SpeedBreakerProject/speedbreaker

An unofficial static recompilation of the Xbox 360 version of Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005):
a native port, not an emulator.
Play your own copy on Steam Deck, Steam Machine and Steam Frame (SteamOS), Linux and Mac,
and for iPhone and iPad, sideload the experimental IPA or build it yourself.

Download  ·  Quick start  ·  Website  ·  Report a bug

_{What you see in a race, on a 21:9 ultrawide: a wider view, not a stretched one, with the HUD and the mirror where they belong.}

Contents: What it is · Highlights · Download · Quick start · How to update · Setup by platform · Controls · Settings · Tips · FAQ · What's next · For developers · Credits · License · Legal notice

SpeedBreaker is an unofficial static recompilation of the Xbox 360 version of Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005): a native port, not an emulator. It runs as an ordinary app on your device (see how it works).

It is built from the Xbox 360 version of the game, not the PC version: it runs the Xbox 360 release's own code, translated ahead of time, and it installs only from the Xbox 360 disc.

You bring the game: SpeedBreaker installs it from a backup of your own disc and checks every file. Then you race, with things the Xbox 360 couldn't do: up to 4K, ultrawide and tall screens, and a settings menu you can open mid-race.

• Up to 4K. The 3D scene renders at 1x, 1.5x, 2x or 3x the console's 720p (1.5x is 1080p, 3x is 3840x2160). Auto picks a scale for your screen and device.
• Ultrawide done right. On 21:9 screens the view gets wider instead of stretched, and the HUD and the rear-view mirror stay in place. A 4:3 iPad, a 3:2 screen or the 16:10 screens of the Steam Deck and many Macs show more above and below instead, and fill the screen.
• Up to 60 fps, locked to your 60 Hz display. You can also pick a steady 30 at full game speed, or Auto, which drops to 30 only while a device is hot or can't hold 60.
• The sun glare is back. The low sun glows in open sky and fades behind buildings, as it did on the console.
• The original look: sunlit roads and shadows as on the console, the picture a real Xbox 360 sends to a TV (the game's own display gamma), correct colours on Apple devices, proper car paint and mirror reflections, and distant textures that don't shimmer. Anti-aliasing, sharpening, FSR 1 upscaling, a Brightness setting and up to 16x anisotropic filtering are also available.
• A guided installer. It finds your disc image, checks that it is the right game, and verifies all 49 files as it copies them. An interrupted install never leaves a broken game.
• Your controller, or the keyboard. Controllers work as an Xbox 360 pad, with hot-plugging and rumble support. Every keyboard control can be reassigned in the settings.
• A settings menu that pauses the game. Open it with F1, Back + Start, or a three-finger tap. Every change applies at once, and Quit Game leaves the game from a controller too.
• Suspend and resume on iPhone and iPad. Switch away and the game freezes; come back and it carries on where it stopped.
• One-button bug reports. Logs, settings and a screenshot go into one zip file. Nothing is uploaded, and you decide what to send.
• Check for Updates. One press in the settings asks GitHub whether a newer release is out, shows what changed and opens the download page (or shows it as a QR code for your phone). Nothing is checked online unless you press Check for Updates.

21:9 in a race: the wider view and the low sun's glare.	4:3, the shape of an iPad screen, with more picture above and below.
The intro cinematic at 3440x1440.	A pursuit cinematic at 3840x2160.
The settings menu over a paused race.	First run: the installer has found the player's disc image.

_{Screenshots: SpeedBreaker v0.1.2 on a Mac Studio (M4 Max). They are unedited frames from the game's own output, except that the licence plates in the top image and the first race image are blurred. The game content in them belongs to its owners.}

Each link downloads the newest release. Every file and its .sha256 checksum file are on the latest release page. To check a download, put its .sha256 file next to it and run shasum -a 256 -c SpeedBreaker-macos.dmg.sha256 on a Mac, or sha256sum -c SpeedBreaker-steamos-x86_64.tar.xz.sha256 on SteamOS (with your file's name): it should say OK. What changed in each release is in CHANGELOG.md.

