SpeedBreaker v0.1.3

What's new

• Smoother driving: no more small hitch every few seconds (the car jumped ahead, then stood
  still for a frame or two), which frame-time graphs didn't show (GitHub issue #9). Thanks to
  m9cy884mv6-a11y for the careful report.
• Sun shadows of cars, walls and tunnel roofs: cars now cast their hard shadow in sunlight, and
  walls, barriers and tunnel roofs shade the road and the cars, as on the Xbox 360. Inside tunnels
  the car no longer flickers between sunlight and tree shadows (GitHub issue #3). Thanks to the
  players who reported the flicker on GitHub and the missing car shadows on Reddit.
• Nitrous light trails are now as long as on the Xbox 360: at 60 fps they were half as long, and
  looked brighter (GitHub issue #10). Thanks to jaswinprakash for the report, and to victorgbd,
  whose Android port of another Most Wanted recompilation found the cause.
• Pause menu > Performance Tuning: each slider has its own name again (Steering, Handling, Brakes,
  Ride Height, Aerodynamics, Nitrous, Turbo or Supercharger) instead of "Steering" on every row
  (GitHub issue #8).

How to update

• Mac: drag the new SpeedBreaker into Applications and choose Replace, then allow it once more with Open Anyway (System Settings > Privacy & Security).
• Steam Deck, Steam Machine, Steam Frame and Linux: unpack the new download over the old folder (~/Games/SpeedBreaker). Your Steam shortcut keeps working.
• Everywhere: your saves, settings and the installed game are kept, and no disc image is needed.

More about it

• The hitch: the game's main loop runs a couple of frames ahead of the screen. When one of its
  frames took longer, SpeedBreaker gave it two or three steps of game time and the next ones
  none, while the screen still showed one frame per refresh. A frame the screen shows for one
  refresh now runs one step, and the game's speed is unchanged. Measured on a Steam Machine at
  60 Hz: such frames went from 43 in two minutes of driving to none.
• The shadows: the game draws cars, walls and tunnel roofs into its sun shadow map as plain
  solid shapes, which on the Xbox 360 run no pixel shader. SpeedBreaker ran the trees'
  leaf-cutting shader on them too, and it threw them all away. Checked against real Xbox 360
  footage of the same race: the car's shadow on the barriers, the shade past buildings, and a
  steadily shaded car in tunnels. Sunlit roads are as bright as in v0.1.1 and v0.1.2.
• The light trails: the game draws them from where the car was over its last two frames, and
  the Xbox 360 races at 30 fps, so at 60 fps they covered half the distance. They now span the
  same time as on the 360. At Frame Rate 30 nothing changes.
• The tuning labels: the recompiled code looked up each row's name in a table that had lost
  all but its first entry. The same recompilation fault touched two other tables, one of them
  the Rap Sheet's Cost to State figures; both now match the Xbox 360's code too.

The full list of changes is in CHANGELOG.md.

Which file is for my device?

Device	Download	Setup
Steam Deck, Steam Machine and Linux PCs (x86-64)	SpeedBreaker-steamos-x86_64.tar.xz	Steam Deck and Steam Machine, Linux
Steam Frame (arm64)	SpeedBreaker-steamos-arm64.tar.xz	Steam Frame
Mac with Apple silicon, macOS 15 or later	SpeedBreaker-macos.dmg	Mac
iPhone and iPad (experimental)	SpeedBreaker-0.1.3-ios.ipa, or build it yourself with Xcode	iPhone and iPad
Windows and Android	Coming soon

The two SteamOS files are not interchangeable: the arm64 one is for the Steam Frame only, and the
x86-64 one doesn't run on the Frame. Each download has a .sha256 file next to it (see Checksums
below).

All downloads are built from this release's source, commit b49fc32. The first line of the
game's log, and Settings > Advanced, say SpeedBreaker v0.1.3 (b49fc32).

The Source code archives that GitHub adds hold SpeedBreaker's own source, with no game code or
data. Building from them needs your own disc; see
Building from source.

iPhone and iPad: the experimental IPA

SpeedBreaker-0.1.3-ios.ipa is signed by nobody: a sideloading tool such as AltStore signs it
with your own Apple Account and installs it. The IPA itself hasn't been installed on a device
yet: the iPhones and iPad it was tested on ran the same app built and signed with Xcode. Please
report how it goes, working or not, with your device and tool.

• The game asks iOS for more memory than most apps (two entitlements: Extended Virtual Addressing
  and Increased Memory Limit). A free Apple Account can give at most the second, and only with
  some tools: AltStore Classic 2.2 or later is expected to keep it; SideStore 0.7 drops both.
  Without them the game may not start, or iOS may close it in busy scenes. When iOS refuses the
  memory, the game says so on screen instead of closing.
• A free Apple Account's apps stop opening after 7 days until the tool refreshes them, and at most
  3 sideloaded apps can be active at once. These are Apple's limits.
• iOS or iPadOS 17 or later, on an A15-class chip or newer, with a controller or keyboard.
• Coming from a build you made yourself, the IPA installs as a separate app: install the game again
  from your disc image. Saves made in the old app stay with it.
• Sideloading the IPA
  has the steps and which tools keep what. Building it yourself with Xcode still works as before.

