SpaceAnimalsRecomp

SpaceAnimalsRecomp — StarFox Remake [recompiled]

SpaceAnimalsRecomp is a static recompilation of Star Fox (Nintendo Switch 2, update 2.0.0) into a native Windows application: StarFox Remake [recompiled]. The game's ARM64 code is translated to C++ and compiled to x86-64 on your PC, the Switch 2 graphics API (NVN) runs on Vulkan, and the game's shaders are translated to SPIR-V. There is no emulation: the whole game runs as a native program. The goal is a full PC version of your own copy of the game: a launcher, PC display options, keyboard and controller, and the game's text and voices in any of its languages.

Before you report a bug

• Use the latest release: the launcher tells you when there is a new one.
• Search the existing issues first.
• Say which CPU and GPU you use (and your GPU driver version): only one configuration has been tested so far.
• Click BUG REPORT in the launcher and attach the SpaceAnimalsRecomp-bug-report.zip it makes: it has your hardware and all the logs, without your Windows user name and without anything from the game.
• No launcher window (or no button)? Attach the logs by hand, all in recomp\build\full\ next to lanceur.exe:
  • recomp_run.log for a game bug (the game writes a new one at each start, so take it right after the bug; the launcher keeps the previous one as recomp_run_precedent.log);
  • preparation.log for a build problem;
  • precompile.log for a shader compilation problem;
  • lanceur.log, next to lanceur.exe, for a launcher problem.
• Crash or graphics bug? Tell us where in the game it happens, and attach your save if you can (close the game and zip %APPDATA%\SpaceAnimalsRecomp\save).

Getting started (1.0)

You need:

• Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit;
• a CPU with AVX2 (2013 or newer);
• a GPU with a Vulkan 1.3 driver (tested on NVIDIA; AMD support improved in 1.0.3; Intel is untested);
• about 6 GB of free disk space during the build;
• memory: 32 GB of RAM recommended. Since 1.0.3 the game uses much less memory; with 16 GB, close other programs (another game, the browser…) before playing. The launcher warns you when less than 10 GB is free. 16 GB players: please tell us how it goes in #5.

The only configuration tested so far is a powerful one: AMD Ryzen 7 9700X, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti. The project is experimental and not optimized yet, so a less powerful PC may not reach a steady 60 fps.

About performance: on Switch 2, the game needs DLSS to run smoothly: it draws at a lower resolution and DLSS upscales the picture. By default SpaceAnimalsRecomp draws everything at native resolution: the picture is sharper, but it needs a lot more power from your graphics card. Since 1.1.0, GRAPHICS in the launcher has a lower 3D rendering scale, AMD FSR (all cards) and NVIDIA DLSS (RTX cards), all experimental. They help when your graphics card is what holds the game back.

Handheld PCs: not tested yet on handhelds such as the Steam Deck, Lenovo Legion Go or ASUS ROG Ally. On the Steam Deck (SteamOS), the Windows build would have to run through Proton. Feedback is welcome in the Issues.

1. Download SpaceAnimalsRecomp-1.1.0-windows.zip from Releases. It bundles everything the build and the game need (Python, Clang, GCC, glslang, SDL3, and the FSR and DLSS libraries): nothing else to install.
2. Extract it to a folder you can write to, not Program Files, whose path has only Latin characters, for example C:\Games\StarFox. Spaces are fine: the compiler is then copied once to C:\ProgramData\StarFoxRecomp (about 400 MB).
3. Run lanceur.exe. Choose your copy (COPY › choose: your .nup file), then click BUILD THE GAME.
   • The launcher checks that it is Star Fox 2.0.0 by the SHA-256 hashes in the file's index, without reading all 30 GB.
   • It extracts the executables, recompiles the whole game code (about 20 to 30 minutes, the launcher stays usable), links recomp_main.exe and translates the game's shaders.
   • It then compiles every shader for your GPU, like recent PC games do on their first launch (about a minute), so there is no shader compilation stutter in game. Nothing opens by itself during the build.
4. Click PLAY. Under the button, choose FULL SCREEN or WINDOWED (Alt+Enter or F11 also switch in game). SETTINGS has the game language (15 choices), resolution (up to 4K), frame rate, volume, update checks, the game's location (Move…) and a desktop shortcut. GRAPHICS has the graphics card, the 3D rendering scale and upscaling (FSR, or DLSS on NVIDIA RTX).

