GoldenEye 007 PC Port

GoldenEye 007 PC Port

GoldenEye 007 (Nintendo 64, 1997) on the PC — decompiled, ported, and playable at 60 fps.

Download · News · Status · Roadmap · Building · Docs · Legal

A native PC port of GoldenEye 007 (Rare, 1997, Nintendo 64), compiled from the GoldenEye 007 decompilation: the original N64 game running from reconstructed source, not the Xbox 360 remaster. The N64's graphics coprocessor (RSP) is emulated in software; every other hardware surface (video, audio, input, timers, save storage) is shimmed in a dedicated port/ layer, following the architecture of the Perfect Dark PC port, the same Rare "Indy" engine family, one hardware generation apart.

v0.4.0 (released 2026-09-28) is out for Windows and Linux (including Steam Deck, where the Linux bundle sideloads as-is). It is the most complete release to date: the full campaign runs at a steady 60 fps with the known issues now few and mostly cosmetic (Status). Free to download, build on and modify (you bring the ROM).

This is a pre-1.0 release, not a finished product. v1.0 is the target for a polished, feature-complete build; until then, expect missing features and the occasional breaking change between versions. See Status for what works today and Roadmap for where this is headed.

AI disclosure: development here was agentic - Claude Pro plus a local open-weight model on a single RTX 5090, as of August–September 2026. This project is as much a study of that process as it is a port: whether current LLMs can carry a codebase like this, and what actually goes wrong along the way. Judge the result for yourself. I'm one person doing this in my spare time, not a team. See Background for the full setup, timeline, and an honest account of what worked and what didn't.

[!IMPORTANT] You must supply your own GoldenEye 007 ROM. This repository contains no Nintendo code or assets, and no ROM. Nothing here is distributable as a playable game: see Requirements and Legal.

All in-engine, running in the port — a ~24 s gameplay montage from live v0.4.0 play sessions, opening on the Runway tank · 12 level stills in the project index

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News

• 2026-09-28 — v0.4.0: native widescreen, a complete aim system for mouse and controller, in-game key rebinding, crosshair customization, rumble-pak haptics, a rebuilt options overlay, and a broad fidelity-fix pass (water, particles, billboard trees, front-end logo, gunshot SFX, a true stable 60 fps). Release notes · downloads.
• 2026-09-20 — v0.3.0: the first release with the complete campaign playable end to end at 60 fps on Windows, Linux, and Steam Deck. Release notes.
• 2026-09-04 → 2026-09-16 — v0.1.0 – v0.2.2: the alpha and beta cycle — build chain, software RSP, first rendered frames, front end, and per-level stabilization across the campaign.

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Download

Platform	Bundle	Notes
Windows (x86_64)	win64.zip	Engine + runtime DLLs + the one-time asset tool.
Linux (x86_64) / Steam Deck	linux tarball	SDL2 is bundled, so it runs as-is on any distro, and sideloads onto a Deck with nothing installed.

Both bundles contain no ROM and no game assets: you supply your own (see Requirements), which keeps the release legal to distribute. Earlier builds: v0.3.0, v0.2.2, v0.2.1, v0.2.0, and v0.1.0 alpha, same page. You can also build it yourself; see Building.

Quick start

You need a GoldenEye 007 N64 ROM (.z64, big-endian). This release supports the NTSC-U (US) version; PAL and JP are on the roadmap (issue #85). No ROM or game asset is included or distributed. Then:

1. Download the Windows or Linux bundle from Releases and unpack it.
2. Make a data/ folder next to the executable and drop the ROM in as ge007.ntsc-final.z64.
3. Launch the executable from that folder. The first run takes a few extra seconds: it detects the ROM and generates the derived asset folders once (no Python or other tooling needed).

Read the Status section first: the small number of known issues in this release are listed plainly there.

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Status

v0.4.0 - fully playable, with a small set of known caveats. The full single-player campaign is completable end to end (all 20 missions, Agent difficulty, playtested), at a steady 60 fps; all 20 solo missions — plus the end-of-campaign credits sequence — load, render and run crash-free, verified on Windows, Linux and real Steam Deck hardware. The most common defect classes from earlier releases — particle colour drift, water seams, z-fighting, billboard trees, muzzle flashes, the front-end Nintendo logo, gunshot SFX — are fixed in this version; what remains is a short list, below. Feedback is very welcome.

