AC6Recomp

Caution

This project is still work in progress. It can boot and run in-game, but bugs, crashes, and missing functionality should be expected.

A native PC port of Ace Combat 6: Fires of Liberation (Xbox 360), built on top of the ReXGlue SDK. The Xbox 360 PowerPC binary is statically recompiled to x86-64 so the original game logic runs natively on your host CPU, with a fully native D3D12/Vulkan renderer replacing the original Xenos GPU pipeline.

Repository policy

This repository contains source code only.

Do not commit or redistribute:

• retail game data
• default.xex
• disc images, packages, title updates, or firmware files
• console keys or any other proprietary Microsoft / publisher material

Users must supply their own legally obtained game files locally.

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Prerequisites

Tool	Version	Notes
CMake	3.25+
Ninja	any recent	required generator
Clang/LLVM	any recent	clang / clang++ must be on PATH
Windows SDK	10.0.19041+	D3D12 headers (Windows only)

Note

The Linux preset uses clang-20 / clang++-20 directly. Install the versioned binaries via your distro's package manager (apt install clang-20) or via the LLVM APT repository.

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Acquiring the game files

1. Obtain the original Xbox 360 disc image (ISO) by dumping your own disc.
   Guides and tools: consolemods.org – ISO Extraction & Repacking
2. Extract the XEX and game data from the ISO.
3. Place the resulting files inside the assets/ directory (created manually — it is git-ignored):

assets/
  default.xex        ← required by the codegen step
  media/             ← game data (audio, video, maps, …)
  …

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Clone

git clone https://github.com/sal063/AC6_recomp.git
cd AC6_recomp

Note

The ReXGlue SDK (thirdparty/rexglue-sdk/) is vendored directly in the repository. No submodule init is needed.

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Build

1 — Generate the recompiled code (first time, and after updating default.xex)

cmake --preset win-amd64-relwithdebinfo
cmake --build --preset win-amd64-relwithdebinfo --target ac6recomp_codegen

This step reads assets/default.xex, lifts all PowerPC instructions to C++, and writes the output to generated/. It can take a few minutes.

2 — Build the runtime

cmake --build --preset win-amd64-relwithdebinfo

The executable is placed at:

out/build/win-amd64-relwithdebinfo/ac6recomp.exe

Tip

RelWithDebInfo is the recommended preset — it gives near-release performance with symbols intact for debugging. A full Release build disables assertions and can be used for distribution.

Available presets

Preset	Platform	Build type
win-amd64-debug	Windows	Debug
win-amd64-release	Windows	Release
win-amd64-relwithdebinfo	Windows	RelWithDebInfo ✅ recommended
linux-amd64-debug	Linux	Debug
linux-amd64-release	Linux	Release
linux-amd64-relwithdebinfo	Linux	RelWithDebInfo

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Run

./out/build/win-amd64-relwithdebinfo/ac6recomp assets

The single argument is the path to the directory containing your game files (assets/ by default). The runtime resolves all paths relative to it.

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Linux

Substitute win-amd64-relwithdebinfo with linux-amd64-relwithdebinfo in every command above.

cmake --preset linux-amd64-relwithdebinfo
cmake --build --preset linux-amd64-relwithdebinfo --target ac6recomp_codegen
cmake --build --preset linux-amd64-relwithdebinfo
./out/build/linux-amd64-relwithdebinfo/ac6recomp assets

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Project layout

AC6_recomp/
├── src/                        Host-side runtime & renderer
│   ├── main.cpp
│   ├── ac6_native_graphics.*   Xenon → native GPU command translation
│   ├── ac6_native_renderer/    Native rendering backend (D3D12 / Vulkan)
│   │   ├── backends/           Per-API backend implementations
│   │   ├── frame_plan.*        Frame dependency graph construction
│   │   ├── frame_scheduler.*   CPU/GPU timeline management
│   │   ├── native_renderer.*   Top-level renderer orchestration
│   │   └── render_device.*     Device abstraction layer
│   └── d3d_hooks.*             Low-level D3D intercept layer
├── thirdparty/rexglue-sdk/     ReXGlue SDK (vendored)
├── assets/                     ← NOT in repo; place your game files here
├── generated/                  ← NOT in repo; output of codegen step
├── CMakeLists.txt
└── CMakePresets.json

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License

See LICENSE.