jhaizhou-ops/S2Arm

What it is

S2Arm is a toolchain and companion app for running your own Nintendo Switch games on Apple devices. Rather than emulating the console's CPU, it rewrites a game's ARM64 code at build time and runs it directly on the device processor, translating graphics calls to Metal and supplying system services through a native host layer. The compatibility layer is built on Ryujinx's system services and shader translation, and the direct graphics path traces back to nxnative. Supported targets are iPhone/iPad on iOS/iPadOS 18+, Apple silicon Macs on macOS 15+, with a Windows launcher that builds and installs games onto an iPhone/iPad. Android and HarmonyOS are listed as coming soon.

All imported games live inside one S2Arm app, so adding titles does not consume additional signing slots on your developer account.

Getting started

1. Download the Mac or Windows launcher from Releases and open it. Building for an iPhone on a Mac requires the free Xcode from the App Store signed in with your Apple ID; the launcher walks through this.
2. Import your own keys and game files. Keep the base game, updates and DLC in one folder and import them together.
3. Pick the iPhone/iPad or the local Mac as the target, then click Build. The launcher shows per-stage progress, elapsed/remaining time and disk use, and multiple games can queue.
4. Sign and install with your own Apple ID (the Windows launcher bundles the Impactor signing tool), open S2Arm and choose a game from the library.

An optional control interface, s2armctl, lets an AI assistant drive import, build, install and diagnostics; the operator skill file is s2arm-operator/SKILL.md. Exporting a diagnostic bundle is currently Mac-only.

Constraints

• You must supply your own game files and keys; the project ships neither.
• Only 64-bit AArch64 games are supported. Apple silicon cannot execute 32-bit ARM code, so 32-bit titles (e.g. Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe) and games needing a 36-bit address space are out of scope; the evidence page lists confirmed unsupported titles with versions.
• iOS/iPadOS 18+ and macOS 15+ are required; Windows only builds and installs for iPhone/iPad.
• The release uses the new app identifier io.s2arm.*, so saves from beta builds do not carry over — back up saves before updating.
• The software is Apache-2.0 and unaffiliated with Nintendo.

Performance claims

The README reports a 211-game survey with a 95% first-try build success rate, 4,700+ real-device iOS test runs and 1,000+ macOS runs, plus build times on a 16 GB M3 MacBook Air (e.g. Diablo III in 6.4 min, Tears of the Kingdom in 34 min) and 60 fps on an iPhone 17 Pro Max before thermal throttling. These are the project's own figures; see the evidence document for details and methodology.

HotRepo's take

S2Arm entered the HotRepo new-project list on 2026-11-08 with 202 stars and 53 forks gained in its first observed window, and the sampled star count rose from 106 to 202 within about two and a half hours that evening. That is a sharp early response, but the record covers less than a day and there is no daily-rank position, so it is too early to read as sustained traction. What stands out technically is the choice of static recompilation over emulation and the reuse of Ryujinx and nxnative components, which gives the claim a traceable basis — while the unusually broad testing claims and the fact that the main deliverable is a prebuilt launcher warrant independent verification before relying on them.