Case study
Banjo: Recompiled — an N64Recomp Banjo-Kazooie native port
Uses N64Recomp to statically recompile the US 1.0 Nintendo 64 release of Banjo-Kazooie into a native port on N64ModernRuntime, rendered by RT64 and extended with mod support. Like Zelda 64: Recompiled, it is not built from decompiled source; a symbols repository generated from the Banjo-Kazooie decompilation supplies function names for locating code in the ROM and writing patches.
- Targets
- Game
- Category
- Independent reconstruction cases
- Relationship
- Independent reconstruction project
- Sources reviewed
Requirements & limits
- Prerequisites: Plays only the user’s US 1.0 Nintendo 64 Banjo-Kazooie ROM, loading assets from it at startup; other dump formats of that ROM are converted to .z64. The repository and releases contain no game assets, and it is not an emulator for other ROMs; the game is changed through mods instead.
- Prerequisites: Release v1.0.2 (2026-07-31) ships Windows, macOS, Linux x64/ARM64 and Flatpak x64 builds. Runtime graphics need Direct3D 12.0 with Shader Model 6, Vulkan 1.2 or Metal Argument Buffers Tier 2; x86-64 CPUs need SSE4.1, and Macs need macOS 13.0+ with Apple Silicon or a 7th-generation Intel CPU.
- Prerequisites: Source builds need a recursive clone, CMake and Ninja with Clang (Visual Studio 2022 with Clang plus make on Windows), separately built N64Recomp and RSPRecomp, the BanjoRecompSyms submodule and a decompressed copy of the NTSC-U 1.0 ROM matching the SHA-1 in BUILDING.md; play uses the standard ROM.
- Testing evidence: The README reports faithful audio, intact N64 effects, widescreen, high frame rates, note saving and fixed duplicate Mumbo token IDs, and lists overlay software as a known problem. It publishes no equivalence or gameplay test; pinned-commit CI only builds the port.
- License: GPLv3 project license; the original game, the decompilation and other dependencies keep separate terms. The team states that it does not use generative AI and bans GenAI-assisted contributions.
About this entry
The description was reviewed against primary sources.
Primary sources
- README.md GitHub · BanjoRecomp/BanjoRecomp · Revision dbd5215
- BUILDING.md GitHub · BanjoRecomp/BanjoRecomp · Revision dbd5215
- banjo.us.rev0.toml GitHub · BanjoRecomp/BanjoRecomp · Revision dbd5215
- .gitmodules GitHub · BanjoRecomp/BanjoRecomp · Revision dbd5215
- README.md GitHub · BanjoRecomp/BanjoRecompSyms · Revision 6820055
- COPYING GitHub · BanjoRecomp/BanjoRecomp · Revision dbd5215
- CONTRIBUTING.md GitHub · BanjoRecomp/BanjoRecomp · Revision dbd5215
- https://github.com/BanjoRecomp/BanjoRecomp/releases/tag/v1.0.2
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