GXRuntime

A game-agnostic runtime for statically recompiled GameCube games. You run a game's main.dol through DolRecomp, compile the emitted C, and GXRuntime supplies everything around it: PPC state and semantics, big-endian guest memory, boot services, devices, and a GX renderer. It is the standalone line of the same ecosystem as RecompCore, which integrates the identical CPU core into Dolphin and serves as the accuracy referee — the two share the module ABI (v2), and the CPU semantics are verified against Dolphin's interpreter in lockstep (0 divergences over 37.7 billion dispatches in a full retail game).

GXRuntime is a work in progress. Honest status, with StrikersRecomp as the integration client:

Area	State
CPU semantics	Dolphin-verified; 16/16 headless tests
Devices (VI/PI/DSP/SI/EXI, memory card)	Working, headless tests
Graphics (gxcore)	Default renderer; boot → menus → full matches render
Audio	Streamed DSP audio through the platform backend
In-match performance	~11 FPS today — the active workstream

The design is OS-agnostic: platform specifics live behind a backend boundary (the current backend builds on the vendored Aurora substrate; macOS is the tested host today).

Architecture

Game frontend (generated C + HLE policy) → GXRuntime core (CPU, memory, devices) → gxcore (GX command processing) → vendored Aurora substrate (windowing, GPU, input, audio).

Building

cmake -S . -B build -DGXRUNTIME_ENABLE_AURORA=OFF   # headless core + tests
cmake --build build -j
ctest --test-dir build --output-on-failure

Consumed as a sibling CMake project:

add_subdirectory(../GXRuntime GXRuntime)
target_link_libraries(MyGame PRIVATE GXRuntime::runtime)

Roadmap

A GX-register-complete renderer sweep with a mechanized coverage gate, DSP-LLE audio, XFB/VI presentation, an interpreter fallback with an SMC guard, one-command game onboarding, per-game completion certificates, and Windows support (macOS and Linux build in CI today). Because this architecture needs no JIT, GXRuntime is the lightweight path toward platforms where JITs aren't allowed.

License and provenance

GPL-3.0-or-later (see LICENSE); source files carry SPDX headers. The CPU semantics mirror Dolphin's interpreter behavior, which is what makes the GPL family obligatory — details and other notices in THIRD_PARTY.md. graphics/aurora/ is a vendored fork of Aurora (MIT, notices retained). docs/abi-scope-license.md documents the generated-code ABI and scope.

Credits: the Dolphin team, ExpansionPak (DolRecomp), Mr-Wiseguy and the N64Recomp ecosystem, encounter (Aurora), and the smstrikers-decomp project.