• Everyone: a disc image of your own USA (NTSC-U) Xbox 360 disc (see Quick start), about 7.2 GB of free space, and a display running at about 60 Hz (or 120 Hz, 180 Hz or 240 Hz on SteamOS and Linux).
• Steam Deck, Steam Machine and Linux PCs (the x86-64 SteamOS download): a 64-bit x86 CPU with AVX2 (x86-64-v3): Intel Haswell (2013) or newer, or AMD Excavator, Zen or newer. A Vulkan 1.2 graphics card.
• Steam Frame (the arm64 SteamOS download): SteamOS on the Steam Frame, kept up to date (v0.1.2 needs the September 2026 release or later). The arm64 download is for the Frame only; it hasn't been tested on any other arm64 Linux device.
• Mac: Apple silicon and macOS 15 (Sequoia) or later. The app won't open on older versions of macOS, and there is no Intel Mac build.
• iPhone and iPad: iOS or iPadOS 17 or later, on an A15-class chip or newer (iPhone 13 and later, M-series iPads), and a controller or keyboard. Devices with less memory than the tested ones are untested.

1. Back up your own disc. SpeedBreaker supports one version of the game: the USA (NTSC-U, English) Xbox 360 disc. The installer takes a full .iso, a trimmed XISO, or a folder with the extracted disc files. No title update is needed. SpeedBreaker doesn't provide game files or disc images, or link to them.

2. Get SpeedBreaker. Download it for Steam Deck, Steam Machine and Steam Frame (SteamOS), Linux or Mac. On iPhone and iPad you sideload the experimental IPA or build it yourself. Then follow the setup for your platform.

3. Start it and install. On first run, SpeedBreaker looks for your disc image, checks that it is the right game and version, then copies and verifies every file. This takes a few minutes at most. Afterwards you can delete the disc image.

   

4. Race. Your saves and settings are kept apart from the game, so they stay when you update SpeedBreaker or reinstall the game. The settings open with F1, Back + Start on a controller, or a three-finger tap on iPhone and iPad.

• Mac: drag the new SpeedBreaker into Applications, choose Replace, then allow it once more with Open Anyway (see Mac setup).
• Steam Deck, Steam Machine, Steam Frame and Linux: unpack the new download over the old folder (~/Games/SpeedBreaker); your Steam shortcut keeps working.
• Everywhere: your saves, settings and the installed game are kept, and no disc image is needed. Settings > Advanced > Check for Updates says when there's a new release, and so does GitHub's Watch > Custom > Releases.

1. Download and unpack (in Desktop Mode). Download the SteamOS build, SpeedBreaker-steamos-x86_64.tar.xz. Make a Games folder in your home folder, move the file there, and choose Extract archive here. Or, in Konsole:

   mkdir -p ~/Games && tar -xf ~/Downloads/SpeedBreaker-steamos-x86_64.tar.xz -C ~/Games

   Keep it on internal storage or on an SD card formatted by SteamOS, and don't use :, ; or $ in the folder names. To update later, unpack the new download over the same folder (How to update).

2. Add it to Steam. Steam > Games > Add a Non-Steam Game to My Library > Browse. Set the file type to All Files and pick ~/Games/SpeedBreaker/speedbreaker.sh, the launcher (the program itself is in lib/). Leave Compatibility (Proton) off: this is a native Linux game.

3. Put your disc image in Downloads, or in the top folder of an SD card. SpeedBreaker also looks in your home folder, Desktop, Documents, Games, USB drives and EmuDeck's Emulation/roms/xbox360. Game Mode only sees SD cards and USB drives formatted by SteamOS; for a card formatted on a PC, copy the image into Downloads first.

4. Install (back in Game Mode). Start SpeedBreaker from your library. It highlights the image it found (Ready to install; with several, pick yours with Up and Down): press A, then A again on Install. Use the images it finds rather than Browse for image..., which may not open in Game Mode. The game goes to the internal storage; to put it on the SD card or in another folder, press Up and pick with Left and Right before Install. Choose a folder... opens a folder picker in Desktop Mode only. From Game Mode, switch to Desktop Mode and choose the folder there, or run ~/Games/SpeedBreaker/speedbreaker.sh --install <image> --dest <folder> from Konsole in Desktop Mode (or over SSH). Use a folder on the internal storage or on a card formatted by SteamOS, or Game Mode won't find the game.

5. Check the screen settings.

   • Steam Deck OLED: set the refresh rate to 60 Hz (Quick Access > Performance). At 90 Hz the game stutters, and since v0.1.7 a note says so, once, the first time it runs at 90 Hz. Turn on Steam's per-game profile there and it keeps 60 Hz for this game. On any Deck, leave the Framerate Limit off.
   • Docked, or on a Steam Machine: in the shortcut's Properties > General > Game Resolution, choose Native.
   • The picture fills the Deck's 16:10 screen, with a slightly taller view and the HUD kept at 16:9. For the console's 16:9 picture with thin bars above and below, set Settings > Display

     Aspect Ratio to 16:9.

