A features and fixes fork of rac-rs.
Ratchet & Clank (PlayStation 2, 2002) on Windows and Linux, from your own disc.

A fork of rac-rs by AsobiCodes, maintained by DeSynkro.

No game data is included. This repository contains no game code, graphics, sound, text or other game files. The setup reads your own copy of the disc and creates everything it needs on your PC. You need to own the game.

What this fork is

This repository used to be rac-rs-linux. In v0.4.1, AsobiCodes merged the Linux build into upstream, so a dedicated Linux fork is no longer needed. I have repurposed it as a rac-rs+ of sorts, a place to fix bugs, test quality-of-life and user-friendly features, and help the project move forward in my own way, in the hope that Asobi merges what fits.

Every feature and fix is kept in its own commit with a detailed message, so it can be reviewed and merged on its own. That is the point of the branch.

• Active branch: features-0.4.1, based on upstream v0.4.1.
• The old Linux release: branch linux-0.4.0, tag rac-rs-linux-0.4.0, kept for reference. Its launcher is not part of this branch.
• Upstream: AsobiCodes/rac-rs.

The Linux support, gamepads and prompts this fork began with are in upstream v0.4.1 now. What remains here is the next round of fixes and features.

What this fork adds

On top of upstream v0.4.1:

• Saves show when you saved. The console has no clock, so the game used to write a blank date. It now takes your PC's local time, on the memory card too, and the Load Game screen shows it as month/day/year.
• Skip the boot logos. Enter, Esc, Space or the controller's Start ends the Insomniac intro while it plays. The Skip intro row still turns the logos off before they start.
• Camera Reversed, mouse untouched. The game's Left/Right and Up/Down Reversed options now turn the right stick and the keyboard camera keys only. The mouse always looks the way it moves.
• Button glyphs for your pad. PlayStation shapes, Xbox pictures, or the Nintendo Switch's pictures with the four face buttons the other way round. Xbox is the default. An option to switch to your perfect glyph can be found in the Options > Graphics menu.
• The title's Graphics page matches the pause page. Options > Graphics on the title has the same five sections and rows as Pause > Options > Graphics, Preset included.

Status

• The whole game is playable from power-on to the end credits, including New Game+.
• Gameplay follows the original PS2 game one to one. On top of that, the PC version has widescreen, keyboard and mouse controls, gamepad support, and an optional modern camera (mouse look and strafing).
• Optional modern graphics on the Graphics page (Pause > Options > Graphics): enhanced lighting with volumetric fog, 3D clouds and shining stars, global illumination, ambient occlusion, dynamic shadows, clear reflective water with waves and tides, vegetation, enhanced smoke, fire and explosions, sun rays, frame smoothing and a sharp HUD, each with quality levels, plus a Graphics Preset row (Low / Medium / High / Custom). The Classic settings keep the original PS2 look.
• Two renderers on Windows: Vulkan (the default) and DirectX 12 (Options > Graphics > Screen > Renderer). ReShade works with both. On Linux the game uses Vulkan only, and the Renderer row is not shown.
• RAC-RS Launcher (since v0.4): a separate app to play, change every option, manage texture packs and mods, keep several game versions side by side, and update with a backup first. See Launcher.
• Mods (since v0.4): script mods through the bundled OmniLoader mod loader. Arsenal Mastery comes preinstalled and switched off. See Mods and texture packs.
• PCSX2 texture packs (since v0.4): packs made for PCSX2 work as they are.
• Plays from the PAL / Europe disc and, since v0.2, from the USA disc.
• Windows 10 and 11, and since v0.4.1 Linux (x86-64). See Linux.
• This fork is tested on CachyOS with KDE Plasma and an AMD graphics card. Please report what you find on other systems.
• Known issues are listed under Known issues below.

How it works

The game runs on its own original code. When you run setup, it translates the PS2 code from your disc into native Rust ("static recompilation"), and that code runs on a PS2 CPU core written in Rust. Because the game logic is the original code, gameplay behaves exactly like the PS2 version.

Everything around the game code is native PC code written for this port: graphics, sound, movies, input, saving, and the PC features. Where a fix, a PC feature or speed needs it, an original function is rewritten in readable Rust. Changes are tested against the original: test runs play the same frames on both versions and compare the game's memory.

Goal

A faithful, fully playable PC version of Ratchet & Clank that you build from your own disc, with PC improvements on top. The game logic stays the original code. Rewriting the whole game from scratch is not a goal of this project.

