⬇ Get the latest release · Getting started · Controls · Quick menu · Performance · FAQ · Credits
SMW brings Super Mario Bros. Wonder Recomp, BelmanteGu's static recompilation of the Switch game, to jailbroken PS4 consoles. There's no emulator: the game's ARM code was translated to C++ ahead of time and compiled for the PS4's CPU, and its NVN graphics run on Vulkan through Mesa's RADV driver, ported to submit work straight to the PS4's AMD GPU.
It installs as an app on the home screen, shows its own boot screen with a progress bar, and plays with up to four DualShock 4 controllers. L3 + R3 opens a quick menu for resolution, FSR upscaling, the frame counter and button mapping.
You bring your own game: nothing copyrighted is in this repository or its releases. No game code, assets or keys.
The whole game, natively
- Upstream's recompiled code, with no interpreter or JIT in between, on the PS4's 7 cores.
- The game's own audio engine, out through the PS4's speakers at 48 kHz.
- Saves in
/data/SMW/user, kept across updates.
Made for the PS4's hardware
- FidelityFX Super Resolution 1 renders at a lower resolution and upscales to 1080p, with four quality modes plus native 1080p.
- Render pipelines and the game's ASTC textures are prepared on spare cores in the background, so new objects don't stall the frame.
- Submits are pipelined: the CPU starts the next frame while the GPU finishes the last one.
Couch-friendly
- Up to four players, each on their own DualShock 4 and PS4 user.
- Any Switch button on any DualShock 4 button, changed from the quick menu while you play.
- A frame counter, top right, when you want one.
When something goes wrong
- Logs, crash and freeze reports in
/data/SMW, and a one-press diagnostics capture of a whole frame.
You need: a jailbroken PS4 with GoldHEN (developed on a launch-model PS4), an FTP connection to it, a PC
with Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit, 16 GB of RAM recommended, ~50 GB free), and your own Super Mario Bros. Wonder 1.0.0
dump (.nsp or .xci, base game) with your prod.keys and title.keys, all from your own Switch.
SMW Maker makes both halves from your dump: the game data for /data/SMW and your own SMW package. It's a
standalone Windows app: no WSL, Python or compilers to install, everything it needs is in its folder.
- Download
SMW-Maker-vXX.XX.zipfrom the releases page and unzip it anywhere. - Open
SMW-Maker.exe(it isn't signed: if Windows SmartScreen stops it, press More info, then Run anyway). Press Browse... on each row to pick your dump,prod.keysandtitle.keysin File Explorer (keys next to the dump are filled in for you) and the output folder. The work folder (about 40 GB, its path without spaces) is filled in for you. - Optionally type your PS4's FTP address (for example
192.168.0.90:2121), then press Start. - Wait while the log and progress bar follow along:
- The game data (20-40 minutes): upstream's importer decrypts your dump, the game's 12,751 shaders are
translated, and an
SMWfolder is laid out. - Your package (an hour or two on most PCs): the game's code is recompiled from your dump and built for
the PS4 with the bundled clang 21 and OpenOrbis toolchain into
SMW-vXX.XX.pkg. It runs as many compiles at once as fit in the memory that's free when it starts, keeping 2.5 GB for Windows, at a lower priority than your other programs: the PC stays usable, and 8 GB of RAM works (just slower).
- The game data (20-40 minutes): upstream's importer decrypts your dump, the game's 12,751 shaders are
translated, and an
- With an FTP address, the
SMWfolder goes to/data/SMWand the package to/data/pkg. Otherwise copy the contents ofSMWto/data/SMWand the package to/data/pkgyourself (FileZilla), or press Upload only later. An interrupted upload resumes where it stopped. - Install the package with GoldHEN's Package Installer and start SMW from the home screen.
The package is built from your dump because its eboot.bin is mostly the game's own code, recompiled. That's why
no release can include it, and why you must never share yours. On Linux, or to build it by hand, see
docs/BUILDING.md.
Updating SMW: download the newer SMW Maker, untick the game data, build the package again (your dump isn't
imported twice) and install it on top of the old one. The game data and your saves in /data/SMW stay.
| DualShock 4 | Switch |
|---|---|
| Cross / Circle | A / B |
| Triangle / Square | X / Y |
| L1 / R1 | L / R |
| L2 / R2 | ZL / ZR |
| OPTIONS | + |
| Touchpad click | − |
| Left / right stick | Left / right stick |
| L3 / R3 | Stick buttons |
| D-pad | D-pad |
| L3 + R3, held | The quick menu |
Cross confirms, as in every PS4 menu. Prefer Nintendo's layout (A on the right)? Swap them in the quick menu's
Controls, or put NX_BUTTONS=nintendo in /data/SMW/config.txt.
