Kirby Air Ride: Recompiled

Kirby Air Ride: Recompiled

A native PC version of Kirby Air Ride (GameCube, USA, GKYE01), made by static recompilation: the game's PowerPC code is translated to C++ ahead of time and runs natively, with its own runtime in place of the console's hardware. No emulator.

Nothing of the game is included: neither its data nor its code, translated or not. You need your own copy of the game (a USA disc image). The first time you run it, the program builds the game from the program on your disc - the recompiler turns it into C++ and a bundled compiler compiles it, on your computer, in a few minutes - and the game reads everything else from the disc as it plays.

Features

• Widescreen at any aspect ratio, with the HUD kept at the screen's edges and the menus laid out for it; or the original 4:3.
• Smooth motion on 120/144 Hz displays (in-between frames), the game itself at its 60 Hz.
• Online play in the game's own LAN mode (Air Ride and City Trial, up to 4 players a match - up to 8 in City Trial with the 8-rider build): accounts, a server browser, lobbies with chat and host settings, peer-to-peer connections with a relay as fallback, and a lockstep netcode that hides latency. Play on the official service or on a dedicated server anyone can run (docs/ONLINE.md).
• A settings menu (F1) drawn with the game's own art: display, frame rate, in-between frames, volume.
• 8 players online in City Trial (the 8-rider build): one per PC, each with their own screen and HUD, in step through the whole match - start spots, the Stadiums, the HUD (places 5th-8th, the High Jump and Air Glider lists), the machine stats and the results for 8. Offline the build plays as the game does (up to 4 riders). Air Ride stays at 4 for now; riders 5-8 have no name label floating over them; two 8-player matches in a row in one lobby are not tested yet (docs/MORE_PLAYERS.md).

Screenshots

16:9

4:3

Online

8 riders

Playing

1. Download KirbyAirRideRecompiled-<version>-windows-x64.zip from the releases and unzip it to a folder of your own (Documents, Desktop - not Program Files).
2. Run kirbyairride.exe and choose your Kirby Air Ride disc image (USA, GKYE01: .iso, .gcm, .ciso, .rvz or .wia), or drop it on the window.
3. The first time, it builds the game from your disc: it checks the program on it, recompiles it to C++ and compiles that with the bundled clang (tools\llvm, the official LLVM 19.1.5). A few minutes, once; then the game starts.

8 players online: run Kirby Air Ride (8 players).bat (the program with --8p); the first time it builds the 8-rider build too. For 8-player online every player in the lobby uses it, and the host sets Match Players above 4 (City Trial).

The disc setup checks for: the USA release's main.dol, 5,514,016 bytes, SHA-1 977533bb96e6a16e127946396489be1b4164ac42 (any image format, trimmed or not). Setup's steps, the compiler's command lines and how the pieces fit: docs/SETUP.md.

Controls: a controller works directly (recommended); the keyboard too. F1: settings. F11: full screen. Saves go to saves\MemoryCardA.raw (a GameCube memory card image, the same format as Dolphin's); settings to kirbyairride-settings.ini.

Building from source

On Windows you need Visual Studio 2022 with C++ desktop development and C++ Clang tools (clang-cl, CMake and Ninja come with it), Python 3.10 or newer, and your disc image.

git clone --recursive https://github.com/sonsegajp/Kirby-Air-Ride-Recompiled.git
cd Kirby-Air-Ride-Recompiled
powershell -File tools\build.ps1 -Target kirbyairride                  # the program (the runtime and setup)

The program then builds the game itself the first time it runs, as the download does - with build\windows-clang\tools\llvm holding clang.exe and lld-link.exe (LLVM 19.1.5). Or, for working on the game: extract the program (python tools\extract.py "<disc image>" orig), recompile it (sa2recompile --dol orig\main.dol --rels orig\rel --names config\GKYE01\names.txt --out build\gen) and build the CMake target kirbyairride_game - the developer build of the game module, beside the program (tools\build8p.ps1: the 8-rider build's). Play.bat plays it. Nothing generated from your disc ever enters the repository (orig\ and build\ are ignored); tools\package.ps1 makes the download, with no game code in it.

Online: a build made from this repository has no official service built in (its address is set when building: -DKAR_ONLINE_MASTER=host:port, or online_master.txt). Use a dedicated server: in the game, Online > Settings > Service: Dedicated Server, then its address.

Running a dedicated server

Windows, nothing to install: download AirRideServer-win64.zip from the releases, unzip it and double-click StartServer.bat (it has Python's embeddable runtime built in). It listens on TCP 27600 and UDP 27601 and lists this PC's addresses; over the internet, forward those two ports on your router. Players choose Online > Settings > Service: Dedicated Server and type the address. It keeps its own accounts in airride.db.

Linux or macOS: server/run.sh (Python 3.10+, standard library only). A VPS, backups, bans and the other options: server/DEPLOY.md. The protocol: docs/ONLINE.md.

How it works

Part	Where
The recompiler: finds every function in the game's program and translates its PowerPC code to C++	src/recompiler
The runtime: memory, the CPU's state, the OS and hardware the game calls, audio (DSP, AX), input, the memory card	src/runtime
Graphics: the game's GX commands drawn with Aurora (WebGPU/Dawn), plus our patches (patches/aurora, applied at configure time)	src/runtime/gx.cpp, extern/aurora
Widescreen: 3D views widened, each 2D piece placed by what it is (HUD clusters to the nearest edge)	src/runtime/gx.cpp
Online: the game's network library replaced, a lockstep in place of its LAN ring, the client, the server	src/runtime/lan*.cpp, airnet.cpp, server/
8 riders: recompiler overrides that move the game's per-player arrays to larger storage	config/GKYE01/patches_8p.txt, src/runtime/morepl.cpp

Licence

PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0: use, change and share it, but not commercially. Aurora (a submodule) has its own licence; src/runtime/place_digits.inc is drawn with RocknRoll One (SIL Open Font License).

Kirby Air Ride is a trademark of Nintendo; this project is not affiliated with Nintendo or HAL Laboratory. It contains none of their code or data.