What a release actually installs (no networking, no telemetry, no ROM or game assets shipped) and how faithfully the port tracks the original N64 game's logic: Security & fidelity status.

Working: boot sequence and front end (menu → mission select → briefing → start), front-end menu navigation on the left stick to match the F10 overlay (D282); all 20 solo missions load, render and are crash-free (full campaign playtested end to end at Agent difficulty, including the ending sequence); steady 60 fps (software RSP off the presentation critical path); full audio: in-level music and SFX; keyboard + mouse (click-to-lock, an aim style of your choice — N64 or centred FPS-style — with per-device sensitivity) and a modern dual-stick controller layout (use/reload/weapon-cycle on A/X/Y, rumble-pak vibration on supported pads); native widescreen at any aspect ratio (undistorted world, HUD anchored to the screen edges, 4:3 menus pillarboxed); in-game key rebinding (keyboard/mouse) with a GEPD-style default layout; crosshair customization (opt-in); Bond is fixed in cutscenes (no more floating or spin-glitching) and his third-person model positioning generally is right the large majority of the time now, at most a small drift when off; file-backed saves; faithful N64 progression by default (F10 → All unlocked opens every level, 007 mode and the full cheat menu); F10 in-game options overlay (video, input, gameplay, HUD, graphics, audio; frame cap, MSAA, filtering, FOV, sensitivity, key rebinding, crosshair, vibration); Windows and Linux, including Steam Deck.

Known issues:

• On Facility, if gas leaks during Ourumov's monologue he can pause for up to ~10 s before resuming the scripted shootout — a latent race that exists in the N64 original too (where it softlocks permanently); the port detects and auto-recovers it (D318).
• With native widescreen on, the F10 options overlay stretches with the window instead of pillarboxing like the front-end menus (legible; cosmetic; the F10 Native widescreen toggle restores the old stretched frame throughout). The world/HUD widescreen rendering itself is correct (D335b).
• The Rareware front-end logo shows a subtle texture-filtering artifact (Nintendo logo and legal page are clean). Cosmetic only (D75).
• This release ships NTSC (US) assets; PAL/JP ROMs are not supported in this version (D258).
• All unlocked is experimental: back up data/ge007.eep before enabling it. Any save while ON, even a profile-settings change, can permanently write artificial cheat unlocks and completion times into the EEPROM; switching OFF does not undo them (D387). Do not use it on a save whose original progression you need to preserve.
• Assorted further cosmetic defects are tracked in docs/dev/GRAPHICS-BACKLOG.md.
• No macOS or ARM support. Keyboard/mouse rebinding shipped in v0.4.0; controller-button rebinding is not supported yet.

Root causes and fix status for every item: the release notes and the finding log in docs/dev/findings.md.

Steam Deck

The Linux bundle is the Deck build. SFTP it over from your PC, or download it straight from the releases page on the Deck itself: extract, drop your ROM in data/, launch it once (the first run generates the derived assets), and add the executable as a non-Steam game. SDL2 is bundled, so no dependencies need installing. On SteamOS the first launch seeds ge007.ini with Deck-friendly defaults: native 1280×800 fullscreen, VSync, 2× MSAA, and 250% draw/LOD distance (the N64-authored fade distances read short on the close-up 7" panel); everything is changeable in the options overlay and persists afterwards. Do that first launch in Game Mode, not Desktop Mode — an ini created by an earlier Desktop Mode launch (e.g. while testing before adding it as a Steam shortcut) permanently skips the Deck preset, since any existing ini always wins over it (D283). If your resolution isn't 1280×800 on first Game Mode boot, just set it manually: F10 → Resolution. The renderer is CPU-bound (software RSP); expect original N64-era performance at 60 fps rather than more. This release was playtested on real Deck hardware; the v0.1.0-era Facility crash (D203) did not recur: its root cause was identified and fixed (D253), and a separate intermittent SIGSEGV in heavy firefights/terminal destruction (D255) and an audio-thread crash (D305) are both fixed and live-verified on real hardware as of this release.

