v0.0.2 - Return Ace!

Important

This is an experimental pre-release, and it will be buggy. Read the known issues below and the full release notes before you start, and please tell us what breaks.

Nakagawa Recomp turns the program code of a PSP game you own into a native Windows program. It translates the game's MIPS code to C ahead of time, links it with a native runtime, and runs it through SDL3 and Vulkan. Your games, saves and fonts stay on your PC.

Highlights

• Two play modes for every game. Authentic plays the game as released and is the default. Enhanced adds host-side improvements that work for any game: texture filtering, crisp system text, Smooth motion (a steady 30 fps game shown at up to 60), Widescreen, sharper enlarging with AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution 1, and clean pitched sound. Each one can be turned off for the whole library or for one game.
• Hot Shots Tennis with no title-specific compatibility patches. It is still rated Playable; v0.0.1 needed 11 patches, and general fixes replaced all of them. Its opening movie now plays.
• A launcher for real libraries. Thousands of games with find and sort, .cso, .zso and .chd disc images, save backups and restore, portable mode, key and button rebinding, a pause menu, accessibility settings, and an opt-in Check for updates.
• Closer to a PSP. Kernel, file, save-data, graphics and sound behaviour that games rely on now follows measurements from a real PSP in many more places. When a game needs something Nakagawa doesn't support, it still stops and says what is missing.

Screenshots

Hot Shots Tennis in Enhanced mode on v0.0.2: a rally, the title screen, the main menu and a serve.

A rally recorded with v0.0.1 (click to play).

Get started

1. Download nakagawa-recomp-0.0.2-windows-x64.zip below and check it (next section).
2. Extract it and run bin\nakagawa_player.exe.
3. Drag in your game's .iso, click BUILD PACKAGE, then Play.

Updating from v0.0.1? Unpack into a new folder; your library and saves are found automatically, and games built by v0.0.1 need building again (Rebuild all).

You need: Windows 11 x64, a Vulkan-capable GPU, 8 GB RAM (16 GB recommended), 5 GB of free disk space, and your own copy of the game as an uncompressed .iso (or a PSN release's EBOOT.PBP). Nothing from Sony is included: no games, game data, firmware or fonts.

Check your download

v0.0.2 isn't code-signed, so Windows SmartScreen may warn the first time you run it. Please don't turn SmartScreen off; check the download instead.

1. In the folder you downloaded to, this must print the same value as nakagawa-recomp-0.0.2-windows-x64.zip.sha256:

   (Get-FileHash .\nakagawa-recomp-0.0.2-windows-x64.zip -Algorithm SHA256).Hash.ToLower()

2. After extracting, in the extracted folder, this proves the player was built by this repository's release workflow from commit 9a94f20408baa907d8a48693adc693c98720121c, the commit this release is tagged at (SLSA Build Level 2). It needs the GitHub CLI, signed in once with gh auth login:

   gh attestation verify .\bin\nakagawa_player.exe --repo Jstar269/Nakagawa-Recomp `
     --signer-workflow Jstar269/Nakagawa-Recomp/.github/workflows/provenance-attestation.yml `
     --source-ref refs/heads/main --source-digest 9a94f20408baa907d8a48693adc693c98720121c

SHA256SUMS.txt in the ZIP lists every file's SHA-256. If a check fails, don't run the file; report it.

If Windows Security blocks the player. Some PCs have the Microsoft Defender rule "Block executable files from running unless they meet a prevalence, age, or trusted list criteria" turned on. It is an attack surface reduction rule, off by default on home PCs, and some security tools turn it on. That rule blocks nakagawa_player.exe, because it is new, and every game package the player builds, because each one is built on your PC. Explorer then says Windows "cannot access the specified device, path, or file", and Windows Security > Virus & threat protection > Protection history shows "Risky action blocked". Whoever manages that rule can exclude the folder you extracted Nakagawa to and %LOCALAPPDATA%\Nakagawa\data\packages from it (Microsoft's guide). Check the download as above first, and please don't turn Defender or SmartScreen off.

Known issues

• Most games other than Hot Shots Tennis stop early. Each one names the missing piece; typical causes are unsupported system calls and interpreter rejections. STOP GAME ends a game that keeps drawing a black screen.
• Hot Shots Tennis: some sound effects drop out while it loads (#1296), and its in-game text uses the project's stand-in fonts unless you import your PSP's (#1300).
• Graphics: overlapping see-through layers can blend wrongly on the GPU (#2109), effects a game draws into small off-screen images don't scale with the resolution setting (#2052), and the software renderer clips every draw to 480x272 (#2193).
• Movie timing is not fully matched to a PSP (#279).
• No online play. Network calls other than sceNetInit and sceNetTerm are refused.
• Settings > Problem report can't write its report unless Python is installed on the PC; use Report a problem on the game's page, or Copy details on an error card, instead.
• Not code-signed, so SmartScreen warns on first run; check the download as above.