Controls: the Deck's controls work through Steam Input (default Gamepad layout). Settings: hold View (two squares, left of the screen) and press Menu (three lines, right of the screen).

Uninstall: delete ~/Games/SpeedBreaker/, ~/.local/share/speedbreaker/ (this deletes your saves too) and ~/.cache/speedbreaker/, and remove the shortcut from Steam.

Portable mode: to keep everything in the SpeedBreaker folder (saves, settings, logs, shader caches and the installed game), so the whole folder can be moved or copied to another Steam Deck, Steam Machine or Linux PC, make an empty file named portable.txt next to speedbreaker.sh. That starts fresh; to bring your current settings, saves and game along, run ~/Games/SpeedBreaker/speedbreaker.sh --portable on in Konsole instead, and --portable off to go back. Both copy and never delete. The folder's README says more.

The Steam Frame has its own download. You set it up on the Frame's desktop: open the Desktop app in your Steam library.

1. Download and unpack. Download the Steam Frame build, SpeedBreaker-steamos-arm64.tar.xz, into Downloads (not SpeedBreaker-steamos-x86_64.tar.xz: that one is for the Steam Deck, Steam Machine and Linux PCs). The Frame's file manager can't unpack it, so open Konsole and run:

   mkdir -p ~/Games && tar -xf ~/Downloads/SpeedBreaker-steamos-arm64.tar.xz -C ~/Games

   This makes ~/Games/SpeedBreaker. Keep it on the Frame's internal storage, and don't use :, ; or $ in the folder names. To update later, unpack the new download over the same folder (How to update).

2. Add it to Steam. In the file manager, open ~/Games/SpeedBreaker, right-click speedbreaker.sh and choose Add to Steam. Or, in Konsole: steamos-add-to-steam ~/Games/SpeedBreaker/speedbreaker.sh. Leave Compatibility (Proton) off: this is a native Linux game.

3. Put your disc image in Downloads. SpeedBreaker also looks in your home folder, Desktop, Documents and Games.

4. Install. Start SpeedBreaker from your Steam library. It highlights the image it found (Ready to install): press A, then A again on Install. Or install from Konsole: ~/Games/SpeedBreaker/speedbreaker.sh --install ~/Downloads/your-image.iso (with your image's name; add --dest <folder> to put the game in a folder of your choice).

SpeedBreaker plays as a big flat screen in the headset. It is not a VR mode.

• Settings: press Menu + View together.
• Frame rate: set Display > Frame Rate to 30 fps for smooth play. In the headset, the VR compositor shares the graphics chip. The game keeps its full speed at 30.
• Uninstall: as on the Steam Deck.

There's no separate desktop-Linux package yet. Try the x86-64 SteamOS download, SpeedBreaker-steamos-x86_64.tar.xz, which brings its own runtime libraries and is tested here on SteamOS (players reported v0.1.1 working on Fedora 44 and Ubuntu 24.04), or build from source. Unpack it, put your .iso in your home folder, Downloads, Desktop, Documents or Games (or on a USB drive), and run speedbreaker.sh: always start the game with it, since it picks the libraries the program in lib/ needs (started on its own, the program fails on most systems with a message such as GLIBC_2.44 not found). The game starts in a window; Display > Fullscreen switches to full screen and decides how the game starts. The installer puts the game in ~/.local/share/speedbreaker/game, or on a drive, or in any folder you pick with Choose a folder... (it needs a file chooser portal or zenity; without one, use --dest, below).

On a laptop with two GPUs, SpeedBreaker uses the dedicated graphics card; with NVIDIA's driver the launcher also turns on PRIME render offload. That hasn't been confirmed on a real two-GPU laptop yet: the log's [video] Vulkan devices: line says which GPU it chose and why, and a report with that line from yours would help. To pick another, start it with NFSMW_GPU=<its number or part of its name>, e.g. NFSMW_GPU=intel %command% in Steam's launch options.

