Extreme Tux Racer changelog

Extreme Tux Racer 1.0 for PSP: race Tux down twenty-two mountains, now against computer penguins. Tested more than 1,000 times on a real PSP.

Extreme Tux Racer on a real PSP-1000

▶ Watch in full quality · real footage from a PSP-1000

⭐ What's in 1.0

• Race five penguins. Choose none or one to five in Practice and in cups. They drive by the slope, the best a little quicker than you; they bump into you, and the result lists everyone's time.
• Made for the PSP. Menus as lists for the PSP's buttons, a controls picture with a real PSP, the language asked at the first start, everything in twelve languages.
• Smooth on real hardware. About 58 FPS in clear weather; heavy snow runs at an even 30 instead of jerking.
• Saves through the PSP's own dialogs. Progress and settings are kept on your Memory Stick.
• Quick to start. The first menu after about 6 seconds, a race about 12 seconds after launch.
• Right in your game menu. Icon, preview film and background in the XMB.

🐛 Tons of bugs fixed

• Trees, flags and herring stand where the courses have them; on most courses they were misplaced or outside.
• No crash on Triangle (back onto the course) any more.
• Penguins neither drive into each other nor stop with a gap between them.
• No trench of snow on ice, no slope that turns from ice to snow in one frame, no wind dial over the screen's edge.
• Saving works on a real PSP; the clock and every menu text are right.

Tested on PSP-1000 (6.61 + ARK, 333 MHz): 1,486 automated starts with races, menu walks, random keys and resets while loading. Measurements and limits.

Extract extremetuxracer-psp.zip to your PSP storage, or install it with PSPDX.

<!-- ci-run:37219695579 -->

The release in five lines:

• 🐧 Race against one to five computer penguins — in Practice and in events, on the PSP only.
• ⚡ Much faster on a real PSP: 58 FPS on average in clear weather, and falling snow without jerks.
• 🎛️ New menus made for the PSP's buttons: lists you move through up and down, larger text, the weather signs at the head of their rows.
• 💾 Saving and loading through the PSP's own dialogs now works on real hardware.
• 🌍 The game asks for your language at the first start; everything on screen is translated in all twelve.

✨ New

• Play against penguins: choose none or one to five in the race or event selection. Each is one of the game's characters. The best of them is a little quicker than you usually are; they bump into you, your place is on screen, and the result lists everyone's time.
• Menus as vertical PSP lists, with the course picture and description beside the race selection.
• Language selection at the first start.
• Controls picture with a real photograph of a PSP, labelled in your language.
• New icon, background and preview film in the PSP's game menu, made from the game running on a PSP.

⚡ Faster

• Clear weather: 58 FPS on average over all courses; the fullest scenes, with many trees and five penguins, 55–57.
• Snowfall: light and medium from 30 to about 50 FPS; heavy snow runs at an even 30 instead of jerking between 30 and 60.
• Loading: the first menu appears after about 6 seconds instead of 15; a race starts about 3 seconds sooner.
• About 3 MB less memory in use during a race.
• Nothing is written to the Memory Stick except your saved data.

🐛 Fixed

• Saved data did not work on a real PSP; system dialogs showed white boxes.
• The clock showed 00:00.00 for an instant just before each full second.
• Trees, flags and herring stand where the courses have them: on every course most of them were in the wrong place or outside it.
• A crash when pressing Triangle (back onto the course) on some courses.
• Penguins no longer drive into each other or stop with a gap between them: each collides by the size of its own body.
• You no longer always win against the penguins: they drive by the slope, not by your speed.
• A slope in the distance no longer turns from ice to snow in one frame; no trench of snow on ice.
• The wind dial no longer runs over the edge of the screen.
• The horizon no longer pops in: terrain and trees come out of the fog.
• Tux is rounder: his outline showed corners on the PSP's screen.
• Text that was English in every language: race options, pause menu, questions before quitting.

🧪 Validation

Tested on a PSP-1000 (firmware 6.61, 333 MHz) with music on: 817 automated starts of the game in this round — races to the finish line, races in the worst weather against five penguins, walks through every menu, forty seconds of random keys in a race, resets in the middle of loading — after 669 in the round before. Four of the 817 are counted as failed: three were faults of the test itself, one was a crash of the game, found by the random keys and fixed. Frame rates for every course, method and limits are in hardware validation; what is still open is in TODO. Other PSP models are not tested.

📦 Downloads

• extremetuxracer-psp.zip — copy PSP/GAME/ExtremeTuxRacer to your homebrew-enabled PSP, or open its EBOOT.PBP in PPSSPP.
• sources.tar.gz — corresponding game/dependency sources and build records.
• SHA256SUMS — checksums for both archives.

<!-- ci-run:37185523940 -->

The release in five lines:

• 🐧 Race against one to five computer penguins — in Practice and in events, on the PSP only.
• ⚡ Much faster on a real PSP: 58–60 FPS in clear weather on every course tested, and falling snow about twice as fast as before.
• 🎛️ New menus made for the PSP's buttons: lists you move through up and down, larger text, the weather signs at the head of their rows.
• 💾 Saving and loading through the PSP's own dialogs now works on real hardware.
• 🌍 The game asks for your language at the first start; everything on screen is translated in all twelve.

