Halo: Combat Evolved, native on the PS4.

Getting started · Controls · Status · FAQ · Building · Credits

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Overview

OpenCE PS4 brings OpenCE, the open source port of the Halo: Combat Evolved decompilation, to jailbroken PS4 consoles as an app you launch from the home screen like any other. It isn't an emulator: the game's own code, rebuilt from source, runs directly on the PS4's CPU, and its renderer draws through OpenGL ES on the PS4's GPU at 1080p.

Under the hood, the game runs as a 32-bit-pointer (x32) program inside the PS4 app, the same way OpenCE's Android port runs it, because Halo's map files are full of 32-bit pointers. OpenGL ES is Mesa's Zink (OpenGL on Vulkan) on top of RADV, Mesa's Vulkan driver adapted to submit work directly to the PS4's AMD GPU.

You bring your own copy of the game. Nothing copyrighted is in this repository: no maps, no game files, no Microsoft or Sony files.

Highlights

The whole game, natively

• The original Xbox campaign, from your own maps, rebuilt from OpenCE's decompiled source. The game logic isn't emulated, so it runs at full speed on the PS4's CPU.
• 1080p through OpenCE's OpenGL ES renderer, the same one OpenCE's Android version uses.
• Menus, loading, cutscenes, sound and saving all work.

Made for the PS4's hardware

• Six CPU cores in use: the game on one, and Mesa preparing the graphics work on others (Gallium's threaded context and glthread).
• Shaders are compiled once and kept in /data/OpenCE/mesa, so they don't cause hitches the next time.
• Checkpoints are written to disk in the background, so saving doesn't pause the game.
• Three swapchain images and two frames in flight smooth out the odd slow frame.
• The game is built with the profile-guided optimisation profile OpenCE ships for its Linux build.

The DualShock 4 as an Xbox controller

• The buttons sit where the Xbox controller's are (see Controls).
• Every player signed in on the console gets their own controller, up to four.

One package

• The build script can put your maps inside the package, so you install one file and play. You can also copy the maps over FTP, or let the game pull them from your Xbox disc image.
• The home screen icon and background are made from your own copy's Halo logo when you build.

When something goes wrong

• Logs, crash reports, and a log line for every slow frame and every slow file operation, so reports show what caused a hitch.

Getting started

You need: a jailbroken PS4 with GoldHEN (developed on a launch-model PS4), an FTP connection to it, and your own copy of Halo: Combat Evolved for the original Xbox.

No package is published: a package can't be shared once it holds the maps, so you build your own (see Building). Then:

1. Install OpenCE-vXX.YY.pkg with GoldHEN's Package Installer.
2. If your package doesn't have the maps inside, give the game its maps in one of these ways:
   • copy the maps folder of your game (the 24 .map files, about 1.8 GB) to /data/OpenCE/maps/ over FTP, or
   • put your Xbox disc image (.iso or .xiso) in /data/OpenCE/. At the first start the game extracts the maps from it; you can delete the image afterwards.
3. Start Halo: Combat Evolved from the home screen.

Tip: the maps of the retail Xbox release (NTSC 1.0, build 01.10.12.2276) are the ones tested. An extracted Xbox game folder has the maps folder as it is.

Updating: install the newer package on top of the old one. Your saves and settings live in /data/OpenCE/ and carry over.

Controls

The DualShock 4's buttons are the Xbox controller's at the same places, so the game's own controls (and its control settings) apply as they would on an Xbox.

DualShock 4	Xbox controller
Cross	A
Circle	B
Square	X
Triangle	Y
L1 / R1	White / Black
L2 / R2	Left / right trigger
OPTIONS	Start
Touchpad click	Back
Left / right stick	Left / right stick
L3 / R3	Stick buttons
D-pad	D-pad

Status

Status	Meaning
	Runs well enough to play through
	Gets into the game, but slowdowns, glitches or freezes get in the way
	Doesn't start, or closes right away

Tested by us on a launch-model PS4, frames per second while playing:

Status	What	FPS
	Campaign: The Pillar of Autumn (cryo, training, first fights)	55–60, dips to 44–51 in busy fights. v00.03 hitched at checkpoints and in busy scenes; v00.04 targets those hitches and is waiting for a test.
	Menus, loading, cutscenes, sound, saving	Smooth

Played further, or tried split screen? Open an issue with the level, the version, your console and firmware, and how it ran.

Your files

Everything the app creates sits in /data/OpenCE/:

• maps/: the game's maps, if they aren't inside your package
• save/: saved games and profiles
• config.toml: the game's settings
• mesa/: the shader cache
• env.txt: optional NAME=value lines read at start, for testing Mesa options (mesa_glthread=false, GALLIUM_THREAD=0, ZINK_DEBUG=...)
• opence.log: the PS4 side's log, with hitch: lines for frames of 50 ms and more and slow: lines for file operations of 30 ms and more
• debug.txt: the game's own log
• boot-trace.log, crash.log, mesa.log: start-up trace, crash reports, Mesa's messages

FAQ

The full list is in FAQ.md. The most common questions:

Where do I get the package? You build it from this repository with your own copy of the game: a package with the maps inside is yours alone and must never be shared. See Building.

It hitches the first time I play a level. New shaders are compiled the first time they're needed. They're kept, so the next time is smoother. If a level keeps hitching, send opence.log: its hitch: and slow: lines show why.

The game says it can't find its maps. Check /data/OpenCE/maps/ holds the 24 .map files (ui.map, a10.map, ...), not a folder inside a folder.

How do I report a bug? Open an issue. Attach opence.log, boot-trace.log, debug.txt and, if there is one, crash.log from /data/OpenCE/, and mention the version, where in the game it happened, your PS4 model and firmware.

Good to know

• The tested maps are the original Xbox version's (OpenCE is built for them).
• Save in the game: there are no save states. Your saves are in /data/OpenCE/save and carry over to new versions.
• Online and LAN play haven't been tried yet.
• Only the original PS4 has been tested so far. PS4 Pro reports are welcome.

Thanks

• OpenCE and everyone who decompiled Halo: Combat Evolved and ported it to Windows, Linux and Android: this port is their work running on one more machine
• Mesa: Zink and the RADV Vulkan driver that draw every frame
• OpenOrbis: the PS4 toolchain
• musl: the C library inside the game
• LLVM: clang and lld, which build both halves
• love-ps4: the reference PS4 setup

Everyone involved, with licences, is listed in CREDITS.md.

License and disclaimer

Released under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0 or later, the same licence as OpenCE. See LICENSE. The PS4 runtime and toolchain come from the author's SMW and Crema ports.

This is a fan-made project with no ties to Microsoft, Xbox Game Studios, Bungie, Halo Studios, Sony Interactive Entertainment or the OpenCE project. Halo and Xbox are trademarks of Microsoft; PlayStation and PS4 are trademarks of Sony Interactive Entertainment. Please only play games you own. This project won't help you find or share game files.