Case study
Conker's Bad Fur Day: Recompiled — an N64Recomp native port
Statically recompiles the US Nintendo 64 release of Conker’s Bad Fur Day with N64Recomp into a native Windows, Linux and macOS port on N64ModernRuntime and RT64. Function names and boundaries come from a vendored, still mostly assembly decompilation, while the recompiled code is taken from the user’s ROM so unmatched decompiled C cannot change behavior. The author reports heavy use of Claude Code across the project.
Requirements and limitations
- Requires the user’s US ROM in big-endian .z64 form with the SHA-1 listed in the README; the repository and release packages contain no game data. ROM hacks that change only assets are accepted, while hacks that change code and other regions’ ROMs are refused.
- Release V0.1.6 (2026-10-13) packages Windows, Linux and macOS builds plus a mods archive. Rendering uses Direct3D 12 or Vulkan on Windows, Vulkan on Linux and Metal on macOS; Linux builds are tested on Ubuntu 24.04, and the unsigned macOS release targets Apple Silicon with macOS 15 or later.
- Source builds need a recursive clone, Git and Python 3 plus Visual Studio 2022+ on Windows, CMake, Ninja, Clang and SDL2 on Linux, or full Xcode and Homebrew on macOS, in a path without an apostrophe. N64Recomp and RSPRecomp run from a committed symbol file; regenerating it with the optional decompilation build also needs IDO and MIPS binutils.
- The README reports the game played through to the end, with a widescreen pause-background issue; a macOS play-through is not yet confirmed and Intel Macs are untried. Decompiled C must rebuild the ROM’s code byte for byte, and the port is checked by play and by comparison with the original in an emulator; names are marked as guesses, and nothing was rerun here.
- The author reports heavy Claude Code use for the recompilation setup, tool patches, host application, mods and decompiled functions; no REA use is documented. Own code is MIT, but builds including GPLv3 N64ModernRuntime are distributed under GPLv3, an RT64 patch is GPL-2.0-or-later, and the game is not covered.
About this entry
- Type
- Case study
- Category
- Independent reconstruction cases
- Relationship
- Independent reconstruction project
- Targets
- Game
Sources reviewed
The description was reviewed against primary sources. This does not establish runtime testing, security auditing or verified compatibility.
Primary sources
- README.md GitHub · sciaschi/CBFD-Recompiled · Revision ed1b8bb
- recomp/README.md GitHub · sciaschi/CBFD-Recompiled · Revision ed1b8bb
- .gitmodules GitHub · sciaschi/CBFD-Recompiled · Revision ed1b8bb
- conker/README.md GitHub · sciaschi/CBFD-Recompiled · Revision ed1b8bb
- CONTRIBUTING.md GitHub · sciaschi/CBFD-Recompiled · Revision ed1b8bb
- LICENSE GitHub · sciaschi/CBFD-Recompiled · Revision ed1b8bb
- https://github.com/sciaschi/CBFD-Recompiled/releases/tag/V0.1.6