A 2003 Direct3D 8 real-time-strategy game, running natively on an Android phone — no emulator, no cloud streaming. The real engine, its D3D8 calls translated to Vulkan on the phone's own GPU.
An Android (arm64) port of Command & Conquer: Generals — Zero Hour, running the original game engine natively on a phone through GeneralsX (the GPLv3 cross-platform fork of the engine source EA released in 2025), SDL3 for windowing/input, and DXVK translating the game's Direct3D 8 calls to Vulkan on Mobile GPUs (tested on Mali‑G57).
It reaches the main menu, plays skirmish and the single‑player campaigns, renders terrain, units, water, shadows, the HUD, the minimap and the in‑engine/video cutscenes — with a touch‑first control scheme designed for a phone.
This repository contains only source code and documentation, licensed under the GPLv3. It does not include any game data. The
.bigarchives, movies, maps and other art/audio are Electronic Arts' copyrighted content — you must supply your own from a retail copy of the game. See docs/GAME-FILES.md.
| Area | State |
|---|---|
| Boot → main menu | ✅ working, native 1640×720 fullscreen |
| Skirmish (all factions) | ✅ playable |
| Single‑player campaigns (USA / GLA / China) | ✅ playable, intro cutscenes play |
| Rendering (terrain / units / water / shadows / HUD) | ✅ correct on Mali‑G57 |
| Minimap / radar | ✅ (campaign always‑on, skirmish/MP radar‑gated as on desktop) |
| Audio (music / SFX / speech) | ✅ via OpenSL ES |
| Video cutscenes (Bink via FFmpeg) | ✅ decodes on device |
| Touch controls | ✅ full custom scheme (see below) |
| LAN multiplayer | 🚧 in progress |
Running on a Redmi (Mali‑G57), landscape, at native resolution.
📸 Got it running? A short gameplay clip or a screenshot is the single most useful thing you can contribute to help this project reach people — post yours in Show and tell (media only — never a built APK or game data). Standout shots can feature right here.
The game was mouse+keyboard only; this port adds a purpose‑built multi‑touch scheme:
| Gesture | Action |
|---|---|
| 1‑finger tap | select / press a UI button |
| 1‑finger drag | drag‑box select / drag a slider |
| 2‑finger drag | pan the camera |
| 2‑finger pinch | zoom the camera |
| 2‑finger tap | right‑click (move / attack order) |
| On‑screen ☰ button (top‑left, in‑game) | opens the pause/ESC menu |
| On‑screen ▶▶ button (top‑right, during a video) | skip the cutscene |
Camera pan/zoom speed is adjustable and persisted via Options → Scroll Speed.
- Get an arm64 Android device with ~5 GB free.
- Install the self‑contained APK (bundles the game data and unpacks it on first launch). (The self‑contained build is not hosted in this repo — it embeds copyrighted game data. Build your own from your retail files.)
- First launch shows "Installing game data…" for ~1–2 minutes, then the game starts.
👉 New here? Follow docs/SETUP-GAME-FILES.md — a step‑by‑step guide
to configuring your own Generals files into a playable APK (find your install → copy the .big
files + Data/ → one packaging command → build → install).
If you already have the game data deployed to the app's storage, the small engine‑only APK boots straight into the game.
Full instructions are in BUILDING.md. In short:
- Cross‑compile the engine for
arm64-v8awith the Android NDK + CMake (vcpkg pulls SDL3, OpenAL, FFmpeg; DXVK is built separately). - Package the Android app (
android/) with Gradle; drop the builtlibmain.sointoapp/libs/arm64-v8a/. - Supply your own retail game data (see docs/GAME-FILES.md).
Getting a 2003 Direct3D 8 RTS to run on a mobile Vulkan driver took a long series of fixes. Each is written up in detail under docs/, and summarized in CHANGELOG.md. Highlights:
- Rendering bring‑up on Mali (DXVK → Vulkan) — reaching the menu and in‑game.
- The Mali shader‑compiler crash — root‑caused to
D3D9 user clip planes (
gl_ClipDistance) crashing the Mali‑G57 shader compiler. - True fullscreen at native resolution.
- Magenta terrain / software BC (DXT) decode.
- Minimap / radar rendering & availability.
- Audio via OpenSL ES.
- Cutscene playback + the on‑screen Skip button.
- Touch control scheme.
- Self‑contained APK packaging.
See docs/PORTING-NOTES.md for the full technical journal, and
docs/DISCOVERIES.md for in-depth engineering write-ups of the
non-obvious findings — the __linux__-includes-Android audio trap, the 10-bit-swapchain black
radar, the 16-bit sorting-buffer heap corruption, the touch→RTS input synthesis, and more.
This is a volunteer, non-commercial community project — help is very welcome, especially with GPU compatibility (Adreno/PowerVR/Xclipse), LAN multiplayer, controls, and performance.
- 💬 Questions, ideas, show-and-tell: Discussions — start with the 👋 welcome thread, the 🎮 get-it-running guide, or post your hardware in 🧭 device compatibility.
- 🐛 Bugs & feature requests: open an issue
- 🛠️ Want to contribute code? Read CONTRIBUTING.md and the ROADMAP.md — the "Help wanted" section lists good first areas.
- 🤝 We follow a Code of Conduct.
- 🔒 Security issues: see SECURITY.md (please report privately).
- ❓ Need help getting it running? SUPPORT.md.
One hard rule: never post, attach, or link game data (
.big/.bik/maps/ISOs) or a built self-contained APK. Everyone brings their own retail files. See docs/GAME-FILES.md.
⭐ If a native Generals on Android sounds cool, star the repo — that's the main way other C&C fans and Android tinkerers find it, and it's the biggest single thing you can do to help.
- Engine: GeneralsX by fbraz3 and contributors — the GPLv3 cross‑platform fork this port builds on.
- Original source: Command & Conquer: Generals / Zero Hour, released by Electronic Arts under GPLv3 in 2025.
- Libraries: SDL3, DXVK, OpenAL Soft, FFmpeg.
This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 — see LICENSE.
Command & Conquer, Generals, Zero Hour and all game assets are trademarks/copyright of Electronic Arts. This is an unofficial, non‑commercial, community port of the GPLv3 engine source. No game assets are distributed here.