The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon Recomp

The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon — PC port

A native Windows version of the Xbox 360 game, made by static recompilation with the ReXGlue SDK: the game's PowerPC code is translated to C++ ahead of time and runs directly, with the SDK providing the Xbox 360 kernel, GPU (Direct3D 12 or Vulkan) and audio.

About this port. This port isn't mine to gatekeep. It's a basic starting point to build on (features, fixes, polish), not a finished or maintained product. If you feel up to it, feel free to continue the work; forks and pull requests are welcome.

This repository contains none of the game. You need your own copy of The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon for the Xbox 360 (USA/Europe disc). Setup copies the game's files from an Xbox 360 disc image (.iso, full or trimmed) or from a folder of extracted files, and checks the version first.

Early release (0.1.0). It boots and plays, mostly at 60 FPS on a mid-range PC (about 55 on average in the first play session, with some hitches), but has had little play testing. Expect bugs; reports are welcome in Issues (tick "Full log" in the launcher and attach spyro_dotd.log).

Playing

Download spyro_dotd-PC-<version>-Setup.exe from Releases, run it, and point it at your copy of the game. Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit) with a Direct3D 12 or Vulkan graphics card.

• Any Xbox-style controller. The keyboard can play as a controller too, with the mouse turning the camera; keys are set in spyro_dotd.toml.
• The launcher sets windowed or fullscreen, window size, render sharpness (1x–3x of 1280×720), Direct3D 12 or Vulkan, and VSync.
• Saves are kept in Documents\spyro_dotd.
• Steam Deck / ROG Ally under Proton: choose Vulkan in the launcher.

See launcher/installer/README.template.txt for the player notes that ship with Setup.

Building

Needs Visual Studio 2022 (x64 tools and Windows SDK), LLVM/Clang 20, CMake 3.25+, Ninja, Python 3, and your own copy of the game.

1. Build and install the SDK branch this port uses (it carries fixes the port needs; see its commits): git clone --recursive -b spyro-dotd-0.1.0 https://github.com/Starkka15/rexglue-sdk and follow its README to build and install it.
2. Put the game's files in game/files/ (default.xex at the top), e.g. python tools/xiso_x.py <your disc.iso> game/files.
3. Generate the code from your default.xex: rexglue codegen spyro_dotd_manifest.toml (writes generated/; config/ holds the extra function entry points the analyzer misses).
4. cmake --preset win-amd64-relwithdebinfo -Drexglue_DIR=<sdk install>/lib/cmake/rexglue then cmake --build --preset win-amd64-relwithdebinfo, from a shell with the VS x64 environment and Clang on PATH (tools/rexenv.cmd does this; edit its paths). Copy the SDK's *rd.dll files next to spyro_dotd.exe.
5. Optional: launcher\package.ps1 -Sdk <sdk checkout> builds the launcher and, with Inno Setup 6, the Setup program.

The generated code is the game's code translated, so it is never committed: generated/ and game/ stay local. The scripts in tools/ are the development tools used for the port (profiling, frame analysis, finding missed functions); several have local paths to adjust.

Credits and licenses

The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon was developed by Étranges Libellules and published by Sierra Entertainment / Activision; Spyro is a trademark of its owner. This port is not affiliated with or endorsed by any of them.

The port's own code is GPL-3.0 (see LICENSE). The ReXGlue SDK is BSD-3-Clause and derives from the Xenia project; it bundles third-party libraries under their own licenses (MIT, BSD, zlib, LGPL for FFmpeg and libmspack), all listed in the LICENSES.txt that ships with Setup.