Game Decomps, Recomps and Ports Projects

[Epic Fail Man]

Bloodborne needs a recomp. The emulator is cool and it is better than playing it on the PS4 since you can play at 120fps 1440p. But there's still issues like vertex and not being able to customize your character.

A recomp of Bloodborne would be a dream cum true.

 

[Two Dollars]

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.

I wish this meme would finally die. Nintendo has already shown beyond any doubt that they can’t do shit about decomps. Back when Mario 64’s first PC port released (technically leaked a few days early before the repo went public), they shot down precompiled binaries that already included ROM data but never touched port-specific code, decomp code, or tools that assist in building a port from your own rom. Because they’re all legal.

 

[Rust Troony]

I wish this meme would finally die. Nintendo has already shown beyond any doubt that they can’t do shit about decomps.

The issue is the law is gray since there is no actual lawsuit that talks about this specific use case, only other ones that are similar enough, and no one is brazen enough to fight a company in the court room to make it set in stone. Its nice that Nintendo seems to get the memo, too bad every other company doesnt. Take Two shot down the RE3 project and continue to take down other miscellaneous project, like the gta vc port to the gta 4 engine, essentially killing the entire grand theft auto decomp community outside a handful of russians.

 

[Lurkerish Kandor]

Bloodborne needs a recomp

I second this. I've had heaps of issues getting it to run in ANY fork of ShadPS4, even the most refined and fully-featured ones where character creation and shit is working. It's the one FromSoft game I haven't played that I really wanna.

I do need to test it again because I refreshed my OS last night and it's given me amazing performance boosts in everything I've done today, but nah yeah I'd rather prefer just a fucking recomp port of BB: Twilight Princess Dusk runs so fucking well it's getting benign visual bugs as I'm pushing up to 180fps and above.

Also, they're changing the name from "Dusk" to "Dusklight" because New Blood asked them to:

 

[Battlefield42]

https://github.com/SwagSoftware/KisakBlack
New decomp for Black Ops 1

 

[BONECRUSHER]

https://github.com/SwagSoftware/KisakBlack
New decomp for Black Ops 1

Note if you want to just play Black Ops, use Plutonium with a pirated copy instead. They fixed the security issues and such

 

[Dan of Steel]

I love projects like these. As someone who primarily plays old games having the ability to click an executable and it just run is a godsend. Some that haven't been mentioned so far ITT:

Augustus is a fork of another project called Julius for Caesar 3. Implements proper widescreen, along with rebalances the community has decided on, and the ability to zoom in, amongst other things. Still being worked on and updated to this day.

Flame is a patch to a decomp of Dungeon Keeper 2, one of my favorite games to play as a kid. Technically, DK2 works "fine" out of the box on modern PCs if you buy it on GOG, but there's still some little niggles that don't make it perfect, like no widescreen support, HUD scaling, etc. Flame fixes all that. It's fairly new, but I'm enjoying it so far.

The original Dungeon Keeper has a well-known sourceport called KeeperFX, so you don't have to run it in DOSbox or some other godawful implementation.

Multiverse Launcher is more of a client wrapper for Populous: The Beginning but makes it a much more enjoyable experience, and includes mod support as well.

syndwarsfx ports Syndicate Wars to PC, pretty barebones just gets the game running but it's another Bullfrog classic so that works for me.

CorsixTh is a port of Theme Hospital (I love Bullfrog games if you can't tell). Widescreen support, zooming, improved game logic, mod support and more.

Gardens of Kadesh is an SDL sourceport of Homeworld that incredibly enough, can be ran in your browser if you're so inclined. If you're a grognard like me and prefer playing the original and not the HD remaster this is the definitive way to play Homeworld. (Unfortunately doesn't work with Homeworld Cataclysm)

OpenXCOM is the best way of playing the original X-COM today, along with its expansion. Includes tons of mods as well, you do whatever the fuck you want with the basegame if you're so inclined. Really streamlines the process of playing one of the best strategy games ever made.

TRX is a sourceport for Tomb Raider 1, 2, and their expansion packs with development in the process of getting Tomb Raider 3 to work as well. IMO, this is the best way to play these games it includes mod support, controller support, and all sorts of other goodies.

 

[Penguin Sandwich]

Slowly, but surely. And then waiting ages for it to be ported.