1. Download and install. Download SpeedBreaker-macos.dmg, open it, and drag SpeedBreaker to your Applications folder.
2. Open it. The app isn't notarized by Apple, so the first time you open it, macOS refuses. Close that message (don't move the app to the Trash), then go to System Settings > Privacy & Security, scroll down to the message about SpeedBreaker, click Open Anyway and confirm. You only need to do this the first time you open a new download. On current macOS, Control-click > Open no longer skips this step.
3. Put your disc image in a Games folder in your home folder (~/Games). That's the only place SpeedBreaker looks by itself, so macOS doesn't have to ask for access to your other folders. For an image anywhere else, use Browse for image....
4. Install. The game goes to ~/Library/Application Support/SpeedBreaker/game, or to an external drive or any other folder if you choose one (Choose a folder..., with the arrows on the To row). An empty folder is used as it is; a folder that already holds files gets a new SpeedBreaker Game folder inside it. For a folder in Desktop, Documents or Downloads, or on an external drive, macOS asks once whether SpeedBreaker may use it: choose Allow. iCloud Drive can't hold the game (nor Desktop and Documents, if your Mac keeps them in iCloud): macOS would upload it and can remove its files from the Mac to save space.

Settings: F1 or Cmd+,, or Back + Start on a controller. The game starts in a window; Display > Fullscreen switches to full screen and decides how the game starts from then on. The window's green button (or Ctrl+Cmd+F) switches only until you quit. In a window, the picture runs up under a transparent title bar, and the window's buttons show while you move the mouse over it. While you play, the mouse pointer hides after two seconds without moving. SpeedBreaker needs macOS 15 (Sequoia) or later.

SpeedBreaker isn't on the App Store. There are two ways to get it onto your iPhone or iPad:

• Sideload the IPA (experimental). Each release has an IPA, SpeedBreaker-<version>-ios.ipa, on the release page. A sideloading tool such as AltStore signs it with your own Apple Account and installs it. The game asks iOS for more memory than most apps, and a free Apple Account can't give all of it, so with a free account it may not start, or iOS may close it in busy scenes. When iOS refuses the memory, the game says so on screen. The IPA itself hasn't been installed on a device yet (the tested iPhones and iPad ran the same app built and signed with Xcode): read Sideloading the IPA first, and please report how it goes, with your device and tool. Coming from a build you made yourself, the IPA installs as a separate app: install the game again from your disc image, and your saves stay with the old app.
• Build it yourself with Xcode on a Mac, signed with your own Apple developer account: scripts/ios/README.md walks you through it.

Once SpeedBreaker is on your device:

1. Get your disc image onto it. Copy the .iso into Files > On My iPhone (or iPad) > SpeedBreaker, where it is found by itself. Or tap Browse and pick it from anywhere the Files app reaches, such as iCloud Drive or a USB drive. A browsed image is read where it is, not copied first.
2. Install. The game goes into the app's own storage, and is left out of iCloud and computer backups (your saves are still backed up). Afterwards you can delete the disc image.
3. Connect a controller or a keyboard. The game itself doesn't use touch. Pair a Bluetooth controller, such as an Xbox or PlayStation one, or use a Backbone. So far, a Backbone Pro on the iPad is the one tested.

Settings: tap with three fingers, or press Back + Start on the controller (View + Menu on a Backbone). SpeedBreaker runs in landscape, full screen. If you switch away, the game freezes, and it resumes exactly where it stopped. If 60 fps isn't steady on your iPhone, set Display > Frame Rate to 30 fps or Auto.

SpeedBreaker hands the game an Xbox 360 controller, so a race plays with the game's own Xbox 360 controls. Buttons are matched by position: on a PlayStation controller, Cross is A, Circle is B, Square is X and Triangle is Y.

• One player, one controller: the first one connected is used, and you can plug one in at any time. The keyboard always works as well.
• Because Back + Start opens the settings, the game sees Back a moment late: a tap arrives when you let go, a hold after a quarter of a second.
• The game shifts gears with the right stick, so from the keyboard you shift with O and L. Holding both keys of a pair centres the stick.
• Every keyboard control can be reassigned: Settings > Controls (F1). Each control has two keys: choose a row, Left or Right for its first or second key, press A or Enter, then the key you want (Esc or B cancels). Y or Backspace clears a key, X or Delete puts the row's defaults back, and Reset page restores this whole table. A key may drive several controls, as the arrows do. There is no mouse control in game.

To open the settings:

The game pauses while the settings are open. The D-pad (or arrow keys) chooses and changes a row, LB and RB (or Q and E) turn pages, and B (or Esc) closes the menu. On a touchscreen, tap and drag. The mouse works too. Every change applies at once and is saved when you close the menu. The bottom row has Reset page (the page's defaults), Close, and Quit Game, which asks first, with Cancel chosen (not on iPhone and iPad, where apps are closed from the app switcher).

