# AuroraStrikers

A **native PC recompilation** of *Super Mario Strikers* (Nintendo GameCube, 2005), built from a
100%-matching decompilation of the retail game.

> [!IMPORTANT]
> **This repository contains no game data and produces nothing playable on its own.**
> There is no ROM, no disc image, no `.dol`, and no texture, model, audio or save file here - only
> source code and build tooling. You must supply your own lawfully obtained copy of the game as a
> disc image; the game's data is read from that image, on your machine, at run time.
> Please do not redistribute what you build: the executable contains the game's code.

## What this is

The decompilation this is built on reconstructs the game's original C++ - all 8,605 functions - so
faithfully that it recompiles into a `main.dol` byte-identical to the retail disc. This project takes
that same C++ and compiles it **for x86-64 instead of PowerPC**, producing a Windows executable that
*is* the game rather than one that emulates it.

- **Not an emulator.** No PowerPC is interpreted, translated or JIT-compiled. The game's own code
  runs as native x64 machine code.
- **Not a source port to a new engine either.** It is the original game code, with small, commented
  `#ifdef TARGET_PC` patches wherever a 32-bit pointer, a GameCube structure offset or a big-endian
  field stopped being true on a 64-bit little-endian machine.
- The GameCube's hardware and SDK are replaced by [**Aurora**](https://github.com/encounter/aurora) -
  GX rendered through WebGPU/Dawn on Direct3D 12, plus PAD, VI, OS, DVD (it reads your disc image
  directly) and CARD - and by a small shim layer under `pc/` for the pieces Aurora does not cover.
  Audio is the game's own **MusyX** runtime.
- Because it runs natively, it can do things the console could not: arbitrary render resolutions and
  aspect ratios, output display selection, borderless fullscreen, and Dolphin-format custom texture
  packs that you supply yourself.

Where the port deliberately behaves *better* than the original rather than faithfully, it says so and
keeps the console's behaviour selectable. Everything else aims to be exactly what the hardware did.

## Status

Work in progress, and honest about it. [`docs/port/MILESTONES.md`](docs/port/MILESTONES.md) defines
what "done" has to mean for this project, and it is a higher bar than "it boots": every mode, every
stadium, every captain and sidekick, a cup played to its end, the memory card, and a long unattended
session - each exercised with evidence, none of them crashing. Read that rather than trusting a
feature list in a README.

What is known not to work, and what is deliberately different from the console, is recorded in the
documents under [`docs/port/`](docs/port) alongside the reasoning and the measurements. If you hit a
defect, please open an issue with your GPU, your display setup, the log from `logs\` and the exact
steps.

## Building

Windows x64, a Direct3D 12 GPU, the Visual Studio Build Tools with the C++ workload, CMake, Ninja,
and your own disc image. From a fresh clone that is the whole thing:

```powershell
git clone --recursive https://github.com/Saffsanity/AuroraStrikers.git
cd AuroraStrikers
.\build.ps1 -FetchLlvm
.\build-pc\bin\AuroraStrikers.exe --disc "D:\games\Super Mario Strikers (USA).rvz"
```

The build needs **clang-cl**, which the Build Tools do not install; `-FetchLlvm` downloads the exact
LLVM release this project is built with, checks its SHA-256, unpacks it under `%LOCALAPPDATA%` and
carries on - no administrator rights, nothing installed system-wide, and only needed the first time.
`winget install LLVM.LLVM` or Visual Studio's *C++ Clang tools for Windows* work just as well.
[**BUILDING.md**](BUILDING.md) has "Quick start on a fresh Windows machine" with the winget commands
for everything else.

The same repository still builds the original GameCube target and checks it against the retail
SHA-1 - that check is what keeps the port honest. `BUILDING.md` covers it; the disc image is
extracted for it by `tools/pc/extract_disc.py`, never committed.

## The decompilation underneath

This is a fork of [yannicksuter/smstrikers-decomp](https://github.com/yannicksuter/smstrikers-decomp),
whose work made all of this possible. The matching build, `configure.py`, the symbol and split
configuration under `config/`, and the documentation under `docs/` (other than `docs/port/`) are
theirs. Decompilation questions, matching work and pull requests against the reconstruction itself
belong upstream.

The three retail releases the decompilation targets:

| Version | Region and title | Release date | `main.dol` SHA-1 |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| `G4QP01` | Europe - *Mario Smash Football* | November 18, 2005 | `6dc83dc91d0a5887f0056623498d4cbcd88bc463` |
| `G4QE01` | North America - *Super Mario Strikers* | December 5, 2005 | `376d699c99b6b0949abe1b4ceccefdef7828d2b5` |
| `G4QJ01` | Japan - *Super Mario Strikers* | January 19, 2006 | `d116f02b778a4f69725fd1c00656012d16ebf94a` |

The PC port currently targets `G4QE01` (USA). See
[`docs/version_differences.md`](docs/version_differences.md) for what differs between releases.

## Contributing

[`CONTRIBUTING.md`](CONTRIBUTING.md) covers both halves: the port (this repository) and the
decompilation (upstream).

## Legal status and licensing

This is an independently produced reconstruction and port. It is **not affiliated with, authorized
by, sponsored by, or endorsed by Nintendo or Next Level Games**. *Nintendo*, *GameCube*, *Super Mario
Strikers*, *Mario Smash Football* and related names, characters and marks belong to their respective
owners, and are used here only to say which game this project is about.

