Perfect Dark XBLA PC Recomp

Perfect Dark XBLA PC Recomp

A native Windows PC port of Perfect Dark (2010), the Xbox 360 remaster by Rare and 4J Studios, built using ReXGlue static recompilation. Play at up to 4K and 60 FPS, with keyboard and mouse support, enhanced graphics, and LAN / Virtual LAN multiplayer. No emulator required.

Free and open-source.

Like the recomp and want to support future projects? You can tip me on Ko-fi.

You must provide your own copy of Perfect Dark XBLA. No copyrighted game files are distributed with this project. The launcher imports the required files from your Xbox 360 game package during first-time setup.

Download & Installation

Download the latest release

1. Download the latest ZIP and extract it to a folder of your choice.
2. Run Perfect Dark.exe.
3. Drag your Xbox 360 Perfect Dark package into the setup window, or select Browse Package.
4. Choose your preferred options, including fullscreen, language, optional unlocks and Auto-Aim.
5. Click Play once setup is complete.

After setup, simply run Perfect Dark.exe to play. Your original game package is no longer needed.

To reopen setup: Hold Shift while launching the game.

System Requirements

• Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit)
• AVX2-compatible processor
• DirectX 12 or Vulkan-compatible graphics card
• Your own Perfect Dark XBLA package (Title ID 584109C2)

Supported packages begin with 4287CC74 (original release) or 8292DB97 (re-release).

Features

Graphics & Performance

• Native PC rendering using Plume, with DirectX 12 or Vulkan
• 60 FPS gameplay with improved frame pacing
• Up to 4K resolution with fullscreen and windowed modes
• Render Scale: 1x, 2x or 3x
• AMD FSR 1 upscaling and adjustable sharpness
• V-Sync, Vivid Colours, Black Level and Camera Bob settings
• F12 screenshots and an optional FPS counter

Most graphics settings apply instantly; Render Scale and Graphics API restart the game.

Controls & Quality of Life

• Full keyboard and mouse support, including raw mouse input and rebindable keys
• Xbox controller support
• Native PC settings menus
• Optional Auto-Aim
• Skip cutscenes using mouse or controller
• Unlock all cheats, missions and multiplayer content during setup
• Five languages: English, French, German, Italian and Spanish
• Local achievements and leaderboards
• Portable installation with local saves and settings
• Built-in update checker

Multiplayer

• Up to 8 players in Combat Simulator (up to 12 with Simulants)
• 2-player Co-Operative and Counter-Operative modes
• LAN and Virtual LAN connections
• Compatible with Radmin VPN, ZeroTier, Tailscale and Hamachi
• Multiplayer music synchronised across connected players

Keyboard & Mouse Controls

Key	Action
W, A, S, D	Move
Mouse	Look / Aim
Left Click	Fire / Select
Right Click	Aim / Back
Middle Click	Zoom
E	Interact
R	Reload
Q (Hold)	Weapon menu
F	Secondary fire
Mouse Wheel	Switch weapons
Ctrl	Crouch
Tab	Objectives
Esc	Pause / Back

All key bindings can be customised under Help & Options → Settings → Keyboard & Mouse.

Xbox controllers use the original console controls.

Updates

Check for new versions through Help & Options → Settings → Check for Updates.

If a newer version is available, choose Update now: the update is downloaded, verified against the checksum GitHub publishes and installed, without touching your imported game files, saves or settings. The game only goes online when you check.

Alternatively, download the latest ZIP from GitHub Releases and extract it over your existing installation.

For detailed changes and bug fixes, see the release notes.

Known Limitations

• Windows only.
• Some multiplayer configurations.
• Vulkan has not been fully tested on AMD and Intel GPUs.
• Windows SmartScreen may warn about the unsigned executable. Download only from the official release page.
• Windows Firewall may request permission for network multiplayer.
• Displays running at 144 or 165 Hz without variable refresh may exhibit uneven 60 FPS pacing. Use G-Sync / FreeSync or a 120 Hz refresh rate if available.

Renderer compatibility: If you encounter problems with Plume, the previous renderer can be enabled by adding gpu_native = false to resources\userdata\perfect_dark.toml.

Reporting Issues

Found a bug? Open a GitHub Issue.

