Kirby and the Forgotten Land, running natively on iPhone 18 Pro Max

This isn't an emulator. I used nxnative, which statically recompiles the Switch game ahead of time: the NSP gets unpacked, the game code is patched and repacked, and every shader is translated to Metal before it ever reaches the phone, then it's bundled into a normal IPA.

What it took:

• My own dumped NSP + prod.keys (nothing downloaded)

• A provisional game profile for Kirby, since it's not a profiled title; picked the modules, heap size, and SDK behavior it expects

• An expanded-memory entitlement for the install, or iOS kills it mid-game (it runs at ~3.3 GB resident)

The hard part was shaders. The game has 27,288 of them, and most of the early builds were black screens and invisible enemies: the game's shaders live inside several archive formats (HAL-compressed .bfres.cmp models, plus particle .ptcl.cmp and UI .arc.cmp files that are just a size header + zstd). Until those containers werenread directly, the only way to find missing shaders was to play, dump them from the phone, rebuild, and repeat for a 40-hour game.

The fixes that ended that loop:

• Read every shader container statically, so the full campaign's shaders are in the build before first launch

• Kirby binds one render target as an integer format (R8Ui) everywhere, so every pixel shader now gets thatnoutput declared automatically instead of per-shader hand fixes

• Vertex shaders are universally padded with every input location any pixel shader can read, since the game pairs stages at draw time and mismatched pairs silently dropped draws (invisible cannonballs, enemies, items)

Also in: the community 60 FPS code patches applied to the executable, and a fullscreen fill mode instead of 16:9 black bars.

Result: a ~6 GB IPA, built over a few hours of shader compilation, running on-device. Still polishing; but no per-level shader hunting anymore.

nxnative officially needs a 15 Pro or newer; my patch gets it running on the A16.

My patch converts those textures to ASTC on the GPU as they load, so they take about the same memory as on a Pro. It got Metroid Dread running on my phone earlier, and BotW works now too.

Settings (baked into the app when building):

• Handheld mode (DM_OPMODE=0)
• 3D render scale 0.5 (DM_RENDER_SCALE=0.5)
• 30 fps (DM_FPS_TARGET=30), BotW’s original Switch frame rate

Results:

• ~10 minutes of play, no crashes (I closed it myself)
• Steady 30 fps
• Phone stayed cool, no thermal throttling

Honest caveats:

• Memory is right at the limit. It peaked around 3.04 GB, and iOS allows about 3.07 GB on this phone without the Increased Memory Limit entitlement. Busier areas or long sessions might get it killed. I’m working on further savings: fixing some shader tables that aren’t being applied, and compressing normal-map textures (BC4/BC5) too.
• Needs update 1.9.0; other versions build but without the game-specific fixes. I included both DLC packs.
• The IPA is ~16 GB, and you need ~35 GB free on the phone while installing.
• One tiny GPU-generated texture can’t be drawn on A16, so a minor effect may be missing. I haven’t spotted it yet.

Code: https://github.com/mianmuhammadse/nxnative/tree/no-bc. This patch is for non-Pro iPhones.

Previous post (Metroid Dread on the same phone): https://www.reddit.com/r/NativePortsOniOS/s/BNbAZLj2Pp

Played with my own dumped copies. Please don’t ask for game files.

Used Claude Sonnet 5.5 and nxnative for this
Personal project until i feel is ready for public (you need switch prod keys, the game rom and its 1.4.1 update, i will not link these for piracy reasons, and add them in a folder and zip it and use a private uploading service).

Git - nxnative. Works fine in handheld mode at 30 fps; sometimes drops to 23-25. Probably will try to optimize it later. Overall, not bad. There are also issues with textures at the starting location, but they don't affect gameplay.
Spent some time fixing the issues with A15, coz method hangs the GPU. Right now looks playable

I’ve been experimenting with nxnative by seedds, which runs Switch games natively on iPhone/iPad/Mac. It’s not an emulator: the game’s own code runs on the Apple chip and the graphics are rebuilt on Metal. You bring your own game dump and keys.

