OpenCE/ChupathingyCE Community Games

Play Chupathingy on the console Halo was made for. A softmodded or modded original Xbox joins the same online games as PCs, Macs and phones. Open Multiplayer > Online Games and pick a game. System Link works too.

It runs on a stock 64 MB console. A console with 128 MB gets a little more room, and the game plays the same either way.

Status: test builds. Online play, up to 32 players and Halo CE+ maps work today. Hosting PC players, online co-op and movies aren't in yet.

Test builds are shared in #xbox on the Discord. You can also build it yourself (below).

You need your own copy of Halo. No game files or SDK files are included.

This repository holds the original Xbox port. The game itself is the chupathingyce submodule. The other consoles have their own repositories: warthog-360, warthog-wiiu and warthog-switch.

Details

• Network version: 32 (wire chupa-32a). Joins hosts of network versions 11 through 33.
• Online: Multiplayer > ONLINE GAMES lists the games online and joins them through the PCs' own tunnel, dedicated servers too.
• System Link: joins PC hosts and consoles on your network.
• Memory: 64 MB is the baseline. A console with 128 MB or more (a devkit, or the common upgrade) gets larger texture and sound caches; the game plays the same either way.
• Maps: the retail maps, and community packs of Xbox maps beside them, Halo CE+ in D:\maps_cex (below).
• Players: the test build holds 32 players. Games past that are left, as a full game is.
• Chat: quick lines on the controller, and a USB keyboard.
• Not yet: hosting PC players, network co-op, Bink movies, reverb.

What you need

• A console that runs your own code. A softmodded or hardmodded original Xbox, or a development kit. xemu works for testing.
• Your own Halo disc's maps. The North American (NTSC) release, 01.10.12.2276, as every Chupathingy build and server uses. The PAL disc's maps work too. Warthog never provides maps, disc images or other game data, and never links to them. Don't share yours.
• To build it (below): a Mac or Linux computer, your own copy of the Xbox SDK, and your own Aug 2001 d3d8ntpr.lib.

Install

1. Build default.xbe (see "Building it yourself").
2. Copy the maps folder from your own disc (about 2 GB) to your computer.
3. Lay the game out for the console's hard disk: python3 tools/xbox_package.py --maps /path/to/maps --out ~/Downloads/Warthog-xbox. This puts default.xbe, your maps and a config.toml in one folder.
4. Copy that folder to the console, for example to E:\Games\Warthog\ (FTP from your dashboard, or a devkit's tools).
5. Start default.xbe from the dashboard.

tools/easy_build.py does steps 1 and 3 for you, with questions.

Xbox map packs (Halo CE+)

Warthog plays community packs of Xbox maps, such as Halo CE+ X (Original Xbox) by VKMT, beside your retail maps. A pack's maps reuse the retail maps' file names, so each pack has a folder of its own beside maps: Halo CE+ goes in D:\maps_cex\. Copy the contents of the pack's maps folder there, its maplist.txt included, and keep the retail maps in D:\maps\. With the packaging script: python3 tools/xbox_package.py --maps /path/to/maps --map-pack cex="/path/to/Halo CE+ X/maps" --out ....

The pack's maps appear in the multiplayer map list after the retail ones, marked [CE+] and named as the pack names them (Abyss, Gothra, ...). Online, a CE+ game is joined only with the same version of the pack, and a console without it is told which map and folder it needs. The larger CE+ maps use a campaign map's cache file on the utility partition. Warthog never provides the pack's files: get them from the pack's release page. The pack's own menus (ui.map) stay unused unless game.pack_menus = "cex" is set in D:\config.toml.

Settings on the console

The settings are in D:\config.toml (D:\ is the game's folder, beside default.xbe), the same kind of file as the PC builds'. The first start writes every setting, commented out at its default. Remove the # in front of one, change its value and restart the game. Edit it over FTP, or on the computer before copying the folder.

[console]
bypass_security = true
join = "192.168.1.20"

Setting ([console])	What it does
bypass_security	true starts the network in its open mode, which the internet and the PC builds need. The packaging script writes true; --secure writes false for console-only System Link.
game_list_server	A host or address (:port optional): where to get the game list if warthog.milenko.org doesn't resolve.
join	A host's LAN address, or an invite (halo://join/...). System Link joins the address, ONLINE GAMES' Y the invite.
trace	true writes detailed network traces to debug.txt, for reporting a join that fails. Other hosts appear only as tags, never by their addresses.
memory_class	"auto" (the default): a console with 128 MB or more gets the extras, such as larger texture and sound caches; a stock 64 MB console keeps the Xbox's sizes. "64" gives any console the stock sizes, to test the 64 MB baseline or if an extra misbehaves.
perf_log	true writes a perf: line to debug.txt once a second: the frame time and each part of the frame. For finding what makes a scene slow.
debug_geometry	For development: true brings back the debug build's debug lines and triangles, whose buffers take 1.4 MB. Off by default.
log_flush	When debug.txt is written: "buffered" (the default) once a second and at once for a crash; "every_line" each line as it comes (slow), for a crash hunt.
large_caches	Deprecated and ignored: memory_class decides now.
simulate_64mb	Deprecated and ignored. A devkit gets 64 MB from the executable's flag: tools/xbox_package.py --devkit-64mb.

Many of the PC builds' settings work on the console too: field of view, the follow camera, chat, the scoreboard, music and effects volume, the network ones. port/xbox/README.md lists them, and port/xbox/FEATURES.md shows which PC features the console has.

brokers.txt beside default.xbe lists the signalling servers internet play uses, one host:port a line, if the built-in ones can't be reached.