✨ New

• Play against penguins: switch it on in the race or event selection and choose how many. Each is one of the game's characters. They keep up with you, bump into you, and your place is on screen and in the result.
• Menus as vertical PSP lists, with the course picture and description beside the race selection.
• Language selection at the first start.
• Controls picture with a real photograph of a PSP, labelled in your language.
• New icon, background and preview film in the PSP's game menu, made from the game running on a PSP.

⚡ Faster

• Clear weather: Bunny Hill from 44 to 59.6 FPS; the slowest course tested is at 58.
• Snowfall: light and medium from 30 to 55–58 FPS, heavy from 20 to 42 (Bunny Hill).
• Loading: the first menu appears after about 6 seconds instead of 15; a race starts about 3 seconds sooner.
• About 3 MB less memory in use during a race.
• Nothing is written to the Memory Stick except your saved data.

🐛 Fixed

• Saved data did not work on a real PSP; system dialogs showed white boxes.
• The clock showed 00:00.00 for an instant just before each full second.
• The horizon no longer pops in: terrain and trees come out of the fog.
• Tux is rounder: his outline showed corners on the PSP's screen.
• Text that was English in every language: race options, pause menu, questions before quitting.

🧪 Validation

Tested on a PSP-1000 (firmware 6.61, 333 MHz) with music on: 669 automated starts of the game so far, each followed by a race or a walk through the menus. One of them ended with the console frozen and could not be reproduced; the others that failed were faults of the test itself. Frame rates, load times, method and limits are in hardware validation; what is still open is in TODO. Other PSP models are not tested.

📦 Downloads

• extremetuxracer-psp.zip — copy PSP/GAME/ExtremeTuxRacer to your homebrew-enabled PSP, or open its EBOOT.PBP in PPSSPP.
• sources.tar.gz — corresponding game/dependency sources and build records.
• SHA256SUMS — checksums for both archives.

<!-- ci-run:37004019732 -->

The release in five lines:

• 🎮 Extreme Tux Racer for PSP and PPSSPP.
• 📝 Only changes for this build are listed below.
• 🧪 Build and automated regression tests passed.
• 🔬 Automated CI does not verify physical PSP compatibility or performance.
• 📦 Game, corresponding sources and SHA-256 checksums are included.

✨ New

• Preview film plays on the PSP-1000 and in the XMB (1acac62).

Changes since v0.7.0.

📦 Downloads

• extremetuxracer-psp.zip — EBOOT.PBP, game data and licenses.
• sources.tar.gz — corresponding sources and build records.
• SHA256SUMS — checksums for both archives.

<!-- ci-run:36698793398 -->

The release in five lines:

• 🎮 Extreme Tux Racer for PSP and PPSSPP.
• 📝 Only changes for this build are listed below.
• 🧪 Build and automated regression tests passed.
• 🔬 Automated CI does not verify physical PSP compatibility or performance.
• 📦 Game, corresponding sources and SHA-256 checksums are included.

✨ New

• Drop the unreleased tag (f9bdd43).

Changes since v0.6.0.

📦 Downloads

• extremetuxracer-psp.zip — EBOOT.PBP, game data and licenses.
• sources.tar.gz — corresponding sources and build records.
• SHA256SUMS — checksums for both archives.

<!-- ci-run:36496381235 -->

The release in five lines:

• 🎮 Extreme Tux Racer for PSP and PPSSPP.
• 📝 Only changes for this build are listed below.
• 🧪 Build and automated regression tests passed.
• 🔬 Automated CI does not verify physical PSP compatibility or performance.
• 📦 Game, corresponding sources and SHA-256 checksums are included.

✨ New

• Tag app as unreleased (de23508).

Changes since v0.5.0.

📦 Downloads

• extremetuxracer-psp.zip — EBOOT.PBP, game data and licenses.
• sources.tar.gz — corresponding sources and build records.
• SHA256SUMS — checksums for both archives.

<!-- ci-run:36350167434 -->

The release in five lines:

• 🎮 Extreme Tux Racer for PSP and PPSSPP.
• 📝 Only changes for this build are listed below.
• 🧪 Build and automated regression tests passed.
• 🔬 Automated CI does not verify physical PSP compatibility or performance.
• 📦 Game, corresponding sources and SHA-256 checksums are included.

✨ New

• ICON1.PMF remuxed into Sony's PSMF pack layout (43ea668).

Changes since v0.4.0.

📦 Downloads

• extremetuxracer-psp.zip — EBOOT.PBP, game data and licenses.
• sources.tar.gz — corresponding sources and build records.
• SHA256SUMS — checksums for both archives.

<!-- ci-run:35498560333 -->

The release in five lines:

• 🎮 The PSP port now starts and races on the tested physical PSP, not just PPSSPP.
• ⚡ Hardware-driven renderer optimizations substantially improve performance; see the linked validation report.
• ⏸️ Start opens Pause; Controls stays paused, and Circle no longer interrupts a race.
• ❄️ Original snowy menus, a photo-referenced PSP-1004 guide and a genuine in-game screen capture.
• 📦 Ready-to-copy game, corresponding sources, licenses and SHA-256 checksums included.