Please include a description of the problem and your latest log from:

resources\runtime\logs\

For crashes, attach the corresponding crash-*.dmp file if available.

For performance, stuttering or multiplayer issues:

1. Open resources\userdata\perfect_dark.toml.
2. Set diagnostics = true.
3. Reproduce the issue and close the game.
4. Attach the latest log to your GitHub Issue.
5. Set diagnostics back to false afterwards.

For Developers

Building from source. You need Git, CMake 3.25 or newer, Ninja, LLVM/Clang 18 or newer (installed in C:\Program Files\LLVM), Python 3, Visual Studio 2022 or newer with the C++ workload (for the Windows SDK and the Visual C++ runtime that releases ship) and Windows PowerShell, plus your own Perfect Dark package.

ReXGlue is the rexglue-sdk submodule, pinned to upstream v0.9.0. This project's changes to it are kept in patches/rexglue.patch, which CMake applies automatically when it configures; the Plume renderer and XenosRecomp (the thirdparty submodules) get theirs from patches/plume.patch and patches/xenosrecomp.patch the same way. ReXGlue's dependencies are nested deeply, so enable long paths when cloning, and keep the clone in a short folder path:

git -c core.longpaths=true clone --recurse-submodules --shallow-submodules https://github.com/CaiusCodes/Perfect-Dark-XBLA-PC-Recomp.git
cd Perfect-Dark-XBLA-PC-Recomp

Extract your package into game/, generate the recompiled code from your own default.xex, then build the game:

.\tools\Extract-STFS.ps1 -Path <your package> -OutputDir game
cmake --preset win-amd64-release
cmake --build --preset win-amd64-release --target perfect_dark_codegen
cmake --preset win-amd64-release
cmake --build --preset win-amd64-release

The perfect_dark_codegen step builds ReXGlue's code generator and translates game/default.xex into C++ in generated/; the second configure picks that code up. The generated code is derived from the game, so it is never committed (only the SDK boilerplate generated/rexglue.cmake is). The port's changes to the game's own code are codegen hooks: perfect_dark_config.toml lists them and src/perfect_dark_hooks.cpp implements them. Never edit generated/ by hand.

The game is built to out/build/win-amd64-release/perfect_dark.exe. To run it from there, link your extracted package in as its assets folder:

New-Item -ItemType Junction -Path "out\build\win-amd64-release\assets" -Target game

Developer features are off by default. In perfect_dark.toml (beside the exe when run from the build folder):

• diagnostics = true writes the detailed log described above;
• enable_rexglue_menus = true brings back ReXGlue's F-key menus (settings and network panels);
• pd_dev_hotkeys = true enables the developer diagnostics hotkeys.

.\tools\Make-Release.ps1 (or Make Release.bat) builds the release ZIP, out\release\Perfect-Dark-XBLA-PC-Recomp-v<version>.zip. It holds one Perfect Dark folder with the launcher (Perfect Dark.exe, built from packaging/launcher by packaging/Build-Launcher.ps1), README, licences and resources\runtime (the game and its DLLs), and never any game data. Before zipping it audits the folder: forbidden file types, a byte comparison against your extracted game, and a scan for personal paths. The version comes from the VERSION file. Keep the ZIP's name when publishing a release: Check for Updates looks for exactly that asset.

Licence and Credits

This project's own code is released under The Unlicense (see LICENSE, which also lists what it does not cover). It is built on:

• ReXGlue by Tom Clay and contributors (BSD 3-Clause), which includes code derived from Xenia.
• Plume by renderbag and contributors (MIT), the rendering library the native renderer is built on, and XenosRecomp (MIT), which translates the game's shaders on your PC with Microsoft's DirectX Shader Compiler.
• The STFS package reader (packaging/launcher/stfs.cpp and tools/Extract-STFS.ps1), derived from Velocity and licensed under the GPL-3.0. The launcher it is compiled into (Perfect Dark.exe in the release root) is therefore distributed under the GPL-3.0; the game itself is a separate program.
• The Perfect Dark decompilation project, whose names and documentation of the N64 game helped find the way around this version's code (used as a reference; no code was copied).

ReXGlue, Plume, XenosRecomp and their third-party libraries keep their own licences; see packaging/licenses.

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Perfect Dark is the property of its respective rights holders. This is an independent fan project and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft, Rare or 4J Studios.