That I can confirm firsthand. Recompiled code is just prebaked CPU instructions in another language that can be compiled. That’s all there is to it.
So for modding, it’s only slightly easier technically as you have the option to inject code easier than on the emulated platform and providing facilities for the host OS to load them (dynamic libraries, which is a big benefit which most of the slop coders don’t fully understand how or why it is).
For proper modding research, a decompilation (of the portions of the game you want to mod very extensively) is needed.
For a simple aspect ratio and UI fix patch (and other simple improvements) - that is achievable on the original code itself via cheats/code injection (anything that has an FPU should work, PS1 and older are harder generally). You generally do not need a whole recompilation/decompilation for this kind of a thing.
Sometimes even the original hardware without any performance boost can handle it, but most of the times this is where emulator’s overclocking and memory extension features come into play to help.
Honestly, in my opinion, machine code hacking is not that hard. It takes way less time and energy to do it than this to achieve the same “improvements” with way lower barriers to entry.
That I can confirm firsthand. Recompiled code is just prebaked CPU instructions in another language that can be compiled. That’s all there is to it.
So for modding, it’s only slightly easier technically as you have the option to inject code easier than on the emulated platform and providing facilities for the host OS to load them (dynamic libraries, which is a big benefit which most of the slop coders don’t fully understand how or why it is).
For proper modding research, a decompilation (of the portions of the game you want to mod very extensively) is needed.
For a simple aspect ratio and UI fix patch (and other simple improvements) - that is achievable on the original code itself via cheats/code injection (anything that has an FPU should work, PS1 and older are harder generally). You generally do not need a whole recompilation/decompilation for this kind of a thing.
Sometimes even the original hardware without any performance boost can handle it, but most of the times this is where emulator’s overclocking and memory extension features come into play to help.
Honestly, in my opinion, machine code hacking is not that hard. It takes way less time and energy to do it than this to achieve the same “improvements” with way lower barriers to entry.