 

[Lurkerish Kandor]

I love projects like these. As someone who primarily plays old games having the ability to click an executable and it just run is a godsend.

I agree with you, and it's why I got frustrated at this random blog post a friend woke me up with this morning, from some 80 year old woman who talks about gaming.

Her making fun of reddit casuals is a little funny but it starts turning into this elitist faggotry about how if you're not playing 40 year old games on 40 year old hardware and having to manually assign IRQ and DMA values in a dos setup, you're incapable of appreciating any videogame (she also says some other shit I think is dumb but isn't relevant to this thread).

Bitch I grew up doing that shit, it was tedious as fuck and I'm glad we dont have to do it anymore, same as password entries in old console games. The golden element of Def Jam FFNY is not PS2 limitations meaning it takes 5 loading screens to go from the main menu to playing. If that's what she thinks real gaming is I don't think it's actually the videogames she cares about.

 

[C4-621]

View attachment 9014859
Slowly, but surely. And then waiting ages for it to be ported.

This is a big one for me. The GBA linking as the only means of multiplayer was an incredibly stupid idea at the time, I could understand it if there were a companion GBA title but there wasn't. I don't even know where to begin when it comes to the HD port they released years back, it was such a shitshow. Crystal Chronicles deserves better, and not just the main titles but also the spin offs - My Life as a King and My Life as a Darklord.

 

[Chug Smuckle]

Original github and itch.io taken down by the big N for using assets

Spoiler: Takedown notices for 'Link's Awakening DX HD

Maintained Forked project that only patches the original irch.io release

 

[Lone MacReady II]

Just here to say Dusk is rad.

 

[FrogMinutes]

if you're not playing 40 year old games on 40 year old hardware and having to manually assign IRQ and DMA values in a dos setup, you're incapable of appreciating any videogame

she's not wrong, her point of "if you forced people to do a DOS install for every game there would be less retards in gaming" is true.
if me spending like 30 seconds doing basic bitch command prompts means more niggercattle suffering. sign me up.
she even calls them mutts, I love it.

Don't think what would be practical,
think about how many retards would be filtered out and this all starts to make sense.
"you can't truly appreciate a game unless you know the niggercattle can't ever enjoy it"

 

[Dan of Steel]

she's not wrong, her point of "if you forced people to do a DOS install for every game there would be less retards in gaming" is true.
if me spending like 30 seconds doing basic bitch command prompts means more niggercattle suffering. sign me up.
she even calls them mutts, I love it.

Don't think what would be practical,
think about how many retards would be filtered out and this all starts to make sense.

Okay, but what you're proposing isn't practical and is not reality. It's also still readily an option for absolute purists. If you want the authentic experience, you can install games via DOSbox/86box setting CPU cycles, choosing the right soundcard you want, etc. This autism for adhering strictly to what the developers shipped to you is also weird to me when that's just not the kind of PC gaming I grew up with. If a game could be modded, I absolutely would mod it. From Doom wads, Quake, Half-Life, Grand Prix 2, Grand Prix Legends, etc. People cracking a game open and fucking around with it be it QOL mods or custom maps was never verboten and is in fact to me what has always made PC the superior gaming platform. It's a personal computer, once you own the game, that licensed copy belongs to you and you can do whatever the fuck you want with it. So yes, I will play Quake at 200FPS in widescreen/4K if I so desire, because that is my divinely given right as a PC gamer (TM).

I can understand disliking redditor/discordtroons, I'm not a fan of them either. The mindset of "consume new thing because it's new" or thinking that a remake is a replacement for the original is obviously retarded. That's also why I don't use Reddit or Discord. I choose not to be surrounded by those kinds of people that huff their own farts and think they're smarter than they actually are. But acting like it's still the 90s when it's not is also farthuffy. Now, I prefer her farthuffy-ness over redditors, but does niche old school PC gaming really need to be all that gatekept? Maybe CRPGs do because those have been en vogue for a while a now, but I don't see redditors lining up at the gates to casualize the discourse around something like Dark Secrets Of Africa or Interstate 76. A lot of old games still take some fiddling to get to work on modern OSs. Like putting DDrawCompat in the game directory, or DGVoodoo. I would much rather have a way to play these games at my leisure if I want to, while also having the option of doing it the oldfashioned way with DOSbox/86box if I so desire. That's the great thing about PC gaming, like I said, you are gaming on your personal computer, you have the freedom to game freely however you wish.

