reNut

reNut is a recompilation of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts for Windows and Linux, made with the ReXGlue SDK. Its latest releases have a native renderer: the game’s Direct3D calls are hooked to run through plume, and its shaders, recompiled with XenosRecomp, are compiled into the executable, where earlier releases used ReXGlue’s emulated Xenos pipeline. The developer says the code makes heavy use of AI.

The native renderer brings 4K resolution, widescreen, sharper shadows, anisotropic filtering and other graphics options; the frame limit should stay at 60 FPS, as the game’s physics misbehave above it. Online play, with matchmaking, leaderboards and peer-to-peer lobbies, runs through RexLiveless, which adds an Xbox 360 style guide menu with friends, gamer pictures and themes. Mods made with NB Studio (.nbpatch files) load from a mods folder, custom parts can be added, and DLC packages work from a dlc folder.

Releases are named rather than numbered, so builds here are dated. The download contains no game data. It needs Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts (USA) and its title update from the player’s own copy, which the NutStaller tool sets up. etonedemid’s Linux and Android fork has its own page beside this one.