I'm working on a native Mario Kart Wii port for the Nintendo Switch using static recompilation!

Hey everyone!

For the past \~6 weeks, I've been working on a project called **MKW Switch**, an experimental attempt to bring Mario Kart Wii to the Nintendo Switch through static recompilation.

The idea is to run the original game's PowerPC code as native ARM64 instructions, rather than emulating a Wii CPU at runtime.

**What's working so far:**

* The game boots on a real Nintendo Switch. * Menus, character selection, kart selection and races are functional in the tested scenarios. * The Wii's GX graphics are translated to the Switch GPU using deko3d. * Controllers, memory management and several Wii hardware services are implemented. * Some internal benchmarks have reached around 30 displayed FPS on specific race runs, although performance still varies significantly.

**The technical approach:**

The PowerPC code is translated ahead of time into C++ and compiled for AArch64. A custom runtime handles the Wii-specific hardware behavior, including GX graphics, memory, interrupts, audio and IOS services.

One of the biggest challenges has been optimizing the CPU/GPU pipeline while preserving the original game's graphics and behavior.

I've been experimenting with:

* Fast memory access and MMIO exception handling. * FIFO batching and CPU cache optimizations. * Specialized TEV shaders. * EFB/XFB rendering and synchronization. * CPU profiling, static recompilation and multithreading.

**Current goals:**

1. Reach a stable 30 FPS in demanding races. 2. Improve accuracy, audio and overall stability. 3. Eventually aim for native 60 FPS, if the Switch hardware allows it.

This is still **experimental**. There is no public playable release yet, and the game isn't running perfectly.

Development is AI-assisted, with extensive testing, profiling and validation on actual Switch hardware. I'm also looking for feedback from people experienced with static recompilation, Wii internals, ARM64 and Switch homebrew.

This is an independent project, separate from the other Mario Kart Wii recompilation and Switch-port efforts.

**GitHub (technical documentation and development status):**

[https://github.com/LockingFR/mkw-switch-recomp](https://github.com/LockingFR/mkw-switch-recomp)

The public repository does not include game files, Nintendo assets or a playable build.

I'd love to hear what you think, especially if you've worked on similar projects!

— LockingFR