 

[FrogMinutes]

you are gaming on your personal computer, you have the freedom to game freely however you wish.

look in the sims modding thread and come back to me.

you can still have all that freedom even if it required you to use a DOS prompt to access said freedom.
this is "wash your hands when you take a shit" level of gatekeeping.

 

[GeorgeFloydFentanylStash]

There is Devilution which is Diablo 1 decompiled that might be of interest as well.

I use Heroic and it lets me easily add it from GOG.

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

I hope for a THQ wrestling game decomp since those were some of my favorite party games on the system. Could really change how wrestling rom hacks are done.

 

[Lurkerish Kandor]

Don't think what would be practical,
think about how many retards would be filtered out and this all starts to make sense.
"you can't truly appreciate a game unless you know the niggercattle can't ever enjoy it"

Other people playing games doesn't affect me in any way.
I fucking despise anything gambling related, but I'm not out here saying that everyone who plays Balatro is the reason this hobby sucks. What the fuck do I care, play Balatro over there, leave me to play my actually ludokino shit. All this is woman seems to be suggesting is introducing extra friction into me trying to get things working on my system, which is already a massive pain in the ass what with all of the old-ass shit I play, and all the things I try to emulate. Fuck off, I'm not going to suffer everything in my hobby being even more of a pain in the ass to do, simply because people who don't appreciate them as much as I do also have access to them. That's the absolute peak of egotistical self-obsessed faggotry. What if I can't afford the legacy hardware necessary? What if it doesn't exist anymore? What if the original drivers necessary for that thing are lost media? Cool, we all miss out because only purists get to enjoy things I guess. No one's allowed to make it more convenient cuz then normies might get access.

Filtering other people out of the hobby doesn't stop the retards actually making modern games from shitting up the medium with garbage. How many times have you watched or read interviews in the last 5-10 years where designers talk about how they're just collecting a paycheck? That they don't care about, or even actively hate, whatever IP they're working on? They morally detest guns but they're working as a first person viewmodel animator for some MilSim FPS? That they're only making a game to make a social statement? Shit like that?

All the woman who wrote that article is saying afaic is make everything more tedious to do, in order to get rid of a consequenceless part of literally every hobby. She's not saying we need to screen anyone doing videogame design courses to make sure they're people who actually understand and enjoy videogames, which is a thing that would actually make the ""industry"" and gaming as a hobby better.

 

[FrogMinutes]

I fucking despise anything gambling related, but I'm not out here saying that everyone who plays Balatro is the reason this hobby sucks. What the fuck do I care, play Balatro over there, leave me to play my actually ludokino shit. All this is woman seems to be suggesting is introducing extra friction into me trying to get things working on my system, which is already a massive pain in the ass what with all of the old-ass shit I play, and all the things I try to emulate. Fuck off, I'm not going to suffer everything in my hobby being even more of a pain in the ass to do, simply because people who don't appreciate them as much as I do also have access to them. That's the absolute peak of egotistical self-obsessed faggotry. What if I can't afford the legacy hardware necessary? What if it doesn't exist anymore? What if the original drivers necessary for that thing are lost media? Cool, we all miss out because only purists get to enjoy things I guess. No one's allowed to make it more convenient cuz then normies might get access.

Don't know how to use a command line interface? Have fun staring at NOTHING.
Enjoy your Blank screen prison MUTT CHILD.

Joking aside playing a game how the OG devs intended forces you to approach the game differently.
not every game deserves this level of care put into how you play it, but the ones you really care about do.
I have about 80+ hours in Spike Out, I can consistently get half way through the game on a single credit, if I just abuse my unlimited credits or use save states, I didn't actually play the game. the game asks few things. Using the shift mechanic for positioning. mastering the charge combos. crowd control.

I'd go a step further and say even if I could single credit run the entire game on emulation I still didn't play the game.
money wasn't on the line for failure, and there isn't pressure from people watching. that's going to drastically change how I play, and make any unnecessary stylish shit I pull off during hard parts feel 100% better.

If there's ever a time I'm in the same room with a spike out machine.
I'll be fucking ready to single credit that shit. until then I didn't play the game.