DOA2U Native PC Port

A native Windows, macOS and Linux port of Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate (Xbox), built by static recompilation, with the goal of rewriting it into readable source.

Download · Features · Bring-up notes · Report a bug

Sister projects: DOA3 · DOAXBV

[!IMPORTANT] This project ships no game files. You need your own legally obtained copy of Dead or Alive Ultimate (Xbox, USA), Disc 2. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by the game's rights holders.

About

The DOA2 game executable on Ultimate's second disc is lifted to C with a static recompiler, then linked against a hand-written runtime that replaces the Xbox kernel imports and the game's Direct3D 8, DirectSound and input libraries (XDK build 5849) with native Windows equivalents: Direct3D 11 or Vulkan, XAudio2 and SDL3. On macOS and Linux the same runtime renders through SDL_GPU (Metal or Vulkan) and plays through SDL3 audio. The rest of the game still runs as generated code. The plan is to replace game logic with readable, hand-written source while the game keeps running.

Features

• The whole game, recompiled. Boot, menus, character select, Story, Watch and the attract demo run on the original game code, lifted to C.
• macOS and Linux. Native Metal and Vulkan builds through SDL_GPU, for Apple Silicon and Intel Macs, Linux PCs and the Steam Deck, from the same lifted program and HLSL shaders as Windows. A gamepad settings screen works in Steam Game Mode. See building on macOS and Linux.
• Native renderer. Direct3D 11, or Vulkan through SDL_GPU, at 480p to 4K, the game's own 16:9 widescreen camera and menus (the 3D view also widened to 16:10, ultrawide or 32:9, the HUD and menus kept 16:9), MSAA up to 32x (8x on Vulkan) and SMAA Ultra. Water reflections render at the output resolution; bloom and lighting follow the game's own passes.
• Xbox-like pacing. Frames flip on the next refresh as on the Xbox, at 60 fps, including heavy rain-stage fights at 4K. On Windows, VRR: On is for G-SYNC or FreeSync displays and tears on fixed-refresh ones; it is not yet verified on a VRR monitor.
• Audio and movies. Music and voices through XAudio2, with 3D voices through the game's HRTF tables and I3DL2 reverb, in stereo or the game's own 5.1 surround mix. The intro and story movies play.
• Controllers. Xbox, PlayStation and other SDL3 controllers, and the keyboard for player 1.
• Free camera. Take the game's camera in fights and cutscenes and fly it anywhere, freeze the scene, hide the HUD and save screenshots. Turn it on in the launcher; see free camera.
• Launcher. Launcher.exe picks resolution, anti-aliasing, widescreen, the renderer, VRR, an optional intro-movie skip, 5.1 surround, the unlock setting, random CPU costumes and the free camera, and remembers them. DOA2U.exe plays with the same choices. On release ZIPs after 0.1.10, the settings launcher on each platform can check GitHub for a newer release and install it from its UPDATE page; Check At Start turns the start-up check off.
• Saves. Your profile and unlocks save to private\play-disc; every character and costume starts unlocked unless you choose Earn on the launcher's GAMEPLAY page. The game's soft reset (Start + Back + both triggers) restarts it.
• Built from your disc. Launcher.exe lifts the game from your ISO and refuses any executable other than the one the developers tested.

Status

[!WARNING] 0.2.2 Alpha is bring-up software. Story, Watch and the attract demo play in development runs on every stage, but many modes and characters have not been tried. A draw the port cannot render yet stops the game with a message in the log.

Area	State
Boot, menus, attract demo, character select	Working
Stages	Every stage played
Story endings	Every ending, its credits and epilogue play
Story, Ayane and Gen Fu	Stages 1-6 cleared without a stop in scripted runs; the Tengu fight was lost each time
Watch	Fights played, including Kasumi vs Lei Fang on The Burai Zenin at 4K and 60 fps
Other characters, Versus, Tag, Survival, Time Attack, Sparring	Not yet played through
Tengu's stage, The Miyama	In Stage Select, before Random, outside Tag; played in Sparring only, other modes not yet played through
Every character and costume	Unlocked by default (the launcher's Earn option leaves them to play); the game saves the unlocks to your profile
Native 16:9 widescreen, 16:10, ultrawide and 32:9, up to 4K, MSAA up to 32x, SMAA Ultra	Working, chosen in the launcher; 32:9 tried only in the attract demo on Direct3D 11
Vulkan renderer on Windows	Working, chosen in the launcher; not yet tested on AMD; MSAA stops at 8x; VRR is Direct3D 11 only
Audio, including 3D voices and reverb	Working
Intro and story movies	Play; the launcher can skip the intro ones
Xbox and other SDL3 controllers, keyboard	Working; keyboard drives player 1
Free camera, scene freeze, screenshots	Working in the attract demo on macOS; a frozen stage's leaves and branches still move
Xbox Live menus	Report no account; Yes quits to the desktop in place of the Dashboard
Online Versus	Rollback netplay from the Versus menu; test build
Hand-written game logic	Not started; the game runs as generated code
macOS and Linux	Boot, menus and the attract demo render at 60 fps through Metal and Vulkan, with MSAA up to 8x and SMAA (building)