The game writes its log to D:\debug.txt. Attach it to bug reports.

Chat and keyboard

Chat works in a game whose host runs Chupathingy.

• Controller: D-pad up picks a quick line, D-pad down sends it.
• USB keyboard (on a controller port): T talks to everyone, Y to your team, H shows the recent lines.

Known quirks

• Zoom frame rate. Sniper and pistol zoom drop the frame rate to about 20 fps. Being measured (perf_log); not fixed yet.
• First join of a map. The first time a map loads after the console starts, it takes longer than later loads, while the console caches it.
• Max players. A game that grows past the console's 32 slots is left, as a full one is.
• No network co-op. Co-op games are left out of the console's lists. Split screen and the campaign play as they always did.

Building it yourself

Clone with the game:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/ChupathingyCE/warthog-xbox.git
cd warthog-xbox

(In a clone you already have: git submodule update --init.)

You need:

• Python 3, ninja and LLVM (clang and lld-link). On macOS: brew install llvm lld ninja.
• OXDK in ~/OXDK (or --oxdk DIR), with its cxbe built, and your own 5933 Xbox SDK's libraries and headers in OXDK's xbox/xdk/lib and xbox/xdk/include.
• Your own Aug 2001 Direct3D library, d3d8ntpr.lib (the aug01 i386 build).

Build:

python3 chupathingyce/configure.py --console-port port/xbox \
    --xbox-d3d8 /path/to/d3d8ntpr.lib --console-no-debug-asserts --console-players 32
ninja xbox                          # build/xbox/default.xbe
port/xbox/tests/run.sh --xbox       # the host tests

Or let python3 tools/easy_build.py check your tools, ask a few questions, build and package (--check only checks).

Notes:

• --console-players 32 is the test build. Without it the game's configure builds 16, as the Xbox's own game had.
• The Xbox 360 port is ChupathingyCE/warthog-360.
• Windows: no build path yet. Help is welcome in #warthog-dev on the Discord.
• Nothing from Microsoft's SDKs is in this repository, and none of it may be committed.

docs/building.md has every step, the options, the versions tested and how to update the game submodule. Changes to the game itself go to ChupathingyCE/chupathingyce (CONTRIBUTING.md).

License

Warthog is free software: you can redistribute it and modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License or (at your option) any later version (GPL-3.0-or-later), with the console SDK permission below. It comes with no warranty. The full text is in LICENSE.

• From the GPL change onward. Warthog follows Chupathingy, which is GPL from release 0.8.0. The source at every commit before the change was released under CC0 1.0 and stays that way.
• What Warthog builds on. The Halo CE decompilation (punpckhdq/halo and bnunu/halo-1) and OpenCE are released under CC0 1.0, which lets anyone build on them under any terms. Their repositories stay CC0.
• The game (the chupathingyce submodule) is under its own repository's license, with its third-party code, fonts and art under theirs.
• Halo itself is not covered. The license covers the work of Warthog's and Chupathingy's authors. It gives no rights in Halo, its maps or anything else Microsoft owns, and no SDK is included.

Console SDK permission

You may build Warthog yourself with a console maker's SDK (see "Building it yourself"), and share what you build:

Additional permission under GNU GPL version 3 section 7

If you modify this Program, or any covered work, by linking or combining it with the libraries of a Microsoft Xbox or Xbox 360 software development kit (such as the Xbox Development Kit and the Xbox 360 SDK, including their xnet.lib and Direct3D libraries), or a modified version of those libraries, containing parts covered by the terms of those kits' licenses, the licensors of this Program grant you additional permission to convey the resulting work. Corresponding Source for a non-source form of such a combination shall include the source code of the covered work, and need not include the source code of those libraries.

The permission only lifts the GPL's own objection. It grants no rights in Microsoft's libraries, whose own terms still apply, and you may remove it from your copies (section 7). Warthog's own published builds are made only with free, legally available tools and libraries; none contains code from Microsoft's SDKs.

Support

Chupathingy is free and always will be. Support through Ko-fi goes to running the site and the servers. If there's a specific developer or port you'd like to support, ask them: they may not be part of our community.

Credits

• The decompilation: punpckhdq/halo and bnunu/halo-1, of the Xbox build 2342.
• The game: Chupathingy, and OpenCE and its contributors, up to October 9, 2026.
• Warthog: Milenko and contributors. The toolchain: OXDK.
• Libraries: KCP and Monocypher (internet play), zlib, and the libraries the game uses, with their licenses in the game's port/third_party.

Contributors

• thelinkin3000: the Nintendo Switch port, now in ChupathingyCE/warthog-switch.
• CrunchBite (XLink Kai's developer): XLink Kai's addressing for consoles (docs/xlink.md), and the idea of checking the console's memory and saying so on screen instead of crashing.
• vsod99: the xemu development loop and the memory probe behind the cross-play plan.

Links

• The game: ChupathingyCE/chupathingyce
• Games online now: stats.chupathingy.org
• Discord: discord.gg/chupathingy (#warthog-support for help, #warthog-dev for development)

Warthog is an unofficial fan project. It isn't affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft, Xbox Game Studios, Bungie or Halo Studios. Halo is a trademark of Microsoft. No game files are included: you bring your own copy. The code is released under the GNU GPL, version 3 or later (see License).