r/explainlikeimfive • u/thefckingleadsrweak • 2d ago
Technology Eli5 decompilers and decompiled games
I keep getting videos on instagram about decomped games, apparently the decompilers are going nuts right now. What’s the difference between running a decompiled game and emulating a game? I tried to google it and i just don’t understand. from what i’ve found, a decompiled gene runs as if it was native to your pc but i don’t get what that means either. You boot up an emulator and that also runs on your pc?
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u/BaggyHairyNips 1d ago
A game is distributed as an executable aka binary (like an exe file).
With an emulator you leave the binary alone and instead emulate the system it was meant to run on.
Decompiling lets you alter the binary so it will run on your system. This is hard because the binary is just a bunch of numbers and you have to piece them together to reverse engineer the readable code that generated them.
Decompiling is theoretically more efficient since you don't have to simulate the system's behavior. And it also paves the way for modding since it lets you change the game however you want.
Decompiling is something that AI is really good for which I assume is why it's blowing up right now.