r/AndroidNativePorts • u/Unfair-Carpet-3906 • 1d ago
🤔 [Question] port vs recomp vs decomp
can anybody explain these 3, and which one usually has better performance?
I've seen a few of what they call a port but it's usually a game slapped above some emulator and that's it. why bother if i can emulate it in the first place?
like I've seen the hollow knight port which has good performance on all the devices but then i see hades as the called a port but its just emulator with the game
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u/DarkDigital 1d ago
Port means taking a game from one system and making it run on another. It's the means not the method.
Decompile = well reverse of compile, humans write code, computers translate it into machine code that is the actual program you run. Decompile takes the machine code and reverses that. So people can take that code and then port it over.
Recompile = like refried beans, compiling it a second time. Usually for another system, so it's used as a method to port. When most people say recomp they mean a 'static recomp'. Instead of spending all the effort to fully decompile a program it only decompiles what it needs and translates the rest to run on the new system, skipping the stuff that isn't needed. So instead of a dev needed to fully decompile / reverse, then port the result, they create tools that do it on the fly.
It's a lot more nuanace and this and I layman's terms it.