#Road Rash 64 Recompiled - 1.3

An unofficial PC recompilation for Windows and experimental native Linux of Road Rash 64, built with N64Recomp, N64ModernRuntime, RT64, and RecompFrontend.

You must supply your own legally obtained Road Rash 64 USA v1.0 ROM. No ROM or soundtrack is provided. The application version and release tag are 1.3.0 and v1.3.0. Online multiplayer remains experimental.

#Why this exists, credits, and AI disclosure

I wanted a childhood game to be playable on PC in all its glory: clearer presentation, smoother motion, detailed riders and bikes, and a practical way to keep playing it on modern hardware.

I do not want to take credit for creating Road Rash 64, the recompilation technology, the renderer, the libraries, or other people's artwork. That credit belongs to the original game developers and the authors and contributors of the tools listed in CREDITS.md. My role has been bringing this project together, testing it, and describing the experience I hoped to achieve.

AI was used extensively during development, including code changes, debugging assistance, documentation, and parts of the launcher artwork. I am sorry to people who are disappointed by that choice or concerned about its effects on this work. I want to be upfront about how the project was made rather than imply it was entirely hand-written. AI assistance does not establish correctness or ownership, and it does not shift responsibility away from this project. Please judge the implementation by reviewable code and reproducible results. Upstream projects have their own contribution policies; this project's changes are not endorsed by them.

#Getting started

Download RoadRash64Recompiled-v1.3.0-Win64.zip from this repository's Releases page. Players do not need the source-code download or a compiler.
Extract the entire ZIP to a writable folder. Do not run it inside the archive.
Open RoadRash64Recompiled.exe. Choose Select Game ROM and select your supported .z64, .n64, or .v64 dump.
After validation, choose Start Game. Use Settings to configure your controller, graphics, and sound.

RoadRash64DirectStart.exe skips the launcher once a valid ROM has been configured. It falls back to ROM selection if necessary. Neither executable should open a command window.

Your ROM is validated and stored locally by the runtime. It is not uploaded by ROM selection. Do not upload ROMs to Issues, Discussions, pull requests, or release attachments.

Supported normalized ROM SHA-1: 87727a298f583ec8325f5655088ff21e37b335b2 (USA v1.0, 32 MiB). This identifies the supported dump; it is not a download link.

#What the project does

N64Recomp translates the game's machine-code routines into native code during the developer build. The distributed executable already contains that translated code. At play time, the runtime reads game content from the player's ROM. Selecting a ROM does not compile the whole game on the player's computer.

This is the same broad static-recompilation/user-ROM architecture described by Zelda 64: Recompiled. It is not an endorsement from that project, a claim of identical implementation, or a legal conclusion. Gameplay content and soundtrack data remain ROM-supplied; launcher and achievement imagery are included and credited separately.

#Features

Improved presentation targeting smooth 60 FPS, with fixes for pacing regressions, interpolation, and rendering flicker. Actual performance depends on hardware, settings, and scene complexity.
MAX LOD for riders and bikes, including work on distant, crashed, airborne, paused, and finish-area models. It preserves the highest detail the game supplies; it does not create new high-resolution models.
Draw Distance slider for terrain and objects across game modes, with terrain/object rendering optimizations. These remain more demanding than original draw distances and are not a promise that every object is visible from every point.
16:9 and 21:9 aspect options, a 30–240 FPS presentation slider, and D3D12/Vulkan rendering through RT64.
Keyboard and controller remapping, including Eject from Bike (left-stick click by default) and Spoke Jam Attack (right-stick click by default). With fists selected, the latter retains the existing punch/weapon-steal behavior and original proximity/timing rules.
Persistent saves through the virtual Controller Pak implementation and saved frontend settings.
Optional custom music rotation from the music folder. WAV, OGG, FLAC, MP3, MP4/M4A, AAC, and WMA are all supported on both Windows (via Windows Media Foundation) and Linux (via a bundled shared FFmpeg subset). No additional music is included and there is no song-title popout.
52 local achievements, saved on this computer, with paged browsing. There is no RetroAchievements account login, account scoring, or unlock synchronization.
Mod/texture-pack support through Settings. The Windows package includes an optional conversion of Crisaty’s Remastered Edition pack; see its credits and installation instructions below.
A compact launcher, direct-start executable, and input guards intended to stop overlay dismissal from activating a menu behind it.

Draw Distance adjusts terrain and scenery range together. MAX LOD controls rider/bike detail separately. The Music Volume slider covers original and custom music. Local player controls support controller assignment and per-player names. Existing mods targeting the internal 1.0.6 interface remain compatible.