The full list of known issues is in the release notes.

Games tried for this release

• Hot Shots Tennis: Get a Grip (UCUS98701, US): Playable. Built offline from the release ZIP in about 4 minutes with the bundled tools. Opening movie, title, new save, menus and Exhibition singles matches played at a steady 30 fps with sound, in Authentic and Enhanced (16x filtering, crisp system text), with the PSP's own fonts imported. Typing a name on the game's own on-screen keyboard is fiddly from a PC keyboard.

Tell us how far other games get in Compatibility reports.

Downloads

File	Size	What it is
nakagawa-recomp-0.0.2-windows-x64.zip	260 MB (928 MB, 10,135 files extracted)	The player, its public source and the bundled build tools
nakagawa-recomp-0.0.2-windows-x64.zip.sha256		The ZIP's SHA-256
nakagawa-recomp-0.0.2-prerequisite-sources.zip and its .sha256	531 MB	The source of every bundled build tool; you don't need it to play

Report a problem

Use the Smoke Test Report form for bugs, post how far a game gets in Compatibility reports, and ask questions in Help. Copy details on an error card puts a short report on your clipboard. Read logs before attaching them: they should contain no disc images, game files or personal paths.

Thanks

Thank you to the people outside the maintainer team who contributed to this release:

• @FractalEngineer: immediate-mode GE drawing and generic bring-up paths (#1757).

v0.0.1 - Begin Match

Important

This is the first public preview, and it will be buggy. Read the known issues below and the full release notes before you start, and please tell us what breaks.

Nakagawa Recomp turns the program code of a PSP game you own into a native Windows program. It translates the game's MIPS code to C ahead of time, links it with a native runtime, and runs it through SDL3 and Vulkan. Your games, saves and fonts stay on your PC.

Highlights

• Hot Shots Tennis is playable. Hot Shots Tennis (UCUS98701) runs at its native 30 frames per second in menus and in matches on the reference PC (Ryzen 9 5900X, RTX 3080).
• Bring your own disc, as it is. Add an .iso made from a UMD you own, or the EBOOT.PBP of a PSN release of a UMD game, which the player turns back into its disc image. The player decrypts the game's encrypted program files on your PC, the way PPSSPP does. PSP system software (firmware) is never decrypted.
• Works offline. The ZIP carries every build tool BUILD PACKAGE needs (Python, the MSYS2 compiler, GNU Make, SDL3), checked against a pinned manifest. Nothing is downloaded.
• A real launcher. Library cards with each disc's own icon, a four-stage build you can watch and cancel, saved settings, controller setup with live input, keyboard rebinding, and a performance overlay on F3.
• Pause anywhere. Esc, F1 or the controller's Guide button freezes the game, its sound and its clock. The pause has no menu yet.
• Your PSP's own fonts. Copy the font files from your own PSP (how) and import them in Settings > PSP FONTS; games then draw their text with them. All 18 system fonts import. They are optional.
• Honest failures. When a game needs something that isn't supported yet, the player stops and names what is missing instead of faking it.

Get started

1. Download nakagawa-recomp-0.0.1-windows-x64.zip below and check it (next section).
2. Extract it and run bin\nakagawa_player.exe.
3. Drag in your game's .iso, click BUILD PACKAGE, then Play.

New to Nakagawa? Can I play it? explains what you need and what to expect.

You need: Windows 11 x64, a Vulkan-capable GPU, 8 GB RAM (16 GB recommended), 5 GB of free disk space, and your own copy of the game as an uncompressed .iso (or a PSN release's EBOOT.PBP). Nothing from Sony is included: no games, game data, firmware or fonts.

Check your download

v0.0.1 isn't code-signed, so Windows SmartScreen may warn the first time you run it. Please don't turn SmartScreen off; check the download instead.

