nxnative
Play your own Nintendo Switch games natively on iPhone and iPad. Bring your game (its NSP files) and your prod.keys; one script turns them into an IPA that you sideload.
It is not an emulator: the game's own code runs directly on the Apple chip, with Switch graphics rebuilt on Metal. Nothing from any game is in this repository, and the project is not affiliated with Nintendo or any game publisher.
Switch 2 games have started too: Donkey Kong Bananza, Splatoon Raiders, Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave, Pokémon Pokopia, Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, Mario Kart World and Mario Tennis Fever play on the Mac, packed from one .nup file or a dump of the game; iPhone and iPad are untested.
Acknowledgements
This project is built on other people's work (licenses):
- d2r-mobile (MIT) developed this native-execution approach, for Diablo II: Resurrected. nxnative started as a copy of its generic parts: the NSO rewriter, the host that stands in for Horizon, the NVN-on-Metal layer and the iOS app shell. Fixes go both ways.
- Ryujinx (MIT): its shader translator (
Ryujinx.Graphics.Shader, Ryujinx.Common and Spv.Generator 1.3.2, in dm/third_party/ryujinx with a few fixes listed in its README) turns the games' shaders into SPIR-V. Its emulation of the kernel and system services is also a reference when the host's behaviour is in doubt.
- Atmosphère: its kernel, mesosphère, is the reference for Horizon's synchronization semantics (address arbiter, condition variables).
- LibHac: reads NSPs and layers updates over the base game in
dm/tools/nx_extract.
- SPIRV-Cross: SPIR-V to Metal Shading Language.
- glslang compiles the GLSL of OpenGL games to SPIR-V for it.
- MacNativeGames (MIT): the GPU widening of 8-bit indices and in-pass clears in
dm/gfx/nvn/nvn_mtl.m, and the visibility-counter lowering in the shader translator.
How to play
Switch 2 games are built from one .nup file or a folder of their files, not from NSPs, and are tested on the Mac only: see Switch 2 games.
With a Mac app
Community projects build on nxnative with Mac apps that turn your games into apps for your iPhone, iPad or Mac, with no command line, and keep them in a library. They are separate projects: questions and bugs about them go to their own pages.
Build from the command line
You need a Mac with macOS 26.6 or later, Xcode 27.2, Homebrew and Python 3.12 or newer (an arm64 one, not an Intel Homebrew's). An iPhone build also needs Xcode's iOS platform (Xcode → Settings → Components).
The shaders are built with Xcode 27.2's Metal compiler. Select it before step 1: sudo xcode-select -s /Applications/Xcode.app. With several Xcode versions installed, name this one Xcode-27.2.app and select it with sudo xcode-select -s /Applications/Xcode-27.2.app.
1. Install the tools (only once), in Terminal:
xcodebuild -downloadComponent MetalToolchain
git clone https://github.com/seedds/nxnative.git && cd nxnative
brew install xcodegen zstd glslang
brew install --cask dotnet-sdk
python3 -m pip install lz4 "capstone>=5,<6" fonttools nsz zbic "backports.zstd; python_version < '3.14'"
2. Put your game in a folder: the game, plus its update and DLC if you have them (.nsp, .xci, .nsz or .xcz):
~/Games/MarioWonder/
Super Mario Bros. Wonder [010015100B514000][v0].nsp
Super Mario Bros. Wonder [010015100B514800][v327680].nsp
3. Build, with your game folder and your prod.keys:
python3 scripts/build_ipa_from_nsp.py ~/Games/MarioWonder -k ~/keys/prod.keys
The IPA appears in the game's folder. The first build takes 30–60 minutes and needs free disk space of about twice the game's size plus 10 GB; building again is much faster.
To play on the Mac instead, add --platform mac-app: you get a Mac app of the game to open from Finder. All options: The packing script in detail.
Install
Install the IPA on your iPhone or iPad with a sideloading tool such as AltStore, Sideloadly or LiveContainer. If your tool offers Increased Memory Limit, turn it on: the bigger games need it.
Game too big to install? Build again with --romfs separate, and run the command the script prints once to copy the game files to your phone (Quick reinstalls).
Controls, saves and settings: Playing.
Switch 2 games
A Switch 2 game is built from one NUP container (a .nup file) or a folder of its files, not from NSPs. Neither needs prod.keys. A game this project has no profile for is surveyed and gets a provisional profile, as NSPs do (Port another game), which may not boot. You get a Mac app; iPhone and iPad are untested.
From a .nup file, which holds the base game, its updates and DLC in one file. Give the file, or a folder that holds it:
python3 scripts/build_ipa_from_nsp.py ~/Games/DonkeyKongBananza.nup --platform mac-app
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment is played this way: its 47 GB NUP unpacks in under five minutes. A NUP that carries the game's control data (its NACP) and icon gives the app the game's name and icon; otherwise the name comes from the game's profile and the app has no icon.
A NUP without the base game also works, when its base package is empty or it has none and its updates are marked standalone_update: the update is taken as the whole game, and the script says so. If the game then stops on missing files, that update holds only what changed: pack a NUP with the base game. The newest update is selected by default; --package v<N> selects another version in the container. Such a container has no v0 (base game) to select.
From a folder of files. The script expects this layout (updates and dlc are optional):
~/Games/DonkeyKongBananza/
base/exefs/ main, main.npdm, sdk, rtld
base/romfs/
updates/458752/exefs/ the update's version, as a decimal number
updates/458752/romfs/ the patched RomFS, not a patch
dlc/040074a01bf13001/0/romfs/ the DLC's title ID
python3 scripts/build_ipa_from_nsp.py ~/Games/DonkeyKongBananza --platform mac-app
An update's folder alone will do (no base/), and so will exefs/ and romfs/ directly in the folder, as nup extract writes them, which count as base/. The app has no icon, because the folder holds none. To turn such a folder into a NUP: nup pack ~/Games/DonkeyKongBananza game.nup.
Games
Games tested on Mac or iPhone. See the per-game notes for tested platforms, progress and known issues:
Needs iOS / iPadOS 26 or later on an iPhone 15 Pro or newer (A17 Pro chip or later) or an iPad with an M1 chip or later: the games' textures are BC-compressed, and older iPhones can't read that format. Other games aren't supported yet. For them the script writes a survey and still tries its best to pack an IPA, guessing the game's settings; such an IPA may not start.
Under a game, "60 fps with 1.2.0" means it runs at 60 fps (30 on the console) with that update. "Up to 120 fps" names no update because the host finds the frame rate in the game's code, whichever version it is; choose it under Frame rate, on a screen that shows 120 Hz.
For developers
How it works · Game notes · Bring-up and debugging · Front ends · Contributing
License
MIT (LICENSE). Third-party code keeps its own license (dm/third_party).
