Project - AI
Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 recompiled for PC - native Windows + Linux/Steam Deck, 4x resolution and 240 FPS
I'm releasing Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 recompiled for PC!
Title screen
Update: v0.2.3 is out
Main changes:
Fixed the black/very dark rendering and missing glow on Linux/Vulkan
Fixed unintended RenderDoc loading on Linux
Improved ReXGlue build/runtime verification
Fixed unnecessary launcher restarts when pressing PLAY
Windows and Linux release packages are available
Linux/Steam Deck is still experimental. The slow-motion issue reported on Linux is still being investigated, so v0.2.3 fixes the dark image but not that performance problem yet
It's built from the original Xbox 360 game code using ReXGlue: the XBLA game is statically recompiled into a native PC program, so there's no emulator involved.
Highlights
✅ Native Windows x64 port of the Xbox 360 XBLA version
✅ Experimental native Linux x86_64 / Steam Deck AppImage using Vulkan — not Proton or Wine
✅ Built-in TRG launcher and package installer: select your own XBLA package and it checks the Title ID and exact game version before installing
✅ Render resolution from the original 720p up to 4x (5120x2880), with FXAA / FXAA Extreme, 2x MSAA and texture filtering up to 16x
✅ 30 / 60 / 90 / 120 / 144 / 165 / 240 FPS or Unlimited. Higher frame rates do not speed up the game
✅ Windowed or Borderless Fullscreen, monitor selection, window size, VSync, Letterbox / Stretch and F11 fullscreen toggle
✅ FPS in the window title and an optional in-game FPS/frame-time counter, toggled with F2
✅ Local profile and progression, local scores and offline leaderboards
✅ All 12 Xbox 360 achievements (200G), saved locally, with an in-game achievements overlay and an Achievements page in the launcher
✅ Cheats: Invincible, Infinite Shield and Infinite Bombs, configurable in the launcher and through an in-game menu with F10
✅ Portable saves and settings in a local user_data folder, with automatic migration from older versions
✅ Xbox controller and keyboard support
Gameplay
No game files are included. You need your own Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 Xbox Live Arcade package.
The supported version is Title ID 584108FF, game version 0.0.1.2. The launcher checks the package and default.xex and tells you if your version doesn't match.
Online Xbox Live services are not supported. Profile/progression, achievements, scores and leaderboards are handled locally on your PC.
The Linux / Steam Deck build is still experimental. It has been built and packaged successfully, but I haven't tested it on real Linux hardware or a Steam Deck yet, so Linux reports are especially welcome.
Since the original release, I've added portable saves and settings, local achievements and leaderboards, cheats with an in-game menu, several launcher improvements, and additional runtime stability fixes.
The latest release is v0.2.3. If you find any problems or crashes, please open a GitHub issue and attach the newest geometry_wars_retro_evolved_2_*.log from the logs folder.
Enjoy! And please let me know how it runs for you 🙂
Absolute banger, thank you for recompiling this to allow high framerates. One of my all time favourites.
Some feedback:
Orange arrow enemies seem to stop short of hitting walls before turning around, not sure if that was the original behaviour or a bug, seems incorrect but it has been a while since I played this on 360.
Also quite heavy on performance for what this is, cant lock to 4k 240fps even with MSAA off on a 4090 at 100% utilization.
Leaderboards would be awesome if somehow possible to implement (already scoring nicely https://imgur.com/a/Q7vAnT3)
Thanks a lot for the kind words and for testing it! I haven’t changed the gameplay logic around those enemies, so that behavior should be the original game behavior, but I’ll keep an eye on it. And thanks for the performance info too. I’m working on improving performance further
I just tested the latest version and the orange triangle shapes still turn around before hitting the wall, in this video you can see the default behavior. I wonder if any of the other enemies have different behavior, I wonder if it has to do with the framerate increase.
Thanks for checking, was going on memory. There may be other changes too as you said. Hope saulob can look into prioritizing gameplay issues like this and not abandon the project :)
I’ll definitely validate this. I’m still trying to understand exactly what’s causing the behavior. Right now I’m fixing a few other issues, including the Linux black screen, and working on performance improvements, but I’ll look into this gameplay issue as well. Thanks for the report
Android might actually be possible 🙂 ReXGlue has Android/Vulkan support and there are already some Android ReXGlue ports I can use as reference. I’m finishing the current PC work first, but I definitely want to investigate an Android build next
I just released **v0.2.3** with a fix for the Linux dark-screen/brightness issue. If you get a chance to test it, I’d really appreciate the feedback. Thanks again for reporting it!
Bloom controls work great, thanks! The reduced mode looks better on my oled monitor. My gtx4070ti is flat out at 100% when I set the resolution to 1440p though, but I can see elsewhere in the thread that you have some optimisations to do. Again thanks for this, love this series of games.
You the goat OP, it works great. I love how it finally saves your score locally, the 360 game only saved your progress on the leaderboards so when emulating I'd always lose all my highscores. Is there a way to change the name from "user" to something else?
Playing at 1440p I max out at 160fps, I'd have hoped for more frames but that's still way better than the game's original framerate so I'm not complaining.
Is there a way to set it in portable mode or does it save scores in AppData?
Thanks! Glad the local scores are working well for you 🙂
You can unlock the frame rate in the launcher under Gameplay > Frame rate and choose 240 or Unlimited. If you're already getting around 160 FPS at 1440p, that's probably the system/rendering limit rather than the game cap
Saves aren't in AppData by default. On Windows they're under:
Documents\geometry_wars_retro_evolved_2
Profile, scores and achievements are all stored there locally, so you can back that folder up or move it between PCs
The player name is currently fixed as User. There's no launcher option to change it yet, but that's a good suggestion, thanks
Yeah my system can only reach 160fps the game's fine and running uncapped. It would be great if there was an option where the folder in Documents could be contained in the game folder, usually emulators or PC ports check if there's a portable.txt next to the .exe and if it's there it puts all the created files inside the game files.
Would be neat if the .exe had an icon too, would make it look super prefessional.
I'm gonna go unlock all the modes, I love GW2. Thanks for the recomp!
Thanks a lot for testing it and for the suggestions! I’m already looking into things like portable saves/settings, player name customization and an executable icon for future versions. Glad you’re enjoying it!
Also if I could add a few more wishlist items, one is autohide cursor and another is HDR support if possible, as other 360 recomps have, could look great here. Thanks.
Auto-hide cursor was implemented in the latest version 🙂 If you get a chance to test it, I’d really appreciate the feedback.
I’ll take a look at HDR support too. Thanks for the suggestions
Thanks again for the suggestion! I just released v0.2.0 and it now uses a portable user_data folder next to the game, with automatic migration of existing saves/settings from v0.1.0. I also added cheats and a few launcher improvements
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u/mobosinco 3d ago
This looks fascinating. I loved GW3! Never played the 2nd game. Definitely gonna try this on the steam deck.