Hold L3 + R3 for half a second while playing. The game pauses under the menu; Circle or L3 + R3 closes it, and your choices are saved.
| Item | What it does | Applies |
|---|---|---|
| Render resolution | Native 1920x1080, FSR Ultra Quality (1476x830), Quality (1280x720, the default), Balanced (1128x634), Performance (960x540), or the game's handheld mode | Next start |
| Upscaling | FSR 1, or a plain bilinear stretch | At once |
| FSR sharpness | 0 (sharpest) to 2 (none) | At once |
| Frame counter | Off, FPS, or FPS and frame time | At once |
| CPU cores | Balanced, pinned or spread (see docs/BUILDING.md) | Next start |
| Controls | Pick a Switch button, press the DualShock 4 button you want for it | At once |
| Capture a diagnostics frame | Saves every pass of the next frame to /data/SMW/diag |
Next frame |
| Restart the game now | Restarts SMW, to apply the "next start" items |
Measured on a launch-model PS4 in course 1-1, at the default FSR Quality:
| Where | Frames per second |
|---|---|
| Menus, world map | 60 |
| Courses | ~30, the game's own rate when a frame can't make 60 |
The PS4's CPU is the limit: about 23 ms of each course frame goes to turning the game's NVN commands into Vulkan. FSR Quality or Balanced keeps 30 steadier than native 1080p. The first time an area loads, its pipelines and textures are prepared in the background, so an object can appear a frame or two late. They're kept for next time.
FSR 2 and 3 aren't offered: they need motion vectors and a jittered camera from the game, which Wonder doesn't render, and their GPU cost doesn't fit next to the game on a PS4. FSR 1 works on the finished picture alone.
Everything lives in /data/SMW/:
analysis/,extract/romfs/,spirv/: the game data from SMW Maker (your game, keep it to yourself)user/: your savesconfig.txt: your settings (NX_<KEY>=<value>lines; the quick menu writes them)pipelines_*.bin: the pipeline cachenx.log,boot-trace.log,crash.log,hang.log: logs and reports for bug reportsdiag/: diagnostics captures
Why isn't there a package to download?
The package is the game: its eboot.bin holds Super Mario Bros. Wonder's code, recompiled from a dump. Sharing it
would be sharing Nintendo's game, so everyone builds their own from their own copy.
Why does the first start take a while? The boot screen shows the game data loading from the PS4's drive (about 15 seconds once the caches are warm). The first minutes in a new area also prepare pipelines and textures in the background.
The game slows down in busy scenes. The PS4's CPU is the bottleneck. Use FSR Quality or Balanced in the quick menu; on a PS4 Pro, turn on Boost Mode in the PS4's settings.
Something looks wrong or crashes.
Make sure the data came from version 1.0.0 of the game and that the whole SMW folder reached /data/SMW. Then
open an issue with nx.log, boot-trace.log and crash.log or
hang.log from /data/SMW/, the SMW version, your PS4 model and firmware. Never attach game files.
- Only version 1.0.0 of the game is supported, without updates or DLC (upstream's target).
- Upstream's own settings (
NX_*, in itsdocs/nvn/SWITCHES.md) work inconfig.txttoo. - The game's textures (ASTC, which the PS4's GPU can't read) are kept as BC3 since v00.30: a quarter of the memory
of plain RGBA8, which long sessions ran out of.
NX_ASTC_BC=0inconfig.txtkeeps them as RGBA8 again (sharper, but expect a crash after a while). - Only the original PS4 has been tested so far. PS4 Pro reports are welcome.
- BelmanteGu and Super Mario Bros. Wonder Recomp: the recompilation, the runtime and its NVN-on-Vulkan layer, the importer and shader tools
- Ryujinx / Ryubing: the Maxwell shader translator
- Mesa: the RADV Vulkan driver that draws every frame
- OpenOrbis and PacBrew: the PS4 toolchains
- AMD FidelityFX: FSR 1
- Fredoka: the lettering of the boot screen and menus
Everyone involved, with licences, is listed in CREDITS.md.
Released under the MIT License, as upstream. See LICENSE. The PS4 runtime pieces come from Resonance, DolphinPS4 and Crema.
This is a fan-made project with no ties to Nintendo, Sony Interactive Entertainment or the upstream project's authors. Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Nintendo Switch are trademarks of Nintendo; PlayStation and PS4 are trademarks of Sony Interactive Entertainment. Please only play games you own. This project won't help you find or share game files or keys.