• Run your display at 60 Hz. On a Steam Deck OLED, set the refresh rate to 60 Hz and leave Steam's Framerate Limit off.
• A 120 Hz monitor works too on SteamOS and Linux (and 180 or 240 Hz): since v0.1.7 each frame stays on screen for two refreshes (three or four), evenly. That was tested on simulated 120, 180 and 240 Hz screens, not yet on a real one: a report from yours would help. 90, 144 and 165 Hz can't show 60 fps evenly; the game says so once, and 60 or 120 Hz (or variable refresh) is smooth.
• MacBook Pro with a 120 Hz (ProMotion) screen: since v0.1.4 SpeedBreaker asks for each frame to reach the screen 1/60 s after the last. Measured in fullscreen on an M1 Pro: 99.9% of frames in menus and about 94% while driving (fewer in the heaviest scenes). Other screens show frames as before.
• Start with Auto. If busy scenes drop below 60, set Internal Resolution one step lower, or let Frame Rate Auto fall back to a steady 30.
• 30 fps is a real option. It's a steady 30 at full game speed, and the smooth choice in the Steam Frame headset.
• Between 1x and 2x, try 1.5x (1080p): much sharper than 1x, with a little over half the pixels of 2x.
• On iPhone and iPad, keep Internal Resolution at Auto (1x). On the tested iPad Pro (M2), 2x is too slow for races. The iPhone 18 Pro Max holds 60 fps at 1.5x, but on a cable it reached iOS's "serious" heat level in about nine minutes (1x did in about six), and Frame Rate Auto then drops to 30. Screen Resolution 75% saves more.
• Docked Deck or Steam Machine: set the shortcut's Game Resolution to Native.
• See what's happening: Settings > Advanced > Performance Overlay.

Does SpeedBreaker include the game? No. No game files are included or distributed. You install the game from your own backup of your own disc, and SpeedBreaker checks it file by file.

Which version of the game do I need? The Xbox 360 USA release (NTSC-U, English). The installer checks your image and tells you if it's a different version. PAL and Japanese discs and re-releases haven't been tested, so expect the installer to refuse them. Games on Demand packages aren't supported, and no title update is used.

Does it work with the PC version of the game? No. SpeedBreaker is built from the Xbox 360 version and installs only from the Xbox 360 USA disc. PC copies of Most Wanted, including the Black Edition, aren't supported.

Is this an emulator? No. It's a static recompilation: the game's Xbox 360 code was translated ahead of time into a native app, so that code runs directly instead of being emulated. SpeedBreaker supplies what the game expects from the Xbox 360: its system software, graphics, audio and controllers.

Can it run above 60 fps? No. 60 fps is the game's own cap.

Can I bring my Xbox 360 saves? No. Xbox 360 saves can't be imported, so your career starts fresh.

The installer refused my image. Why? It always says what to do. The usual causes:

• Another game, or an unsupported version: it isn't the USA disc.
• Truncated image: most often a copy cut off at 4 GB by a FAT32 drive. Copy it again from your own backup, onto a drive that can hold files over 4 GB.
• Not a disc image, a Games on Demand package, or a video-only DVD image.
• Missing or corrupt files: make a new backup from your disc.

My Mac says SpeedBreaker can't be opened. Use Open Anyway in System Settings > Privacy & Security (see Mac setup), again after each update. SpeedBreaker needs macOS 15 (Sequoia) or later on Apple silicon.

The game stutters on my Steam Deck OLED. Set the screen to 60 Hz (see Steam Deck setup); with Steam's per-game profile on, it stays at 60 Hz for this game.

My laptop runs the game on the slow built-in graphics. Since v0.1.2 SpeedBreaker is meant to pick the dedicated GPU by itself (not yet confirmed on a real two-GPU laptop). If it doesn't, see the [video] Vulkan devices: line in last-run.log, set NFSMW_GPU (see Linux), and please open an issue with that line.

The picture is small or stretched on my TV or monitor in Game Mode. Set the shortcut's Properties > General > Game Resolution to Native.

Can I have the bars back on my Deck? Yes. The game is 16:9 and the Deck's screen 16:10, and since v0.1.1 the picture fills it with a slightly taller view. Set Settings > Display > Aspect Ratio to 16:9 for the console's picture with thin bars above and below.

My SD card or USB drive doesn't show up in Game Mode. Game Mode only sees drives formatted by SteamOS. Copy the image into Downloads from Desktop Mode.

