GoldenEye 007 — PC port

A work-in-progress native port of GoldenEye 007 (Rare, 1997) to modern desktop platforms, built on top of the GoldenEye decompilation.

It follows the architecture of the Perfect Dark PC port — the same Rare "Indy" engine family, one hardware generation apart. The unmodified game C sources are compiled for the host; the N64's Reality Signal Processor is emulated in software; every other hardware surface (video, audio, input, timers, save storage) is shimmed in a dedicated port/ layer.

Important

You must supply your own GoldenEye 007 ROM. This repository contains no Nintendo code or assets, and no ROM. Nothing here is distributable as a playable game — see Requirements and Legal.

In-engine, running in the port — Bunker 1 and Dam attract views, and a ~15 s clip (no audio yet, Phase 3): mission dossier → Facility → Silo → Jungle → Archives.

Contents

• Background
• Status
• Requirements
• Building · Windows (MSYS2) · Linux
• Running · Default controls
• How it works
• Project layout
• Documentation
• Credits
• Legal
• License

Background

This port is primarily a research project on agentic software development — how far coding agents can be driven, by one person, through a large and unfamiliar low-level codebase (~230 translation units of unmodified big-endian MIPS game code, made to run on a 64-bit desktop).

It used two agents:

• a local open-weight model — unsloth/Qwen3.8-27B-GGUF:UD-Q4_K_XL on a single RTX 5090, driven mainly through the pi coding agent (Unsloth Desktop was also trialed) — which did the groundwork: the CMake build, the boot chain, the software-RSP integration, the offline asset-conversion pipeline, and the first rendered frames;
• Claude (via Claude Code — mostly Sonnet 5, with Opus 5 as an escalation tier for the hardest bugs), which joined on 27 Aug 2026 for a collaborative phase: the 21-level load/render/no-crash sweep, the ABI/layout finding catalogue, the SDL input layer, and the front-end flow.

The two handed work back and forth through shared written artifacts:

flowchart TD
    H["human<br/>direction · integration · playtest"]
    C["Claude<br/>(Claude Code)"]
    Q["Qwen 3.8<br/>(pi, local RTX 5090)"]
    D[("shared artifacts<br/>findings · notes · handoff doc")]
    H -->|"scoped task + budget"| C
    H -->|"scoped task + budget"| Q
    C -->|"patch + write-up"| D
    Q -->|"patch + write-up"| D
    C <-.->|handoff| Q
    D --> H

The handoff document was originally a session-to-session note; it became the interface between the two models — when Claude hit a usage limit mid-problem, the local model picked the task up from that state and continued.

By the numbers:

Metric	Value
Timeline	~2 weeks, one person part-time
Commits	~223
Root-caused bugs logged	162 (D1–D169; some later merged or withdrawn)
Handoff sessions	~33
ABI edits to game code	63 files, all #ifdef PORT
Port layer / tooling	~17k lines C/C++ · ~6k lines Python
Effort split (milestone-weighted)	~60% Claude · ~40% local model

The local model built the entire foundation — build, boot chain, RSP wiring, asset converters — then both agents ran the debugging phase together:

• Day 4 — the full ~230-unit codebase compiles and links
• Day 8 — the whole intro renders
• Day 13 — all 21 solo missions run crash-free
• Day 14 — front end playable end to end

Full write-up, timeline chart, and an honest "what worked / what didn't": docs/dev/agentic-development.md. The workflow itself: docs/dev-process.md.

Status

Warning

Not playable yet. This is a work-in-progress research port. The intro and menus render and all 21 solo levels load, but it is not a complete or reliably playable game: there is no audio, the front-end 3D models and some text are broken, input has known rough edges, and you should expect crashes and glitches once you are past the level intro. Treat it as a technical demo of the porting work, not a way to play GoldenEye.

Phase 2 of 4 (rendering). The port boots, renders, and is playable through the front end into the early game. It is not finished and it is not stable.

Working

• Boot → Rare/Nintendo logos → gun-barrel → cast intro, fully rendered.
• Front end: main menu → mission select → difficulty → briefing → mission start.
• All 21 solo missions load, render, and survive an unattended play window without crashing (see docs/dev/LEVEL-STATUS.md).
• Software RSP (fast3d): textured world geometry, skeletal characters, HUD, the GE-specific color-combiner / render modes and G_TRI4.
• Input: keyboard + mouse (with mode-aware mouse-look) and SDL game controllers, mapped onto the N64 pad. Tunable via ge007.ini.
• File-backed EEPROM saves.

