Wind Waker HD Recomp on Android & AYN Thor

Wind Waker HD Recomp’s Android version is by rhemfur and has been part of every release since v0.2.12. It uses the same Vulkan renderer as the desktop builds; the APK installs a setup app that turns your own copy of The Wind Waker HD into a native Android game on the device. Everything below comes from the README and the release notes up to v0.5.1 and the November 8, 2026 development build.

What you need

• An arm64 phone or handheld on Android 13 or newer with Vulkan 1.3.
• Your own copy of The Wind Waker HD (Wii U, USA or Europe, version 0). This site does not explain how to obtain or dump it.
• Ideally a controller (built-in, Bluetooth or USB): it acts as the GamePad’s buttons and sticks. Without one, on-screen controls are available.
• Free storage for the APK (155.5 MB), the prepared game and shader caches.

Which APK to download

Take android-arm64 for any phone or handheld. android-x86_64 exists for Android emulators and Chromebooks. Signing certificate SHA-256 (from the release notes): 7F:F6:D3:5E:4E:45:11:5E:E4:93:65:EF:5B:40:C0:EB:83:EA:F7:6C:C1:1C:E9:67:F2:64:5C:50:4F:58:B2:13.

Install step by step

1. Download the APK on the device from the GitHub release (button above) and check its SHA-256 with the checker.
2. Allow the install when Android asks whether your browser or file manager may install unknown apps.
3. Open the app and choose your game. Setup checks the copy and builds the game on the device once (a few minutes).
4. Prepare shaders (model shaders are prepared by default since v0.5.0; untick it or press Back to skip). It removes most first-visit stutters.
5. Play. The first start asks whether to use the new touch controls; One screen (handheld) mode is on by default on Android.

AYN Thor and two-screen handhelds

v0.4.0 made two-screen handhelds (“AYN Thor and similar”) a supported setup:

• Second screen = GamePad. With a second screen connected, the lower screen shows the GamePad picture with touch, like the Wii U GamePad.
• GamePad screen Off turns the lower screen black and ignores its touches while you play on the main screen, or releases it to the launcher and other apps (for example a video) (#222); switching it back on takes it again. The choice is remembered, and the game no longer grabs the lower screen for a moment at start.
• Bars filled with the menu background (#397, v0.5.1): where the GamePad picture does not fill the Thor’s second screen, the bars show the menu’s background instead of black (Settings › Display › Fill GamePad bars with background).
• Built-in controls (v0.2.14): on the AYN Thor and Odin, A, B, X and Y sit in their Nintendo positions; the view and 🎮 touch buttons hide while a controller is connected (Settings › Display › Touch buttons).
• Settings with a controller: hold Select / − for half a second, or press Home.

Snapdragon, Adreno and Turnip drivers

• Custom Vulkan drivers (v0.2.9): on Snapdragon devices you can install and select a driver such as Turnip in Settings › Graphics. A driver that crashes or hangs in its first seconds falls back to the system driver on the next start.
• Install GPU driver… (v0.2.11): when the system driver is too old for the renderer, Adreno devices offer it right in the error message.
• Adreno 6xx with Turnip (v0.5.1, #420): runs without UBWC, so 1.5× resolution no longer restarts the game on devices such as the Galaxy S20 FE.
• Full speed again (v0.5.1, #334): from v0.5.0 Snapdragon phones ran at about half speed from the second launch (Windfall at 22 instead of 40 fps). Update to v0.5.1 or newer.
• Measured: 30–32 fps in the heaviest scenes on a Galaxy S25 Ultra (Snapdragon 8 Elite), according to the README; about 34 → 47 fps in heavy Outset views there after the buffer cache arrived in v0.2.11.

Mali, PowerVR and Huawei GPUs

GPUs that cannot read the game’s compressed textures (many Mali and PowerVR chips) decode them on the GPU (v0.2.9); Huawei’s Maleoon driver decodes them on the CPU (v0.5.1, #419); GPUs without depth clamp draw shadows correctly since v0.4.0; Pixel 10 (PowerVR) fixes arrived in v0.4.0. Linux on Mali (panvk) lost its sky flicker in v0.5.0.

Frame rate, heat and memory

Touch controls and screen views

• View button (top left): a tap cycles TV with the GamePad in a corner, the GamePad picture alone and the TV alone.
• Flexible touch controls (default since v0.5.0): a stick appears where your thumb lands, the right half turns the camera, buttons show only when they do something, and talks, answers and shops work by tap. Classic fixed sticks and a layout editor remain.
• Item wheel: hold X, Y or R to pick an item from a ring; pinch to zoom the camera.
• The November 8, 2026 development build removes the “Tap to start” text, makes the game-over question tappable and stops the navigation bar covering the rupee counter on the Retroid Pocket Nova (#349).

Saves, logs and files

• Back up saves: long-press the app icon to export or import the save as a zip. Imports are checked completely before they replace your save, and the old one is kept as a backup.
• Bug reports: Settings › Graphics › Bug reports › Share log (optionally with your save, every name turned into “Link”).
• Files: the app keeps its data in Android/data/org.wwhdrecomp.wwhd/files/ (reachable over USB); an optional env.txt there takes WWHD_ options, one NAME=value per line.