Progress Report (August to October)

Our friend and tester Strelok has taken a stab at writing our next progress report. He usually collects the stats and produces the graphics/lists that I add to every report, so it only makes sense to give him a chance to write one himself, let's hand over to him.

Hello everyone, I'm Strelok (aka Hector... aka that guy...), first time writing a progress report for CxBx-Reloaded and this time we'll not cover a single month or specific feature, but everything that happened on the project for the last 3 months. We had a very good improvement on the compatibility, rendering and usability, so without further ado, I'm proud to present you the results of all the work put on the emulator so far: 

General Improvements 

Frame limiter toggle (PR #1688)

With this implementation, you can now unlock the framerate limit and skip some boring parts of your favorite games. This is also a neat tool to measure how fast your PC can run some games, for benchmarking purposes.  

Removed LockFS from the functions that don't require locking (PR# 1692)

This change helps to prevent some games from deadlocking (hanging forever), improving general stability for many titles.  

Fixed Xapi controller capabilities structure (PR #1708)

There was a bug with the Xapi controller capabilities structure that placed it in the wrong memory address. With this fixed, we finally got input working in Star Wars: Obi Wan and Star Wars: Episode III, allowing both to reach in-game for the first time!  

New Input GUI (PR #1713)

With our new input GUI, it's much easier to bind your controllers (the correct API for your controller is selected automatically). One feature that many users asked for it's also part of the new GUI: you can create, save and load controller profiles.  

Added support for Xbox Controller S bindings (PR #1737)

While the model S of the XBox controller isn't that different from the original one (Duke), it has a different physical layout for the buttons. You can select it from the "Settings > Config Input..." menu. 

Rendering Improvements

Fixed surface level/face mapping without patches! (PR #1703) 

This fixes broken mip-mapping in some titles, fixes Cube-Mapping in titles that our patch didn't cover, and other similar issues (easy to notice on Sonic Heroes, no more black floor).  

RenderTarget and CopyRect fixes (PR #1715)

This fixed many visual issues, including the Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex pause screen and the Jet Set Radio Future graffiti editor.  

Remove more RenderState/TextureState Patches (PR: #1742)

The bulk of this is removing patches, and replacing the patching mechanism and ugly/awkward to maintain deferred state handling with nice RenderState/TextureState converter objects. The result is the removal of 40 HLE patches (+graphical improvements for some games). 

Games

Bad Boys Miami Takedown [PLAYABLE]

Most people knew about this game being able to reach in-game for some time now, but a really weird issue prevented it from being fully playable (bullets used to stop mid-air, so you couldn't damage bosses and progress). With this fixed, you can now finish the game.   

AMF Bowling 2004 [PLAYABLE]

Progressed from not even booting directly to fully playable.   

Plus Plum 2 [PLAYABLE]

Another game that jumped from broken to fully playable. You can check some gameplay here  

X-Men - Next Dimension [PLAYABLE]

Yet another game that didn't booted before, going directly to the fully playable status. You can see an entire playthrough of the game here  

Open Season [IN-GAME]

While this title was indeed in-game for a long time, rendering improved a lot recently, enough to deserve being showcased here 

Sega GT Online [IN-GAME]

Also known as in-game for a long time, but known to have several visual issues... that improved a lot as well (still not playable due to some instability issues). Video showcasing the improvement here 

Dinosaur Hunting [IN-GAME]

You were able to run around in-game, but not much to do as your character was invisible... and the trees... and the dinosaurs. Now almost everything is rendering properly, main issue being some transparencies (vegetation in general) 

Final Words

I would like to thank all the developers that put so many hours into improving CxBx-Reloaded, and the Patreon supporters for all their contributions ;)  As always, I've updated a simple compatibility list that everyone can download and check in details which games improved from the latest reported status (the games listed above are just some of the ones improved, many others progressed as well).