mkw-recomp brings Mario Kart World natively to Windows and Linux and is already on 0.1.11 after five days
A new native port of the Switch 2 game Mario Kart World boots, goes through the menus and runs races on Windows and Linux. In five days it has shipped three versions, with 1.8.0 support, HDR, a mod manager and 19 languages. It needs your own dump of the game.
A port that is not an emulator
mkw-recomp is a static recompilation of Mario Kart World, for Nintendo Switch 2, in versions 1.0.0 and 1.8.0. The repository was created on November 9 and already has over 740 stars. The game's AArch64 code is translated to C ahead of time and compiled for the PC's CPU, with no interpreter or JIT. The GPU is not emulated either: NVN2, the Switch 2 graphics API, is reimplemented on top of Vulkan and the game's SM86 shaders are translated to SPIR-V in advance. There are builds for Windows and Linux x86-64 and an AppImage for Linux AArch64, tested on a handheld with an Adreno 740.
Status on November 12
According to the README, it boots, plays the intro movies, goes through the menus and runs races. It reaches 60 frames per second on high-end GPUs and 30 on mid-range ones. A few menus still need work, such as mode, character and vehicle select, the kart's shadow misses a frame now and then, some audio cuts out during movies, and on some AMD drivers the GPU can hang. There is no online play.
The week's three releases
0.1.9, from November 12, adds game version 1.8.0, reading a dump as a single .nup or .nx file, automatic HDR, menus in 19 languages and the game itself in Catalan, Galician and Basque, plus 5.1 sound. 0.1.10, from the 13th, brings a mods screen with installs from .zip, .rar or .7z and a GameBanana tab, an unlock-everything option on 1.8.0, a fix for 8 GB cards and Switch 2 controllers over Bluetooth. 0.1.11, from the 14th, lets you choose the install folder and fixes free roam hitches, and it logs GPU hangs that the driver never reports.
What you need
The project ships nothing from the game. You need your own dump, as exefs and romfs folders or a .nup file, and the program prepares it on your machine. We do not link to dumps.
This is a young project and it changes every day. Back up your saves before turning on mods, and expect hangs on some AMD GPUs.