In-game settings on the Deck. The options overlay is fully gamepad-driven: it opens with Select, the D-pad or left stick (up/down) moves between options, A steps the selected option forward, B steps it back, and Start (or Select again) closes. Toggles flip, resolution / MSAA / filtering cycle, sliders step in increments. With a keyboard attached the same overlay is F10 + arrows/Enter.

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Roadmap

No fixed timeline or committed feature list — this is spare-time work — but directionally, on the way to v1.0:

• Working through the known issues above and the fuller list in docs/dev/findings.md.
• PAL and JP ROM support (issue #85); NTSC-U is the only supported region today.
• Controller (pad) button rebinding UI (keyboard/mouse rebinding shipped in v0.4.0), and macOS/ARM builds.
• LAN multiplayer: reviving GoldenEye's original split-screen/deathmatch netplay across multiple PCs on a local network. Genuinely under consideration, but early and not started; no ETA.
• General polish: performance, remaining rendering/audio defects, save/config robustness.

Not currently planned: new game modes GE never shipped (e.g. co-op), online (non-LAN) multiplayer, ray tracing. If any of these matter to you, open an issue — it helps prioritize.

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Beyond playing

• Tweak it: ge007.ini and the F10 in-game overlay expose resolution, frame cap, MSAA, texture filtering, FOV/draw distance, mouse feel, key rebinding, crosshair and vibration; launch with -fresh for a clean-slate run.
• Read it: docs/internals.md maps the architecture and the software RSP; docs/porting-notes.md is the catalogue of N64→PC bug classes hit along the way. Game logic in src/ is unmodified decompilation; every hardware surface lives in the MIT-licensed port/ layer.
• Mod it: the port layer, build system and tools_pc/ are yours to extend (see License); CONTRIBUTING.md has the ground rules for getting changes in, and docs/dev/ is the raw engineering record behind every fix.

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Background

The port was built by two coding agents, a local open-weight model (unsloth/Qwen3.8-27B-GGUF on one RTX 5090, via the pi agent) doing the groundwork (build, boot chain, software-RSP integration, asset pipeline, first frames), and Claude Code (Sonnet 5, Opus 5 for the hardest bugs) joining for the collaborative phase (the 21-level sweep, the ABI finding catalog, SDL input, front end), handing work back and forth through shared written notes, directed by one person part-time. In short: 43 days (16 Aug – 28 Sep), 1005 commits, 286 findings root-caused and logged (D1–D408).

The full write-up (timeline, handoff mechanism, effort breakdown, an honest "what worked / what didn't"): docs/dev/agentic-development.md. The workflow itself: docs/dev-process.md. To cite the project or its findings: CITATION.cff (GitHub's "Cite this repository" menu).

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How this differs from the other GoldenEye PC projects

This is a native port of the original 1997 Nintendo 64 game, built from its actual reconstructed source code, the same lineage as the Perfect Dark PC port. The other well-known "GoldenEye on PC" projects are something different: they machine-translate the shipped binary of the unreleased Xbox 360 XBLA remaster, a different game on a different codebase with no shared code with this one.

	This project	The other well-known "GoldenEye on PC" recompilation projects (and their Steam Deck builds)
What it ports	The original Nintendo 64 game (1997)	The Xbox 360 XBLA HD remaster (built ~2007, never released)
How	Decompilation-based source port: human-reconstructed C, compiled for the host; game logic runs as written	Static binary recompilation: the shipped machine code is auto-translated to C; no source-level understanding
Lineage	GoldenEye 007 decompilation + Perfect Dark PC port engine family	Xbox 360 "…Recompiled" static-recompilation family
Renderer	Software RSP → OpenGL	Hardware (Vulkan)
Status	v0.4.0 public release; full campaign playable at 60 fps (see Status)	Playable full game
Why it exists	To run the original N64 game from source, and as a case study in AI-agent collaboration on a hard low-level codebase	To get a playable PC release of the remaster

They answer a different question: how to get the remaster onto PC by machine translation. This project answers how to get the original 1997 game onto PC, running from its reconstructed source.

