Game Decompilation Projects

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Chug Smuckle

Chug Smuckle

True & Honest Fan
kiwifarms.net
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Nov 26, 2023
What is a Game Decompilation?

"Game decompilation is the process of reverse-engineering a compiled game executable to recreate its original, human-readable source code (typically in C or C++) without using the developer's original files. "- Brave ai definition

In laymen's terms reversed engineered pc ports of video games.
for example: The recently released Zelda:Twilight Princess Decomp project- Dusk

Here's a more indepth video going over this topic
 
Breadbassket said:
Seems like a copyright disaster waiting to happen but I must commend the dedication and passion needed to accomplish such a thing.
Click to expand...
Decomps are in a weird legal spot as you aren't downloading the game but rather downloading something that modifies it from reverse engineered work. Most companies make a stink about it for physical items but, I haven't seen any video game devs take action on it, yet. No doubt Nintendo will be the first, especially if it's a major Pokemon decomp that eclipses the original game the decomp is based on.
 
Here's some reimplementation projects from reverse engineering of PC games I've come across:

Arcanum CE - The reverse engineering is complete and people have played through the game, but I'd expect it to be buggy as was the original game. The same author has also reimplementations for Fallout 1 and 2 that are mature.

Dethrace (Caramageddon) - Seems close to completion as they report 95.55% accuracy.

Heretic2R - This is fairly new, but apparently feature complete. The readme mentions framerates above 60 FPS haven't been tested.

OpenJKDF2 (Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II) - Seems fairly mature. Allows playing at unlocked framerates, whereas the original game shits the bed at framerates above 30 FPS. Also supports the Mysteries of the Sith expansion, but this is marked as beta.
 
a game being decompiled does NOT mean it can be played on the PC, just that the new source code compiles into (at least mostly) the same binary using the same compiler the devs used
Breadbassket said:
Seems like a copyright disaster waiting to happen but I must commend the dedication and passion needed to accomplish such a thing.
Click to expand...
there have been cases about it - like sega v accolade which deems reverse engineering fair use
that being said rockstar would dmca gta decomps on github
but as long as you dont host any actual assets just your own shit its 100% legal
now on topic
there is a pretty much finished touhou 6 decomp (most of the authors are trannies) with the "remaster" branch replacing dx8 with SDL making it cross platform (i've tried it and it seems to work :))
two of the guys (both are trannies) from that team are now working on a touhou 8 decomp
some dudes are working on jak and daxter, an interesting thing about this one is that they're reimplementing the proprietary language that J&D games were written in
theres also mario party 4
theres also pvz decomp but its in really early stages
decompilation of libraries used by 4j (people who ported minecraft to consoles)
pokemon platinum
the popular lego island decomp
battle for bikini bottom
fire emblem sacred stones
smash bros melee
super mario odyssey
sonic cd (2011)
the wind waker
mario kart deluxe dash
mario kart 64
perfect dark
pikmin 2
starfox 64
dr mario 64
super mario galaxy
castlevania symphony of the night
majora's mask and OoT
paper mario
a different twilight princess decomp thats linked in the OP
what you might notice is that most of them are nintenslop
 
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Rango Dango said:
there have been cases about it - like sega v accolade which deems reverse engineering fair use
that being said rockstar would dmca gta decomps on github
but as long as you dont host any actual assets just your own shit its 100% legal
Click to expand...
From what I remember of skimming the Take-Two vs. the re3 devs lawsuit documents, they seemed to put an extra emphasis on improvements to code as opposed to just creating a 1:1 reverse-engineered copy. Dusk has those as well and, given how anal Japs are about copyright, Nintendo might decide to waste the developers' time eventually.
 
gunner shepardson said:
Sonic R is being decompiled by jnmartin, who's known for porting multiple games from the N64 to the Dreamcast, as well as helping with porting the Sonic Mania special stages to the Dreamcast. As of now, he currently has a functional port for Mac OS X. However, he dared to note that he was going to be Claude to help him write portions of the decompilation:

TOGT4wt5pFegcy9m.mp4
View attachment 8899596

...so naturally, instead of people being excited, a bunch of mindbroken faggots are seething that he dares to use AI to help with what's typically an excruciating, years-long process, because using AI means you're destroying the heccin environment and you're helping the heccin billionaire capitalist anti-trans society or whatever.
View attachment 8899606View attachment 8899608View attachment 8899609View attachment 8899624
("wow, you get to learn a process that you've already done for multiple games by hand!")
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Crossposting from the Sonic thread
 
I haven't tried to build it, but there's a Silent Hill 1 decomp and an active PC port.

Not a decomp, but the PS3 Minecraft source code leaked and there's PC client and server port with prebuilt binaries (github). It's minecraft version 1.84 (~java edition 1.13 w/o aquatic update), so it's an easy way to scratch that classic minecraft itch.
 
Time to throw in my two cents.
There is currently a decompilation of Rock Band 3 being worked on right now, based on the Wii version of the game because it was coded differently than all the other main versions of the game, which those use Link-Time Optimization, or LTO for short.
Here's the website where the people making it do an FAQ, and here's a Wikipedia article they linked in the FAQ talking about interprocedural optimization, which includes LTO.
Lotta nerd shit here, but it's interesting to read up on nonetheless.
 
Ideally they would target more Windows 9x and DOS games outside of Diablo but as hasbeen shown Nintendo Games, primarily N64 have been the major target. So far all the ones I have tested have been great, there is even a mod for Duke Nukem Zero Hour that turns it into a FPS and imo from what I've played its better that way
 
Green Kitbash said:
Ideally they would target more Windows 9x and DOS games outside of Diablo but as hasbeen shown Nintendo Games, primarily N64 have been the major target. So far all the ones I have tested have been great, there is even a mod for Duke Nukem Zero Hour that turns it into a FPS and imo from what I've played its better that way
Click to expand...
Speaking of Duke Nukem, I just remembered this reimplemented version of Duke Nukem 2 on this thing called the Rigel Engine. Played it before, and it's pretty awesome.
 
surprised nobody has mentioned Banjo-Kazooie yet. it is one of the few bing bing wahoo nintendoslop games I greatly enjoy, and the Banjo Recompiled port works great. it's not technically a decompilation project, it's a static recompilation project, which means that instead of reverting the compiled machine language into its original source code, it converts compiled binaries into new C code that reproduces the application's behavior as authentically as possible. Banjo Recomp is part of a larger recompilation project for the N64 generally, for which I'm sure there are many other games available, but I haven't looked into it.
 
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