Red Dead Recompilation

What makes this port different

More than the game running on a PC: it adds things the Xbox game never had.

🌐 Online play, 2 to 4 players

Showdown and story co-op with a join code: at home, over a VPN such as Tailscale, or over the internet with UDP port 27032 forwarded on the host's router. Every player runs the whole game and only the controllers cross the network, so every machine stays in step frame for frame, and each player sees their own view. Hosted from the desk in the main menu, where the Friends Menu was.

⚠️ Highly experimental and still buggy. Games can freeze or fall out of step. For now, to play together over the internet we recommend local split-screen co-op shared through Parsec (or Steam Remote Play Together): one PC runs the game and your friends join its screen with their own controllers.

👥 Story co-op for 2 to 4 players

Play the story together on one PC: shared screen, split screen, or a separate window for each player (one per monitor). Each player picks their own character, can keep their own weapons and money from chapter to chapter, and opens their own menu. Duels can be fought by every player at once.

🤠 Play as anyone, in the story and in Showdown

Any Showdown character can play the story (Play As). The Showdown line-up has room for up to 400 characters over 8 pages: the game's own 48 and up to 352 new ones. The optional extras (launcher > Extras) fill 115 of those places: 59 of the story's own people (Brimstone's townsfolk, Jesse Lynch, Katie O'Grady, Colonel Darren, Atlas and more) and 56 of the 2002 preview's characters, 163 in all over 4 pages. The rest of the room is there for mods.

🗂️ The lost 2002 preview, playable

The January 2002 PS2 preview (the 15 January 2002 build preserved by Hidden Palace) had characters and levels that never shipped. Point the launcher at your own copy of it and 56 of its characters (an early Red, a long-coat Red, Pig Josh, Bat Boy who flies...) and 31 of its stages (an unreleased mine, deathmatch arenas) join Showdown and Play As. The stages are ported as they are on that early disc, unfinished: some may not work properly as Showdown stages. And the 2002 look gives the HUD and pause menu the preview's style (the TIME clock, the revolver's rounds in an arc, the red Dead Eye badge, the curved blue bands) from art still on the retail disc.

🧨 A live spawner

From the in-game menu, make anyone in the level right now: any character, acting like anyone from any chapter (their AI comes with them), on your side or against you, armed or not, with a boss's health bar if you like, or a herd of another chapter's cattle. Bring in the level's own people, hand out any of the game's weapons, refill ammunition.

🔫 Guns in Brimstone

The story keeps your guns holstered in town. Switch on Guns in Town and draw anywhere (the streets, the saloon, the stores) with townsfolk who can be hurt and who come back a minute later.

🎥 And more

A free camera, chapter select from the pause menu, the game's own cheats without unlocking them plus new ones (infinite ammo, always win duels, freeze people), mouse aim even in duels, and sharp text.

The basics

🖥️ Native PC build from your own disc, no emulator	📐 Widescreen, any window size, up to 6x internal resolution, FXAA, anisotropic filtering	🎞️ High frame rates: 30, 60, 120, 144, 165, 240 or unlimited
🎮 Any controller through SDL2: Xbox, DualSense, DualShock 4, Switch Pro	🖱️ Mouse and keyboard with direct mouse aim, every key rebindable	🔤 Sharp text: the game's lettering drawn four times finer
⚙️ A launcher and in-game menus drawn in the game's own style	🧰 Mods: file replacements, texture packs, new stages and characters, each on or off in the launcher	📼 Replacement movies and upscaled texture packs

Getting started

What you need

• Your own Red Dead Revolver (USA) Xbox disc, extracted (default.xbe, swat.dat, bik\, ...) or as a disc image (.iso).
• Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit. (Linux builds too; its renderer is less complete. See BUILDING.md.)
• A graphics card with OpenGL 3.3 (anything from the last decade).
• Recommended: a recent 4-core (or more) desktop or laptop processor and 8 GB of RAM. The game emulates the Xbox's graphics and sound chips as it runs, which is heavy work: low-power chips such as the Intel N100/N200 with 4 GB of RAM build and run it, but with broken-up sound and stutters. On a slower PC, a 30 fps cap and 1x resolution help.
• About 15 GB free if you have none of the tools yet (about 12 GB if Visual Studio's C++ tools are already installed; about 2 GB more for the optional extras; details below), and 30-60 minutes for the first build.

What the build downloads, and the space it takes

build.bat checks for each of these and offers to install what is missing; nothing is installed without asking. Sizes are approximate. Visual Studio is installed slim: the compiler and the Windows SDK, without the C++ workload's recommended extras and without keeping the installer's download cache. (Have the full "Desktop development with C++" already? It works as it is; the Visual Studio Installer's Modify can remove the extras.)

