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Case study

Pinyon Shift: a ShiftGlue static recompilation of Forza Horizon for PC

Builds a native port of the Xbox 360 release of Forza Horizon by translating its PowerPC executable ahead of time into C++ with ShiftGlue, the author’s fork of ReXGlue, and compiling it on the player’s machine from their own disc. A renderer written for this game runs its GPU commands on Vulkan, and some translated library code, such as FMOD Ex DSP units, is replaced by independently written native code checked against the translated original. README presents it as a playable preview with rendering bugs and slowdowns.

Requirements & limits

  • Reviewed at the 2026-10-17 head, tagged v0.6.0; the repository was created on 2026-08-25. It holds the launcher, build tools, host code and configuration, and README says it contains no game, assets, generated translations or prebuilt executable; the v0.6.0 Windows launcher archive holds only the launcher and a source archive. This is static recompilation with native replacements, not recovered authored source.
  • Requires an ISO dumped from the user’s own USA retail disc (serial MS-2505, title ID 4D5309C9) or an unmodified folder extracted from it; setup checks its exact size and SHA-256 against config/supported-dumps.json and rejects unknown dumps. Owned DLC packages are verified before import, and the Rally and 1000 Club add-ons need the optional title update v4 build.
  • Players need Windows 10/11 x64, x86-64 Linux including SteamOS, or macOS 13+ on Apple silicon, with a Vulkan 1.3 GPU; NVIDIA is tested, while AMD and Intel are not yet qualified. The launcher installs pinned build tools and builds the game locally, which takes 20–60 minutes and about 30 GB the first time; the Windows source path needs Visual Studio 2022 C++ Build Tools 17.1+. An Android 13+ arm64 build is a developer alpha cross-compiled on the PC.
  • CI checks the repository boundary, runs release-tooling and host tests, builds the launchers and cross-builds the Android runtime, all without the game. Scripted render-test routes, golden frame replays and README’s performance figures, such as a 119 fps median at 1x on an RTX 4080, come from the project’s local runs; this collection built or ran nothing.
  • BSD-3-Clause covers only independently authored material. docs/LEGAL.md says it grants no rights to Forza Horizon, Xbox software, ReXGlue or user-supplied content, and bars committing generated translations, hand translations of disassembly or decompiler output, and data copied from the executable. README states no affiliation with Microsoft, Xbox, Turn 10 Studios or Playground Games. CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md agent instructions bar AI attribution in commits; the sources state no other AI or REA use.

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.

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Primary sources

  1. README.md GitHub · arcanite24/pinyon-shift · Revision 9331e45
  2. docs/LEGAL.md GitHub · arcanite24/pinyon-shift · Revision 9331e45
  3. docs/BUILDING.md GitHub · arcanite24/pinyon-shift · Revision 9331e45
  4. config/supported-dumps.json GitHub · arcanite24/pinyon-shift · Revision 9331e45
  5. .gitmodules GitHub · arcanite24/pinyon-shift · Revision 9331e45
  6. .github/workflows/ci.yml GitHub · arcanite24/pinyon-shift · Revision 9331e45
  7. docs/PERFORMANCE.md GitHub · arcanite24/pinyon-shift · Revision 9331e45
  8. src/guest_native/fmod_dsp.cpp GitHub · arcanite24/pinyon-shift · Revision 9331e45
  9. docs/releases/0.6.0.md GitHub · arcanite24/pinyon-shift · Revision 9331e45
  10. CLAUDE.md GitHub · arcanite24/pinyon-shift · Revision 9331e45
  11. LICENSE GitHub · arcanite24/pinyon-shift · Revision 9331e45
  12. https://github.com/arcanite24/shiftglue-sdk/tree/79d3e6fae4b79e00def48a595c80f0eaa47fd2b6
  13. https://github.com/arcanite24/pinyon-shift/releases/tag/v0.6.0

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