What you need

• The game disc: Ratchet & Clank, PAL / Europe v1.00 (serial SCES-50916) or USA v1.00 (serial SCUS-97199). Make an .iso image of your own disc. Other versions (Japan, Platinum and Greatest Hits re-releases) are not supported yet. Setup checks the image.
• About the USA version: it should play the same as the PAL version (at 60 frames per second, like the original US game), but it has had less testing so far. If something looks or behaves differently from the PAL version, please open an issue.
• Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit, with about 5 GB of free disk space (the finished install takes about 3.5 GB) and an internet connection for the first setup.
• A 64-bit Linux with glibc 2.28 or newer, about 7 GB of free space on a Linux drive, and a Vulkan driver. The Linux section lists the packages and the details.

That's all. Setup downloads anything else it needs into its own folder.

Quick Start

Windows

This branch is built from source. Download or clone this repository (the features-0.4.1 branch) and unzip it anywhere. The upstream release ZIP does not include this fork's changes.

1. Double-click Setup.cmd. A window opens (no black console window).
2. Click Browse and pick your .iso file. The window checks it and shows a green Disc OK. Two boxes below choose whether to also install the RAC-RS Launcher and whether to add the game to Steam (close Steam first). Then click Install.
3. Wait. The window shows the steps and a progress bar (about 15 minutes; you can keep using your PC). When it says Ready to play, click Play.

Next time, double-click the Ratchet & Clank (rac-rs) shortcut on your desktop (it opens the launcher if you installed it, otherwise the game), or open Setup.cmd and click Play. The same window also has Repair / rebuild if something breaks. If anything goes wrong the window says which step failed and has a Copy details button. For troubleshooting, Setup.cmd -Console runs setup in a console window instead.

Linux

This fork is built from source. Put your disc image in the rom folder, or give its path:

sh setup.sh                          # finds the .iso in rom/, finds or downloads the tools, checks the disc, generates the game code, builds
sh setup.sh --iso "/path/to/disc.iso"
./play.sh                            # starts the game

The first build takes 10 to 30 minutes. setup.sh writes only inside the game folder. It downloads its own private copy of Rust, Python and a C linker into toolchain, so you do not need a compiler, development packages or sudo. With --system-toolchain it uses your own Rust, Python and C compiler instead; it is remembered until you pass --pinned-toolchain. sudo docker compose up is a third way: it builds the game in a Debian 12 container. Run setup again after an update.

Do not share or upload the generated files or the built game. They contain code generated from the game disc. Everything setup creates stays inside this folder.

Linux

Since v0.4.1, rac-rs also runs on Linux (x86-64). It is the same game code as on Windows, built from your own disc, and a recorded fight gives identical game memory on both. The Linux port was set up by DeSynkro (pull request #38). Upstream tested it on Ubuntu 24.04 and Arch Linux (under WSL, with software Vulkan). This fork is tested on CachyOS with KDE Plasma and real AMD Vulkan drivers.

Like on Windows, you do not install any programming tools. setup.sh downloads its own private copy of Rust 1.99, Python 3.14 and a C linker (zig) into the game folder (toolchain, about 250 MB to download and 1 GB on disk), plus the Rust libraries that cargo fetches from crates.io (about 200 MB). There is no compiler, pkg-config, development package or sudo involved. You need:

• A 64-bit Intel/AMD Linux with glibc 2.28 or newer (every mainstream distribution since 2019, SteamOS 3 included), about 7 GB of free space on a Linux drive (ext4, btrfs; not an SD card formatted as FAT or exFAT, which cannot run programs or make links; setup.sh checks this) and an internet connection for the first setup.
• A Vulkan-capable graphics driver (Mesa for AMD/Intel, the NVIDIA driver for NVIDIA). On Linux the game uses Vulkan only; there is no Renderer row in the Options menu.
• Ordinary run-time libraries, which any desktop install already has (a minimal or server install may not): ALSA (sound), udev (gamepads), the Vulkan loader, the keyboard library xkbcommon and the X11 window libraries (Xlib, Xcursor, Xi; on a pure Wayland desktop libwayland-client instead). setup.sh looks for them first and prints the install line for your distribution if one is missing. Without one of the window libraries the game stops at start with "Failed to load one of xlib's shared libraries". The packages:
  • Debian / Ubuntu: sudo apt install libasound2t64 libudev1 libvulkan1 libxkbcommon-x11-0 libx11-6 libx11-xcb1 libxcursor1 libxi6 (libasound2 instead of libasound2t64 on Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12 and older)
  • Arch: sudo pacman -S alsa-lib systemd-libs vulkan-icd-loader libxkbcommon-x11 libx11 libxcursor libxi
  • Fedora: sudo dnf install alsa-lib systemd-libs vulkan-loader libxkbcommon-x11 libX11 libX11-xcb libXcursor libXi
  • SteamOS has all of them.
• Your Ratchet & Clank disc image: PAL/Europe v1.00 (SCES-50916) or USA v1.00 (SCUS-97199). Put it in the rom folder, or give its path.