Prerequisite	What it is for	Download	On disk
Visual Studio 2022 Build Tools: only the C++ compiler (MSVC x64) and the Windows SDK	the C/C++ compiler	~1.5-2 GB	~3-4 GB
Git for Windows	fetching the toolkit	~65 MB	~350 MB
Python 3.12 (3.10 or newer)	translating the game's code, the setup tools	~25 MB	~110 MB
capstone (Python package)	the disassembler the translation uses	~1.3 MB	~5 MB
CMake (Python package, only if Visual Studio's own is not there)	the build's project files	~50 MB	~100 MB
xboxrecomp toolkit	the recompiler and Xbox runtime	~5 MB	~180 MB
SDL2 2.30.9	controllers	~3 MB	~22 MB

Smaller, without Visual Studio: the first build asks which compiler to use. Choose 2 (or run build.bat -Compiler clang) to build with LLVM-MinGW instead: Clang and the Windows headers and libraries in one folder, no installer and no admin prompt. It replaces the Visual Studio row above:

Instead of Visual Studio	What it is for	Download	On disk
LLVM-MinGW 20250826 (UCRT, x86_64)	the C/C++ compiler	~175 MB	~600 MB
CMake and Ninja (Python packages)	the build's project files and running it	~55 MB	~110 MB
SDL2's MinGW package	controllers	~8 MB	~30 MB

That makes about 12 GB free in all, instead of 15. The same is offered when Visual Studio is missing and you say no to installing it.

What the build and the game make:

	On disk
Your game files (the extracted disc; from an .iso the build unpacks them, the image itself is only read)	~3 GB
The translated C code and the compile (src\recomp\gen\, build\)	~250 MB
The play folder (the game program, settings, logs)	~50 MB
Saves (Saves\: the game's save files and its virtual Xbox hard disk, which can grow)	up to ~6 GB
Online play: a copy of the host's save and the game's cache (Saves\Online\)	up to ~0.7 GB
Optional: the story's people (launcher > Extras)	~0.4 GB
Optional: the 2002 preview characters (launcher > Extras; needs 2 GB free while it runs, and installs numpy and Pillow for Python, ~20 MB)	~1.3 GB, plus the story's people

Build and play (Windows)

1. Download the latest release from the Releases page (Source code (zip)), unzip it, and put the folder (any name) next to your extracted disc:

   <anywhere>\rdr-recomp\                   this project
   <anywhere>\Red Dead Revolver (USA)\      default.xbe, swat.dat, bik\, ...
   

   Only have the disc image (.iso)? Skip this: drop the .iso onto build.bat (or run it and pick the image in the window it opens), and it unpacks the disc there for you. Extracted somewhere else, or under another name? Pick that folder's default.xbe in the same window (or drop the folder onto build.bat).

2. Double-click build.bat. It offers to install anything missing (Git, Python 3, Visual Studio 2022's C++ tools), fetches the xboxrecomp toolkit, turns your default.xbe into C (about 15 minutes) and compiles it (10-30 minutes). Running it again only redoes what changed.

3. Play from the Red Dead Recompilation folder it makes inside the project: start Red Dead Revolver.exe.

The launcher (settings) opens before the game; switch that off on its About page, and hold Shift while the game starts to see it again. F1 (or both sticks clicked) opens the in-game menu. Full instructions: docs/USER_GUIDE.md. Building by hand, or on Linux: docs/BUILDING.md.

Tutorial: the story's people as playable characters

The story's own people (the townsfolk, shopkeepers, soldiers, Jesse Lynch, Katie O'Grady, Colonel Darren, Atlas and the rest) can be Showdown characters and Play As choices. They are made from your own game files, so there is nothing else to get.

1. Start Red Dead Revolver.exe; the launcher opens (if it no longer does, hold Shift while the game starts).
2. Go to Extras and choose Set up the story's people. It takes a few minutes and shows its progress; when it says Done they are on.
3. Press Play. In Showdown, push the hand past the right edge of the line-up photo (or click the arrows) to turn to their page, and pick one as you would any character.
4. In the story: press F1 (or click both sticks) > Play As, or use the chapter book's Play As; pick one and start or restart a chapter. In story co-op, Player 2-4 as offers the same list.

Tutorial: the 2002 preview characters

You need a disc image (.iso) of the January 2002 PS2 preview, the 15 January 2002 build (see Hidden Palace's page about it). It is not included: use your own copy. You also need about 2 GB free. This setup brings the story's people too, so the tutorial above is not needed as well.

1. In the launcher, go to Extras and choose Set up the preview characters.
2. Pick the preview's disc image in the window that opens. The setup runs by itself (5-10 minutes); the image is only read, and everything made goes into Mods\Preview\.
3. When it says Done, press Play. In Showdown the preview's characters are on the line-up's next page, and its stages in the stage list (marked (2002) where a retail stage has the same name). In the story they are in Play As, after the game's own characters.
4. Switch them off or on any time: launcher > Extras > Preview characters. Your saves are the same either way.

When an update changes these characters, the launcher's Extras page says the setup is out of date: choose it again to bring them up to date.

