Unofficial Port Runs Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Natively on M4 Macs at 90fps

Developer Yong Li released an unofficial open-source project called MacNativeGames that runs Nintendo Switch title The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom natively on Apple M4 Macs at up to 90fps with instant loading. Testing on an M4 MacBook Air and Mac mini reached 90fps after compiling 8,582 shaders, though the developer noted temporary lag when entering new areas during shader compilation. Rather than relying on traditional emulation, the AI-assisted port executes the game's ARM64 code directly on the M4 chip, rewrites code where needed, and rebuilds NVN graphics on Apple's Metal 4 API. The repository includes no Nintendo game files and requires users to supply their own XCI or NSP dump and configure the build manually using Xcode command-line tools and Homebrew. "...the Switch system services are answered by a small host, and the game's NVN graphics are rebuilt on Metal 4." — Yong Li