PS2Recomp: PlayStation 2 Static Recompiler (Not ready)

Note this is an experiment and doesn't work as it should, feel free to open a PR to help the project.

PS2Recomp is a tool designed to statically recompile PlayStation 2 ELF binaries into C++ code that can be compiled for any modern platform. This enables running PS2 games natively on PC and other platforms without traditional emulation.

Features

Translates MIPS R5900 instructions to C++ code
Supports PS2-specific 128-bit MMI instructions
Handles VU0 in macro mode
Supports relocations and overlays
Configurable via TOML files
Single-file or multi-file output options
Function stubbing and skipping

How It Works

PS2Recomp works by:

Parsing a PS2 ELF file to extract functions, symbols, and relocations Decoding the MIPS R5900 instructions in each function Translating those instructions to equivalent C++ code Generating a runtime that can execute the recompiled code

The translated code is very literal, with each MIPS instruction mapping to a C++ operation. For example, addiu $r4, $r4, 0x20 becomes ctx->r4 = ADD32(ctx->r4, 0X20);.

Requirements

CMake 3.20 or higher
C++20 compatible compiler (I only test with MSVC)
SSE4/AVX support for 128-bit operations

Building

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/ran-j/PS2Recomp.git
cd PS2Recomp

# Create build directory
mkdir build
cd build

cmake ..
cmake --build .

Usage

Create a configuration file (see ./ps2xRecomp/example_config.toml)
Run the recompiler:

./ps2recomp your_config.toml

Compile the generated C++ code Link with a runtime implementation

Configuration

PS2Recomp uses TOML configuration files to specify:

Input ELF file
Output directory
Functions to stub or skip
Instruction patches

Example configuration:

[general]
input = "path/to/game.elf"
output = "output/"
single_file_output = false

# Functions to stub
stubs = ["printf", "malloc", "free"]

# Functions to skip
skip = ["abort", "exit"]

# Patches
[patches]
instructions = [
  { address = "0x100004", value = "0x00000000" }
]

Runtime

To execute the recompiled code, you'll need to implement or use a runtime that provides:

Memory management
System call handling
PS2-specific hardware simulation

A basic runtime lib is provided in ps2xRuntime folder.

Limitations

VU1 microcode support is limited
Graphics Synthesizer and other hardware components need external implementation
Some PS2-specific features may not be fully supported yet

Acknowledgments

Inspired by N64Recomp
Uses ELFIO for ELF parsing
Uses toml11 for TOML parsing
Uses fmt for string formatting