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Requirements

You need a GoldenEye 007 (Nintendo 64) ROM that you legally own, in big-endian (.z64) format, matching one of:

Region	ROMID	ROM filename (in data/)	SHA-1
NTSC-U (US)	ntsc-final	ge007.ntsc-final.z64	abe01e4aeb033b6c0836819f549c791b26cfde83
PAL (EU)	pal-final	ge007.pal-final.z64	167c3c433dec1f1eb921736f7d53fac8cb45ee31
NTSC-J (JP)	jpn-final	ge007.jpn-final.z64	2a5dade32f7fad6c73c659d2026994632c1b3174

This release supports the US (NTSC-U) version; PAL and JP ROMs are recognised by region but not yet supported (on the roadmap, issue #85).

The port also relies on the decompilation's asset-extraction step, which pulls the level, model, texture and music data out of your ROM at build time. That step, too, requires your ROM and is part of Building.

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Building

Prerequisites: CMake >= 3.16, a C/C++ toolchain, SDL2, zlib, OpenGL, Python 3, plus the decompilation's own build dependencies (an IRIX MIPS toolchain via qemu-irix, used only for the one-time asset extraction). See docs/building.md for the full walkthrough and the asset-extraction details.

Windows (MSYS2)

# in the MINGW64 shell
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain mingw-w64-x86_64-SDL2 \
          mingw-w64-x86_64-zlib mingw-w64-x86_64-cmake \
          mingw-w64-x86_64-python make git

git clone https://github.com/jkdansereau/goldeneye-pc-port.git
cd goldeneye-pc-port
# 1. extract assets from your ROM (see docs/building.md)
# 2. build the port
./build-pc.sh ntsc-final         # NTSC-U; PAL/JP engine builds compile, but their asset sidecars are not yet producible (issue #85)

Linux

The Linux build is compiled on every push by CI (ubuntu-24.04); the release bundle additionally bundles SDL2 so no system packages are needed at runtime.

sudo apt install build-essential cmake python3 libsdl2-dev zlib1g-dev libgl1-mesa-dev
git clone https://github.com/jkdansereau/goldeneye-pc-port.git
cd goldeneye-pc-port
# extract assets (docs/building.md), then:
./build-pc.sh ntsc-final

The executable is written to build-pc/ge007.x86_64 (on Windows, build-pc/ge007.x86_64.exe).

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Running

1. Create a data/ directory in the repo root.
2. Put your ROM in it, named as in the table above (e.g. data/ge007.ntsc-final.z64).
3. Run the executable from the repo root: ./build-pc/ge007.x86_64.

Configuration is written to ge007.ini on first run; game progress lives in ge007.eep. Launch with -fresh to wipe both before starting (a clean-slate run for playtesting).

Default controls

Action	Keyboard / mouse	Controller
Move / strafe	W A S D / arrows	Left stick (or D-pad)
Aim / look	Mouse	Right stick
Fire	Left mouse	Right trigger
Aim mode	Right mouse / LShift	Left trigger / LB
Use / interact	E	A
Reload	R	X
Crouch	LCtrl	Left or right stick click
Cycle owned gadgets	Watch inventory	B
Next weapon	Mouse wheel down / Q	Y
Previous weapon	Mouse wheel up	—
Start	Enter / Tab	Start
Options overlay	F10	Select (A toggles/steps; B backs; D-pad/stick adjusts sliders; Start closes)

The default layout is the GEPD-style preset on the keyboard and the standard dual-stick scheme on controllers (left stick move, right stick look, triggers fire/aim, A use, X reload, B gadget cycle, Y weapon cycle, stick click crouch). The watch gadget cycle selects the next owned gadget in the N64 inventory. The controller layout matches Rare's Xbox 1.1 (Jinx) button roles (user-tested on a physical pad; D394), and the remaining Xbox schemes (1.2 Christmas, 1.3 Frost, 1.4 Elektra) are planned as selectable presets and not yet available. Keyboard → Bindings edits keyboard/mouse only; a controller can navigate those pages and use B to go back, but