A hybrid decompilation project called OpenPete has the 1998 PS1 classic running on Windows at 60fps in widescreen, with the polygon wobble gone. Part of the toolchain was built in three weeks by someone with no prior experience, using an AI coding assistant.
Spyro the Dragon is running on Windows. Not emulated, not remastered. Recompiled into a native executable.
The project is called OpenPete, and a working build surfaced in June when Spyro speedrunner lumilaura posted footage. Their caption: you’re not dreaming, this is Spyro 1 running natively on Windows 11.
It sits at version 0.1.3 now, and how it was built is the part people are arguing about.
What OpenPete improves
The changes target the specific limitations of 1998 hardware.
OpenPete delivers 60fps, true widescreen field of view, longer draw distance, perspective-correct textures, and an optional fix for the polygon wobble that defined the PS1’s look. Anyone who grew up with that shimmer notices its absence immediately.
Under the hood it combines three separate efforts: altro50’s unfinished decompilation project, Matthew Stanley’s PSXRecomp tool, and SoapyMan’s Psycross, assembled by developers credited as Amec and tyscorp.
What “native” actually means here
The terminology gets stretched in coverage of these projects.
PSXRecomp translates PS1 MIPS binaries into C, then compiles that C into a native executable linked against a PS1 hardware runtime. That differs from emulation, which decodes and executes instructions at runtime.
The framework still uses a hybrid execution model. Known game code compiles ahead of time. Disc-streamed code gets captured and compiled later. An interpreter stays available as a compatibility fallback.
OpenPete is a Windows-native application with a recompilation pipeline, not a claim that every instruction of the 1998 game has been cleanly reauthored.
Three weeks and an AI assistant
PSXRecomp’s creator has written openly about how it came together.
He built the tool in roughly three weeks with no prior expertise in reverse engineering, using an AI coding assistant to accelerate the work. His first target was Tomba!, chosen because early PlayStation titles use simpler implementations than later ones.
The approach has since spread. There are now recompilation projects for Game Boy Advance titles including The Minish Cap and several Pokémon games, plus a SNES effort with Mega Man X fully playable and A Link to the Past in development.
The associated community Discord is named R.A.I.D., for Retro AI Development. Nobody is hiding the AI use.
The scene is split
Preservation work has become an unexpected front in the AI argument.
Some projects now advertise AI-free status as a feature. A recent PS1 translation patch carried an explicit note that artificial intelligence tools were not used in its creation, positioned as a mark of quality.
Others find that framing dishonest. One commenter on Time Extension’s coverage argued that a large share of decompilation projects, ports, and emulators are already using AI, and asked whether people genuinely believe everyone became a genius in the last two years.
Both positions have something behind them. Reverse engineering is the kind of pattern-matching grind these tools handle well, and preservation is the kind of work where accuracy matters more than speed.
Where it stands legally
The projects have thought about this, whatever else you make of them.
PSXRecomp distributes a from-scratch, MIT-licensed OpenBIOS. Retail BIOS images and game discs are not distributed, and users supply their own from their own collection. N64: Recompiled uses the same model.
Whether that holds up if a rights holder objects is untested. For now, a twenty-eight-year-old dragon is running at 60fps on a machine that did not exist when he was made, and the tool that got him there was built by someone who did not know how to do it three weeks earlier.
Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.
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Hat Tips:
Time Extension (August 2026), verified for OpenPete combining altro50’s decompilation project, Matthew Stanley’s PSXRecomp and SoapyMan’s Psycross, the Amec and tyscorp credits, lumilaura’s June 23 footage and quote, the 60fps and widescreen features, and the community reaction about AI use across decompilation projects
WindowsForum (August 2026), verified for the OpenPete 0.1.3 release, the hybrid execution model with ahead-of-time compilation and interpreter fallback, the distinction between a native application with a recompilation pipeline and a full reauthoring, and the specific PS1 limitations the project targets
PSXRecomp project documentation (August 2026), verified for the MIPS-to-C translation approach, the MIT-licensed OpenBIOS distribution, retail BIOS and disc images not being distributed, the user-supplied assets model, the N64: Recompiled comparison, and the R.A.I.D. community naming
Matthew Stanley, published account (2026), verified for building the prototype in roughly three weeks without prior expertise using AI tooling, selecting Tomba! as the first target, and the subsequent expansion into Game Boy Advance and SNES recompilation projects