NFSMW Recompiled for iOS

Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005), Xbox 360, running natively on iPhone and iPad.

Requires iOS / iPadOS 26 or later; iOS / iPadOS 18 is experimental (untested).

This is not an emulator. The game's PowerPC code is translated ahead of time into C++ and compiled for Apple's arm64 chips with the ReXGlue SDK. The SDK supplies everything around the game's code: the Xbox 360 kernel calls, the file system, audio and input. The picture is drawn by the game's own shaders translated to Metal (the native renderer, on by default); the SDK's emulated Xenos GPU on Vulkan, through MoltenVK, is still there as a fallback.

You need your own copy of the game. The app on the Releases page contains no game files: no textures, models, sounds, music, videos or tracks. It reads all of them from your own ISO of the USA Xbox 360 game. This repository contains no game files and no translated game code. See Legal.

Version 0.5.2 (see CHANGELOG.md for what changed in each release). The game is playable start to finish, and we are getting closer to a 1.0 release.

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Contents

• What it does
• Requirements
• Installing and first start
• Saves
• Building it yourself
• The launcher and in-game options
• Controls
• Performance and battery
• Known issues and limitations
• Planned
• Feedback
• How it works
• Credits
• Legal

What it does

• The whole game: career, quick races, challenge series, pursuits, free roam, saves, achievements. Black Edition content is always on: its cars in Quick Race and the 70th Challenge Series event.
• Native Metal renderer with a render resolution setting (1x to 2x, or the screen's own), MetalFX upscaling or anti-aliasing, FXAA and MSAA.
• Frame rate caps of 30, 40, 60 and 120 (40 and 120 use the 120 Hz ProMotion display).
• Aspect ratios: 16:9; the game's own 4:3 mode at 960x720 instead of its 640x480; and 19.5:9 (iPhone) with a wider view and the HUD at the screen edges.
• A launcher before the game starts and options while playing (the gear at the top right, or L3+R3): resolution, MetalFX, anti-aliasing, motion blur, post-processing, HUD size and position, battery settings and more, many of them changed without restarting.
• A save manager: careers with their cash and bounty, backups, export and import (including Xbox 360 and PC saves), and iCloud Drive sync between your devices, achievements included.
• Extra Options, ported from the PC mod: markers after beating a Blacklist rival (1-6), cars you can buy (1-25), the Old Bridge road, Quick Race laps, opponents, traffic and weather, skip movies.
• Touch controls made for the phone: menus by swiping and tapping (tap a button hint to press it), a dynamic steering joystick, driving buttons that appear only when the game uses them, and a drag race layout. Every control can be moved and resized, also while playing. They hide themselves when a controller connects.
• Controllers (Xbox, PlayStation, MFi) and keyboards (customizable).
• External displays (HDMI, AirPlay): the game alone on the big screen, the touch controls on the device.
• Battery mode and automatic savings when the device is warm or on Low Power Mode.
• Survives app switching, screenshots and Control Center.

Requirements

The game: an ISO of Need for Speed: Most Wanted for Xbox 360, USA edition (title ID 454107D9), dumped from your own disc. Other editions are not supported by the iOS build yet.

To play: an iPhone or iPad on iOS / iPadOS 26 or later. iOS / iPadOS 18 is experimental since 0.4.1: the app installs there, but nobody has tested it yet; reports welcome. Tested on an iPad Pro M4 and an iPhone 17 Pro Max; A16 iPhones (iPhone 14 Pro / Pro Max) and M1 iPads also run it. Install with SideStore and LiveContainer, no paid developer account needed. Reports from other devices are very welcome (see Feedback).

To build it yourself (optional; a Mac is required):

What	Notes
A Mac with Apple Silicon or Intel	macOS with Xcode 27 installed and selected (sudo xcode-select -s /Applications/Xcode.app), license accepted
brew install cmake ninja	CMake 3.25 or newer
Python 3.9+ and Git	For the scripts
~25 GB free disk space, 16 GB RAM recommended	The SDK, the generated code and the build

Installing and first start

1. Download NFS-Most-Wanted-<version>.ipa from the Releases page (or build it yourself).
2. Import it into LiveContainer (LiveContainer signs it with its own certificate). Open the app once.
3. Copy your ISO into the app's Documents folder with the Files app or Finder. Inside LiveContainer that is LiveContainer's folder, Data/Application/<the app's folder>/Documents.
4. Open the app again: the launcher shows the ISO it found. Press Play.

What the app keeps in its Documents folder:

*.iso	The game (with more than one, the launcher lets you pick)
data/	Your saves and the game's settings
settings.json	The launcher's choices
achievements/	The achievement list and icons the launcher shows
logs/nfsmw.log, logs/boot.txt	The log and the startup trace (Advanced > Logging)
extra_args.txt	Optional: extra options, one per line, for testing

Saves

The save manager (in the launcher) lists your careers with their cash, bounty, and when and on which device each was last saved.

