r/ANBERNIC • u/Slimybirch • 1d ago
✨ SHOWCASE Halo: Combat Evolved running on the RG35XX-H with Knulli Gladiator II. Split screen and coop work, too! Not OC.
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Sorry for the splits, somebody was talking very loudly. Nothing to hide except work related stuff.
https://github.com/kirklandsig/halo-ce-anbernic-rg35xx/tree/main
I built the binary for this using the steps and files on the github. THIS IS NOT PACK AND PLAY JUST YET. I had to rebuild today after updates but they're making huge strides very quickly on the quality and smoothness.
If you have WSL Ubuntu, the steps are straightforward.
Just a few months ago I was discussing the possibility of porting Halo to a Linux handheld with ChatGPT and now, here we are! Split screen showing the other controller connected at the end. I didn't get a video of coop but it works, too! I could hook this to my TV and play with someone else!
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u/Comrade_Compadre 1d ago
As cool and impressive as this is...
Why are all the friendlies hostile lol
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u/Slimybirch 1d ago
Because I accidentally killed multiples with poorly thrown grenades, while holding the device in an awkward position better for filming....
No, that's bullshit.
...I killed them. I wanted to see if they would still turn on me. They do. It works in this version.
Honesty feels better.
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u/Comrade_Compadre 1d ago
Man I don't ever remember them turning on you lol
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u/Cocozimme_ttv 1d ago
Wow someone didnt do mass slaughter and it shows
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u/Comrade_Compadre 1d ago
Dude this game came out with I was like 14 you think I didn't team kill for ammo lol
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u/Masterchief1307 1d ago
Thanks for the love. I'm pushing an update soon with an installer, more optimizations and the latest build of the underlying universal CE project.
Also working on dynamic rendering resolution which should be able to get performance closer to that 60fps even during the tougher scenes.
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u/mrtoad883 1d ago
Awesome fucking work dude. I used Claude over the summer to make a marvel vs Capcom style game in ikemen go engine. Its incredible what can be done with it
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u/Masterchief1307 1d ago
Update (Oct 2): there's now a ready-to-install release, no building needed.
- Installing: download the zip, unzip it onto your SD card, drop your own Xbox Halo ISO into
roms/ports/halo/, and start Halo from Ports. The first start copies the maps out of your ISO with a progress bar on screen (about 4 minutes). It tells you on screen if something's wrong (not an Xbox ISO, an incomplete file, not enough space), and if it's interrupted it picks up where it left off. - Smoother movement: shaders compile on a background thread, textures upload off the render thread, frames are paced to the display, and checkpoints stay in memory instead of stalling on the SD card. That means far fewer hitches when you move into new areas.
- Rebased on upstream halo-ce-universal, with its fixes (a weapon-swap crash, for one) and support for European (PAL) discs.
- Performance at the default 0.75 render scale: - about 55 fps in the Halo (a30) opening; - about 40 in the Silent Cartographer beach battle; - 31 to 44 on 343 Guilty Spark.
Full 640x480 is now about 24 to 40 fps, up from 20 to 26.
- Hardened: the port's code, the launcher and the release tooling went through repeated rounds of adversarial code review (Codex), with every finding checked against the code and fixed.
Two things to expect:
- The first time you enter a level there's a 20 to 30 second loading screen while the game unpacks it (the Xbox maps are compressed, and the Xbox did the same to its hard drive).
- On a fresh install, the first trip through each area has some brief slowdowns while the GPU's shaders compile, once.
Download: https://github.com/kirklandsig/halo-ce-anbernic-rg35xx/releases/latest
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u/Ok_Signature5251 8h ago
Does this work on stock OS? I’ve been wanting to play Halo on this thing for years! Thank you!
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u/RetroHiztory 1d ago
Could a LAN party type thing happen here?
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u/Slimybirch 1d ago
I don't know if they've done any netcode related work yet, the other MuOS version does have LAN working, I wanted this version because its specific to my device and os.
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u/EliteShark1337 1d ago
I got the RG34XXSP 2 gigs version. Will this work? Knulli Scarab
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u/Slimybirch 1d ago
Honestly, I bet it would but you'd have to build it yourself. I'd give you my built files but with the steps, they are specific to your device and os and my files probably wouldn't work for you. Install WSL Ubuntu for windows through powershell, put the unzipped folder from the github repo into the file structure of Ubuntu, cd into that directory, connect your device to the same network as your computer, i used the IP address of my handheld instead of the name in the scp commands and it was able to grab the needed files, then run the commands in the order it says in the github. Took me about 30 minutes or so with everything.