Can I install the game somewhere other than the default folder? Yes. On the installer's last page, choose where it goes on the To row: internal storage, a removable drive, or Choose a folder... for any folder (SteamOS: in Desktop Mode). An empty folder is used as it is; a folder that already holds files gets a new SpeedBreaker Game folder inside it, and the top of a drive gets the drive's own speedbreaker/game (SpeedBreaker/game on a Mac). Or install from a terminal with --dest (see Command-line installer). SpeedBreaker remembers the place; if it's on a drive that isn't connected when the game starts, the installer says so: connect it and start the game again.

The car steers by itself. Raise Settings > Input > Stick Deadzone.

The picture looks different since v0.1.4. v0.1.4 applies the gamma ramp the game sets for a real Xbox 360's TV output: slightly deeper shadows and slightly brighter mid-tones, as on the console. For the previous, flatter picture, turn off Settings > Display > Xbox 360 Display Gamma. For lighter or darker shadows either way, use Settings > Display > Brightness. If the picture is much brighter and washed out, the game's own Brightness slider (pause menu > Options > Video) was probably moved up in an earlier version, where it did nothing, and saved: it now takes effect. Set the slider back to the middle, or press Y (Defaults) and choose Yes.

How do I quit in fullscreen without a keyboard? Open the settings and choose Quit Game on the bottom row; it asks first.

The game ignores my touches on iPhone or iPad. The game needs a controller or a keyboard. Touch only works in SpeedBreaker's own screens; a three-finger tap opens the settings.

Where are my saves, settings and logs?

Deleting that folder, or deleting the iPhone or iPad app, deletes your saves. A game you installed in a folder of your own stays there until you delete that folder. In portable mode (SteamOS and Linux) all of it is in the SpeedBreaker folder instead: data/, data/game and cache/.

1. Open the settings, go to Advanced, and choose Save Bug Report.
2. A notice says where the zip file went: your Desktop (on SteamOS, pick it up in Desktop Mode, or in the Desktop app on a Steam Frame), the SpeedBreaker folder in the Files app on iPhone and iPad, or the data folder above when there is no Desktop. Its name says which version you were running, for example speedbreaker-bug-report-v0.1.7-<date>_<time>.zip.
3. Open an issue, attach the zip, and say what you were doing, what you expected, what happened, and roughly how long into the session it happened.

The zip holds recent logs, any crash and hang reports, your settings, a summary of your system and a screenshot of the last game frame. Paths in your home folder show as ~. If the game crashed, start it again and save a report: the crash report is included. Never attach game files or disc images to an issue. CONTRIBUTING.md says how bug reports and pull requests are handled.

• Windows: coming soon.
• Android: coming soon.

One more thing… SpeedBreaker: Carbon, coming soon. It's planned, not available yet.

There are no dates and no promises: it's ready when it's ready.

SpeedBreaker is a static recompilation. XenonRecomp translates the game's PowerPC code into C++ ahead of time, and that C++ is compiled into a native program for x86-64 or arm64. A runtime written for this project stands in for the Xbox 360: its kernel and system software, its GPU, its XMA audio and its controllers.

• Graphics: a Vulkan renderer that translates the Xenos GPU's commands and shaders. On Mac, iPhone and iPad it runs on Metal through MoltenVK.
• Platform layer: SDL3 for windows, input and audio. The installer, the settings menu and the overlay are drawn with Dear ImGui.
• Audio: XMA decoding done the way the hardware does it, frame by frame, with a patched, decoder-only FFmpeg.
• Resolution: the 3D scene renders at 1x, 1.5x, 2x or 3x; the bloom and haze stay at the original resolution, so the game keeps its colour grade.
• Frame pacing: the game's clock locks to the display's measured refresh (58.5 to 61.5 Hz), one game step per refresh, or on SteamOS and Linux to every 2nd, 3rd or 4th refresh of a 120, 180 or 240 Hz display. 30 fps runs two game steps per frame. On a Mac the clock's thread runs with real-time priority, and on a 120 Hz ProMotion screen each frame is shown at a set time after its tick (turned off for the session if the screen doesn't keep those times).
• Sun glare: the game measures the sun with occlusion queries; SpeedBreaker counts them on the GPU.

The game's data (cars, city, audio, movies) comes from the player's disc. SpeedBreaker contains no game data or assets.

The installer also runs from a terminal. On SteamOS and Linux, run it through speedbreaker.sh (~/Games/SpeedBreaker/speedbreaker.sh --install ...); on a Mac, the program is SpeedBreaker.app/Contents/MacOS/SpeedBreaker.

