Native Apple Silicon macOS release, based on Wave Race 64 Recompiled 0.4.0 with the configurable modern water renderer.
Watch the water shader in motion on YouTube.
Download and install
Download WaveRace64Recomp-0.4.0-macos.1-apple-silicon.zip, extract it, and drag WaveRace64Recomp.app to Applications. The companion .sha256 file verifies the download.
- Apple Silicon Mac (M1 or newer), macOS 15 or later. Intel Macs are not supported by this build.
- Libraries are bundled; Homebrew and Xcode are not needed to play.
- Supply your own Wave Race 64 (USA) (Rev A / v1.1)
.z64dump in the launcher. Other revisions/regions and Shindou do not work. Required SHA-1:508dfc2d4caa42b6f6de5263d0aed5e44ac7966a. - The app is ad-hoc signed, not notarized. If macOS blocks the first launch and you trust this download, try opening it, then use System Settings → Privacy & Security → Open Anyway for this app. Apple's instructions explain the prompt.
The archive includes START_HERE.md, build/source provenance, and dependency license notices. No ROM, game assets, saves, or personal settings are included. The executable contains the game's statically recompiled code and loads assets from your own dump.
What's included
- Native Metal rendering, a macOS app bundle, launcher/ROM picker, audio, controller support, and widescreen presentation.
- Modern / High water with detailed lighting, depth color, refraction, irregular ripples, persistent wakes, and shoreline wash. High adds screen-space reflections and fine spray.
- Classic / Modern appearance, Soft / Normal / Strong ripples, and a Spray particles Off / On option.
- Corrected wave interpolation when the water grid recenters, natural-looking wake foam, reduced crossed ripple patterns, guarded near-camera spray, depth-aware refraction edges, and corrected water-over-water depth ordering.
- Runtime shutdown fixes and reproducible build/verification scripts.
Enable it: open settings with Escape, choose Graphics → Water → Modern or High, and Apply. Use the Water tab for appearance/ripples/spray. Original water remains the default. F9 compares with Original; F10 cycles diagnostics.
Keyboard defaults: arrows steer, X accelerates, C is B, Enter is Start. Settings and saves remain in ~/Library/Application Support/WaveRace64Recomp when replacing the app.
Validation and limitations
The executable, Metal shaders, SDL2, FreeType, and libpng are built with a macOS 15 deployment target. Runtime validation was performed on an Apple M3 Max running macOS 27; older macOS versions have not been directly exercised on this machine.
Release checks passed for ZIP integrity, extracted-app signatures, bundled library resolution, normal launcher startup, a Modern race replay, and a Classic two-player replay with both water views active. The Modern comparison matches all 29 checkpoints from tick 570 onward, including the race; thirteen intro checkpoints differ from the prior reference, so the complete trace is not reported as an exact match.
The original wave simulation, handling, collisions, and game timing remain authoritative. Requested high refresh rates and GPU workload measurements are not a guarantee of locked 120 FPS. Some upstream HUD/menu layout issues remain, complete all-course playthrough coverage is pending, and screen-space reflections depend on visible scene geometry.
The source is this repository at v0.4.0-macos.1, with its pinned recursive submodules and checked-in patches. See the macOS build guide and rendering/validation notes. BUILD.json inside the ZIP identifies the exact source commit and executable checksum.