Mass Effect Cinnamon

BioWare's Mass Effect (Xbox 360, 2007), statically recompiled for the Nintendo Switch and tuned for 30 fps at stock clocks

A performance fork of masseffect-nx by NebadasSwifty. All the credit for the port itself goes there.

Optimisations · Gyro aim · Install · Build · Controls · Credits

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⚡ The optimisations

Every row was found in a console log and measured on a real Switch at CPU 1224 MHz / GPU 460.8 MHz, handheld, no overclock. The full story, with the numbers, is in docs/optimisation.md.

	Optimisation	What it fixes	Gain
🧱	No 2x MSAA tiling	The game replayed its whole scene once per EDRAM tile	~3,300 → ~1,500 draws a frame on the Normandy
🧠	No guest depth prepass	~430 draws a frame built, parsed and thrown away	heavy views 20-26 → 27-30 fps
🧵	Inline texture updates	Texture streaming split frames when you turned around	15 fps bursts on a 180° turn: gone
🎬	Shader prewarm loader	Vulkan pipelines compiled in the middle of cutscenes	cutscenes 8-13 fps → smooth
🖼️	720x400 + FXAA + FSR	GPU budget at 460.8 MHz, without stair-stepped edges	20 % fewer pixels, clean edges
🌑	Cheaper shadows, kept	432² shadow maps for every character, even tiny ones	~⅓ of the shadow pixels
🌄	Small-object culling	Far rocks, debris and props drawn as specks	fewer outdoor draws (new, not yet measured)
🎮	Lighter game thread	VFX budget, corpse cleanup, GC and light-environment updates	fewer main-thread spikes
🔋	Official 1600 MHz memory profile	Cache-bound CPU threads at the default 1331 MHz	free, not an overclock
🔦

📊 Result

10-second profile blocks during gameplay, handheld, stock clocks

Build	29-30 fps	25-29 fps	20-25 fps	< 20 fps	Mean
Early Cinnamon build (800x448, before the draw-count work)	43 %	30 %	21 %	5 %	26.9
Cinnamon (latest measured)	79 %	8 %	13 %	0 %	28.9

Cutscenes, interiors, dialogue and most exploration run locked at 30. The heaviest crowd and outdoor scenes (the Eden Prime dig-site camp, the busy Normandy crew deck) can still dip into the low 20s, because all three CPU cores are full there; small-object culling is aimed at exactly those scenes.

🎯 Gyro aim assist

Motion aiming, built into the port's Switch input driver (sdk/src/input/switch/switch_input_driver.cpp):

• Hold ZL (aim / zoom) and turn the console or controller: the motion is added to the right stick, so the stick still does the big turns and the gyro does the fine aim. input_gyro = 2 keeps it on all the time, 0 turns it off.
• Works however you hold it. The turn is the rotation around gravity (the six-axis sensor's angular velocity projected on a low-passed accelerometer "up"), not around the controller's own axis, so tilting the console does not turn Shepard. Pitch is the rotation about the controller's X axis.
• Precise and steady. A dead zone (input_gyro_deadzone, 1.5°/s) removes hand tremor and sensor drift, light smoothing removes jitter, and the first motion past it already jumps over the game's own stick dead zone (input_gyro_min_stick), so small corrections register.
• Tunable in game. L + R + X / L + R + Y raise and lower the sensitivity by 0.5 (default 3.0: the stick is fully pushed at 40°/s). X and Y are hidden from the game while L and R are held. Every attached controller layout works (handheld, Pro Controller, Joy-Con pair), and input_gyro_invert_x / _y flip an axis.

✨ Also in Cinnamon

• 🎬 "PREPARING SHADERS" screen on the first boot instead of stutter later; every boot after it is quick.
• 🔦 Lens flares that fade behind geometry like on the Xbox 360, measured with real GPU occlusion queries.
• 🌑 Character shadows kept at lower cost; nothing important was cut to reach 30.
• 🛠️ Windows build script (tools/build_nro.ps1) next to the Docker build.