• Sync between devices: choose a folder in your iCloud Drive and saves are copied there shortly after the game saves. When another device has a newer save, the career says so and offers to use it. Achievements follow too.
• Import: an Xbox 360 save file, a Xenia save folder or .zip, a .zip exported from the app, or a PC save (v1.3, converted to the Xbox 360 layout; needs one career of this game on the device already).
• Backups and export, and deleting saves, including ones only in iCloud.

Building it yourself

To continue development, start with Development progress: the current checkpoint, working rules, build procedure and backlog.

Clone this repository next to where the SDK will go (the SDK is prepared in ../rexglue-sdk-ios, beside the repository):

git clone https://github.com/bep1s69/nfsmw-ios.git
cd nfsmw-ios

# 1. The SDK: clones ReXGlue at the pinned version, applies this project's
#    patches and fetches MoltenVK. Once.
python3 tools/ios/prepare_sdk.py

# 2. The game's executable, from your ISO, into assets/game_root/default.xex
python3 tools/fase1_extraer.py "/path/to/your/NFSMW-USA.iso" --solo-xex

# 3. The game's code, translated to C++ into ios/generated/ (a few minutes)
python3 tools/ios/generate_code.py

# 4. The app
cd ios
cmake --preset ios
cmake --build --preset ios --target ipa      # -> ios/build/NFSMW.ipa

The first build takes a while (on an M-series Mac, 20-40 minutes): the whole SDK and 133 generated files, each of which can take more than 2 GB of RAM to compile. Later builds only recompile what changed. The build folder is ~/Library/Caches/nfsmw-ios/build, outside the repository on purpose (iCloud Drive tags files in ~/Documents with attributes that codesign refuses).

Everything the scripts do, and why, is in docs/TECHNICAL.md.

The launcher and in-game options

The launcher has six tabs: Game, Extras, Graphics, Controls, Audio and Advanced. Every option has a short explanation on screen, and the defaults suit normal play. Settings only the emulated renderer uses are greyed out while the native one draws. Advanced holds the GPU and performance switches for testing, and an Extra arguments field for testing options; leave them at their defaults unless you are testing something.

While playing, in a menu or the pause screen, tap the gear at the top right (or press L3+R3 on a controller) to change the render resolution, MetalFX, the 30/60 fps cap, anti-aliasing, motion blur, post-processing, the HUD, the touch controls' steering and dimming, and the battery settings; Customize HUD and Touch controls open their editors. Settings that need a restart (40/120 fps, MSAA) are marked "next launch".

Controls

With a controller, the game's own Xbox 360 controls (control type 1):

Action	Button	Action	Button
Accelerate	RT	Brake / reverse	LT
Steer	Left stick	Shift up / down	Right stick up / down
Nitrous	B	E-brake	A
Speedbreaker	X	Look back	LB
Change camera	RB	Reset car	Back
Pause	Start	Options while playing	L3+R3

Touch

The touch controls change with what you are doing:

• Menus and pause screens: no buttons on screen. Swipe to move through the menu, tap anywhere to accept (A), tap with two fingers to go back (B). Tapping one of the game's button hints ("B Back", "Y Delete"...) presses that button. On the world map a swipe moves the cursor, the LT / RT pictures zoom and the arrows change the category. The PAD button at the top brings the full gamepad back for that menu.
• Driving: steering on the left (a joystick that appears under your thumb anywhere in the bottom-left quarter, or a fixed circle, or two buttons: Controls › Steering), gears, gas, brake, nitrous, speedbreaker, handbrake, look back and reset. The D-pad's actions appear as buttons only when they do something: the map, SMS and the Blacklist in free roam, a button to enter a race, shop or safehouse when you are in its circle, and the race's or pursuit's details during one.
• Drag races: lane change, gears, gas, nitrous and brake.

Camera, pause, PAD and HIDE share the top row. The controls dim after a few seconds without a touch (Controls › Dim when not touched) and hide themselves when a controller connects; HIDE hides them by hand.

Customize touch controls (Controls tab, or the in-game options while playing) moves and resizes every control, with Pad, Drive and Drag tabs, an overall size and the opacity. Keyboard keys can be changed in the Controls tab too.

Performance and battery

On an iPad Pro M4 and an iPhone 17 Pro Max the game holds 60 fps in nearly all of the game at 1x. The 30 and 40 fps caps are smooth and paced to the display. Higher render resolutions and the 120 fps cap are heavier.

Battery work in 0.3.0 and 0.4.0: Battery mode (30 fps, lower resolution, lighter shadows and reflections), 30 fps in menus and pause, 30 fps when warm or on Low Power Mode, and lower thread priorities that cut the drain while playing by about a quarter on M-series iPads. On iPhones, the game's threads now sleep while they wait, so pursuits use less battery and run cooler.

Tested devices

Device	iOS	Installed with	Version	Settings	fps	Battery per hour
iPhone 17 Pro Max	27	LiveContainer2	0.5.0 (pre-release build, same performance code)	Native renderer, 1x, cap 60, MetalFX / FXAA / MSAA off, Performance: Balanced	~60 (lowest 5 s window: 56)	~28 % (15 min of career races, free roam and a chase: 40 % to 33 %)

Your own results are welcome: share them in the Performance reports discussion (device, iOS, how it is installed, settings, fps, battery, and your nfsmw.log if you can). If the game runs badly on your device, use the Performance report issue template: it asks for what is needed to find out why.