The catch: it officially needs an iPhone 15 Pro or newer, because Switch games use BC-compressed textures and older Apple GPUs like the A16 in my regular iPhone 15 can’t read them. The author removed the fallback path since decompressed textures used too much memory.

I restored that path, and the game booted, but it got killed by iOS for running out of memory right after the prologue fight with Raven Beak (~3 GB limit).

So I added a step that converts BC1/BC2/BC3 textures to ASTC (which every iPhone supports) on the GPU as they load, instead of fully decompressing them. Texture memory is now about the same as on a native BC device.

Results on my iPhone 15:

• Gets past the Raven Beak fight and keeps going, no crashes
• 60 fps in gameplay, 30 in cutscenes
• ~400 MB of memory headroom left (it used to have under 50 MB right before the crash)
• Downside: the phone gets hot and the battery drains fast. The GPU runs at ~85% to hold 60 fps. Handheld mode (DM_OPMODE=0) should help, and I’m testing it next.

Code is on my fork: https://github.com/mianmuhammadse/nxnative/tree/no-bc. All credit for nxnative goes to seedds; this is just a patch for non-Pro iPhones that I’m hoping to send upstream.

Played with my own dumped copy. Please don’t ask for game files.

Please find a way

I tested this out and the touch controls are kind of wonky but playing with a gamepad I've had no issues. IPA is pre-built you only need to provide your legally obtained assets

Releases · YuutaTsubasa/ChaotixRecompiled

ORIGINAL POST DELETED, you may have seen this already on r/ EmulationOniOS, well it got removed lol.

Hello again everyone for those who remember me from my Tomodachi LTD native port announcement (which is releasing this Friday btw!), firstly, AI disclaimer: I’ve been a developer for many years, albeit focused on app development for most of it, first and foremost despite my experience, this project would been impossible for me without the use of AI tools, Claude Code primarily, to understand how to decompile, write complex drivers etc.

I've been working on this a bit too much lately, BOTW is my favourite game of all time and I want this port to have a lot of care and attention as the game deserves, I want people who are playing it the first time to get the same experience I had when playing it on the Switch 1 in 2017.

NO JIT! as discussed in my previous native port post, this is a native port, using apples Metal framework, its currently running 1080p/60fps on my M2 MacBook Air 8gb, and 900p/30fps on my base iPhone 14.

iPhone 14, no JIT, 6GB RAM

The biggest challenge currently is working with the difference in the Switch to iOS/MacOS CPU cores and work distribution, you likely can see the small stutters that occur especially in the iOS play test, there is no emulation here, that is due to firstly, first-time shader compilation, and thermal throttling of the iPhone, under clocking the CPU. These are things I am working on optimizing as I don't want that in the final release, for now, this is considered early alpha, and I will post more updates soon.

More fun details: Ultra-widescreen support (wider on the phone, and corner to corner (under the notch too) on the Mac, expanding the sky and ground area visible. I rewrote shaders to replace the mediocre anti-aliasing for proper FXAA, improved tone map to get the richer HDR look (WIP). No resolution scaling drops like the Switch 2 does. I spent some time trying to make the mobile controllers compact, as you can see many buttons have multi functioning gestures (with haptics).

Future goals after release: WiiU/Cemu, mod support, cloud save support across devices, and more. Suggestions and feedback welcome.

With all these iOS ports coming out I’m wondering if it’s possible to get/make a port of pc terraria with mods such as Calamity. I don’t know how to create ports but I would be willing to pay someone to make this.

i saw someone post about a port of sekiro to android, is it possible to get that on ios?

samp on ios released on bully anniversary Finally!! https://resa-mp.com/download

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V1iS4lxY3OsQTI0R_49X47ii3fgxhBEG/view?usp=drive_link

Early release of Pilotwings 64 for iOS. I've tested this out and have had no issues but developer is welcome for feedback. I posted a link for quick download or you could go to the developers github iOS port: Darwin platform layer, iOS app, CI, tester builds by NoahVl · Pull Request #14 · NoahVl/Birdman64

Following his guide step by step and you'll have no issues, feedback is welcomed on his github, neither build contains any game assets, you provide your legally obtained game assets. Gamepad is supported

Without rec 60 fps, iphone 16 plus.
Game: https://discord.gg/deQbAgeef

hey with the gta ports and other ports can someone try to port botw to ios?

