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Snowboard Kids 2 is 100% Decompiled

blog.chrislewis.au

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Re: Snowboard Kids 2 is 100% Decompiled

#71

Post by larsnystrom »

teiferer wrote: post #61

I understand the technical appeal of this effort, but wouldn't it be easier to try to obtain the original source code? Or has that been lost and all that's left is a blob? Fundamentally, decompilation is not solving a technical problem most of the time (because the source already exists somewhere ) but a social one (that the owner doesn't want to release it).

By that logic VPNs and many other technical solutions are also not solving technical problems, since it is theoretically possible to achieve the same results by other means.

Re: Snowboard Kids 2 is 100% Decompiled

#72

Post by [deleted] »

easyThrowaway wrote: post #67
teiferer wrote: post #61

I understand the technical appeal of this effort, but wouldn't it be easier to try to obtain the original source code? Or has that been lost and all that's left is a blob? Fundamentally, decompilation is not solving a technical problem most of the time (because the source already exists somewhere ) but a social one (that the owner doesn't want to release it).

I wouldn't be surprised if the original source code is probably lost and forgotten in a ZIP drive stored in a basement somewhere in Tokyo. I've made a similar point in an earlier comment, but consider the following: Even if the original sources leaked in a human-readable format, the original game was probably written in a mixture of the device-specific dialect of the Mips R3000 assembly used by the Nintendo 64, whate…

[deleted]

Re: Snowboard Kids 2 is 100% Decompiled

#73

Post by Groxx »

userbinator wrote: post #45
Gamemaster1379 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that, but just today I showcased my Megaman X Recomp on a Megaman subreddit. I got harassed by a drive-by anti-AI cabal and then the moderators of the subreddit removed my submission after I reported the harassment, citing that AI was involved, and AI is theft.

[flagged]

Libraries purchase books. One for every book they loan out at a time, digitally or physically.

The most recent noteworthy counter-example is archive.org breaching their "one purchase = one concurrent loan" limit during COVID, and they lost that court battle.

If you're equating libraries to LLMs, then every leading-model company would have purchased ~every book, newspaper, movie, and song in existence at least once. They have not.

Re: Snowboard Kids 2 is 100% Decompiled

#74

Post by tstenner »

genxy wrote: post #37
nemo1618 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is crazy. I have been contributing the Melee decompilation project for the past year-ish, and things have really accelerated in 2026. Just today I decided it would be nice to have a better "permuter" (program that randomly modifies C in the hopes of finding a better asm match) so I...just asked Claude to make one, custom-tailored to my needs. It almost feels pointless to publish it to GitHub when I can just…

The prompt and a couple samples is the source.

And having it actually tested

Re: Snowboard Kids 2 is 100% Decompiled

#75

Post by pikedev »

Love to see the enthousiasm for Snowboard Kids. I thought it was more of a hidden gem that not many people know about. I played that game with friends so much when I was young. Never was able to get my hands on Snowboard Kids 2 as it was never in stores.

Re: Snowboard Kids 2 is 100% Decompiled

#76

Post by stalfie »

idiotsecant wrote: post #42
Gamemaster1379 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that, but just today I showcased my Megaman X Recomp on a Megaman subreddit. I got harassed by a drive-by anti-AI cabal and then the moderators of the subreddit removed my submission after I reported the harassment, citing that AI was involved, and AI is theft.

That's a pretty valid viewpoint, honestly. Unless the AI is open weights and free of charge it's using human effort that nobody paid for to do a commercial thing. I would make the argument that open weights models are ethically still maybe questionable, but at least it's making the output a public good

The counterpoint is that every company ever has based themselves on human effort they never paid for (usually). The entire scientific endeavour for example. Standing on the shoulders of giants and so on.

Re: Snowboard Kids 2 is 100% Decompiled

#77

Post by dsign »

I'm currently working in a cool hardware project (an "audiogame console" in a stealthy form factor), and I when I read this I had to go through the rabbit hole of comparing the hardware of the N64 with what I'm planning to use, an inexpensive ESP32-P4. It was nice to learn that the RSP in the N64 is similar to the RISCVs in the present-day MCU, with 128-bits wide SIMD. Most of my experience with numeric computing has been using at least 64 bits floating point; can't wait to shoot my foot many times with int16.

Re: Snowboard Kids 2 is 100% Decompiled

#78

Post by r17n »

pikedev wrote: post #75

Love to see the enthousiasm for Snowboard Kids. I thought it was more of a hidden gem that not many people know about. I played that game with friends so much when I was young. Never was able to get my hands on Snowboard Kids 2 as it was never in stores.

I'm so excited about this. My cousins and I still play Snowboard Kids (one) whenever we meet up.

Re: Snowboard Kids 2 is 100% Decompiled

#79

Post by jamesu »

Gamemaster1379 wrote: post #41
userbinator wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

given the heavy correlation to those communities and anti AI sentiment. I've noticed the anti-AI sentiment is starting to die down. People are slowly realising that, along with the voluminous amounts of slop, there are others who have been able to leverage AI with much success.

You say that, but just today I showcased my Megaman X Recomp on a Megaman subreddit. I got harassed by a drive-by anti-AI cabal and then the moderators of the subreddit removed my submission after I reported the harassment, citing that AI was involved, and AI is theft.

One bizarre related thing I've noticed is often you will find people who otherwise seem ok with people violating the copyright and other various licenses by "decompiling" a game, but as soon as AI is involved suddenly it's a big controversial ethical issue... as if totally violating the authors rights is a minor inconvenience.

Re: Snowboard Kids 2 is 100% Decompiled

#80

Post by adonese »

boricj wrote: post #53
CM30 wrote: post #6

Always nice to see another game decompiled like this. It's a big deal as far as laying the groundwork for possible ports to PC and other consoles is concerned, and will probably aid modders quite a bit. If anyone needs a full list of these projects (which includes this one), there's a pretty good selection here: https://decomp.dev/projects Though these may have a few they missed: https://readonlymemo.com/decompilatio…

I'm the author of ghidra-delinker-extension and these are not full lists of these projects. Here are some public projects that I'm aware of which aren't listed: - Moon Lights 2: https://github.com/Armonte/ml2decomp - F-15 Strike Eagle II: https://github.com/neuviemeporte/f15se2-re I've also been in discussion with people working on decompilation projects which are private. I won't share details, but it includes both…

Sorry to ask this, but are there any discord links you can share?
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