Not yet working

• Audio — not implemented (Phase 3). The game runs silent.
• Some front-end 3D models — the spinning Nintendo logo, and the MISSION COMPLETE / mode-select models — are mispositioned or absent. (The gun-barrel Bond intro renders correctly.)
• Assorted cosmetic defects (some text layout, a few incomplete asset conversions) are tracked in docs/dev/GRAPHICS-BACKLOG.md and parked below crash/level work.
• Platform testing is Windows-only. All development and playtesting has been on x86_64 Windows (MSYS2/MINGW64). The CMake build has Linux and macOS paths and is intended to be portable, but the port has had zero functional testing on Linux or macOS — the Linux build is provided as-is and unverified at runtime. No ARM testing; no controller rebinding UI; no widescreen.

Requirements

You need a GoldenEye 007 (Nintendo 64) ROM that you legally own, in big-endian (.z64) format, matching one of:

Region	ROMID	ROM filename (in data/)	SHA-1
NTSC-U (US)	ntsc-final	ge007.ntsc-final.z64	abe01e4aeb033b6c0836819f549c791b26cfde83
PAL (EU)	pal-final	ge007.pal-final.z64	167c3c433dec1f1eb921736f7d53fac8cb45ee31
NTSC-J (JP)	jpn-final	ge007.jpn-final.z64	2a5dade32f7fad6c73c659d2026994632c1b3174

US is the recommended and best-tested version.

The port also relies on the decompilation's asset-extraction step, which pulls the level, model, texture and music data out of your ROM at build time. That step, too, requires your ROM and is part of Building.

Building

Prerequisites: CMake >= 3.16, a C/C++ toolchain, SDL2, zlib, OpenGL, Python 3, plus the decompilation's own build dependencies (an IRIX MIPS toolchain via qemu-irix, used only for the one-time asset extraction). See docs/building.md for the full walkthrough and the asset-extraction details.

Windows (MSYS2)

# in the MINGW64 shell
pacman -S mingw-w64-x86_64-toolchain mingw-w64-x86_64-SDL2 \
          mingw-w64-x86_64-zlib mingw-w64-x86_64-cmake \
          mingw-w64-x86_64-python make git

git clone https://github.com/jkdansereau/goldeneye-pc-port.git
cd goldeneye-pc-port
# 1. extract assets from your ROM (see docs/building.md)
# 2. build the port
./build-pc.sh ntsc-final          # or pal-final / jpn-final

Linux

Untested. No one has built or run the port on Linux. The steps below are the intended path, not a verified one — expect to fix build issues yourself.

sudo apt install build-essential cmake python3 libsdl2-dev zlib1g-dev libgl1-mesa-dev
git clone https://github.com/jkdansereau/goldeneye-pc-port.git
cd goldeneye-pc-port
# extract assets (docs/building.md), then:
./build-pc.sh ntsc-final

The executable is written to build-pc/ge007.x86_64 (on Windows, build-pc/ge007.x86_64.exe).

Running

1. Create a data/ directory in the repo root.
2. Put your ROM in it, named as in the table above (e.g. data/ge007.ntsc-final.z64).
3. Run the executable from the repo root: ./build-pc/ge007.x86_64.

Configuration is written to ge007.ini on first run.

Default controls

Action	Keyboard / mouse	Controller
Move / strafe	W A S D / arrows	Left stick
Aim / look	Mouse	Right stick
Fire (Z)	Left mouse / LCtrl	Right trigger
Aim mode (R)	Right mouse / LShift	Left trigger
Use / accept (A)	Space / E / X	A / X
Reload / cancel (B)	R / F	B / Y / RB
L trigger	Q	LB
Start	Enter / Tab	Start

Mouse sensitivity, Y-inversion and the aim/turn split are tunable in the [Input] section of ge007.ini.

How it works

The R4300 game code in src/ is compiled completely unmodified — the decompilation's control flow is treated as ground truth. Everything that would touch N64 hardware is redirected into port/:

• port/fast3d/ — a software RSP. It interprets the GBI display list the game builds each frame and emits OpenGL, bypassing the RDP. Adapted from the Perfect Dark port and extended for GoldenEye's custom GBI.
• port/src/gesched.c — replaces the RCP scheduler; instead of poking RSP registers it drives the software RSP directly.
• port/src/libultra.c — single-threaded shims for the libultra OS API (threads, messages, timers, PI/SI/AI/VI) over the host.
• port/src/{video,audio,input,fs,romdata,config}.c — the SDL2 / OpenGL / filesystem backends.