Known issues: a demanding moment on The Burai Zenin can still drop a single frame; the safari stage's heat haze does not ripple yet, and its water leaves a gap between the elephants' reflections. The game's bloom glows around bright surfaces as on the Xbox, which reads more strongly on a sharp 4K image.

Play the alpha

On macOS and Linux, including the Steam Deck, follow building on macOS and Linux instead.

Requirements: Windows 10/11 x64, internet access for the first build, and your Disc 2 ISO with about 6 GB free. The ZIP carries Python (with Capstone and Pillow) and CMake, so there is nothing to install. The build downloads the pinned llvm-mingw compiler (190 MB) into tools\llvm-mingw and checks its SHA-256; it needs no Visual Studio or administrator approval.

1. Download the ZIP from the latest release and extract it into a new folder with a short path, such as C:\DOA2U.
2. Open Launcher.exe and drag your Disc 2 ISO onto it (or choose it on the BUILD GAME page); the build starts at once. Wait for Build complete (about 10 minutes). The build stops unless it reproduces the exact program the developers tested.
3. Pick resolution, MSAA, SMAA, widescreen, the renderer and VRR on VIDEO SETTINGS, stereo or 5.1 on AUDIO SETTINGS, the intro skip on MOVIES and Earn on GAMEPLAY to leave unlocks to play, then choose START GAME. A controller, the keyboard or the mouse all work. Your choices are remembered, and DOA2U.exe plays with them later.

The first launch copies about 700 MB of the game's disc archives into its hard-disk cache, which takes a few seconds. Saves and the cache live in private\play-disc. The package contains tools and source, never a prebuilt runner or game data. GitHub's automatic source archives lack the pinned lifter and extractor; use the release ZIP.

Controls: the first connected controller, or the keyboard for player 1: arrows are the D-pad, Enter is Start, Backspace is Back, Z/X are A/B, A/S are X/Y, Q/W are White/Black and E/R are the triggers. F3 turns on, or off again, a readout of the frame rate, the average frame time and the slowest frame of the last second; it starts off.

Offline, hold Back for two seconds to quit to the desktop: A quits, B keeps playing.

Build from source

The public tests need no game files or lifter checkout:

git clone https://github.com/NoRain211/doa2u-re.git
cd doa2u-re
python -m unittest discover -s tools -p "test_*.py"
python tools/public_export.py verify --require-public-tree
cmake -S recomp-runtime -B build/recomp-runtime
cmake --build build/recomp-runtime --config Debug
ctest --test-dir build/recomp-runtime -C Debug --output-on-failure

To also test real PCM consumption on this PC's audio endpoint, configure with -DRECOMP_NATIVE_AUDIO_TEST=ON. Passing tests does not establish game compatibility.

To build the game from a clone, initialize the lifter and pass your ISO:

git submodule update --init tools/xboxrecomp
python tools/package_test.py --launchers .
python tools/build_game.py <your-disc-2.iso>
python tools/run_game.py --play

The importer extracts the disc once into private/imported-disc with XboxDev extract-xiso (on PATH, or bundled in the release ZIP), selects the game executable by its SHA-256 and leaves the ISO unchanged. Only that hash is published, in tools/build_game.py. After a runtime change, python tools/build_game.py --build-only reuses the authenticated lift; --lift-only generates without building. Generated C, receipts and logs stay in private/. The lift reads the committed function list in tools/doa2u/functions; --disassemble rebuilds that list from the executable (about 25 minutes) after a change to tools/doa2u/seed_functions.json or the lifter pin.

tools/doa2u/function_status.json is the decompilation registry. It records the Ghidra name for each tracked function and, once it is more than a name, its status (named, decompiled, bound or tested). A bound or tested entry also names the host source and symbol; the runtime replacement stays in recomp-runtime/program_manual.c or the adapter's own manual lookup. Raw decompiler output, generated C and retail bytes stay under private/.

Area	Named	Decompiled	Bound / tested	Total	Progress
Game	157	46	3	206	24%
CRI middleware	15	0	15	30	50%
SDK / CRT	138	131	4	273	49%
Untagged	521	131	1	653	20%
Total	831	308	23	1,162	28%

Statuses are exclusive; progress counts decompiled, bound and tested. The exporter rewrites this table from function_status.json after each refresh.

