The loader note said every record gains a 02 00 prefix in RAM. It does not: the word is the record's own leading field, already on the disc at every record. What the loader changes is the pointer -- it addresses the word, two bytes earlier than the disc's table -- and that pointer shift is what made the bytes look inserted. Measured, in order: - the two bytes before a payload are identical in core_data and in RAM, record for record: 02 00 on level 0's 90-record chunk at 0x100b302, 08 00 on the level's first chunk. Nothing is inserted; - the RAM table's low 24 bits are the payload's minus 2, consistently, so the record is [leading u16][two index bytes][payload] and the loaded table addresses the leading word. That is also why the index bytes read as +2 from the pointer -- the same +2 the earlier RAM result quotes; - the word is a field, not a pad: uniform across a chunk's records on 1,439 of 1,509 chunks (None on the 70 that vary, reported rather than averaged), fixed within all 71 chunk types, and only ever 1, 2, 4, 6, 8 or 10 -- 554 chunks carry 2, 520 carry 4. Two readings of the value were measured and disproved, so they are recorded as disproved rather than left as candidates: it is not an entry count (the payload divided by it leaves 57 distinct fractional "sizes", and 162 chunks do not divide at all), and it is not the number of distinct leading bytes (agrees on 0 of 1,506 chunks). Chunk gains `prefix: Option<u16>`, and the disc test asserts the uniformity, the per-type fixity and the value set. The scratch example that produced the per-type class-ID table is dropped now that the same scan is a committed test, which also lands here: moby class IDs sit in one body slot per chunk type, with the slot varying by type and the distinct >= 4 filter load-bearing -- without it the top slots are constants that read as 305x because any value below the moby count counts as a hit.
Going Commando
A native PC reimplementation of Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando (PlayStation 2, 2003), written in Rust.
The game is reimplemented, not emulated. There is no MIPS interpreter here and no CPU emulator: the systems are ported to Rust so they run as ordinary native code.
Status: initial scaffold. The disc is identified and verified, the
workspace builds, and nothing else is implemented yet. See
docs/roadmap.md for where things stand and what comes next.
The target
| Game | Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando |
| Platform | PlayStation 2 |
| Disc | SCUS_972.68 v1.01, USA Black Label |
| Video | NTSC, 60 Hz |
| Boot ELF SHA-1 | bacda860cbd6723142e86db56f197e47e728970f |
Verified against a real disc — see docs/disc-identification.md.
This is the build the reference projects pin; Greatest Hits v2.00 is a
different binary and is not the target.
No game content
This repository contains no game assets, no disc images, no BIOS dumps and no proprietary toolchains. You supply your own legally obtained copy of the disc as an input, the way the upstream reference projects do.
A pre-commit hook enforces this, blocking disc images, asset directories, container signatures and files over 50 MiB. If you clone elsewhere, enable it:
git config core.hooksPath .githooks
Layout
crates/
gc-formats/ asset format parsers (pure, no I/O beyond the caller's buffer)
gc-extract/ disc pipeline: identify, unpack, verify
gc-game/ game logic: hero, weapons, moby classes, progression, saves
gc-video/ IPU / MPEG-2 decode
gc-engine/ Bevy app: Graphics Synthesizer, VU0/VU1, renderer, frame loop
docs/
disc-identification.md which disc we build against, verified
roadmap.md phases, gates, current status
plan/ one file per subsystem, written as work proceeds
formats/ format specs, written as formats are reversed
tools/
identify-disc.py identify any Going Commando disc image
vendor/
rerac/ pinned upstream reference checkout (not tracked)
Building
Requires a Rust toolchain via rustup.
cargo check --workspace
cargo test --workspace
The host audio backend is disabled in Cargo.toml (see the comment there) so
that the workspace builds without system ALSA development headers. Audio decode
is the last phase of the port and lives in gc-video; re-enable it and install
alsa-lib-devel when that work starts.
Identifying a disc
python3 tools/identify-disc.py <your-disc.iso>
Reports the serial, version and video mode from SYSTEM.CNF, hashes the boot
executable, and warns when the disc is not the supported build. Reads only a
few megabytes, so it is near-instant.
How it will be verified
Visual and behavioural comparison against PCSX2, replaying recorded input and
comparing frames, level by level. The PS2 float model is reproduced rather than
approximated — see AGENTS.md.
PCSX2 is installed and working on this machine; the comparison loop that reads
the game's own memory over its debug protocol is up, and level 0's and level
1's tfrag lighting are verified byte-exact against it. See
docs/plan/pcsx2-verification.md for the
setup and how to run it.
Credits and licensing
This project learns from and is built on the work of others. Licences are
recorded in PROVENANCE.md and notices must travel with any
code derived from them.
- ReRAC — a native Rust/Bevy port of Ratchet & Clank (2002), the first game. ISC. The architecture this project follows.
- OpenRAC / rac2-gc-decomp — matching decompilation research for this game. MIT. Source of verified struct layouts and engine documentation.
- Wrench — community documentation of Insomniac's container formats. GPL, used as a specification reference only; no code is copied.
Ratchet & Clank is a trademark of Sony Interactive Entertainment. This is an unofficial fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Sony Interactive Entertainment or Insomniac Games.