Wind Waker static recompilation makes its way to PC

Are you tired of waiting for Nintendo to release a definitive version of their GameCube classic on a console that's sold more than four units? Then step right up! A fork of BlueWake, a static recompilation previously targetting iOS, the creatively titled Wind Waker Recomp has just launched on Windows and Mac with a swath of new features.

Those wanting to jump in can expect to play with smooth motion, wide-screen support, high resolution rendering, and support for HD texture packs. On top of this, experimental support for 60Hz game logic is available, though not currently recommended in its current state.

For those interested, the below AI disclosure is included in the project readme file:

Wind Waker Recomp is developed with substantial AI assistance for code, testing,documentation and debugging. The status log records what has actually been checked, and on what.

As is common with these releases, no game data is provided in the project repo, with a legally obtained copy of the US GameCube game required to play. You can find the project's GitHub repo linked below.

GitHub Repo

 

[geminisama]

Wake up babe, more AISlop on GBATemp's front page news! Fuck the chief editor, here's a list of Non-AI ports since this site has gone to shit and praises slop

https://docs.google.com/document/u/...cE6Jk8fLoV8JuIzjLRxV2-MFXeo/mobilebasic?pli=1

EDIT: @funky90slion (Twitter account) is the author of the list.

Thanks for doing the lords work, this site is rapidly devolving in quality.

 

[conradcervantes]

Woo hoo, more AI bug-riddled crap platformed by a once-reputable forum. What in the blue fuck happened to this website?

 

[lordofcombo]

Gbatemp has an infestation of losers that contribute nothing yet whine and bitch.

 

[Dragon91Nippon]

A person doesn't have to like AI-assisted works, but we should be more human in terms of civility by not attacking people because of them. Folks using it are being kind enough to have those disclaimers.

The thing about the AI culture war bullshit is that the people being loud, rude, and attacking others don't just not like it. They are behaving in bad faith and trying to prevent people from using it.
Some of them are developers who are used to being part of a small group of elites in the Homebrew community and being the ones to decide what Homebrew exists and what doesn't, and well, AI is a threat to that for them.

Post automatically merged: Today at 12:01 AM

Gbatemp has an infestation of losers that contribute nothing yet whine and bitch.

Nowhere is it more clear than this thread full of people whining and complaining about AI use in people's own projects.

 

[PhyChris]

 

[Gunstorm]

botw seems get something too https://www.reddit.com/r/decomps/comments/1wx2sjs/botw_wii_u_recompiled_for_windows/

 

[Kioku]

Torn on this, truly. On one hand, I’m in the anti-ai camp. Yes, it’s a tool. Unfortunately, it’s a tool that is being abused as a replacement for human engineering and coding. Even if there are a handful of devs who double and triple check the work put out by the AI assistants. It’s still… slop….

On the other hand? I’m playing a PC port of Halo CE that does not inherently break shit because of Gearbox. Windwaker seems to be relatively scuffed. So we’ll see..

 

[Dragon91Nippon]

Torn on this, truly. On one hand, I’m in the anti-ai camp. Yes, it’s a tool. Unfortunately, it’s a tool that is being abused as a replacement for human engineering and coding. Even if there are a handful of devs who double and triple check the work put out by the AI assistants. It’s still… slop….

On the other hand? I’m playing a PC port of Halo CE that does not inherently break shit because of Gearbox. Windwaker seems to be relatively scuffed. So we’ll see..

I used to have "concerns" about AI written code. I actually used to be a jackass and call people ableist slurs over using AI. Although I came around because I did realize that people releasing Homebrew, even bad Homebrew is ultimately good for the scene, and if people don't like Homebrew made by AI or think they can do better, they should try to do better, or just not use it.

 

[SapphireLabs]

I used to have "concerns" about AI written code. I actually used to be a jackass and call people ableist slurs over using AI. Although I came around because I did realize that people releasing Homebrew, even bad Homebrew is ultimately good for the scene, and if people don't like Homebrew made by AI or think they can do better, they should try to do better, or just not use it.

Shoddy shovelware is good for the scene? The mobile app stores would like a word with you.

 

[RedBlueGreen]

I see the witch hunting doesn't limit itself to threads, but mere stalking of past threads, too. That's very a creepy thing to read in an inclusive forum such as GBATemp.