Your copy is never modified (read-only). The game's own icon is taken from your copy at build time and shown on recomp_main.exe (named "StarFox Remake" in the Task Manager); it is never distributed. The launcher's background clips, gameplay recorded by SerenityG4K, come with the package.

Updates

The launcher checks this repository's releases when it starts (you can turn it off in SETTINGS). When a new version is out, it asks you first; if you say yes, it downloads it, checks its SHA-256 hash, installs it and restarts. It then asks if you want to rebuild the game: some improvements require rebuilding the game. It only redoes the parts whose code changed. You can say no and keep playing; REBUILD NOW › on the launcher's home page does it later. Your copy, your saves and your settings stay. Since 1.1.0, the update also downloads the FSR and DLSS libraries from AMD's and NVIDIA's official repositories, with their SHA-256 hashes checked.

Shader precompilation

Every one of the game's 2,388 translated shaders is compiled for your GPU once, on the first launch, and again only after a GPU driver update. SpaceAnimalsRecomp uses Vulkan graphics pipeline libraries (VK_EXT_graphics_pipeline_library): each shader is compiled on its own, ahead of time, and a draw only links precompiled pieces, which takes a fraction of a millisecond. The result is kept in recomp\build\full\pipelines.cache. Deleting it only means compiling again on the next launch. On a GPU without pipeline libraries, shaders are compiled the first time they are drawn, then kept in the same cache.

2,308 of them come from the shader archive of your copy. The other 80 (72 of them compute shaders) are created by the game when it starts, from elsewhere in your copy: the build runs the game for a few seconds in the background, without a window, to collect them, then translates and compiles them too.

Where are my saves?

In %APPDATA%\SpaceAnimalsRecomp\save (since 1.0.3; saves from an older version are copied there the first time). They stay if you reinstall or move SpaceAnimalsRecomp. A backup is made before every build and update; to make your own, close the game and copy the whole save folder.

Uninstalling

Click UNINSTALL on the launcher's build page, or run uninstall.bat. It removes everything SpaceAnimalsRecomp put on your PC (the install folder, the build, the compiler copy in C:\ProgramData\StarFoxRecomp, temporary files and logs). It never touches your copy of the game, and keeps your saves unless you ask it to remove them.

What you need

• Your own Star Fox for Nintendo Switch 2 (cartridge or digital) with its 2.0.0 update (v131072), dumped from your own console as a single .nup file (title ID 0400E88025B1A000). The launcher tells you if the file isn't the right game or version.
• Windows 10 or 11 on x86-64 with AVX2, a GPU with Vulkan 1.3, and 32 GB of RAM (recommended).

Status

Estimates of where each part stands. "Tested in game" is how much of the game has been played through on SpaceAnimalsRecomp so far.

