TekRantGaming/king-kong-recompiled v1.9.6

on GitHub

Peter Jackson's King Kong PC Port v1.9.6

Linux players: this is an experimental Proton build, not native Linux support. It's the Windows download running through Steam's Proton, so you can play on Linux and the Steam Deck now. A native Linux version is in development and will come in a future update.

What's new

• Play on Linux and Steam Deck now, through Proton (experimental). The Windows download runs on Linux with Steam's Proton: add king_kong.exe to Steam as a non-Steam game and set it to use Proton Experimental (steps below). Tested on a ROG Ally (Z1 Extreme) with Bazzite: the launcher, installing from a disc image and the game all work, and it held 120 FPS on the 10 W power profile. The first start takes about half a minute while Steam sets Proton up for the game; after that it starts straight away. Under Proton the launcher uses your system's font, and Add to Steam is hidden, since the game is already in Steam.
• Fixed: the game could freeze on the black LOADING screen as the main menu loads. When a load starts, the loading screen and the game's frame presenter both need the graphics device, and if the loading screen got it first, each waited for the other forever. It happened often on Linux; on Windows the presenter nearly always got there first, but it could happen there too.
• Fixed: one controller press counting twice in the launcher while Steam is open. Steam's desktop controller layout also types keys for the controller's buttons (arrow keys, Enter), so the selection moved two places and switches flipped twice and stayed as they were. A press and the key Steam types for it now count once.
• Fixed: the Home menu running into the status line in a small window. Its entries now shrink to fit.

Linux and Steam Deck (experimental Proton build)

1. Unzip KingKong-v1.9.6-windows-x64.zip anywhere, for example in your home folder.
2. In Steam (in desktop mode on a Steam Deck), choose Games > Add a Non-Steam Game to My Library, browse to king_kong.exe and add it.
3. Right-click it in your library, choose Properties > Compatibility, tick Force the use of a specific Steam Play compatibility tool and pick Proton Experimental.
4. Start it from Steam (Game Mode works too). The first start takes about half a minute. Pick your disc image as on Windows: your Linux home folder is on the Z: drive.

Native Linux: in development, and coming in a future update. A native build already runs the launcher on Linux, but its renderer still draws some scenes wrong (black screens in some chapters), so until that's fixed, Proton is the way to play on Linux.

Full changelog

• Loading screen: loading_fix.cpp hooks the present that the graphics device's worker thread makes each frame (sub_8278D0C8). While the loading screen thread (sub_8278E450) is up, it skips that present, since the loading screen draws every frame itself. Found by tracing the handshake between the two (KK_DEV_LOAD_TRACE in developer builds).
• Launcher input: launcher_ui.cpp reads the controllers before the keyboard and treats a key and a controller press of the same action within 0.25 s as one press.
• Proton: when Windows' fonts aren't there (Wine), the launcher loads Noto Sans (or DejaVu Sans, or Liberation Sans) from the Linux system through Wine's Z: drive. Proton plays videos it can't convert as colour bars, so stills that are colour bars are no longer used as backdrops; the launcher takes its artwork again once (a few seconds) to drop any it already took.
• Native Linux version (in development, not in this release): the launcher no longer swallows the window's paint events when it reads controllers, draws at 60 FPS (it used 72% of a CPU core), downloads with curl, takes its stills with ffmpeg and can update its AppImage. tools/rexglue-patches 0011 frees the game's memory however it ends (a crash or kill left it all in /dev/shm until a reboot), and 0012 adds the frame log to the Vulkan backend.
• rexruntime.dll and rexgpu-xenos.dll are the same as in v1.9.5.

How to update

If you have v1.4.0 or later, the launcher offers this update when it opens: click Update now. Otherwise download KingKong-v1.9.6-windows-x64.zip below and copy everything in it over your KingKong folder. Your settings stay as they are.

New install (Windows)

1. Unzip KingKong-v1.9.6-windows-x64.zip anywhere and run king_kong.exe. The shader pack downloads by itself.
2. Choose Select disc image and pick your own King Kong disc image (USA/Europe, title ID 555307D3, version 0.0.0.1).
3. Press PLAY.

No game files are included. See the README for details.

Requires Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit) and a DirectX 12 graphics card, or Linux with Steam and Proton (experimental). Native Linux version in development.

This port was made with AI (Claude Code). See the README for details.