How these downloads were tested

Each download attached here was tested before release. It was unpacked or opened as the setup
steps say, with a fresh home folder, and the game was installed through the installer from a disc
image:

• x86-64: on a Steam Machine (SteamOS 3.8). The game raced at 60 fps with sunlit roads, the
  car's hard shadow on the barrier beside it, and the car shaded inside a tunnel. In a 60 Hz
  display test, no frame jumped ahead or froze (18 and 11 did before the fix). The Steam Deck
  wasn't reachable for this release's test.
• arm64: on a Steam Frame (SteamOS 0.3.0), outside the headset. The game raced at 58.6 fps
  with sunlit roads and the car's hard shadow; over a race, frames that froze went from 35 to
  none, and the game's speed was unchanged.
• Mac: on a MacBook Pro (M1 Pro, macOS 27.0.1). The game raced at about 60 fps with sunlit
  roads, the car's shadow on the barrier, a steadily shaded car in a tunnel, and light trails at
  the Xbox 360's length. On macOS 15.6.1 (Sequoia), in a virtual machine on a Mac Studio, it
  installed and raced at about 60 fps.
• Updating from v0.1.2: on the Steam Machine, the Steam Frame and the Mac, v0.1.3 went over a
  working v0.1.2 the way "How to update" says. The game used the existing install without
  reinstalling it and showed What's new once; on the Mac, a setting changed in v0.1.2 was kept.
• Check for Updates reached GitHub and answered correctly on the Mac, in the macOS 15
  virtual machine and on the Steam Frame.
• iPhone and iPad IPA: built and checked (its version, its two entitlements, its license
  notices, no personal data), but not installed on a device yet; see above.

Checksums (SHA-256)

File	For	Size	SHA-256
SpeedBreaker-steamos-x86_64.tar.xz	Steam Deck, Steam Machine, Linux PCs	16.1 MB	9f8d9d32957e1f85cfdca568dee732c9bfb197def4459a2f05cfd5cd74206acc
SpeedBreaker-steamos-arm64.tar.xz	Steam Frame	13.8 MB	8261b0e59630e06bfad9f3d15f96d54708c90cd7104bc9dfb50c4a4e2d242dfd
SpeedBreaker-macos.dmg	Mac (Apple silicon, macOS 15 or later)	19.9 MB	06b86e574ab14540459af5e4a750bd527840006d96bdadee32bf76b622114127
SpeedBreaker-0.1.3-ios.ipa	iPhone and iPad (experimental, to sideload)	15.8 MB	0d0cbc06cfe9e543b65e6fd4d2249b74173d708a17c0b7c13d8dc4f8a9c65c60
SpeedBreaker-0.1.3-third-party-source.tar.xz	Source of the LGPL and GPL libraries in the downloads	213.6 MB	1849844c5daa3b7e1a0f57eeee425d67c9577cdd73ea3454e21b41879d1b2e0b

Each file has its .sha256 next to it on this page. Download both into the same folder, then
run sha256sum -c SpeedBreaker-steamos-x86_64.tar.xz.sha256 on SteamOS or Linux, or
shasum -a 256 -c SpeedBreaker-macos.dmg.sha256 on a Mac (with your file's name). It should
say OK.

