A ReactOS developer for this open-source operating system project striving for binary compatibility with Windows drivers and applications has achieved an intriguing software stack. With the experimental ReactOS ARM64 build for running on 64-bit ARM hardware like Raspberry Pi SBCs, he's paired that "open-source Windows" OS with the open-source FEX emulator for in turn being able to run Windows x64 games/apps on ReactOS atop native ARM hardware.

ReactOS developer Ahmed Arif "SidiHmeed" has been responsible for lots of the experimental ReactOS ARM64 activities. Since earlier this year [1]ReactOS has been running on real ARM64 that as of writing is still in experimental form. But it continues maturing and the latest work by Ahmed is getting FEX running on ReactOS ARM64.

The ReactOS project [2]shared news of this "massive milestone" for ReactOS running x64 Windows games on ARM64 hardware via FEX. Super Mario 64 was demonstrated in the video posted to X.

The ARM64 support appears to be coming along quite well with the latest development code and now an interesting stacking mix with FEX.

Ahmed also [3]achieved in recent days the ability to run ReactOS on the older Raspberry Pi 3 single board computer with custom Ethernet and WiFi drivers, complementing prior work targeting the Raspberry Pi 5.



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/ReactOS-On-ARM64-Experiment

[2] https://x.com/reactos/status/2097770601461043338

[3] https://x.com/sidihmeed/status/2095165903113478324