Haunting Ground Recomp

Haunting Ground Recomp

A native Windows and Linux version of Haunting Ground (PlayStation 2, USA, SLUS-21075), built on your PC from an ISO of your own disc. It is not an emulator; the game's program is translated into C and compiled into a native program, with a hand-written runtime standing in for the PS2 hardware. It runs at up to 4K and at 60 fps using frame interpolation, with HD textures (a blend of 4xHDcube3 for detail and 4x-PBRify_UpscalerV4 for skin and smooth surfaces), and supports PlayStation and Xbox controllers over USB or Bluetooth.

Version 0.1 is an early test release. The opening, the castle grounds, the first rooms of the castle and the first meeting with Debilitas have been tested, and saving and loading work, but most of the game has not been played through on it yet. Expect bugs! Reports are very welcome (see Reporting bugs).

Not affiliated with or endorsed by Capcom or Sony. No game code is included in any download: the game is built from your own legally obtained copy, dumped to a disc image (.iso) yourself. The download does include HD textures: the game's own textures, upscaled (see Legal).

What you need

• Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit; or Linux, 64-bit, from about 2022 on (glibc 2.34 or later: Ubuntu 22.04, Fedora 35, Debian 12, Arch, SteamOS on the Steam Deck in desktop mode), with python3 and the SDL2 library (installed with most desktops; Debian/Ubuntu: libsdl2-2.0-0, Fedora: SDL2, Arch: sdl2).
• A graphics card with Vulkan (any NVIDIA, AMD or Intel GPU from roughly the last ten years) is recommended. Without Vulkan the game uses its software renderer, which is exact but slower and has no upscaling or 60 fps.
• A disc image (ISO) of the North American disc, Haunting Ground, version SLUS-21075, as a plain .iso file that you made from your own disc (look up how to image a disc). European and Japanese (Demento) discs are not supported yet: their game program differs from the US one. Compressed images (.chd, .cso, .zip, .7z) must be turned back into a plain .iso first.
• About 6 GB of free disk space (the download unpacked is about 2.3 GB, mostly the HD textures; the game files and the build need the rest) and a minute or a few for the first start.

Nothing else has to be installed: the download includes the compiler it needs to build the game (and, on Windows, Python). Nothing is downloaded while it runs.

How to start

Windows

1. Unzip HauntingGround-Recomp-0.1-win64.zip into a folder of your choice, for example C:\Games\HauntingGround. Use a folder whose path has only plain English letters, digits and spaces, and that you can write to (not C:\Program Files).
2. Double-click HauntingGround.exe. Windows may warn that the program is from an unknown publisher (it is not code-signed): choose "More info", then "Run anyway".
3. Click Choose disc image... and pick your .iso. The launcher checks that it is the right disc and that it is undamaged, copies the 1.6 GB the game needs into the game folder, translates and compiles the game (about 1.5 minutes on a fast PC, several minutes on a slower one), and starts it. Your disc image is only read, never changed.
4. From then on, double-clicking HauntingGround.exe starts the game directly.

Linux

1. Unpack HauntingGround-Recomp-0.1-linux-x64.tar.gz into a folder in your home folder (your file manager can do it: "Extract here").
2. Run HauntingGround.sh (double-click it and choose "Run", or start it from a terminal).
3. Choose your .iso when asked. The launcher checks it, copies the game files, builds the game (about a minute on a fast PC) and starts it. A progress window shows on KDE (and the Steam Deck's desktop) and GNOME; elsewhere the terminal shows the progress.
4. From then on, HauntingGround.sh starts the game directly. To start it from Steam (for example in the Steam Deck's game mode), add HauntingGround.sh as a non-Steam game.

If you unpack a newer release over this folder, the next start builds the game again without asking for the disc. Start the launcher with --setup (for example from a shortcut) to rebuild it yourself.

Playing

PS2	Keyboard (default)	Controller
D-pad	arrow keys	D-pad
Left stick	I J K L	left stick (the right stick works too)
Cross / Circle / Square / Triangle	X / C / Z / S	the same buttons (PlayStation) or A / B / X / Y (Xbox)
Start / Select	Enter / Right Shift	Options / Create (or touchpad click) on PlayStation, Menu / View on Xbox
L1 / R1 / L2 / R2	Q / E / 1 / 3	the shoulder buttons and triggers

F11 switches between window and full screen, F3 shows the speed overlay, Esc quits.

DualSense, DualShock 4 and Xbox controllers work over USB or Bluetooth. The game's vibration reaches the controller, and a DualSense's light bar glows dim amber (both can be changed). The first controller to press a button is player one. If Steam is running with "PlayStation Controller Support" on and the controller acts like an Xbox pad, see docs/controller.md, "Steam Input".