Gamepads: Xbox-style controllers, DualShock 4 and DualSense are read through the kernel's evdev interface (the SDL controller database that ships inside the gilrs library decides which button is which). A controller plugged in while the game runs is picked up. The first controller found is used.

Differences from Windows, for now:

• The Linux build has no profile-guided speed boost (PGO), so it can run slower than the Windows build on the same machine.
• Mods written as scripts (the OmniLoader mods, for example Arsenal Mastery) need the OmniLoader library, which only exists for Windows so far. Without it the game hides those mod rows; texture packs work as before.
• The update window and the Windows-only options (Renderer, RivaTuner, ReShade) do not exist. To update this fork, pull the branch and run sh setup.sh again (it notices what changed and rebuilds only that).
• The game writes player/log.txt (the run log when started from a menu or file manager) and player/crash.log (panics) next to the saves.

Launcher

The RAC-RS Launcher (AsobiCodes/rac-rs-launcher) is an optional app next to the game. Setup offers to install it; you can also download it from its own release page. From the launcher you can:

• start the game, and change every option (graphics, camera, controls, Skip intro) before you play,
• add, import and switch PCSX2 texture packs, and turn mods on or off with their own settings,
• keep several game versions side by side and use profiles,
• update the game: it backs up your current version first.

The game works the same without the launcher; everything it changes can also be set in the game's own menus. The launcher is upstream's, and its updater follows upstream releases, not this branch. This branch does not include the old fork launcher; that one lives with the linux-0.4.0 release.

Mods and texture packs

• Script mods run through OmniLoader, this project's own mod loader, which comes with the game (bundled\omniloader.dll on Windows). Turn mods on or off in the launcher's Mods page or on the title screen under Options > Mods. With no mod switched on, the game plays exactly as before.
• The mod format comes from OpenRAC. OmniLoader is this project's own code, written from the public, MIT-licensed mod SDK of OpenRAC (another Ratchet & Clank PC project). It follows OpenRAC's script-mod format and Luau API, so a mod folder with OpenRAC's openrac-mod.json is read too. No code of OpenRAC's game port is used. Credit and the SDK licence are in NOTICE.md.
• Arsenal Mastery is preinstalled and switched off: a fan-remaster style mod where weapons level up like in Ratchet & Clank 3, Nanotech levels raise Ratchet's health and enemies are rebalanced to match. Switch it on in the launcher when you want it.
• PCSX2 texture packs: add a pack made for PCSX2 (a folder or a .zip) in the launcher, or import it from your PCSX2 texture folder. Packs cover world textures, water, sky, chrome and glass, the ship, particles, grass, and the HUD and menus. A pack made for the other disc region mostly works too. Turn packs on or off on the title screen under Options > Mods; while one is on, Pause > Options > Mods has the switches in game too.

Making mods

• Script mods (Luau, run by OmniLoader): docs/MODDING.md is a step-by-step guide with a 5-minute first mod, hooks, fields, drawing and per-save data. The preinstalled Arsenal Mastery is a full worked example.
• Reference: docs/MODDING_REFERENCE.md lists every hook id, game function and field.
• Texture packs (PCSX2 format): docs/TEXTURE_PACKS.md shows how players add and switch packs and how to make one.

Updating

Upstream releases check online for a newer version when the game starts and can update themselves, keeping saves, settings and the downloaded tools. This fork is a branch, so update it from git:

git pull
sh setup.sh

Your saves, your disc setting and the downloaded Rust libraries are kept, and only the parts that changed are rebuilt. What changed in each upstream version is in CHANGELOG.md.

Controls

The game's own button prompts show the keyboard and mouse keys, the controller's buttons, or the other, whichever you used last. You can change the camera style, the language and every button in the game's Options menu (Pause > Options > Controls for the buttons; Camera speed and Mouse speed are separate rows).

Controllers work too: Xbox-style controllers (XInput) and PlayStation controllers (PS4 DualShock 4 and PS5 DualSense, over USB or Bluetooth), also when you switch one on or plug it in after the game has started. With the modern camera on, hold R2 to strafe.

A controller's buttons are shown the way your pad labels them. Pick the style on the title screen (Options > Graphics > System) or in the game (Pause > Options > Graphics > System > Button glyphs):

	PlayStation	Xbox	Switch
The bottom button	Cross	A	B
The right button	Circle	B	A
The top button	Triangle	Y	X
The left button	Square	X	Y
The shoulders	L1, R1	LB, RB	LB, RB
The triggers	L2, R2	LT, RT	LT, RT
The sticks	L3, R3	L3, R3	L3, R3

PlayStation shows the shapes the game came with. Xbox and Switch show the buttons as pictures, the green A disc and the rest, with the four face buttons the other way round for the Switch, whose bottom button is B and whose right one is A. Xbox is the default.