The repository does not use a single license, and deliberately does not claim one over everything:

- **The port's own work** - `pc/`, `tools/pc/`, `docs/port/`, the PC build system, and the
  `#ifdef TARGET_PC` patches - is original material written for this project, and is offered under
  CC0 1.0 ([`LICENSE-CC0.txt`](LICENSE-CC0.txt)) to the extent its authors own it. See section 8 of
  [`LICENSE`](LICENSE), which names those files.
- **The reconstructed game code** under `src/` and `include/` is a reconstruction of code originally
  authored by the game's developer. Its status is unsettled, and this project does not assert a
  license over it. See section 4 of [`LICENSE`](LICENSE).
- **Third-party components** (Open Dynamics Engine, MusyX, the reconstructed SDK and runtime, and
  Aurora - carried under `extern/`, as a submodule or vendored in place) keep their own notices and
  licenses. See [`THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md`](THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md). Note that MusyX and the
  reconstructed SDK are themselves decompilations: the license each carries is its project's license
  over its own work, and says nothing about the original. See section 4 of [`LICENSE`](LICENSE).

[`LICENSE`](LICENSE) is the authoritative summary. It is a description of the repository, not legal
advice, and it grants no rights in anyone else's material.

## Acknowledgements

This port is almost entirely other people's work. None of the projects below is affiliated with this
one or endorses it - they are listed because their code is in here, or because their tools and their
writing are what made the rest possible. Licences and notices are in
[`THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md`](THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md); this section is thanks, not a legal statement.

**The reconstruction**

- [**smstrikers-decomp**](https://github.com/yannicksuter/smstrikers-decomp) - yannicksuter and its
  contributors, for the 100%-matching decompilation this port compiles. Everything here begins there.
- [**openstrikers**](https://github.com/GoldenPalazzo/openstrikers) - GoldenPalazzo's Aurora-based
  Linux x86-64 port of the same decompilation. Its patches were read hunk by hunk while working
  through the 64-bit pointer and big-endian structure sites, and are reviewed in
  [`docs/port/`](docs/port).

**The compatibility layer** - what stands in for the original console's hardware and SDK

- [**Aurora**](https://github.com/encounter/aurora) - encounter's GX, PAD, VI, OS, DVD, CARD and MTX
  implementation, MIT-licensed, carried under `extern/aurora`. It is the single largest reason this
  project is a few thousand lines of shims rather than a rewrite. Aurora brings with it:
- [Dawn](https://dawn.googlesource.com/dawn/) (Google) - the WebGPU implementation GX renders
  through, on Direct3D 12 here.
- [SDL3](https://github.com/libsdl-org/SDL) - window, keyboard and gamepads.
- [nod](https://github.com/encounter/nod) - reads your disc image directly, in its own format.
- [Dear ImGui](https://github.com/ocornut/imgui) and [FreeType](https://freetype.org/) - the debug
  overlays and their text.
- [fmt](https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt), [Abseil](https://github.com/abseil/abseil-cpp),
  [xxHash](https://github.com/Cyan4973/xxHash), [libpng](https://github.com/pnggroup/libpng),
  [zlib-ng](https://github.com/zlib-ng/zlib-ng), [Zstandard](https://github.com/facebook/zstd),
  [SQLite](https://www.sqlite.org/) and [Tracy](https://github.com/wolfpld/tracy) - formatting,
  containers, hashing, the texture-pack PNG decoder, the pipeline cache and its compression, and the
  optional frame profiler.
- **kabufuda** (AxioDL) - Aurora describes its CARD implementation as based on it. (Its repository
  appears to be gone; the attribution is Aurora's own, and the code is covered by Aurora's licence.)

**The original runtime**

- [**dolsdk2001**](https://github.com/doldecomp/dolsdk2001) - the doldecomp project's decompilation
  of the 2001 console SDK. Neither build here compiles it; it is the reference the shims under `pc/`
  have to behave like, and it answered a great many "what did the real function actually do?"
  questions.
- [**MusyX**](https://github.com/AxioDL/musyx) - AxioDL's decompilation of the audio runtime the game
  itself ships, carried under `extern/musyx` and built for x64 here.
- [**Open Dynamics Engine**](https://www.ode.org/) - the physics library the game was built with.

**The decompilation toolchain**

- [decomp-toolkit](https://github.com/encounter/decomp-toolkit) - splits and relinks the retail
  executable for the matching build, and extracts your own disc image for it.
- [objdiff](https://github.com/encounter/objdiff) - the object diffing that matching work is checked
  against.
- [dtk-template](https://github.com/encounter/dtk-template),
  [sjiswrap](https://github.com/encounter/sjiswrap),
  [gc-wii-binutils](https://github.com/encounter/gc-wii-binutils) and
  [wibo](https://github.com/decompals/wibo) - the scaffolding that makes a 1990s toolchain run on a
  modern machine.

**Format compatibility, with thanks**

- [**Dolphin**](https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin) - this port loads Dolphin-format custom
  texture packs and Dolphin-format memory-card saves, implemented from Dolphin's documentation and
  source. **No Dolphin code is used or contained here**, and this project is not an emulator.

**Built with** [LLVM/clang-cl](https://llvm.org/), [CMake](https://cmake.org/),
[Ninja](https://ninja-build.org/) and [sccache](https://github.com/mozilla/sccache).

And the wider GameCube decompilation community, [decomp.dev](https://decomp.dev/) and
[decomp.me](https://decomp.me/), whose accumulated knowledge is why a project like this is possible
at all.