📦 Install

1. Open the installer page in Chrome or Edge on your computer.
2. Choose your Xbox 360 disc image (.iso) or the extracted disc. The page checks the edition, makes the shaders from your disc with WebAssembly and downloads the Cinnamon build from this repository's latest release. Your game files never leave your computer.
3. Extract the resulting masseffect-nx.zip into sdmc:/switch/ and start it with full memory: hold R while launching an installed game, or install the NSP launcher the page offers.

🛠️ Building from source

[!IMPORTANT] No game files are included. The port is made from your own original Xbox 360 disc image of Mass Effect (USA, Europe) (En,Es,Pl) (Rev 1). The repository contains no game files, and nothing made from the disc may ever be committed to it.

You can also build everything yourself from source instead of using the installer:

The full step-by-step guide is in docs/building.md (macOS and Linux through Docker; native Windows in its last section). In short:

# 0. Get the source
git clone https://github.com/jvankooo/masseffect-cinnamon.git
cd masseffect-cinnamon

# 1. Third-party libraries the repository does not carry
python3 tools/fetch_thirdparty.py

# 2. Your disc: extract the ISO into assets/game_root (check default.xex against docs/editions.md)
python3 tools/extract_iso.py "Mass Effect (USA, Europe) (En,Es,Pl) (Rev 1).iso"

# 3. The code generator, then translate the game's program to C++ (applies the Cinnamon patches too)
tools/build_host.sh
tools/codegen.sh

# 4. The Vulkan driver (Mesa/NVK for the Switch), once: an hour or more
mesa/build_mesa_docker.sh

# 5. The Switch program: out/nx/masseffect-nx.nro
tools/build_nro.sh              # Docker
# Windows without Docker:
# powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File tools\build_nro.ps1 -MesaSdk <...\opt\devkitpro\portlibs\switch> -Glslang <glslangValidator.exe>

# 6. The shader library from your disc (see docs/building.md, step 7)
shaders/tools/build_extra_tools.sh ue3_shader_scan
find assets/game_root -type f -iname '*.xxx' -print0 | xargs -0 out/tools/ue3_shader_scan run/shaders
cp shaders/runtime_containers/*.bin run/shaders/
ALLOW_FAILURES=1 shaders/tools/build_shader_spirv.sh run/shaders run/shaderlib

📁 SD card layout

sdmc:/switch/masseffect-nx/
  ├── masseffect-nx.nro               ← out/nx/masseffect-nx.nro
  ├── masseffect.toml                 ← app/masseffect.toml   (the tuned Cinnamon settings)
  ├── masseffect_prewarm_list.bin     ← app/prewarm/masseffect_prewarm_list-en.bin
  ├── masseffect_shaders.mesp         ← run/shaderlib/
  ├── masseffect_shaders.mesp.idx     ← run/shaderlib/
  └── game_root/                      ← your extracted disc (assets/game_root)

Start it with full application memory: hold R while launching an installed game to open the homebrew menu in title mode, or use a forwarder set to the 39-bit address space.

[!TIP] The first boot shows the PREPARING SHADERS screen for a few minutes while it builds the pipeline cache on the SD card. Every boot after that is quick.

🎮 Controls

Switch	Action in Mass Effect	Xbox 360
A	Interact / Confirm / Take Cover	A
B	Cancel / Exit / Storm (Sprint)	B
X	Draw & Holster Weapon / Reload	X
Y	First Aid (Medi-Gel)	Y
ZR	Fire Weapon / Vehicle Cannon	RT
ZL	Target Lock / Zoom / Vehicle Thruster, + gyro aiming while held	LT
R	Weapon Wheel (Pause Combat)	RB
L	Biotic & Tech Power Wheel (Pause Combat)	LB
+	System Menu / Pause	Start
−	Codex & Journal / Equipment	Back
Left Stick	Shepard Movement / Mako Steering	Left Stick
Right Stick	Camera Look / Turret Aim	Right Stick
L3	Toggle Crouch	Left Stick Click
R3	Scope Zoom Toggle	Right Stick Click
D-Pad	Squad Orders (Attack, Move, Regroup)	D-Pad