The initial decompiled entries are the named functions that already carry a Ghidra comment; the rest stay named until their bodies are worked through. python -m unittest discover -s tools -p "test_*.py" checks every registry address against the committed function list and checks bound symbols exist. Refresh names and tags with tools/doa2u/ghidra/ExportFunctionStatus.py from Ghidra's Script Manager against DOA2.xbe; add that folder to Ghidra's script directories or load it through GhidrAssistMCP. It keeps existing statuses and accepts the registry path as its first argument. Names outside tools/doa2u/functions are skipped and reported; add those addresses to seed_functions.json and regenerate the list first.

run_game.py takes the launcher's settings as switches, and --seconds <n> runs a bounded probe instead of --play:

python tools/run_game.py --play --resolution 2160 --widescreen --msaa 32 --smaa
python tools/run_game.py --play --no-widescreen --msaa 1 --no-smaa
python tools/run_game.py --play --resolution 1440 --screen 3440:1440

The game picks its own 16:9 camera and menu layouts from the dashboard video setting, and the presenter shows that image at 16:9. --screen W:H (RECOMP_D3D_WIDESCREEN=W:H), from 4:3 to 4:1, keeps that widescreen mode in another shape: the runner widens the game's projection to it, so the 3D view fills the screen at the same height, and the presenter keeps the 16:9 HUD and menus in their shape in the screen's center. The launcher's 16:10, Ultrawide (the primary monitor's own shape) and 32:9 choices set it. Online sessions and replays use the host's 4:3 or 16:9 mode, fitted with black bars, as both sides must compute the same frames. Above 480p the Direct3D 11 window fills the screen borderless in any shape, with black bars around a picture of another shape; the SDL_GPU window is resizable and fits the picture the same way. MSAA resolves before SMAA, and gamma applies last; unsupported MSAA counts fall back to the highest count the GPU supports. Options passed to run_game.py bypass the settings window. The build fetches pinned, hash-verified copies of SDL3, upstream SMAA and Dear ImGui, which draws the free camera's panel.

At first launch run_game.py builds an image from private/dedication-photo.jpg (shipped in the release ZIP) with Pillow. --no-unlock-all, or Unlocks: Earn on the launcher's GAMEPLAY page, turns off the automatic character and costume unlock, so unlocks come from play; profiles already saved with the unlock keep it.

--random-cpu-costumes, or CPU Costumes: Random on the GAMEPLAY page, dresses CPU opponents in Story, Time Attack, Survival and Team in random unlocked costumes where the game would give their first one. Story's special picks, such as a costume about to unlock, stay. It stays off online.

To package a release ZIP from a clean checkout:

python tools/package_test.py 0.2.2-Alpha
python tools/package_test.py 0.2.2-Alpha --platform macos
python tools/package_test.py 0.2.2-Alpha --platform linux

It zips the files of committed HEAD that building and playing on that platform need, the pinned lifter's lift and licenses, and the photo from private/release-assets/. Developer notes, tests outside the build and other platforms' launchers and backends stay out; tools/package_test.py lists them. The Windows ZIP adds extract-xiso and its license with test-release.md as README.txt; the macOS and Linux ZIPs use test-release-macos.md and test-release-linux.md.

Repository layout

Path	Contents
recomp-runtime/	Runtime, kernel and input adapters, audio, D3D8 replacements, D3D11 and SDL_GPU presenters, tests
xbe/	XBE parsing and hashing
tools/	Disc import, build, launcher, packaging and export checks; pinned lifter submodule
docs/	Bring-up notes, reuse provenance, decisions and the release README
private/	Ignored local game inputs, generated output and run evidence

Contributing

Translation defects are fixed in the lifter and regenerated; generated game C is never patched by hand. Read bring-up and reuse before changing an adapter.

When reporting a bug, say what you did and what happened, and copy the recomp stop or crash lines from the end of the newest log in private\play-logs (or the error from the newest private\build-logs folder). Logs show your home folder and user name as ~; remove any other private paths, and never upload game binaries, generated game C, assets, extracted filenames, saves or whole logs.

AI assistance

This project uses large language models and AI coding agents extensively for code, reverse-engineering analysis, debugging, tests and documentation. Their output can contain mistakes; changes are reviewed and tested, and unverified behavior is tracked as such.

License

Original code and documentation are licensed under GPL-3.0-or-later; see also NOTICE. Third-party components keep their own licenses. The license grants no rights to the game or its assets.