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What NX2Apple is

NX2Apple runs Nintendo Switch games on your Mac and iPhone from your own game dumps. It is not an emulator: the game's own code runs natively on Apple silicon, and Metal draws it. A Mac app, the launcher, does the build in a few clicks (unpack, rewrite, translate the shaders, pack) and then keeps your games in a library you start with Play, the way a Switch does.

It is a community fork of nxnative, which does the actual work (the code rewriter, the Horizon host, NVN on Metal and every game's profile); this fork adds the launcher and a short list of patches, and follows nxnative every day.

Requirements

• An Apple silicon Mac. The launcher opens on macOS 13 or later. Building needs Xcode with the iOS SDK, and NVN games need Xcode 27.1 (macOS 26.6 or later) unless built with --allow-other-metal.
• Your own game dumps (NSP or XCI) and your own prod.keys from your own console. Nothing is bundled, downloaded or looked up for you. The same prod.keys opens every one of your games; a current dump covers all retail titles.
• For an iPhone: iOS 26 or later and a recent phone. Older devices are untested.

The app carries its own build tools and Python, so no Homebrew and no Python install; the .NET SDK 10 is the one tool it still installs for you. The launcher's dependency page checks each requirement and installs what it can with one click.

Install

1. Download the app: NS-Port-Builder-macOS-arm64.zip from the latest release. Unzip it.
2. Open it once with right-click, then Open. The app is not signed with a paid Apple developer certificate, so macOS asks before the first start; after that it opens normally.
3. Follow the setup. The launcher fetches the project it builds with (a Download repository button on the setup page, a shallow clone into ~/NX2Apple; if GitHub is slow, the page shows the manual ZIP route), checks the tools above and updates itself later. You never need git.
4. Build a game. Pick the game's folder (or its base game, update, DLC and prod.keys one by one), choose This Mac or iPhone / iPad, and press build. The page shows the real stages and the time left, and a stopped build continues where it left off. An iPhone build ends with the three steps to put the app on the phone.

Building by hand from a terminal is in BUILDING.md.

How to play

On the Mac, a finished game appears in the library with its key art. Play starts it. Launch options (per game, kept across rebuilds) set the frame rate, console mode (docked or handheld), render scale and upscaling, game language, controls and more; what each does is in docs/settings.md. A controller drives the launcher as well as the games.

On the iPhone, the app shows the same settings before the game starts; tap Play. Touch controls come in a 2D and a 3D layout (tap the button at the top centre), and a connected controller (Xbox, PlayStation, Switch Pro, MFi) replaces them. docs/playing.md covers touch, rumble and motion. Short stutters the first time a scene appears are normal: the app compiles graphics for it once and remembers them. The game's data (romfs.img) can live on an external drive that the Files app picks.

Game language. English is the default. On the Mac, use the Game language row of Launch options. For anything the sheet lacks, write an env.txt of KEY=VALUE lines (for example DM_LANG=zh-Hans) in one of two places: ~/Library/Application Support/nxnative/<title ID>/env.txt wins and survives rebuilds; <App>.app/Contents/Resources/dm/env.txt is the app's own. A Mac app built before the language row existed needs one rebuild to get it. On the iPhone, the same lines go in Documents/env.txt (DM_FPS_TARGET=30 caps the frame rate to save battery, DM_OPMODE=0 picks handheld mode).

Saves and logs. A Mac game in a library folder keeps its saves and its log beside the app (log/<title ID>.log); otherwise they are in ~/Library/Application Support/nxnative/<title ID>/ and ~/Library/Logs/nxnative/<title ID>.log. On the iPhone they are in the Files app under the app's name: save/ and log.txt (the previous run is log.prev.txt).

Reporting a bug. Use the issue forms (game problem, build problem, launcher problem). Each asks for the game and its title ID, your versions and device, Settings > Copy diagnostics and the game's log; CONTRIBUTING.md says why. A report with the full log.txt is looked at first. Never attach keys, game files or anything extracted from a game.

Games

94 games have a profile. Three are verified end to end on this fork (built, installed and played on a phone), 45 more are reported playable on an iPhone upstream, and the rest have a profile that has not been tried on a phone yet. A few of them:

	Game	Where it runs	Status
	The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom	Mac and iPhone	Verified here: 304,243 files, byte-checked; ~17 GB
	Hades II	Mac and iPhone	Verified here
	Animal Crossing: New Horizons	iPhone	Verified here: runs smoothly
	Super Mario Odyssey	iPhone	Reported playable upstream
	The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild	iPhone	Reported playable upstream; 60 fps with 1.9.0
	Mario Kart 8 Deluxe	iPhone	Reported playable upstream

GAMES.md (中文: GAMES.zh-CN.md) has the screenshot gallery with each game's install size, and the full table with the update version each game needs: the update NSP's display version must match the profile's, or the build says so.