SpeedBreaker --install <image or folder> [--dest <dir>]   # install (into exactly <dir>, if given)
SpeedBreaker --verify <image or folder>                   # check every file without copying
SpeedBreaker --find-images                                # list the disc images it can find
SpeedBreaker --where                                      # show where the game is installed
speedbreaker.sh --portable on|off                         # SteamOS and Linux: portable mode (copies, never deletes)

Without --dest the game goes to the default folder, as from the installer screen. --dest installs into exactly that folder, which must be new, empty or hold a previous install (not a temporary folder kept in memory, such as /tmp on SteamOS); the game remembers it.

The repository contains no game code: the build recompiles your own default.xex, from the USA disc. The generated code (ppc/), the game files (game/) and the toolchain (tools/) are ignored by git. Never commit or share them.

The supported executable is 3,936,256 bytes, with SHA-256 aebdf3c14d1e4e4ed2c130d94bc1a0e97bd6d5bf39bdfdef33c3909c9cc4ba4c.

• Mac: Xcode's command-line tools, and from Homebrew: brew install llvm lld cmake ninja molten-vk. The libraries the app bundles (SDL3, the Vulkan loader, glslang, SPIRV-Tools and FFmpeg's XMA decoder) are built from their own source releases by scripts/macos/build_deps.sh, for macOS 15 like the release (step 3). Homebrew's bottles of them (brew install sdl3 vulkan-loader vulkan-headers glslang spirv-tools) also work, for an app that runs only on the macOS you build on (step 3).

• SteamOS: build inside an Arch Linux distrobox (podman and distrobox ship with SteamOS). The development launcher, scripts/steamos/speedbreaker.sh, expects the container to be called nfsmw-build:

  distrobox create --yes --name nfsmw-build --image docker.io/library/archlinux:latest \
    --additional-packages "clang lld cmake ninja git python sdl3 vulkan-headers \
      vulkan-icd-loader vulkan-tools glslang spirv-tools mesa vulkan-radeon pkgconf \
      make diffutils patch curl nasm libpulse pipewire pipewire-pulse alsa-lib libdecor"
  distrobox enter nfsmw-build

• Other Linux distributions: your distribution's equivalents of the package list above (Clang 18 or newer). Untested so far. The GPU needs Vulkan 1.2 and BC (DXT) texture support.

• gh, logged in, is optional: it fetches Xenia's instruction tests.

From the repository root:

scripts/setup_tools.sh    # XenonRecomp + SpeedBreaker's patches, extract-xiso, FFmpeg's XMA decoder

# Extract your own disc image into game/files and check the executable.
mkdir -p game/files
tools/extract-xiso/build/extract-xiso -d game/files -x /path/to/your-backup.iso
shasum -a 256 game/files/default.xex
# must print aebdf3c14d1e4e4ed2c130d94bc1a0e97bd6d5bf39bdfdef33c3909c9cc4ba4c

# Translate the game's code into C++ (writes ppc/).
mkdir -p ppc
tools/XenonRecomp/build/XenonRecomp/XenonRecomp config/nfsmw.toml tools/XenonRecomp/XenonUtils/ppc_context.h

# Linux and SteamOS (on SteamOS, inside the container)
cmake -S . -B build/main -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
  -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=clang -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++

# Mac (Homebrew's LLVM): the libraries for macOS 15, as the release (a few minutes; it downloads
# their source archives and checks each one's SHA-256), then the game against them
scripts/macos/build_deps.sh build/deps
cmake -S . -B build/main -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
  -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/bin/clang \
  -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/bin/clang++ \
  -DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="$PWD/build/deps" -DFFMPEG_XMA="$PWD/build/deps/ffmpeg-xma"
# (or, with Homebrew's libraries instead of build_deps.sh, an app for your own macOS only: the
#  same cmake line with -DCMAKE_OSX_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET=<your macOS, e.g. 26.0> instead of the last
#  two options; make_app.py names the version if it's wrong)

ninja -C build/main SpeedBreaker

Run build/main/runtime/SpeedBreaker from the repository root. With the whole disc extracted in game/files, it plays from there. Otherwise the first-run installer asks for your disc image.

• Mac app: python3 scripts/macos/make_app.py makes build/app/SpeedBreaker.app, with its libraries, MoltenVK and the license notices inside. It refuses a library built for a newer macOS than the build (and says how to fix it); python3 scripts/macos/check_app.py build/app/SpeedBreaker.app runs the release's checks. Add --dmg for build/app/SpeedBreaker-macos.dmg and its .sha256, laid out like the download on Releases.