1. In the folder you downloaded to, this must print the same value as nakagawa-recomp-0.0.1-windows-x64.zip.sha256:

   (Get-FileHash .\nakagawa-recomp-0.0.1-windows-x64.zip -Algorithm SHA256).Hash.ToLower()

2. After extracting, in the extracted folder, this proves the player was built by this repository's release workflow from commit d1c7d80dfeaae4d6b94254b8c3158c2d319b8f9d, the commit this release is tagged at (SLSA Build Level 2). It needs the GitHub CLI, signed in once with gh auth login:

   gh attestation verify .\bin\nakagawa_player.exe --repo Jstar269/nakagawa-recomp `
     --signer-workflow Jstar269/nakagawa-recomp/.github/workflows/provenance-attestation.yml `
     --source-ref refs/heads/main --source-digest d1c7d80dfeaae4d6b94254b8c3158c2d319b8f9d

SHA256SUMS.txt in the ZIP lists every file's SHA-256. If a check fails, don't run the file; report it.

If Windows Security blocks the player. Some PCs have the Microsoft Defender rule "Block executable files from running unless they meet a prevalence, age, or trusted list criteria" turned on. It is an attack surface reduction rule, off by default on home PCs, and some security tools turn it on. That rule blocks nakagawa_player.exe, because it is new, and every game package the player builds, because each one is built on your PC. Explorer then says Windows "cannot access the specified device, path, or file", and Windows Security > Virus & threat protection > Protection history shows "Risky action blocked". Whoever manages that rule can exclude the folder you extracted Nakagawa to and %LOCALAPPDATA%\Nakagawa\data\packages from it (Microsoft's guide). Check the download as above first, and please don't turn Defender or SmartScreen off.

Known issues

• Few other games work yet. Hot Shots Tennis is the one game rated Playable. Other games range from gameplay to a black screen (see the table below). A game that draws no new frame for 30 seconds gets an offer to keep waiting or stop; a game stuck on a black screen does not, so use STOP GAME in the player (#308).
• Sound: a few late sound wakes remain, mostly while loading (#1296), and some ATRAC3 sound effects fail to decode (#1096).
• Movies. Some movies, Hot Shots Tennis's included, show a black screen, play slowly and their sound cuts in and out. The game itself plays normally (#1049, #279).
• Only PSN releases of UMD games convert. PSP minis, games tied to the PSP that bought them, PSOne Classics and PGD-protected game data aren't supported yet.
• No networking or ad hoc play.
• Windows only for playing; Linux is for development for now (#306).

The full list of known issues is in the release notes.

Games tried for this release

On the maintainer's own copies, with the release build: add the game, BUILD PACKAGE offline with the bundled tools, then about seven minutes of play. How far a game gets on your PC may differ. None of these runs crashed or logged an error.

Game	How far it got	What you see
Hot Shots Tennis	Menus and matches	Playable, at its native 30 frames per second
PAC-MAN Championship Edition	Gameplay	Plays timed games through to results and awards, at 60 frames per second
Gravity Crash Portable	Gameplay	Plays its training level, at its native 30 frames per second
STREET FIGHTER ALPHA3 MAX	Title and attract-mode fight demo	Shows its normal first-start save notice, then runs very slowly with garbled intro graphics
Half-Minute Hero	Title, menus, name entry, story intro	Waits at the first chapter card
Mega Man Maverick Hunter X	First screen	Stays on its first screen
LocoRoco	Language select	Black screen after the language select
FINAL FANTASY III	Loading icon	Black screen after the loading icon
Super Stardust Portable	Nothing shown	Black screen
PATAPON	Nothing shown	Black screen; after 30 seconds the player offers to stop it
Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee 2	Builds, stops at launch	A message names the call that isn't supported yet
Wipeout Pure	Doesn't build	BUILD PACKAGE stops: one of its modules is in a format not supported yet
Dragon Ball Z: Tenkaichi Tag Team	Refused when added	The copy tried was a modified dump, which the player refuses; a clean dump hasn't been tried

On a black screen or a stuck first screen, use STOP GAME in the player.

Tell us how far other games get in Compatibility reports.

Downloads

File	Size	What it is
nakagawa-recomp-0.0.1-windows-x64.zip	285 MB (951 MB, 10,639 files extracted)	The player, its public source and the bundled build tools
nakagawa-recomp-0.0.1-windows-x64.zip.sha256		The ZIP's SHA-256
nakagawa-recomp-0.0.1-prerequisite-sources.zip and its .sha256	525 MB	The source of every bundled build tool; you don't need it to play

Report a problem

Use the Smoke Test Report form for bugs, post how far a game gets in Compatibility reports, and ask questions in Help. Copy details on an error card puts a short report on your clipboard. Read logs before attaching them: they should contain no disc images, game files or personal paths.

Thanks

To @gufernandess, @Apurvbkt and @Nitjsefnie for their contributions to this release.