Limitations

• Only the games with a profile. A title outside the list needs bring-up work of its own; the place to start is docs/agents, upstream's guide for another Switch title.
• Big games on an iPhone hit a memory limit. Without the Increased Memory Limit entitlement iOS gives the app about 3.4 GB, which is not enough for Tears of the Kingdom. The app requests it, and AltStore Classic 2.2+, Impactor and Xcode with a Personal Team keep it; SideStore with a free Apple ID needs a one-time App ID fix, and Sideloadly drops it (the steps). The full measurements are in GAMES.md.
• Unsigned apps. The launcher and the iPhone builds are not signed for you; you sideload them.
• Your own files. No game data, firmware or keys are included or downloaded.
• Older shard archives are not read any more. The first iPhone builds packed Tears of the Kingdom into a RomFS shard archive (romfs.idx); the build writes a single romfs.img now. An iPhone that still holds an old archive needs the game data sent again once, as a romfs.img through the launcher.

For developers

• Build from source: BUILDING.md. Report or fix something: CONTRIBUTING.md.
• What this fork changes in upstream: the engine (dm/, scripts/, docs/, ref/, AGENTS.md) is nxnative at a pinned commit plus a queue of patches, each saying why the fork carries it. patches/README.md explains it, and python3 scripts/patches.py status lists what is carried. A daily job moves the pin and opens a pull request, or an issue naming the patch that no longer fits.
• Another Switch game: docs/agents (extraction, binary survey, bring-up).
• Release history: CHANGELOG.md.

Credits

Community contributors — this project's code is not one maintainer's output:

• v0lumehi — the Mac front end's launcher (PR #27, 40 files): a game library with key art, per-game launch options, a real progress stream, and a Stop that ends the whole build's process group. The Mac app went from "a build form" to the first version of a launcher that opens like a Switch.
• m1guelpf (Miguel Piedrafita) — two HLE fixes (PRs #24 and #26): the missing EnableAlbumImageTakenNotification and CreateWithAdjustableSystemClock entries plus their snapshot type byte — each would have read a null in games that call them, and each came with a test.

Want on this list? Contributing says how to start; reports with a full log and fixes with a test move fastest.

Community projects — maintained by their authors, outside this repository:

• widmonstertony/nxnative (ios16-pokemon-za-port branch) — iOS/iPadOS 16.1–17 and tvOS compatibility, with a legacy Metal renderer path, tested on an A10X iPad and an M2 iPad. For devices this fork's releases do not support.

All of the engine work is other people's. This repository adds the launcher and the patch queue on top:

• nxnative (MIT) — the native-execution toolchain this repository is built from: the NSO rewriter, the Horizon host layer, NVN-on-Metal, the per-game profiles and the iOS shell.
• d2r-mobile (MIT) — the original native-execution approach that nxnative grew out of.
• Ryujinx (MIT) — the shader translator that turns Maxwell shaders into SPIR-V.
• Atmosphère — the reference for Horizon's synchronization semantics.
• LibHac — reads NSPs and layers updates in nx_extract.
• SPIRV-Cross — SPIR-V to Metal Shading Language.
• yuzu, deko3d, libvpx, stb_vorbis, libdeflate — see upstream's acknowledgement list for what each contributes.

dm/third_party ships other projects with their licenses (list).

Legal

What this project is. A build tool for games you already own. It reads dumps you made of your own cartridges and purchases, on your own machine, and produces a package for your own device. Nothing in this repository, in the app, or in any release contains or distributes Nintendo's code, art, text, data, shaders, firmware, keys or any other copyrighted material.

What it cannot do. The pipeline has no source of games or keys: it requires the user's own prod.keys and their own NSP/XCI dumps, and it talks to no server. It does not bypass, strip or redistribute any protection — LibHac opens the user's own dumps with the user's own keys, the same operation a console performs on a cartridge.

Trademarks. Not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by Nintendo. "Nintendo Switch" and game titles are trademarks of Nintendo Co., Ltd.; all other trademarks belong to their respective owners.

Your responsibility. Laws on making a personal backup copy differ by country; some places do not allow it at all. You are responsible for knowing and following the law where you live, and for never distributing game files, keys or the packages built from them — the project's outputs are for personal use on your own hardware only. If you enjoy a game, buy it.

Takedowns. If you believe anything in this repository infringes your rights, open an issue or contact the maintainer directly; valid claims will be actioned promptly, up to removing content or the repository.

No warranty. The software is provided "as is" under the licenses in LICENSE (this fork adds to upstream's; see the credits) — without warranty of any kind, express or implied. Use it at your own risk.