• SteamOS bundle (x86-64): inside the container, scripts/steamos/make_bundle.sh makes build/bundle/SpeedBreaker-steamos-x86_64.tar.xz and its .sha256 (plus a copy named by the version, SpeedBreaker-<version>-steamos-x86_64.tar.xz): speedbreaker.sh at the top, the program and its libraries in lib/. Install it as described in Steam Deck setup.

• Steam Frame bundle (arm64): the Steam Frame download on Releases is built on a Frame, and so is your own: the Frame's SteamOS ships clang, CMake, Ninja, glslang and the Vulkan headers, so no container is needed. Build an SDL3 release into ~/deps/sdl3 (with -DSDL_X11_XSCRNSAVER=OFF), and do step 2 on the Frame (another machine's FFmpeg build won't link there). Then:

  cmake -S . -B build/main -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=clang \
    -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=clang++ -DSDL3_DIR=$HOME/deps/sdl3/lib/cmake/SDL3 \
    -DCMAKE_SKIP_BUILD_RPATH=ON
  ninja -C build/main
  scripts/steamos/make_bundle.sh build/main build/bundle

  This makes build/bundle/SpeedBreaker-steamos-arm64.tar.xz and its .sha256 (plus a copy named by the version). -DCMAKE_SKIP_BUILD_RPATH=ON keeps your ~/deps folder out of the program: the bundle brings SDL3 in its own lib/. Install it as described in Steam Frame setup.

• iPhone and iPad: scripts/ios/build_deps.sh builds the iOS libraries, and scripts/ios/build.sh builds, signs and installs the app. The steps, and signing with your own Apple developer account, are in scripts/ios/README.md.

The unit tests build with -DSB_TESTS=ON added to the cmake line, and ctest --test-dir build/main runs them. tests/run_instr_tests.sh checks the instructions SpeedBreaker's patches add to XenonRecomp. It needs LLVM's llvm-mc and llvm-objdump and ld.lld: on a Mac, Homebrew's llvm and lld; elsewhere, your distribution's (on Arch, the llvm and lld packages; the container above has only lld). LLVM=<bin dir> and LLD=<ld.lld> pick others. So far it has been run on a Mac only. None of the tests needs game files; write_watch_test needs ppc/.

SpeedBreaker is made by project(u). It stands on the shoulders of a lot of open-source work. Thank you to the hedge-dev team, for XenonRecomp and for the approach Unleashed Recompiled pioneered that this project follows, and to the Xenia project, for a decade of Xbox 360 research.

The x86-64 SteamOS download also carries glibc and libstdc++ (LGPL-2.1+; GPL-3.0 with the GCC Runtime Library Exception); the Steam Frame download uses the system's. Full license texts are in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md and LICENSES/, and every download carries them too: in licenses/ in the SteamOS downloads, in SpeedBreaker.app/Contents/Resources/licenses in the Mac app, with each bundled library's own license, and in SpeedBreaker.app/licenses in the iPhone and iPad IPA. The source code of the LGPL and GPL parts in the downloads (FFmpeg, libmspack, and the x86-64 download's glibc and GCC runtime) is published next to the downloads of each release, as SpeedBreaker-<version>-third-party-source.tar.xz.

SpeedBreaker is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version (GPL-3.0-or-later). See COPYING and NOTICE. Third-party components keep their own licenses, listed above.

Copyright (C) 2026 project(u) and SpeedBreaker contributors.

SpeedBreaker is an unofficial, fan-made project by project(u). It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Electronic Arts Inc., the Need for Speed brand or Valve Corporation.

"Need for Speed", "Most Wanted" and "Carbon" are trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. Steam, Steam Deck, Steam Machine, Steam Frame, SteamOS and their logos and icons are trademarks of Valve Corporation. All other trademarks, including Xbox, Xbox 360, PlayStation, Apple, Mac, macOS, iPhone, iPad, iCloud, Xcode, App Store, Backbone, Vulkan, Linux, Windows, Android, NVIDIA, GeForce, AMD and Intel, belong to their respective owners. They are used here only to describe what SpeedBreaker works with. The game is named only to say which game SpeedBreaker runs; no logos, box art or key art of the game are used. The game content visible in screenshots belongs to its owners.

No game files are included or distributed. SpeedBreaker contains no game data or assets: no textures, models, audio, movies or disc files. To play, you need your own legally obtained backup (a disc image) of your own Xbox 360 disc of Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2005). The in-app installer verifies it and installs it.

SpeedBreaker is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, as set out in the GNU General Public License.