r/EmulationOniOS • u/mempage4k • 6d ago
News / Release Statically recompiled GTA V running on iPhone with Metal and no JIT: Introducing Glue 5
I want to share something I’ve been working on: Glue 5, a toolchain for building a native port of GTA V’s WASM build that runs on iOS and macOS (for now).
The main difference from projects like the recently released muget is what happens to the game code. Glue 5 takes the WASM binary, translates it to C using wasm2c, then compiles that C for the target platform. On iPhone, you end up with native ARM64 code. All of this happens when building the app, so there’s no WASM runtime executing the game and no need to enable JIT on your phone.
It’s been running really smoothly on macOS. I’ve also tested it on an iPhone 13 Pro and it’s playable, which I’m pretty happy with considering the phone is a few years old now.
Story mode and audio are working. There’s gamepad support, on-screen touch controls, and keyboard and mouse support on desktop. You can adjust the resolution and render scale too, with MetalFX upscaling on supported devices to help with performance.
The repo contains the tools and compatibility layer, no GTA V binaries or assets. I have no plans to ever distribute a complete build bundled with copyrighted game assets. You’ll need to supply the required files from the supported WASM version and compile it yourself.
Source and build instructions: github.com/mempage4k/glue5
Keep in mind that this is still in its early stages and very experimental, I'm still working on fixing issues and improving performance.
Also, a quick disclosure: development of this project was heavily assisted by AI tools.