I can sense your victim complex from here. Touch grass and stop taking the Internet so seriously.

Rather just wait for the Windwaker decomp to be done and then polished up to see a true source port
It’s closing in on 80% complete with rapid but not eyebrow raising progress
Been checking in on it all year

I'm hoping Kirby Air Ride gets a successful decomp and a source port with custom map support and maybe additional characters like what Air Riders has.

 

[Mayo1990]

I can sense your victim complex from here. Touch grass and stop taking the Internet so seriously.

I'm hoping Kirby Air Ride gets a successful decomp and a source port with custom map support and maybe additional characters like what Air Riders has.

Sir, there's no grass in this forum. We discuss virtual things.

 

[SapphireLabs]

I can sense your victim complex from here. Touch grass and stop taking the Internet so seriously.

I'm hoping Kirby Air Ride gets a successful decomp and a source port with custom map support and maybe additional characters like what Air Riders has.

I spent so much time playing KAR as a kid. A proper decomp with level authoring tools would be great.

 

[Dragon91Nippon]

Shoddy shovelware is good for the scene? The mobile app stores would like a word with you.

If you think you can do better than them put your money where your mouth is. I know you won't though, like the majority of blowhards complaining about AI online.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

This isn't generating boilerplate for a hello world script, it's reverse engineering standing software with virtually no exposed interface.

The typical tree is usually:

1. Determine how the file itself is loaded. Headers, magic, partitions, whatever. Pretty simple, and something AI could realistically speed up.

2. Converting the static, possibly packed bytecode (yes I'm aware bytecode is a different thing, ease of explanation) into a readable format for parsing into a higher level language, think

`
B8 01 00 00 00
BF 01 00 00 00
48 8D 35 10 00 00 00
BA 0E 00 00 00
0F 05
B8 3C 00 00 00
31 FF
0F 05

48 65 6C 6C 6F 2C 20 77 6F 72 6C 64 21 0A
`

To

`
mov eax, 1 ; syscall: write
mov edi, 1 ; fd: stdout
lea rsi, [rip+16] ; address of our string
mov edx, 14 ; length
syscall

mov eax, 60 ; syscall: exit
xor edi, edi ; status = 0
syscall

db "Hello, world!", 10
`

One of these is significantly easier to read than the other.

3. Disassmebling, analyzing, and reconstructing (or directly) to a higher level language like C++ (or whatever the original was written in) for reuse.

4. Then you have to sort the various syscalls that are specifically for the origjnal platform's ABI, and either convert those into a format the host toolchain can accept, or make it a generic and allow the compiler to fix it per platform. This is the hard part. Anyone with enough time can understand how assembly works. You can even write scripts to help convert signatures across the entire thing, but it still needs direct human intervention usually.

The objective of this kind of thing is a 1:1 recreation of the original source code in the absolute sense, but that's extremely difficult to achieve, so we settle for "close enough". It's not like the source is just sitting there packed away, it's already packed and compiled and ready to go. We have to abstract the *how* from the *what*, and that's not something AI does well, especially when a lot of specialized software (games) depends on specific functionality from the host hardware (GameCube).

What you're describing is a decomp. The goal of a recomp is much simpler. Make game for platform A run natively on platform B, with optional QoL that was not possible in an emulator or not feasible simply by patching a ROM. Shortcuts necessarily have to be taken to get there given that people don't have access to the original source code, so a 1:1 recreation is never the goal. That's why decomps > recomps, but recomps still have value in making games more accessible.

Post automatically merged: Today at 5:18 AM

There is a romhack for that! It's Better Wind Waker, which is basically the randomiser hack without randomisation. Don't count on the recomp to implement it, it's a recomp after all.

Obviously the improved graphics are nowhere to be seen, but I don't think either release looks worse than the other. They're both timeless.

That is exactly the kind of QoL I would expect from a recomp. Minus the graphics, of course.

The graphics in WWHD I realize are a bit of a love/hate thing but I happen to love them. The original still looks fine, but given the choice I'll always pick WWHD.

I just hope we will have in depth graphics mods like Render96 for other games than just Mario 64. So far every other port hasn't been focused on graphics at all. There's only so much you can do with texture packs alone.