portingpete / The-Darkness-Recomp

# The Darkness Recomp
A native Windows x64 port of **The Darkness (Xbox 360)**. The 360 executable is
translated to C++ ahead of time and built into `DarkRecomp.exe` with a D3D11
renderer — no emulation at runtime.
> **Bring your own game dump.** This repo contains no game code, assets, or
> binaries. Dump your Xbox 360 copy and drop the files into `Darkness/`
> (step 1 below).
Playable today: full gameplay, mouse look + controller input, video settings
(resolution, FOV, original Xbox gamma calibration and color profiles, bloom,
frame cap, VSync, FXAA/SMAA/MSAA antialiasing, 16x texture filtering), keyboard
remapping, cursor menu selection, XMA audio, and saves.
## Download and play
**Download the Windows release.**
Choose `The-Darkness-Recomp-v...-windows-x64.zip` under **Assets**.
The GitHub **Source code** downloads are for building the project yourself.
1. Right-click the Windows ZIP and choose **Extract All**.
2. Copy your own extracted Xbox 360 game dump into the included **Darkness**
 folder: the original `default.xex`, `Content`, `System`, and all the other
 files and folders from your dump. No XexTool preparation is required.
3. Double-click **Launch.cmd** to play with sound.
Use **LaunchWithSettings.cmd** to choose settings and language before playing.
Use **LaunchWithUpdates.cmd** to check for new commits on GitHub's `main` branch
before playing. It rebuilds and installs the selected commit automatically,
preserving game files, saves, achievements, and settings. Commit updates require
Git, Python 3.11+, CMake, and Visual Studio 2022 with C++ and Clang tools installed.
The audio build also requires MSYS2 MinGW64 build tools at `C:\msys64` and LLVM
at `C:\Program Files\LLVM` (including `llvm-lib.exe`).
For a downloaded installation, it keeps a separate source/build copy and copies
your own dump there; allow space for another game copy and the compiler outputs.
The first build can take several minutes. Source checkouts must be clean and able
to fast-forward to `main`; local edits and divergent commits are preserved.
No compiler, Python, or separate audio setup is needed to play the Windows release.
Use **Launch.cmd** for the installed build, or extract a newer release ZIP to
update without building. The previous release-only updater remains available as
`powershell -NoProfile -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File tools\update_release.ps1`.
Use 64-bit Windows 10/11 with a Direct3D 11-capable graphics device.
See START_HERE.txt for the folder layout and troubleshooting.
An ISO alone is not enough; use an extracted dump of the supported game revision.
The port decodes `default.xex` in memory at startup; `_uncrypted.xex` and
`basefile.exe` are no longer required.
The original supported disc executable and the Russian localization identified
in issue #37 are
recognized automatically. Copy all files from the matching dump, including its
own `default.xex`. The Russian localization uses the game's English content
slot: choose **English**, or **System def