Known issues and limits

• Mac, the first time you open it: the app isn't notarized by Apple, so macOS refuses to
  open it and offers Done or Move to Trash. Click Done. Then go to System Settings >
  Privacy & Security, scroll down to the message that SpeedBreaker was blocked, click Open
  Anyway, and confirm with Open Anyway and your password (or Touch ID). After that it opens
  normally.
  • The Open Anyway button only stays there for about an hour after the refusal. If it's gone,
    open the app again.
  • You do this once per download, so once more after each update. Control-click > Open no
    longer skips it.
  • The app isn't damaged. If macOS ever says it is, check the download against its .sha256 and
    download it again.
  • Apple silicon only, macOS 15 or later.
• macOS 15 Sequoia was tested in a virtual machine, not yet on a real Mac. If you play on
  macOS 15, a short report in the issues, working or not, with your Mac's model, would help a lot.
• Steam Deck OLED: set the refresh rate to 60 Hz (Quick Access > Performance). At 90 Hz
  the game stutters. Leave the Framerate Limit off. The Steam Deck LCD hasn't been tested yet.
• Game Mode on Steam Deck and Steam Machine:
  • Browse for image... may not open in Game Mode. Use the image the installer found instead:
    it is highlighted, so press A, then A again on Install. If it found more than one
    (for example one in Downloads and one on the SD card), pick yours with Up and Down first.
  • Choose a folder... opens its folder picker only in Desktop Mode. Pick the folder there, or
    run ~/Games/SpeedBreaker/speedbreaker.sh --install <image> --dest <folder> from Konsole. Use
    a folder on the internal storage or on a card formatted by SteamOS, or Game Mode won't find
    the game.
  • Game Mode only sees SD cards and USB drives formatted by SteamOS. For others, copy the image
    into Downloads from Desktop Mode.
  • Docked, or on a Steam Machine, set the shortcut's Game Resolution to Native.
• Steam Frame: it plays as a big flat screen in the headset; it is not a VR mode. Set Display >
  Frame Rate to 30 fps for smooth play (the headset's compositor shares the graphics chip; the
  game keeps its full speed). The Frame's file manager can't unpack the download: use the Konsole
  command in the setup steps. Since v0.1.2 the game needs a current SteamOS on the Frame (September
  2026 or later): if it says GLIBCXX_3.4.34 not found, update SteamOS.
• Linux:
  • Always start it with speedbreaker.sh. Started on its own, the program in lib/ fails on
    most systems with a message such as GLIBC_2.44 not found.
  • The x86-64 download is tested here on SteamOS. Players reported v0.1.1 working on Fedora 44
    with a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti and on Ubuntu 24.04 with Intel Arc graphics (issue #2).
    The dedicated-GPU choice on two-GPU laptops hasn't been tried on a real laptop here yet: a
    note with your laptop's [video] Vulkan devices: log line would help.
  • Choose a folder... needs a file chooser portal or zenity; without one, install with
    --dest.
  • It needs a CPU with AVX2 (Intel Haswell, AMD Excavator or Zen, or newer) and Vulkan 1.2
    graphics.
• iPhone and iPad: the IPA is experimental and hasn't been installed on a device yet (see
  above). On the iPhone 18 Pro Max, long sessions on a charger get it hot even at 1x, and Frame
  Rate Auto then drops to 30.
• Game versions: only the USA (NTSC-U) Xbox 360 disc is supported. PAL and Japanese discs,
  re-releases, Games on Demand packages and the PC version aren't, and no title update is used.
• Not in this release: importing Xbox 360 saves, button remapping, mouse control in the game,
  more than 60 fps (the game's own cap), and Android builds. Windows is coming soon.

Reporting a bug

1. Open the settings (F1; Back + Start on a controller; on a Steam Deck hold View and press Menu;
   on a Steam Frame press Menu + View; a three-finger tap on iPhone and iPad), go to
   Advanced and choose Save Bug Report.
2. A notice says where the zip file went: usually your Desktop (on SteamOS, pick it up in Desktop
   Mode, or in the Desktop app on a Steam Frame), or the SpeedBreaker folder in the Files app on
   iPhone and iPad. Its name says which version you're running, for example
   speedbreaker-bug-report-v0.1.3-<date>_<time>.zip. Nothing is uploaded, and nothing is
   checked online unless you press Check for Updates.
3. Check the open issues first. Then
   open a new issue, attach the zip, and say which device and download you use, what you were
   doing, what you expected, what happened, and roughly how long into the session it happened.
   If the game crashed, start it again and save a report: the crash report is included.

Never attach game files or disc images to an issue.
CONTRIBUTING.md
says how bug reports and pull requests are handled.

Thanks

To jaswinprakash for the light trails report and victorgbd for finding their cause, to
a-thousand-faces and m9cy884mv6-a11y for the tunnel reports in #3, to the Reddit tester whose
screenshot showed a car with no sun shadow, and to m9cy884mv6-a11y again for the tuning labels in
#8 and the stutter report in #9.

License and legal

SpeedBreaker is free software under the GNU General Public License, version 3 or (at your
option) any later version (GPL-3.0-or-later). Each download carries its license notices and every
bundled library's own license (licenses/ in the SteamOS downloads,
SpeedBreaker.app/Contents/Resources/licenses in the Mac app, SpeedBreaker.app/licenses in the
IPA).

The complete source of the LGPL and GPL code by others in these downloads (FFmpeg with
SpeedBreaker's patch and libmspack in all of them; the GNU C Library and GCC's runtime libraries in
the x86-64 one) is attached below as SpeedBreaker-0.1.3-third-party-source.tar.xz.

"Need for Speed" and "Most Wanted" are trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. Steam, Steam Deck, Steam
Machine, Steam Frame and SteamOS are trademarks of Valve Corporation. iPhone, iPad and macOS are
trademarks of Apple Inc. All other trademarks belong to their respective owners. SpeedBreaker is a
fan project by project(u), not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Electronic Arts Inc.,
the Need for Speed brand, Valve Corporation or Apple Inc. It contains no game data or assets, and
is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind. No game files are included: you need a
backup of your own USA (NTSC-U) Xbox 360 disc.