Strahlender XNU

German version: README.de.md.

strahlender-xnu

Pokémon Brilliant Diamond as a native app on iPad, iPhone, Mac, Linux and Windows. You bring your own legally obtained copy of the game and your own keys. The installer turns them into an app on your device.

This is not an emulator. The game's own ARM64 code is translated into native code ahead of time, and a small runtime replaces the Switch operating system and its graphics API. Graphics go through Metal on Apple devices and Vulkan on Linux and Windows.

The repository contains no game data, no keys, no save files and no generated code. Pokémon is a trademark of Nintendo, Game Freak and Creatures; this project is not affiliated with any of these companies.

Why "strahlender-xnu"

• strahlender is German for "brilliant", the word in the German title Pokémon Strahlender Diamant (Brilliant Diamond).
• xnu is the kernel underneath macOS, iOS and iPadOS. The project started on Apple platforms, Linux and Windows came later, and the name stayed.

Where it runs

Supported: iPad, iPhone (iPhone 11 family and newer, A13 chip with 4 GB RAM or more), Mac (Apple Silicon), Linux x86-64, Windows 10 22H2 and 11 (x86-64).
Untested: Linux aarch64. It compiles, testers are welcome.
Planned: Apple TV.

The iPhone is tested on an iPhone 11 Pro Max.

Getting started

• Installer (easiest): download the latest installer for your system. It guides you through keys, game files and the build. Python is included. See installer details.
• Command line: ./install.command on macOS (double-click it in the Finder) or ./install-linux.sh on Linux checks your tools, asks for your game files and builds.
• Build guide: docs/BUILD.md (German: docs/BUILD.de.md).

What you need: your own copy of the game (XCI, optionally the update NSP) and your prod.keys. Apps for iPhone and iPad are built on a Mac with Xcode and signed with your own Apple ID.

What is in it

• A GUI installer for macOS, Linux and Windows.
• App icons generated from your own game data, in every language of the game.
• Mod support: file mods (RomFS) can be swapped without reinstalling, code mods (ExeFS) are built into the app. See docs/mods.md.
• The Switch's own system keyboard (Horizon OS) for text entry. It needs your Switch firmware during the build. See docs/input.md.

Documentation

All documents are in docs/; start with docs/README.md. Good entry points are docs/architecture.md for how it works, docs/recomp-macapp.md, docs/recomp-ios.md and docs/recomp-linux.md for the platforms, and docs/changelog.md for recent changes.

The Unity reimplementation has been discontinued. It lives on the branch unity (see unity/DEPRECATED.md there). main no longer contains it.

Related projects

If you prefer the route through the original Unity project, the work is available elsewhere:

• uDPR by shatter9652, a Unity reimplementation based on opendpr.
• opendpr by TeamLumi, the original project.

Third-party code and attribution

This project adopts and modifies parts of LASRecomp (https://github.com/peiikai/LASRecomp, commit 09f8e5ebf28aeefd6daa1456c73ae1b7a51efec5), Copyright (c) 2026 Peiikai, MIT License. Affected are:

• shader_translator/: Maxwell-to-MSL/GLSL translator, derived from the original and modified (shader_translator/NOTICE.md, license shader_translator/LICENSE-LASRecomp).
• scripts/recomp/runtime/: runtime based on the original's design, contains parts of it verbatim (scripts/recomp/runtime/NOTICE.md, license scripts/recomp/runtime/LICENSE-LASRecomp).
• Headers cpu.h, simd.h, simd_fp.h: unchanged, in scripts/recomp/upstream/runtime/ (license scripts/recomp/upstream/LICENSE).
• NVN graphics layer (Metal and Vulkan): modified relative to LASRecomp; sources under scripts/recomp/runtime/nvn/src/; the unmodified originals are in the git history (commits e43b466, 2d01ade, d1c40e7) and in LASRecomp commit 09f8e5e.

Complete list, third-party components, and what was not adopted: THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

The user of this repository has explicitly approved the adoption and further development of the MIT-licensed code. The original's license explicitly excludes Nintendo property and the third-party components in its third_party/; none of these are included here.

License of this project's own code

The project's own code is licensed under the MIT License (LICENSE, Copyright (c) 2026 Veemyu). The third-party parts above are excluded: they keep their own licenses (scripts/recomp/runtime/LICENSE-LASRecomp, scripts/recomp/upstream/LICENSE, shader_translator/LICENSE-LASRecomp). Game data, keys, and dumps are not part of the repository and are not covered by this license.