The style is for a controller: with the keyboard the prompts name the buttons by key, as they always have. A button you have rebound is shown as the button it is really played with. If you put the Circle on the RT, the prompts say RT and show the RT's picture, and the RT is what presses it.

	Classic	Static	Smooth
Camera	the original PS2 follow camera	mouse look and strafing	mouse look, softer
R2	does nothing	aims	aims
L2	does nothing	nothing	nothing

With the camera on, hold R2 to strafe. Smooth is the default: it follows softly, recentres lazily while you run, looks down at drops and pulls in at walls. The camera speed, the mouse speed and the lock-on circle are on the same page. The camera's Reversed options turn the right stick and the Q/E and Z/X keys; the mouse keeps its own direction.

The intro can be skipped while it plays (Enter, Esc, Space or the controller's Start) and turned off for good with Options > Graphics > System > Skip intro, on the title screen or in the game.

The title screen's Graphics page takes Cross / A to step a row's value and the Up / Down arrow keys to move between rows. The pause menu's Graphics page also takes Left / Right on its Page row and on the rows.

Known issues

• The port's own menus (title, pause, options, mods) are worked with the keyboard, the mouse or the left stick. The controller's D-pad does not move them yet. The game's own pages still take the D-pad.
• Changing Button glyphs in the pause menu, or a controller binding, can leave the menu pictures on the old style until the next level load. The choice is saved and applies fully then. The game's own in-world prompts also follow on that next load when the GPU capture is on.
• Script and native mods need an OmniLoader library built for Linux. Upstream only publishes the Windows DLL, so the Mods page hides those rows and plays exactly as before. Arsenal Mastery stays in the mods folder, switched off, until a Linux loader exists.
• The faint afterimage trail behind Ratchet during Thruster-Pack flight is not drawn yet.
• Some glass surfaces can flicker.
• On AMD and Intel graphics, HUD Sharp only sharpens the title screen and main menu for now. In game, the on-screen text, icons, menus and shop keep the Original look.
• DirectX 12, ReShade and RivaTuner are Windows-only and are not part of the Linux build. See the Linux section.

Reporting a problem

If the game freezes, crashes or looks wrong, please open an issue and attach player/log.txt from your rac-rs folder. The game writes it every time it runs. It lists your system, processor and graphics card, and what the game did up to the problem. If the game froze, wait about 15 seconds before you close it: the log then also says where it got stuck. The previous run is kept as player/log.prev.txt, so if you already restarted the game, attach that file instead. If you use mods or a texture pack, say which ones, and try once with them switched off. The log stays on your PC; the game sends it nowhere.

Bugs in this fork's features and fixes belong here. Bugs in upstream rac-rs belong in the upstream issues. If you are not sure, open it here and say which feature it touches.

For developers

The unit tests read the game data off your disc. They look for it at a fixed path in the game folder, so make a link to it:

ln -s "/path/to/Ratchet & Clank.iso" \
      "Ratchet & Clank (Europe) (En,Fr,De,Es,It) (v1.00).iso"

Then:

cargo test --release --manifest-path rac-rs/Cargo.toml -p rac-rs --lib

Some tests also want the upstream project's private savestates and game data and fail or skip without them. The file and function size caps are enforced by the same suite; RAC_SIZE_CAPS_WRITE=1 lowers rac-rs/SIZE_CAPS.txt after a split.

Each feature and fix in this fork is a separate commit. Keep it that way: one feature or fix per branch and PR, with tests and the reasoning in the message.

Contributors

• AsobiCodes: the original rac-rs project, and essentially all of it.
• DeSynkro: the Linux port (pull request #38, now in upstream v0.4.1), the Linux gamepads and logs, and this fork's fixes and features.

OpenCode was used for a portion of the work.

The original project's NOTICE.md and LICENSE are kept, and the credits for the third-party work it builds on are in NOTICE.md.

Legal

This is a fan project for preservation and education. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Sony Interactive Entertainment or Insomniac Games. "Ratchet & Clank" is a trademark of Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC. All game content belongs to its owners. "Xbox" is a trademark of Microsoft.

The repository contains original source code and tools, plus the fork's own button artwork in xboxglyphs/ and the logo. The button artwork is the fork's own drawing of the buttons, not Microsoft's. It contains no copyrighted game data, and it does not tell you how to get the game other than from a disc you own.

License

GPL-3.0-or-later, see LICENSE. The logo and the button artwork in xboxglyphs/ are the fork's own work under the same licence. Credits for third-party work are in NOTICE.md.