	Part	Progress	What it means
✅	Recompiler	100%	The whole game (main, sdk and the four subsdk modules) recompiles from ARM64 to C++ and native x86-64
✅	Launcher and game setup	100%	Copy check by SHA-256, extraction, code build, link and shader translation, all from your own file, with progress and logs
🔧	Shader translation	97%	2,388 of the game's 2,468 shader stages translate to SPIR-V; 80 are left to translate
✅	Shader precompilation	100%	Every shader compiled for your GPU on the first launch: no compilation stutter in game
✅	Text and voice languages	100%	Any of the game's 15 languages (Automatic follows Windows)
✅	Sound	100%	The game's audio, mixed by its own audio engine
✅	Display	100%	Full screen (borderless) or windowed, from the launcher or in game (Alt+Enter, F11); resolution up to 4K
✅	Updates	100%	The launcher asks before installing; only the parts that changed are rebuilt
🔧	Frame rate	90%	A steady 60 fps; 90 and 120 fps are not stable yet (55 to 118 fps in Corneria at 120 for now)
🔧	Horizon OS services	90%	Threads, files, controllers, applets, time and audio: everything the game has used so far
🔧	Graphics (NVN on Vulkan)	90%	The whole game draws correctly on NVIDIA; AMD support improved in 1.0.3; Intel is untested
🔧	Controls	85%	Keyboard and controllers (Xbox, PlayStation, Switch Pro, Joy-Con), all remappable in the launcher; no mouse yet
🔧	Tested in game	90%	The whole game has been finished several times, and it is rather stable: report what breaks
🔧	NVIDIA DLSS	70%	Experimental since 1.1.0, RTX cards only: DLAA or upscaling, DLSS 4 or 4.5 model
🔧	AMD FSR	70%	Experimental since 1.1.0, all cards: FSR 3.1, or FSR 4 on some Radeon cards (FSR 4 untested so far)
🗺️	Frame generation	0%	Planned: generated frames between the ones the game draws, for a higher frame rate on screen
🗺️	Mod support	0%	Planned: loading mods, managed from the launcher
🗺️	Online play	0%	Planned: the game's online modes
🗺️	Mouse controls	0%	Planned: the game's mouse mode, with the PC mouse
🗺️	amiibo	0%	Planned: the game's amiibo features
🗺️	Several controllers at once	0%	Planned
🗺️	Ultrawide (21:9, 32:9)	0%	Possibly feasible, not started (asked for in #2)
🗺️	HDR	0%	Planned: the game has HDR built in, it has to be turned on for PC screens (asked for in #30)
🗺️	5.1 surround sound	0%	Planned, as an experimental option: the game already mixes in 5.1 (asked for in #28)
🗺️	Linux	0%	Planned

✅ done · 🔧 in progress · 🗺️ roadmap

Controls

Xbox, PlayStation (DualShock 4, DualSense), Switch Pro and Joy-Con controllers work, USB or Bluetooth (since 1.1.0; Switch 2 controllers are not supported yet). Controller buttons follow the position on the pad (the Switch's A is the Xbox B, and so on). The keys and buttons below are the default ones. You can change them on the launcher's CONTROLS page:

• KEYBOARD: pick WASD (QWERTY) or ZQSD (AZERTY), or click a key's box and press the key you want;
• CONTROLLER: click a button, then press the new one or click it on the drawing of your controller.

Changes apply the next time you start the game.

Switch	Keyboard	Xbox controller
A	C or Enter	B
B	X or Backspace	A
X	V	Y
Y	Z	X
L	Q	LB
R	E	RB
ZL	R	LT
ZR	T	RT
+	M or Esc	Start
−	N or Tab	Back
Left stick (click)	W A S D (F)	Left stick
Right stick (click)	I J K L (H)	Right stick
D-pad	Arrow keys	D-pad

Building from source

Windows only for now.

1. Clone the repository, then get the toolchain (Python 3.13 with zstandard, lz4 and capstone; GCC 16.2 from WinLibs; glslang 16.6), downloaded from their official sources with their SHA-256 hashes checked, into recomp\outils: python recomp\launcher\outils.py. MSYS2 UCRT64 with the same tools works too.
2. Build the launcher: python recomp\launcher\construire.py (it writes lanceur.exe at the root of the repository, next to recomp, as in the release package).
3. Run lanceur.exe and build the game from it, or from a shell: python -u recomp\launcher\preparer.py --copie "<your copy>.nup".
4. To make release archives: python recomp\launcher\paquet.py <output folder>.

The developer notes (in French), with everything learned about the game, NVN and the Switch 2 along the way, and the debugging switches (RECOMP_* environment variables), are in docs/DEV-NOTES-fr.md.