Tutorial: making people on the spot (the spawner)

1. In a chapter, press F1 > All PC Options > Spawner, down to New people.
2. Pick a Character (this level's people, another chapter's animals, or anyone in the Play As list) and how they Act: like one of this level's people or, further down the list, like someone from another chapter.
3. Choose their Side, How many, Where, Guns and whether they get a Health bar, then Make. Remove the people made takes them away again.

Someone from another chapter may need paths or scripts this level does not have: if they just stand there, try another way of acting.

Documentation

Document	For
docs/USER_GUIDE.md	players: the play folder, controllers, launcher, mouse and keyboard, menus, cheats, co-op, hotkeys, troubleshooting
docs/BUILDING.md	building on Windows (one click or by hand) and Linux, the toolkit patch, the project's layout
docs/MODDING.md	the mods folder, texture packs, new Showdown stages and characters, the 2002 preview
docs/ONLINE.md	online co-op: how it works and where it stands
docs/dev/BRINGUP.md	developers: the development log, every fix and why
CHANGELOG.md	what the port can do, by area
CONTRIBUTING.md	reporting problems and contributing

Good to know

Key	What
F1, or both sticks clicked	Quick menu: cheats, co-op, settings
F2	frame counter
F6	free camera
F11 or Alt+Enter	fullscreen
Shift held at start	the launcher (settings), once it no longer opens every time

• Saves go to Saves\ in the play folder, mods to Mods\, settings to settings.ini. Each start that finds the saves changed copies them to Saves\Backup\1 first (the two copies before it are kept as 2 and 3).
• Network: the launcher asks GitHub once a start whether there is a newer release, and shows it on the About page. Nothing is downloaded unless you press Update now there, which downloads the new release from GitHub and rebuilds the game (your settings, saves and mods stay). Switch the check off with Check for updates on the launcher's About page. Nothing else goes online unless you host or join an online game.
• Uninstalling: everything the port makes is in the project folder: the play folder (Red Dead Recompilation: the program, Game\, Saves\, Mods\, Logs\, settings.ini) and the build's own folders (deps\, build\ or build-clang\, src\recomp\gen\). Copy Saves\ somewhere if you want to keep your progress, then delete the project folder. Nothing goes in the registry, AppData or the Start menu. Outside it is only what the build installed when you said yes: Visual Studio Build Tools, Git and Python (Windows' Settings > Apps), and Python packages for your user (python -m pip uninstall capstone cmake ninja numpy pillow). If the play folder could not be written, the log went to %TEMP%\Red Dead Recompilation last_run.log.
• Known rough edges: story co-op is experimental and online co-op is highly experimental (for now, split screen through Parsec is the reliable way to play together over the internet); high frame rates are new (if something looks wrong, go back to 60); the Linux renderer is behind the Windows one.

Reporting a problem

Each start writes Logs\last_run.log in the play folder (the one before it is kept as previous_run.log). Open an issue with the log attached and what you were doing; a short video helps a lot. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

For questions, help getting it running, and to share what you make, join the Discord server. Bugs are best reported as issues here, so they are not lost.

How it works

xboxrecomp disassembles the Xbox executable and lifts every function to C; this project compiles that C with a runtime standing in for the Xbox's kernel, GPU, audio and controllers. On top sit this game's fixes and features, keyed by the addresses of the game's own functions: src/rdr_overrides.c and src/rdr_hooks.c (fixes, cheats, co-op), src/ui/ (the launcher, the in-game menus, mouse and keyboard), src/net/ and src/rdr_lockstep.c (online play). The development log, docs/dev/BRINGUP.md, tells the whole story fix by fix.

Credits

• xboxrecomp by sp00nz: the recompilation toolkit and Xbox runtime this port is built on (MIT).
• red-dead-revolver-pc by dennisabalo18-bot, another PC port of the game. Two things here come from that project's work: the stuck-controls safeguard (when a controller's reports stop reaching the game, it is read straight from the PC instead of the player walking on with the controls dead, a problem that project found and fixed first) and the idea of replacement cutscene movies. Thank you!
• The MCPX audio and NV2A graphics emulation in xboxrecomp follows xemu (its licences are listed in xboxrecomp).
• Libraries: Dear ImGui (MIT), stb (MIT / public domain), SDL2 (zlib, downloaded at build time), Capstone (BSD, used by the build). Fonts: Berylium by Ray Larabie (Larabie Fonts freeware), Rye and IM Fell (SIL Open Font License). Details: THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

Licence

This project's own code, scripts and documentation are under the MIT licence (LICENSE). It does not cover Red Dead Revolver or anything made from your copy of it (the generated code in src/recomp/gen/, mods made by the tools, extracted textures). Third-party parts keep their licences (THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md); the toolkit patch's changes to two of xboxrecomp's LGPL files (from xemu) are under the LGPL-2.1-or-later (LICENSES/LGPL-2.1.txt).

Legal

This is an unofficial fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Rockstar Games, Take-Two Interactive or Microsoft. Red Dead Revolver is a trademark of Take-Two Interactive; Xbox is a trademark of Microsoft