SMAA works with Direct3D 11 only.
• Windows only for now.

Reporting a problem

Please open an issue with your region, what happened, your CPU, graphics card and the resolution and frame rate you play at, or ask on the Discord. When the launcher starts the game, its log is in games\<region>\logs.

About the game

Cartoon Network Racing was developed by Eutechnyx for the PlayStation 2 and published by The Game Factory in 2006. Until now the only way to play this version was on a console or an emulator. This port runs it natively on Windows and adds the options you would expect from a PC release.

Building from source (for developers)

See docs/BUILDING.md. The game code is generated from each disc's own program file, so building needs your own disc too. Nothing generated from the game is ever committed here, and the source code holds no game code or assets. docs/FINDINGS.md has the reverse engineering notes behind each fix.

Credits

• Cartoon Network Racing by Eutechnyx, published by The Game Factory in 2006.
• PS2Recomp, which does the code translation and runs the game, and KillzoneRecomp, whose fork of it and libraries for PCSX2's renderer, sound and vector units this port is built on.
• PCSX2 for the graphics, sound and vector unit code, and pcsx2_patches (widescreen patches by Arapapa), which pointed the way to the 16:9 camera.
• Ghidra with ghidra-emotionengine-reloaded for the analysis.
• SDL, Dear ImGui and stb.
• SMAA by Jorge Jimenez and others.
• The TRG Launcher.
• Game artwork in the launcher from SteamGridDB, downloaded when the launcher runs.

Licence

The code here is under the GNU General Public License 3.0, as it builds on PCSX2, PS2Recomp and KillzoneRecomp. The TRG Launcher is MIT licensed and SMAA has its own licence in ext/kzgs.