Settings

In the game: Options, then press Down past Screen Position to reach the extra rows:

• Renderer: GPU (Vulkan) or Software. Takes effect at the next start. The launcher picks GPU when your PC has a working Vulkan graphics card.
• Resolution: native (640x448), x2 to x6, or auto (the default: fills your screen, at most x4; x4 is 2560x1792, stretched to a 4K screen's height; x5 is about 4K). Changes at once.
• Frame rate: 30 (the original), 60 (the default with the GPU renderer) or 120 (120 at native resolution only). 60 and 120 add about 17 ms of delay.
• Aspect ratio: 4:3 (the original) or Widescreen. Widescreen fills a 16:9 (or 16:10, or ultrawide up to 21:9) screen without stretching: the camera keeps its position and its framing, and you see more to the left and right. Menus, text and movies stay 4:3 in the middle. Changes at once.
• Display: window or full screen; V-Sync: On (smooth, the default: locked to your display, every picture stays up equally long on 60/120/240 Hz screens), Exact 59.94 Hz (the PS2's own rate), or Off (may tear).
• HD textures: On (the default) or Off; shown above native resolution with the GPU renderer. Changes at once.
• Keyboard and Controller: remap every button (press the key or button you want). The controller page also sets the vibration strength and the light bar colour.

Everything is saved in hg.ini in the game folder; you can also edit it with Notepad while the game is closed. Delete it to return to the defaults.

Where things are

Everything stays in the folder you unzipped:

Folder or file	What it holds
memcards\port0\	Your saves (the memory card). Back this folder up to keep your progress, and copy it into a new release's folder to carry your saves over.
hg.ini	Your settings
textures\	The HD textures (delete the folder, or set HD textures to Off, to play with the originals)
logs\	launcher.log (the first start and every start), play.log (the last session), play.prev.log (the one before)
recordings\	The controller input of your last 20 sessions, so a bug can be replayed exactly
crashes\	Created only if the game crashes
game\, bin\	Files built from your disc: the game data and the compiled game. Never share these.
engine\	The sources and the compiler (and, on Windows, Python) used for the build

Known issues

The full list is in docs/known-issues.md. The main ones:

• Only the opening areas and the first rooms of the castle have been tested in depth; later chapters may have graphics or sound problems, or stop.
• 0.1 has been tested on one PC (Windows 11 and CachyOS Linux, AMD Ryzen, NVIDIA RTX). Other GPUs (AMD, Intel), Windows 10, other Linux distributions, the Steam Deck and slower PCs have not been tried yet.
• A few heavy moments at x4 and 60 fps (Debilitas' entrance, parts of the chase after it) briefly drop to 30 fps. This will be addressed in 0.2.
• Text is not upscaled yet.
• 4K together with 60 fps needs a strong GPU; x6 with 60 fps and x5 with 120 fps do not reach full speed even on an RTX 5090. Optimizations are underway.
• 60 fps is made by frame interpolation: fast movement can show small glitches in the in-between pictures.
• Changing the renderer needs a restart; the analog sticks cannot be remapped.

Reporting bugs

Please open an issue on the GitHub page (or reply to the Reddit post) with:

1. what happened, and what you did just before (the room, what Fiona was doing);
2. your PC: Windows version or Linux distribution, CPU, graphics card;
3. these files from the game folder: logs\play.log (if the game stopped, the reason and, after a crash, a crash report are at its end), logs\launcher.log (for problems with the first start), and, if you can, the latest folder in recordings\ without its card and replay_card folders (only pad.txt: your button presses, so the bug can be replayed exactly).

Do not attach anything from game\, bin\ or crashes\ (the .dmp files there hold parts of the game's memory), and do not attach your disc image. The log files contain no game data, but they do contain folder paths, which may include your Windows user name. More detail: docs/release/crash-reports.md.

For developers

Building from source, the recompiler, the runtime and the verification tools: docs/building.md, docs/handoff.md and the other notes in docs/. How the release and its launcher are made: tools/release/README.md.

Legal

• This project contains no Capcom or Sony code, assets or BIOS files, and none may be contributed. No PS2 BIOS is needed.
• You need your own legally obtained copy of the game. PS2 discs are not encrypted; the tool circumvents no copy protection.
• Everything built from your disc (the game and bin folders, generated code) is derived from your copy and stays on your PC. Never upload or share it.
• The HD textures (textures folder) are high-resolution versions of the game's own textures (Capcom's artwork), made by upscaling them with AI models and mixing the results. They are included so that owners of the game get the best picture without any setup, and they are used only together with your own disc. They are not covered by this project's licence; the repository does not contain them.
• Haunting Ground is a trademark of Capcom. This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by Capcom or Sony.

Credits

• PCSX2 was the visual reference for PS2 behaviour; no PCSX2 code is used. This is not a PCSX2 project; please don't report its bugs to them.
• Static recompilation projects that showed the way: N64Recomp/Zelda64Recomp, XenonRecomp/UnleashedRecomp, PS2Recomp, and DQ8-Recompiled.
• The Windows release bundles GCC, binutils, MinGW-w64, SDL2, the Vulkan loader and Python; the Linux release a GCC toolchain from Bootlin and the SDL2 and Vulkan headers; see THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.txt.
• The HD textures were upscaled with 4xHDcube3 and 4x-PBRify_UpscalerV4 (via chaiNNer's engine) and compressed with bc7enc_rdo.

Licence

GPL-3.0 (see LICENSE). The bundled third-party components keep their own licences (THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.txt, engine\licenses\).