Cxbx-Reloaded Progress Report (September 2020)

Welcome to our September report! I’m especially excited to cover the changes of this month with you all since we had great improvements all around: no more annoying stretched aspect ratio while running in fullscreen, some sounds improvements, rendering improvements, debugger coming back from the dead and… wait for it… mouse and keyboard support!

As usual, let’s take a look at the compatibility numbers before anything else:

General Improvements

Fix Xbox DSound Namespace [PR #1955]

The changes correction will become easier to follow based on Xbox namespace directly without depending on a specific platform library. Plus one possible fix may resolve some audio loudness issue (we didn’t have any report from any change on the behaviour from any game related to this).

D3D: Apply aspect ratio correction to the back buffer [PR #1956]

This pull-request implements aspect ratio correction while also correctly handling the case where Xbox games render 16:9 content to a 4:3 buffer (anamorphic widescreen).

NOTE: When using 'Automatic' resolution setting, scaling may still be incorrect. This will be solved in a different pull-request because it requires an overhaul of how our Window creation works. In the interim, for correct aspect ratio scaling, please select a suitable display resolution that matches your screen aspect ratio.

CopyRects accounts for host resource scaling [PR #1957]

Crash Tag Team Racing had a longstanding resolution scaling issue (any resolution other than the native one wouldn’t fit the game geometry properly on the screen). Now you can properly use higher resolutions and the game looks better than ever:

Re-enable Mouse Support [PR #1964]

It’s finally here! Now you can map your keyboard and mouse to play your FPS and TPS games (maybe others? WHO KNOWS?!) closer to the gameplay you would have with a PC port. The feature came in, complete enough to enjoy in pretty much anyway:

● Options for fine-tuning mouse axis range/wheel range

● Shortcut to lock and unlock your mouse cursor inside the rendering window (F3)

● Mouse and Keyboard input disabled while the mouse is outside the rendering window (so your game isn’t affected while you’re doing something like changing settings in some menu).

Fix for starting with debugger [PR #1968]

The debugger wasn't launching from the main menu due to how it was handling the new CLI options passed to the loader. With this change merged, the debugger is back to the land of the living.

Notable Game Improvements

Motocross Mania 3 [IN-GAME] - Verified as in-game, not rendering much for now

Disney's Extreme Skate Adventure [IN-GAME] Geometry explosions fixed

The Incredibles [IN-GAME] Stability improved (still crashing, but you can progress more)

Defender [IN-GAME] Stability and rendering improved

DRIV3R [INTRO-MENUS] Verified as able to reach the intros

Powerdrome [IN-GAME] In-game for the first time

Gladiator Sword of Vengeance [IN-GAME] Verified as in-game, not rendering much

Final Words

Just like our latest report, many improvements are being worked on right now (check our pull requests page), including rendering and compatibility fixes that will probably affect many games in different ways, so keep your eyes in our repository, until the next report is out.

Don’t forget to also download the latest compatibility list at the end of this article and see you all next month ;)