Progress Report (March 2020)

As usual, our friend Strelok/Literalmente{Game} has kindly written this progress report for us.

Audio (once again) was a major player in the improvements of this month. As you can see below, we didn’t have a lot of commits made, but they’re enough to make at least another exclusive game fully playable for the first time (and as always, improved a ton of other games along the way).

General Improvements

Fix Audio Flush Async and Discontinuity (PR #1843)

This is a combo of improvements that covered a lot of games. Long story short: initially was a PR to fix a MechAssault regression, but instead of just doing that, it actually made the game fully playable for the first time. What else improved: dialogues in-game on MechAssault, background music on Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb and… Star Trek: Shattered Universe also became fully playable!

Kernel: Clear IRR register on software interrupt processing (PR #1852)

Fixes a hang that can occur due to an infinite loop of interrupts under certain conditions.

Note: This is the issue that was preventing the Chihiro work from being continued, with this fix, work on Chihiro emulation can finally resume.

HOTFIX: Another fixup to FlushEx (PR # 1853)

Yet another sound fix. Call DSStream_Packet_Flush once in FlushEx function only if rtTimeStamp is zero. Whenever a flush call is busy, submit it to a worker thread for continue flush process (fixed the regression we had with the game Obscure). Clear Xb_Status in DSStream_Packet_Flush after completion. This also removes the DSE_FLAG_PAUSE flag in DSStream_Packet_Flush after completion. Changed buffer/stream classes release function's returns to include the verbose result.

Notable Game Improvements

Syberia II [IN-GAME]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EhoS9ljcRs

Reached in-game and you can play a good part of the initial area without issues, but will hang if you try to progress much further.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines [IN-GAME]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIWP5oHMCaM

In-game for the first time, you can most of the first level… if you can handle the constant geometry explosions in your face depending on the camera angles. Not stable enough yet as well: the game will crash/hang randomly.

Spy Hunter 2 [IN-GAME]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdrWh4uBVfY

Much easier to reach in-game now (was possible in the past, with a lot of luck). Not only this but the performance and rendering improved enough to become almost playable (only game-breaking issue with have preventing this is a transparency problem with some effects covering the screen).

Jacked [IN-GAME]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LtPavyWu-k

Not the first time this game reached in-game, but this is the first time we have a framerate that isn’t single digit. Some parts of the scenario are also rendered properly, with only the bikers 3D models missing.

Whacked [PLAYABLE]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-gqbZrnFcI

In-game for the first time (at least for the first time being able to see anything at all…). Almost everything in-game is rendered as it should, same thing for the menus between levels, but the main menus of the game aren’t rendered yet (the only missing piece for this game to become fully playable).

Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus [IN-GAME]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls3XvZZfsGg

First time in-game, but this case is heavily dependent on your video drivers (the exact same game, for the same region, with the same GPU, will have different behaviors rendering wise while in-game with Windows 7 and Windows 10 and also differs depending on the driver version even on the same OS). Not very stable for now: game can hang/crash randomly.

MechAssault [PLAYABLE]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USsVuGKGR4I

Fully playable baby! Not only the performance is good even on the heaviest missions (see, because they’re mechas, I did a thing), but also the in-game dialogs are now playing correctly.

The Godfather [IN-GAME]

Rendering improved even more in this game, with only the character's models missing in-game. Please notice that the menus are not rendered as well, you need to blindly mash buttons to reach in-game.

Nascar 05 [IN-GAME]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAv4Zw6lcCI

A lot of “first times” this month and this also applies to a bunch of the Nascar series games. While the intro level renders perfectly, the actual races have a weird issue with the car's geometry (check the video). Warning: very unstable!

Nascar 06 [IN-GAME]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPypyYlh2mY

First time in-game with a framerate over 1 and longer than 10 seconds (in the past if you had a lot of luck, that would be your best result). In-game rendering improved a lot (in the past not even the wheels were rendered), but you’ll still suffer from some occasional hangs on the loading screens.

Nascar 07 [IN-GAME]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z93kLlkxGVg

Similar to Nascar 05, it’s in-game for the first time but very unstable (can crash or hang before a race, during a race, after loading the menus post races). Some minor rendering issues and the sound isn’t as nice as it could be, but much better than not even booting last month.

Hitman Contracts [IN-GAME]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3jxPOwHQqg

Rendering improved enough for you to play around the training missions, but not enough to be able to play the regular ones (screen will be covered in black, but you can try walking around using the wireframe rendering if you’re really curious).

Star Trek - Shattered Universe [PLAYABLE]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pcjGhFfyhU

Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise (not really), its five-year mission (some missions in this game really feel this long), to seek out new life and new civilizations. The stability issues this game had before were similar to what was preventing MechAssault to become fully playable, so we have both improved and boldly progressing to go where no man has gone before.

Heroes of the Pacific [IN-GAME]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ekzt55mkSw0

Most in-game visual issues were fixed, but you’ll still notice that the longer you play some level, the worse things can get (from misplaced textures to not being able to see anything at all outside of the wireframe mode).

King Arthur [IN-GAME]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOtsYKzEppo

In-game for the first time (you need to mash your way through the menus), with not a lot of visual issues in-game (or even performance to be honest). Sadly, the game can (and will) crash at some specific points, making it impossible to progress beyond the first few missions.

Silent Hill 4 [IN-GAME]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4Ph2HhWW6Y

Not a lot to see here for now, but this is the first time we can see something (even if only by using wireframe mode) in-game.

Worms 3D, Worms 4 - Mayhem and Worms Forts - Under Siege [INTROS]

While still hanging on the intros, all the games from the Worms series progressed further than only the first screen for the first time (due to some of the sound improvements).

Final Words

We know these are dark times for the entire world and hope some of the results from this month could at least provide some fun while at a lot of people are on quarantine. We also would like to thank everyone still supporting the project as this is much needed (even more recently…). What can be expected next for CxBx-Reloaded? Well, we had a lot of effort put into changing parts of the rendering code move away from the legacy fixed-function pipeline, but not enough to show and tell for now, so I’ll keep my mouth shut until I can say anything else. Hey, it’s not like we’re making our own Xbox Live service, that’s a secret and I should not tell anyone about it! Oh… oops...

Want to take a closer look at the updated compatibility list? Check download link at the end of this report.