Unofficial Call of Duty 3 PC port reaches 180 FPS with 4K support

A fan-made unofficial native PC port of Call of Duty 3 is now available, bringing back an old shooter after two decades of inactivity on modern PCs. This is significant as it gives players access to the original campaign with modern PC hardware features not present in the Xbox 360 version. Developed by the CoD3Recomp team, the PC port fundamentally alters the game by replacing the console graphics engine with a Direct3D 11 graphics renderer. No longer do you need an emulator or the original console in order to play this game on a PC if you so choose.

Native port translates Xbox 360 code to modern PC standards

The software translates the Xbox 360's PowerPC code to C++ code and compiles that into an x86-64 binary. This makes it possible to run the game natively on modern Windows PCs without using an emulator. The installer supports USA and European Xbox 360 game images. Players will need their own valid game disc image in order to continue the install.

This release (0.4.0) includes significant graphical and performance improvements that far surpass original hardware capabilities. This PC port is capable of 4K resolution and lets players control the field of view between 65 and 100 degrees. It adds native keyboard and mouse controls for more accurate aiming. The developer states one forest level achieves 95-108FPS @ 1080p without MSAA. Two experimental rendering optimizations are available to boost performance to around 180FPS for the same scene.

The port supports all 15 campaign levels. It includes full save game support and a command console. The technical accomplishment is impressive but the developer does note that 0.4.0 suffers from some visual glitches and issues with some console commands. This indicates that although the port will be stable there may still be some hiccups as the project evolves. This port is a huge advancement in legacy game preservation on PC.