Static recompilation of The Simpsons: Virtual Springfield (Fox Interactive, 1997), the point-and-click tour of Springfield, from its shipping Win32 executable to native C that runs on Windows 10 and 11.
Built on the pcrecomp toolchain and following its shared house style (layout, CLI, conformance harness, headless mode).
Status: v0.1.0-alpha.1, alpha. Boots, plays the intro and lets you walk Springfield, recompiled throughout.
| Stage | State |
|---|---|
| P0: identify the binary | done: VIRTUAL.EXE, MSVC 4.2, no protection, no DLLs of its own |
Function catalog (disasm32) |
793 functions, 68.4% of the code bytes |
Lift (run_lift.py) |
whole program: 832 functions, 0 lift errors, 201K lines of C. pcrecomp 86fe9f5, no toolkit change |
Host (build/virtualspringfield.exe, 32-bit, pcrecomp native32) |
109 imports: 99 bound to real Windows, 10 shimmed. Nothing native from the original runs |
| Install check | passes with no installer and no registry: the host answers the paths itself (docs/host.md) |
| Graphics | the host's own DirectDraw: the exclusive 640x480 8-bit mode becomes a window, palette fades included (docs/display.md). The presenter scales it on Direct3D 11: sharp/smooth/nearest/integer/Scale2x, borderless fullscreen (F11), CRT, glow, dithering, vivid colour (docs/presenter.md) |
| Intro, title, Town Square | run: the Fox Interactive and Vortex logos, the title, Troy McClure's welcome |
| Getting around | clicking works: the area map, walking to other places. Not yet played through |
| Sound and music | DirectSound and the midiStream music open and stream with no error. Not yet checked by ear |
| Windowed mode | runs, in a resizable window with a Video menu; settings in build\virtualspringfield.ini |
| Headless mode | --headless --record out.mp4, with --click and --key for scripted input. Never shows or activates a window (docs/display.md) |
| Conformance harness | 11/11 milestones (boot, install check, DirectDraw mode, 1,000 frames, a click on MAP opening the area map, idle at 95 s with no fault), 0 lift errors, 0 unresolvable tail calls, 0 unimplemented DirectDraw calls (tools/conformance.py) |
Real output of build\virtualspringfield.exe, recompiled code throughout
(headless recordings, and a windowed run from before the presenter):
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|
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 |
The presenter, fullscreen with the CRT look on (pillarboxed 4:3 on a 1920x1080 screen):
Things the 1997 game never had, all of it host code beside the recompiled
game (src/runtime/); none of it changes the game itself.
The presenter. The game drew into an exclusive 640x480 8-bit screen. The port shows that picture in a resizable Direct3D 11 window: sharp, smooth, nearest, integer or Scale2x scaling, borderless fullscreen (F11 or Alt+Enter), a CRT effect with curvature, a glow on bright colours, 16-bit or 8-bit retro dithering, and vivid colour. Clicks land where the pointer is at any size. The filters and CRT come from Hover! and gunman, Scale2x and the glow from SimCity 2000 (docs/presenter.md).
No install, no disc. The original wanted its installer's registry entries and the CD in the drive. The port runs from one folder.
Headless and recording. --headless --record out.mp4 --click ... plays a
scripted run without showing a window. The screenshots above were made this
way.
Nothing from the game: no executable, no data, no disc image, and no
generated source. The recompiled C is produced on your machine from your
own copy by run_lift.py, into src/recomp/gen/, which is gitignored. The
tool ships; its output never does.
You need your own copy of Virtual Springfield: the CD, a BIN/CUE or ISO of it, or a zip holding either (the archive.org-style zip with the BIN/CUE inside works as it is). Nothing is downloaded for you.
The installer (Windows 10/11): download
VirtualSpringfield-Recomp-Installer-windows-x64.exe from the
latest release
and run it. It is unsigned, so SmartScreen asks: More info, then Run
anyway. It finds the CD in a drive, or Choose folder... picks the
folder holding the game, its .cue/.iso or a zip of it. Build downloads
this repository and pcrecomp (no git needed), runs Setup.cmd unattended, and
ends on a Play button, with desktop shortcuts if you want them. The build
goes in %USERPROFILE%\recomp. The installer is
recomp-launcher with
launcher/launcher.json; each release has a
SHA256SUMS.txt beside it.
Or with Setup.cmd, which is what the installer runs:
- Download this repository (the green Code button, then Download ZIP) and unzip it somewhere with 2 GB free.
- Double-click
Setup.cmd.
It checks for Python 3.10+, the pefile and capstone packages, the pcrecomp
toolkit and the Visual Studio 2022 C++ compiler, and asks before
installing any of them, saying what and how big. It finds the CD in your
drives, or asks where the game is (a drive, a .cue/.bin/.iso, a .zip,
or a folder). Then it copies the game into game\virtual, finds every
function, recompiles VIRTUAL.EXE and builds build\virtualspringfield.exe.
A rerun skips the finished steps (the lift and the build always run, and
take seconds when nothing changed). If it stops, it says why in one sentence,
and the details are in setup.log.
It ends with a Virtual Springfield shortcut in the folder.
Double-click it to play.