Known issues and limitations

• USA edition only for now (the address tables for other editions exist in tools/ediciones/, but the iOS-specific game patches are written for USA).
• 60 fps frame pacing on the iPad is not perfectly even yet; turning off motion blur or post-processing helps.
• 120 fps cap: not a stable 120 in heavy parts of races. The 120 Hz simulation switch (Advanced, off by default) did not remove the judder at 60 fps.
• HUD and scene size can be wrong on the iPad in a few places (race finish, some cutscene overlays and pop-ups).
• Audio: small crackles on AirPods, mostly in police radio chatter; the engine sound can occasionally almost disappear.
• Skipping a movie can turn its last frame red for a moment.
• No Xbox Live (online modes, leaderboards). The game's single-player modes are all there.
• English only (the language of the USA edition).

Planned

In no particular order, and without promises:

• 0.6.0: more Extra Options and Widescreen Fix features, and features from PC mods.
• Even 60 fps frame pacing, then a stable 120 fps and a proper higher simulation rate (like the Widescreen Fix's SimRate).
• More battery savings.
• Support for more game editions.

Feedback

Reports are what will make it better:

• Your device (model, iOS version) and whether the game runs.
• Performance: the frame rate in menus, races and pursuits, with the settings you used (turn on the FPS counter).
• Problems: what happened and where, ideally with the log (Documents/logs/nfsmw.log, with Advanced > Logging on).

Open an issue with them.

How it works

docs/TECHNICAL.md describes the port in detail: how the SDK is prepared and patched for iOS (every patch, what it changes and why, with the measurements behind it), the guest memory on iOS, the app's lifecycle, the native Metal renderer, the touch controls, the 4:3 and 19.5:9 modes, the Extra Options ports, and the Black Edition career fix.

Layout of this repository:

ios/	The iOS app: src/ (launcher, touch controls, audio, game hooks, iOS fixes), the CMake build, Info.plist
common/	The game-side code and code-generator configuration shared with the original project (src/, codegen/)
tools/ios/	Preparing the SDK for iOS, generating the code, and every iOS patch to the SDK and the generated code
tools/parche_*.py, tools/preparar_sdk.py	The original project's patches to the SDK, which the iOS build applies first
tools/ediciones/	Edition detection and the address tables between editions
tools/fase1_extraer.py	Extracts default.xex from an ISO

Much of this project was written with an AI coding assistant (Claude Code), directed and tested on real devices by its maintainer. The technical document records what was measured; trust the numbers, and review the code before reusing it.

Credits

This port stands on a lot of other people's work.

The projects it comes from

• victorgbd/NFSMW-Recompiled-Mobile: the Android port this iOS port started from, with its SDK patches, its game hooks and its edition tables.
• madelrandel-blip/NFSMW-Recompiled: the original recompilation of the game.
• StevensND/nfsmw-nx: the Switch port; the single-pass scene renderer hook comes from it.

What it is built on

• ReXGlue SDK by Tom Clay, and Xenia, the Xbox 360 emulator it descends from.
• XenonRecomp: the static recompilation approach.
• MoltenVK (Vulkan on Metal), SDL3, and the libraries the SDK bundles (FFmpeg, glslang, SPIRV-Tools, spdlog, fmt and others), each under its own license.
• hells-gate-recomp-android by deivid22srk: SDK patches for arm64, downloaded at build time (they declare no license, so they are not included here).

Mods it ports features from

• Extra Options by ExOptsTeam (source).
• Widescreen Fix by ThirteenAG: the reference for the widescreen HUD and the simulation rate.
• NFS MW Save Editor by sprintstate (GPL-3.0): the PC and Xbox 360 save layouts behind PC save import, with the nfsmw decompilation (CC0) for the car database.

Installing

• SideStore and LiveContainer.

Legal

What this repository contains: only this project's own code, configuration, scripts and documentation. No game files, no default.xex, and not the C++ the code generator produces from the game. .gitignore keeps all of these out.

What the released app contains: the game's program code, translated ahead of time from PowerPC to arm64 and compiled into the app, as other static recompilation projects ship theirs. It contains none of the game's assets: no textures, models, sounds, music, videos, text or tracks. The app does not download anything; it reads the game's data from an ISO you provide.

You must own the game. Use an ISO dumped from your own disc of the USA Xbox 360 edition. Do not ask for, or share, ISOs or game files in this project's issues or discussions.

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 (see LICENSE), like the project it is based on. The ReXGlue SDK is BSD 3-Clause and is a separate work with its own terms.

This is an unofficial fan project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Electronic Arts, Microsoft, Xbox or Apple, or the maintainers of the projects it builds on. Need for Speed and Most Wanted are trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. BMW is a trademark of BMW AG.