✨ New

• FPS counter at bottom left, with a readable shadow and half-second averaging.
• Pause menu with Resume, Controls and a confirmed End race action.
• Classic snow tracks are enabled in the default PSP profile, with batched, view-clipped rendering that retains the original trench textures.
• Control-guide artwork generated using real original-generation PSP photographs. The screen is an unchanged capture from the physical PSP; labels and leader lines are drawn by the game.

🐛 Fixed

• Two physical-PSP FPU exceptions: a zero-scale character-model part and stationary-camera interpolation. This supersedes the hardware-incompatible v0.3.0 build.
• Redundant object draws through batching and frustum rejection, and repeated character-geometry conversion through persistent vertex buffers. Terrain mipmaps that reduced visible snow detail were rejected; original terrain detail and view distance are retained.
• Repeated terrain traversals at default detail, individual HUD digit draws and unnecessary opaque blending.
• Release notes now describe this release, not the entire import history; incomplete uploads remain private.

🧪 Validation

Physical PSP tests use 333 MHz, default detail and music enabled. Performance is course-dependent; this is not a stable-60-FPS guarantee for every course or PSP model. Exact measurements, settings and limitations are recorded in hardware validation.

With the restored snow trench, the short Bunny Hill hardware run measured
53.103 FPS; p95 frame time was 33.374 ms. Longer manual play showed lower
instantaneous rates. Longer benchmarks, growing track-history costs and
additional hardware validation remain open work.

Build and regression tests cover numerics, terrain clipping/material selection, saves, music lifetime, contextual controls, paused help, GUI/HUD/object geometry, texture mipmaps and release automation. CI does not itself run physical hardware tests.

📦 Downloads

• extremetuxracer-psp.zip — copy PSP/GAME/ExtremeTuxRacer to your homebrew-enabled PSP, or open its EBOOT.PBP in PPSSPP.
• sources.tar.gz — corresponding game/dependency sources and build records.
• SHA256SUMS — checksums for both archives.

<!-- ci-run:35272720572 -->

<!-- ci-run:35263403205 -->

⚠️ Physical PSP testing found two startup FPU exceptions in this version (character scaling and the stationary camera). Use this version for PPSSPP only; hardware fixes are being validated.

The release in five lines:

• ❄️ The original snowy menu is back: the familiar Tux Racer logo, icy corners and falling snow, with the flakes drawn together in one batch.
• 🎮 A winter PSP illustration introduces the controls before the first menu visit; fine leader lines mark the buttons, and START takes you into the menu.
• 🧭 Help opens the same illustrated guide again; its labels are drawn by the game so they stay readable at the PSP's 480 × 272 resolution.
• 🛟 Circle pauses a race instead of ending it. Leaving a run or quitting the game now asks for confirmation.
• 🏁 Two reference courses run at 59.94 and 59.84 FPS in PPSSPP at 333 MHz, with music throughout and no measured frames over 35 ms.

✨ New

• A PSP control diagram appears after player selection, before the first main-menu visit. Only START continues; holding it does not select the first menu item. Help reopens the diagram later (ab3a11d).
• The original menu layout and artwork are retained, with falling snow restored. Hundreds of separate snow-sprite submissions are replaced by one shared batch (ab3a11d).
• The image-model illustration and matching button atlas are included with their original artwork and generation prompts. Control labels and callout lines are rendered natively rather than baked into the illustration (3d5cfe3, ab3a11d).

🐛 Fixed

• START no longer confirms ordinary menu entries, and the shoulder, trick and reset buttons do not trigger hidden menu actions. Contextual bindings stay attached to a held button until it is released (3d5cfe3).
• Circle no longer aborts a race immediately: it opens Pause. End race and Quit require a deliberate confirmation; Circle cancels it. Held steering remains responsive after an intro or pause (3d5cfe3).
• Directional input no longer closes Help or Credits. Returning from a submenu preserves the main-menu selection (3d5cfe3).
• Failed release-file uploads are retried individually and stalled attempts have a deadline. Incomplete uploads remain unpublished (3d5cfe3, ab3a11d).

Built and driven in PPSSPP 1.20.4 at 333 MHz. Frozen River: 59.94 FPS; Chinese Wall: 59.84 FPS, 599 measured frame intervals each, music active throughout. Native-resolution screenshots and controls were checked. Automated tests cover physics, terrain clipping, saves, music, 55 contextual button mappings, the Start-only introduction, GUI snow geometry and release automation. This release has not been verified on a physical PSP. Screenshots and validation.

📦 Downloads

• extremetuxracer-psp.zip — copy PSP/GAME/ExtremeTuxRacer/ to the memory stick, or open its EBOOT.PBP in PPSSPP. Keep the accompanying data/ and config/ folders.
• sources.tar.gz — corresponding game and dependency sources, licenses and build records.
• SHA256SUMS — checksums for both archives.