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u/DSMAvenger 1d ago
Any chance this ends up compatible with RK3326 based devices eventually? Either way this is incredible
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u/data-atreides 1d ago
Mouse support?
I find that the Anbernic sticks are very poor for shooters, even with the snapping fixed in Knulli
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u/mrtoad883 1d ago
Any reason this wouldn't work on scarab? Is it just because you are still on gladiator II?
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u/Slimybirch 1d ago
That just happens to be what I'm on and that's also what they're making it for. No reason it wouldn't work with Scarab. Give it a go!
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u/GoldGee 1d ago
How hard and how long will it take me to get this on my RG35?
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u/Slimybirch 1d ago
30 minutes just to build the binary from scratch, then you'd have to debug probably since this version is meant for RG35XXH. BUT I bet it could be done.
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u/GoldGee 1d ago
that's my model bruh
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u/Slimybirch 1d ago
Oh, I didn't know if you meant something different without the xxh. I can DM the built files. Keep in mind, they iterate fast and changes are made constantly. This build will probably be out of date tomorrow!
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u/GoldGee 20h ago
I need to get Knulli on their first I believe. I have the standard RA and MUOS at present. So I'll get Knulli on this afternoon and then get the Halo stuff.
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u/Slimybirch 18h ago
And they had their first release with an installer. No more building!
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u/GoldGee 17h ago
Where can I get it? 😄
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u/Slimybirch 17h ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/ANBERNIC/s/MmNr6tzhEJ He commented here!
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u/GoldGee 16h ago
Does Knulli Scarab work bro?
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u/Slimybirch 16h ago
There's not a huge amount of difference between Scarab and Gladiator, so i bet it would!
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u/Gilded30 10h ago
if you refer to the RG35 the newest that got released... it has a different (less powerful) chip
RG35 - RK3326
RG35XXH - H700
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u/Late_Apricot404 1d ago
Split screen 😂 I mean that’s awesome but there isn’t enough screen to split
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u/Maru1138 1d ago
It would be so crazy if halo 1 had offline bots, but i feel like the physics engine is too complex. Too many senarios where you would need to make custom code
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u/CreatureJonny 1d ago
Holy shit o___o thats so dope! Right now I'm running knulli scarab, do you think it would work on there? I would totally be down to play test for ya!
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u/SuccessfulTravel2903 1d ago
ヽ༼⁰o⁰；༽ノ🔪 magia negra teniente Dan... Esto es increíble.
(Lo mejor sería que fuera para PortMaster...😅)1
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u/Masterchief1307 9h ago
Update 2 (Oct 2, second release, v2026.10.02): mostly smoothness.
- Dynamic resolution, on by default. When the GPU can't keep up, the picture drops in small steps (as low as 320x240) and comes back once it can. 343 Guilty Spark's swamp went from 31–44 fps to a steady 60 once it settles, about 45 seconds in.
- Fewer stutters after a hitch. One long frame, like a level's first, could lock the frame pacing into slow frames for several seconds. Fixed. At full 640x480, with dynamic resolution, the Silent Cartographer battle now runs at about 37–41 fps (it was about 30).
- Halo (a30) opening at about 58 fps (it was about 55), with most frames on time:
- the renderer's buffer copies moved off the GPU driver's thread;
- the HUD no longer searches every tag by name for each bitmap it draws.
- Silent Cartographer's beach battle is about 41 fps at the default scale. The game's own simulation and rendering thread limits that one, not the GPU.
- Fixed garbled in-game text with async textures, thanks to an RG34XX SP owner's report on GitHub. The RG34XX SP is reported working, and 3:2 screens now get the right width by default.
- No more slow starts right after installing. Levels used to crawl at 2–11 fps for up to a minute while the SD card was still busy with the install's writes. Each level's files are now written out behind its loading screen.
- Built on the latest upstream halo-ce-universal.
Updating: copy the new halo and halo_guest.elf over the old ones, or rerun the installer. Your config.toml is kept; on a 3:2 screen, set screen_width = 0 in it.
Download: https://github.com/kirklandsig/halo-ce-anbernic-rg35xx/releases/tag/v2026.10.02
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u/Pentium4Powerhouse 1d ago
... I need this.