Prerequisites: Windows 10/11, Python 3.10+ (py -3 --version), git,
Visual Studio 2022 (or its Build Tools) with Desktop development with
C++, ffmpeg on PATH for --record only, and the pcrecomp toolkit
cloned beside this repository as pcrecomp (or tools), at the commit
this release was checked against (the ref in
launcher/launcher.json):
some-folder\
pcrecomp\ <- git clone https://github.com/sp00nznet/pcrecomp
git -C pcrecomp checkout 86fe9f5
virtualspringfield\ <- this repository
pcrecomp main also builds a game that reaches the area map, but its
catalog lifts four functions with no terminator, which the conformance
harness counts as a regression (ROADMAP.md).
- Python packages:
py -3 -m pip install --user pefile capstone - Your copy's files into
game\virtual(from a drive, a disc image, a zip or a folder):Expected, for the zip:py -3 tools\gamefiles.py E:\ py -3 tools\gamefiles.py "Virtual Springfield.cue" py -3 tools\gamefiles.py VirtualSpringfield.zipunpacking Virtual Springfield.bin from VirtualSpringfield.zip (740 MB) reading 4291 files (593 MB) from ...\work\vs-disc-...\Virtual Springfield.bin at VIRTUAL/ done: ...\game\virtual - The function catalog (a few seconds):
Expected, at the end:
py -3 tools\catalog.py[*] Functions: 793 (thunks=3, leaves=262). - Recompile to C:
Expected:
py -3 run_lift.py[*] VIRTUAL.EXE: base=0x00400000 code=0x00401000-0x00429200 IAT=109 catalog=793 [*] 39 outside branch targets added [*] 0 patches applied at 0 sites ============================================================ lifted 832 errors 0 no terminator 0 - Build (the 64-bit-hosted MSVC targeting x86, CMake and Ninja; all three come
with the C++ workload):
Expected:
build.cmdLinking C executable virtualspringfield.exe. - Check it without opening a window:
Expected:
build\virtualspringfield.exe[bind] 0x00400000: 99 native, 0 guest, 10 shimmed, 0 unresolvedand(dry run: image mapped and bound; --run enters 0x0041CE00). - Play:
build\virtualspringfield.exe --run.
The usual trip-ups: python opening the Microsoft Store (that is Windows' alias
placeholder; use py -3, or turn the alias off in Settings > Apps > Advanced
app settings > App execution aliases); a freshly installed Python not being on
PATH until you open a new window; and an installed copy of the original
(C:\Program Files\FOX\Virtual Springfield) as the game folder: it has no
DATA\, which stayed on the CD. Use the CD or an image of it.
build\virtualspringfield.exe --run # play, in a window
build\virtualspringfield.exe --run --headless --record out.mp4 --click 450,445@75000 --watchdog 95
build\virtualspringfield.exe --run --headless --watchdog 60 --native-trace # every Windows call
py -3 tools\conformance.py # milestones and lift health, vs the baseline
In the game: click to look around and walk, MAP for the area map, COLLECT for the cards you have found, OPEN/SAVE for the twelve save slots, QUIT to leave. The intro plays by itself (about 70 seconds).
The Video menu (and [video] in build\virtualspringfield.ini, written
with its defaults on the first windowed run) holds the filter, window size,
fullscreen, CRT, glow, dithering, vivid colour, and whether the game pauses
when its window loses the focus. F11 or Alt+Enter toggles fullscreen.
| Flag | |
|---|---|
--run |
enter the game (without it: map, bind and stop) |
--headless |
a cloaked window that never reaches a screen or takes focus; message boxes go to stderr |
--record out.mp4 |
pipe the screen to ffmpeg (640x480, 30 fps, wall-clock paced) |
--frames N |
exit after N presents |
--shot N:file.bmp |
save present N exactly as the game drew it |
--diff A,B |
print how much of the screen changed between A and B ms after start |
--click X,Y@MS |
click at a 640x480 position, MS milliseconds after entry |
--key NAME@MS[+HOLD] |
press a key MS milliseconds after entry, for HOLD ms (default 100): ESC, SPACE, F1, a letter, or a VK code |
--scale N |
the window's client area is 640x480 times N, this run only (default: the ini's scale, or the largest that fits) |
--game DIR |
the game folder (default game\virtual) |
--watchdog S |
stop after S seconds and say where every thread was |
--native-trace, --callbacks, --ddraw-trace |
one line per call into Windows, back from it, or into the host's DirectDraw |
py -3 tools\addr2line.py ADDR ... names host addresses from a fault report
or a watchdog dump.
Steps 3 to 5 above. PCRECOMP (Python) and -DPCRECOMP= (CMake, through
set CMAKE_ARGS=... for build.cmd) point at a toolkit checkout other than
..\tools or ..\pcrecomp; the lifter and the runtime must come from the same tree. How the
pieces fit is docs/architecture.md; what the host
does and why is docs/host.md,
docs/display.md and docs/presenter.md. What is next: ROADMAP.md.
MIT, for the code in this repository (LICENSE; what it does not cover is in NOTICE). The Simpsons: Virtual Springfield is © 1997 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Fox Interactive; none of it is here.