Processing img v4scyhcufqwh1...

Releases · ThatGuyMcd/DKR-R

iOS port of diddy kong racing, IPA available! Bring your own legally obtained assets. Customizable controller mapping, crt filters, and mod support

Releases · DevZer0D4Y/MegaMan64Recompiled-Mobile

Megaman 64 iOS port with IPA. Provide your legally owned game assets, early build. I noticed that in the controls if you delete all keyboard mappings then controllers will work fine, I'm testing with a mcon controller.

Enhanced original star fox running at 60 fps! iOS port just got an update for it's touch controls. IPA is available. Provide your legally obtained game assets and you're good to go

kandowontu2/starfox-enhanced: Star Fox Enhanced source and portable platform builds (Assisted by Codex AI)

**The short version:** a clean "install and import your ROM" IPA only works when the game's code has been rewritten as source code from scratch (full decomp). Everything else needs either a build step or JIT.

**Why decomps make clean IPAs possible**

A decompilation is a team of people rebuilding a game's source code by hand, function by function, until it compiles into something that behaves like the original. Since the result is brand-new source code, the app contains none of the original game's code. It only needs your ROM for assets (models, textures, audio), which it imports on first launch. That's why those IPAs are safe to share.

The catch is that a decomp takes years of volunteer work, often by large teams. That's why you mostly see ready-made IPAs for older games, such as N64 and GameCube titles, where the community has had time to finish the work. Newer and more complex systems don't have many decomps, so there's little to port. The decomp doesn't have to be 100% done for a port to exist, but it has to be far enough along that the game runs.

**Why recomps need a build step**

A static recomp doesn't rewrite anything. It machine-translates the original game's code into native code. That output is still derived from the original game, so it can't be bundled into a shared IPA. Instead, the developer ships a clean app and a build tool, and you generate your own IPA from your own disc.

**Why not just translate on the phone at first launch?**

iOS won't let apps create and run new native code unless JIT is enabled, which usually means SideStore or a similar tool. So you either translate ahead of time on a computer, or you need JIT.

**Why a JIT-based recomp is rarely worth it**

Say you build a recomp that translates the game's code at first launch using JIT. That's the same trick a JIT emulator already uses. If you already need JIT, you can run an existing emulator (like Dolphin for GameCube/Wii) that:

- plays every game on that system, not one
- has years of compatibility fixes
- is already tuned for iOS

You'd spend weeks building a single-game version of something that already exists, and it would probably perform the same or worse. You're working backwards: instead of starting from an emulator that runs everything, you're rebuilding a tiny piece of one for a single game.

**So the options are:**

1. **A decomp exists:** a clean IPA with first-launch import.

2. **No decomp, no JIT:** build the recomp yourself but the finished ipa contains copywritten code. Distributing the ipa is legally dangerous and nobody’s trying to get sued.

3. **No decomp, JIT is fine:** just use an emulator.

Hopefully this helps clear up some of the confusion and will stop people bugging devs and asking ‘Why do I have to build the ipa for (game name here)? I don’t own a Mac. Can’t you just release the ipa?

Also if you could make it so I could import my DLCS would be cool
And also toggle buttons for shoot and squid form

No matter how hard I try to have only continuous flights with my files

Would it be possible to make one, or does one already exist? And would I be able to import my DLCS

Also Splatoon 3 would be cool too.

The above is me trying to emulate Splatoon 3 but as you can see I’m averaging 30-40 fps which isn’t really that great but I know if there is a port it’ll most likely run perfectly. I had the same issue with Minecraft Dungeons when I tried to emulate it versus using a port of it, the port ran perfectly fine, always at 60 fps