🎯 Gyro controls

Input	Effect
Hold ZL and move the console / controller	Fine aim with motion, added to the right stick
L + R + X	Gyro sensitivity +0.5
L + R + Y	Gyro sensitivity −0.5

The settings live in masseffect.toml:

• input_gyro: 0 = off, 1 = while ZL is held (default), 2 = always.
• input_gyro_sensitivity: default 3.0.
• input_gyro_invert_x and input_gyro_invert_y: invert an axis.
• input_gyro_deadzone: hand-tremor filter.

Turning follows the real horizontal axis whichever way you hold the console, because the yaw is measured around gravity.

Other options: input_xbox_layout = true for the Xbox button positions, input_rumble = true for rumble. L + R + Up / Right / Down / Left open the SDK's debug overlay, settings, log console and achievements.

⚙️ Tuning

Every key in app/masseffect.toml is commented. The Cinnamon ones you may want to touch:

Key	Default	What it does
masseffect_cull_small_factor	100	Small-object draw distance (lower = faster, more pop-in; 0 = off)
input_gyro_sensitivity	3.0	Gyro aiming speed
masseffect_native_output_fxaa_subpix	0.5	FXAA softness (0 = sharpest)
masseffect_flare_occlusion	true	Real occlusion for lens flares and halos
masseffect_guest_skip_prepass	true	The game does not build its depth prepass
masseffect_scene_width / _height	720 / 400	Internal resolution (keep the width equal to video_mode_width)

[!WARNING] Do not enable masseffect_cpu_boost: while it is on, the system throttles the GPU and the game falls to a few fps. Cinnamon is tuned for, and measured at, stock clocks; overclocking is neither needed nor recommended.

📚 Documentation

• docs/optimisation.md: how Cinnamon reaches 30 fps at stock clocks.
• docs/building.md: the full build, step by step.
• docs/best-config.md: every console run behind the shipped settings.
• docs/README.md: the upstream guide to how the whole port works (start here to learn the internals).
• docs/known-issues.md: what is not finished or not proven.

☕ Support

Cinnamon took a lot of late nights of console logs and frame-by-frame profiling. If it made Mass Effect playable on your Switch, a coffee keeps the next round of optimisations coming:

💛 Credits

• NebadasSwifty: author of masseffect-nx, the Mass Effect Switch port this fork is built on: the recompilation, the native Vulkan renderer, the EDRAM emulation, the shader pipeline, the Switch platform layer and nearly all of the documentation. Cinnamon is a modified version of that work (see LICENSE).
• BioWare and Electronic Arts: creators of Mass Effect. This is an unofficial, non-commercial fan project with no affiliation.
• StevensND: NFSMW-NX, pioneering work on statically recompiled Xbox 360 games on the Switch (not affiliated with this project).
• madelrandel-blip: NFSMW Recompiled, where the upstream port started.
• Tom Clay: the ReXGlue SDK, built on the research of the Xenia team.
• hedge-dev: XenosRecomp, the Xenos shader translator.
• danfromtico and NaGaa95: mesa-switch (Mesa, NVK and NAK on Horizon OS).
• devkitPro and switchbrew: devkitA64 and libnx.

⚖️ Legal

No affiliation with Electronic Arts or BioWare. "Mass Effect" is a trademark of Electronic Arts Inc. This repository contains no assets or program code from the original game: the installer or a source build makes the package from your own legally obtained disc. Running homebrew requires custom firmware, which violates Nintendo's terms of service and can get a console banned. That is your call.

Copyright (c) 2026 NebadasSwifty (the original port), with modifications for Mass Effect Cinnamon (2026). Source code under the GPL-3.0 (LICENSE), as inherited from the original project. The SDK changes are under the SDK's BSD-3-Clause license, the shader translator and Mesa changes under MIT (THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md).