Linux testers: download RoadRash64Recompiled-v1.3.0-Linux-Experimental.zip, extract it and follow its README.

#Requirements

Both platforms need a CPU compatible with the build's Nehalem/SSE4-era instruction target; a broad hardware compatibility matrix has not been established for either.

Windows: 64-bit Windows 10/11, and a GPU/driver supporting the selected RT64 D3D12 or Vulkan backend. Custom media decoding uses Windows Media Foundation.

Linux: a 64-bit distro with a working Vulkan driver (Mesa RADV for AMD, NVIDIA's proprietary driver, or AMDVLK) — RT64 only targets D3D12 and Vulkan, and only Vulkan is available outside Windows, so there is no software-rendering fallback if the driver is missing or broken. A running audio server (PipeWire, PulseAudio, or ALSA) is also expected, as on any modern desktop Linux. A separate experimental Linux package is available for community testing; see Linux notes for requirements and limitations. Custom media decoding is self-contained (a minimal shared FFmpeg subset is bundled in the AppImage) and needs no system codec packages at runtime.

#Multiplayer — early and very untested

Treat online multiplayer as experimental. Connection reliability, synchronization, player control assignment, race completion, and larger sessions need considerably more testing. Earlier tests reported connection failures, incorrect peer state/maps, and a host crash at the finish. Later fixes and offline protocol tests do not establish that every issue is resolved.

The game offers local split-screen multiplayer and an early direct-connect online path. Online sessions have an experimental limit of 14 participants, but large-session gameplay has not been established as reliable. There is no promise of matchmaking, relay fallback, or automatic NAT traversal. Direct connections may require appropriate UDP forwarding/firewall settings; CGNAT can prevent hosting. Do not disable your firewall wholesale.

Please include host/client roles, player count, exact map/game type, and both machines' observations when reporting an online bug. Report problems to this repository, not to the upstream tools' maintainers.

#Known limitations and testing status

The release owner accepted the Windows release candidate after live testing. Eight affected offline test suites passed for this cleanup. Broader hardware, map and online coverage remains limited.
High detail/distance settings can expose performance or visibility problems on particular maps, cameras, and hardware.
Mods may affect stability. Reproduce issues with mods disabled where practical.
Routine performance logs are disabled. Fatal failures can write RoadRash64Recompiled-runtime.log beside the EXE; writing can fail in a protected folder. A normal run need not create a log.
Existing local achievements are not verified RetroAchievements account progress. Their current standalone policy excludes recompilations.

See BUILDING.md to compile it yourself and LEGAL.md for copyright, licensing, and distribution limitations.

#Bugs, discussion, and suggested commits

Use Issues → Bug report for reproducible problems and Issues → Feature or patch proposal for suggested changes. Include the release version, map/mode, steps, hardware, and expected versus observed behavior. Short screenshots or video are useful; remove private information from logs.

Use Discussions, when enabled, for setup questions, map-testing results, ideas, and general conversation. Until it is enabled, the discussion issue template provides a place for those conversations.

Code contributions are welcome as focused pull requests. Explain the problem, implementation, tests, and remaining uncertainty. Disclose AI assistance and preserve upstream notices. Do not submit ROMs, extracted game data, generated game code, credentials, or unrelated large files. Read CONTRIBUTING.md before proposing commits.

#Optional texture conversion

Road Rash 64 Remastered Edition was created by Crisaty (Cristian A.T.). The 1.3.1 Windows package restores the optional RT64 conversion of that original Jabo texture pack for Road Rash 64 Recompiled that was omitted from 1.3. All credit for the original mod and artwork belongs to its creator; the recompilation project does not claim authorship of those textures or endorsement by the creator.

Original creator and project page

The optional RTZ is in optional-mods. Install it through Settings > Mods. Replace an older copy rather than installing duplicates. The source ZIP does not include the texture pack. Attribution is not a redistribution license; no explicit redistribution license was found in the supplied pack or linked creator page.

See current local race options and controls. Release 1.3 retains these options. See release notes.

Contributor navigation: source layout and traffic/presentation contracts.

#Version 1.3

Online multiplayer and proximity voice remain experimental. Synchronization and jitter issues may remain; all participants must use the same version.

Maximum Draw Distance can load the entire map, including the areas used by all its races. Dense distant geometry can slow the game, especially in split-screen multiplayer. 50-60% is the recommended starting point for balanced performance.

See release notes and the contributor feature map.