Respect copyright

• Star Fox is © Nintendo. This is a fan project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Nintendo. Nintendo Switch and Star Fox are trademarks of Nintendo.
• This repository contains no game files, no game code (also not the C++ code the recompiler generates from it), no assets, no keys, and release builds won't either.
• The game code you generate and the build made from it contain Nintendo's code. They are for your own use only: don't share them, upload them or ship them.
• Issues, pull requests or discussions that contain game files, keys, generated code or links to pirated copies will be removed. Piracy is not supported in any way.
• Follow the copyright laws of your country. Dumping a game you own for personal use is legal in some countries and not in others; that is your responsibility.

Credits

• SerenityG4K: creator and maintainer of SpaceAnimalsRecomp: direction, testing and review. Also the author of the Star Fox Command native port, whose launcher inspired this one.
• Claude (Anthropic), through Claude Code: code, tooling, reverse engineering and documentation, under SerenityG4K's direction.
• The static recompilation approach of N64Recomp and XenonRecomp, which showed the way (no code from them is used).
• The Switch homebrew community's documentation (Switchbrew).
• Libraries and tools: Capstone (BSD), python-zstandard (BSD), python-lz4 (BSD), glslang (BSD-3-Clause and Apache 2.0), the Vulkan headers (Apache 2.0), GCC through WinLibs (GPL 3 with the GCC Runtime Library Exception), Python (PSF License), SDL (zlib), the AMD FidelityFX SDK (MIT) and NVIDIA DLSS (NVIDIA's license). This software uses NVIDIA DLSS.

License

SpaceAnimalsRecomp's own code is free software under the GNU General Public License v3.0 (see LICENSE), © 2026 SerenityG4K. You may use, study, share and modify it. Anything you distribute that is based on it must stay under the same license, with its source code, and keep the copyright notices and credit to SpaceAnimalsRecomp and SerenityG4K. Third-party components in recomp/runtime/third_party/ keep their own licenses. The license covers this project's code only: it grants nothing for Nintendo's game, which you must supply yourself.

Additional permission (GPL-3.0 section 7) for NVIDIA DLSS. If you modify SpaceAnimalsRecomp, or any covered work, by linking or combining it with NVIDIA DLSS (nvngx_dlss.dll, from the NVIDIA DLSS SDK), containing parts covered by the terms of NVIDIA's DLSS SDK license, the licensor of SpaceAnimalsRecomp grants you additional permission to convey the resulting work. NVIDIA DLSS is a separate work: the GPL does not apply to it, and it stays under NVIDIA's license. The AMD FSR libraries are under the MIT license, which is compatible with the GPL.

The full Windows package (-windows.zip) also bundles, in its outils folder, the unmodified binaries of the build tools and of the libraries the game loads, under their own licenses. GCC and glslang are reduced to the files the build uses.

• GCC 16.2.0, GNU Binutils 2.47 and MinGW-w64 14.0.0, from the WinLibs build (GPL 3, with the GCC Runtime Library Exception for the runtime libraries; MinGW-w64 under its own permissive licenses), with the libraries the compiler uses: GMP, MPFR, MPC (LGPL 3), isl (MIT), libiconv, libintl (LGPL 2.1), zstd (BSD) and zlib;
• glslang 16.6.0 (BSD-3-Clause, Apache 2.0 and other free licenses);
• Python 3.13.17 embeddable (PSF License), with zstandard 0.25.0, lz4 4.4.5 and capstone 5.0.7 (BSD);
• SDL 3.4.20 (zlib), for controllers;
• AMD FSR libraries from the FidelityFX SDK 2.4.0 (MIT);
• NVIDIA DLSS (nvngx_dlss.dll, DLSS SDK 310.9.16). It is not free software and not under the GPL: it stays under NVIDIA's license (NVIDIA-DLSS-SDK-LICENSE.txt), may only be used with this application, and may not be modified or redistributed on its own. This software uses NVIDIA DLSS. NVIDIA, GeForce RTX and DLSS are trademarks of NVIDIA Corporation.

recomp/licences/THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.txt lists every component with its exact version, its license and where to get its source code; the full license texts are next to it, in recomp/licences/. Both are also at the root of every release package (THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.txt and the LICENCES folder).