The 32→64-bit transition forces a small, catalogued class of mechanical ABI-only edits to ROM-serialized structs (pointer-width reconciliation); these change no behaviour and are documented individually.

Where it diverges from the Perfect Dark port: GoldenEye's N64 serialized asset formats (level setup, models, backgrounds) are converted offline by a set of Python "sidecar" converters in tools_pc/, rather than fixed up at load time. See docs/internals.md and docs/porting-notes.md.

Project layout

CMakeLists.txt      PC build (parallel to the decomp's Makefile, which is untouched)
build-pc.sh         configure + build helper
src/  include/      the decompilation (game + libultra) - compiled unmodified
port/
  fast3d/           software RSP -> OpenGL
  src/              port layer (main, OS shims, video, audio, input, fs, ...)
  include/          port-facing headers
tools/  Makefile    the N64 build + asset extraction (from the decomp; do not modify)
tools_pc/           PC-port helper + analysis scripts
docs/               see below

Documentation

Doc	What's in it
docs/building.md	Full build + asset-extraction guide.
docs/internals.md	Architecture, the RSP-emulation approach, GE-vs-PD engine differences, the phased plan.
docs/porting-notes.md	The recurring N64→PC bug classes hit during the port, with fixes.
docs/dev/agentic-development.md	The research angle: the two-agent setup, timeline, handoff workflow, and an assessment of what did and didn't work.
docs/dev-process.md	The investigation workflow in detail — budgets, file partitioning, the finding-log discipline.
docs/dev/	The raw engineering record: the full finding log, per-level status, graphics backlog, playtest matrices.
docs/SetupGuide.md, docs/StructureGuide.md, docs/StyleGuide.md	Inherited from the decompilation.

Credits

This port is a thin layer on a large amount of other people's work.

Prior work it is built on

• The GoldenEye 007 decompilation — years of effort by Larry Ficken ("kholdfuzion") and the project's contributors; plus zoinkity's GoldenEye documentation, which the decomp started from. This port is a fork of that repository.
• The Perfect Dark PC port (Ryan Dwyer and contributors) — the reference architecture for this port and the source of the fast3d software RSP.
• The Perfect Dark decompilation — the sibling decomp the PD port is built on.

Vendored / adapted code

• port/fast3d/ — the software RSP, adapted from the PD port. It originates with the Ship of Harkinian / libultraship fast3d (© Emill, MaikelChan; MIT — see port/fast3d/LICENSE.txt), which itself descends from sm64-port's fast3d and audio mixer.
• port/fast3d/glad/ — OpenGL loader generated by glad (David Herberth, MIT).
• The decompilation toolchain: ido-static-recomp (Emill / decompals), qemu-irix and rabbitizer (n64decomp).
• SDL2 and zlib.

Methodology

• Chris Lewis, "Decompiling a Nintendo 64 Game in 84 Days" (the Snowboard Kids decompilation write-up) — the agent-workflow practices in docs/dev-process.md are adapted from it.

Tools and models used to develop the port

• Qwen 3.8 (Alibaba Qwen team), run locally as the unsloth/Qwen3.8-27B-GGUF UD-Q4_K_XL quant; Unsloth (the GGUF quantisation and Unsloth Desktop, used as the local model server).
• pi — the local coding-agent harness.
• Claude / Claude Code (Anthropic).

Legal

This is a non-commercial fan preservation/research project, in the same category as the many other N64 decompilation and native-port repositories on GitHub. It follows the same conventions they do:

• No ROM and no bulk game assets are distributed. Textures, audio, models, level data and in-game text are extracted from a ROM you already own, on your machine, at build time.
• The repository is a fork of the public GoldenEye 007 decompilation and inherits its contents unmodified (see NOTICE for what that includes).
• No official logos, box art, or marketing assets are used. "GoldenEye 007", "007", "James Bond" and related marks belong to their respective owners (Nintendo, Microsoft/Rare, MGM, Danjaq, EON Productions).
• No binaries containing game data are distributed. Any build you make is personal to you.

This project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Nintendo, Rare, Microsoft, MGM, Danjaq, EON Productions, or any rights holder in GoldenEye or James Bond. If you are a rights holder with a concern, open an issue and it will be addressed.

License

The original work in this repository — the port layer (port/), the PC build system, tools_pc/, and the documentation — is released under the MIT License, see LICENSE. Everything inherited from the upstream decompilation is covered by NOTICE, not by that license.