Cxbx-Reloaded Proof of Concept release

While I'm at it, I wanted to let you know that SoullessSentinel has uploaded a proof of concept release of Cxbx-Reloaded on his website and on github.  As it says, don't expect much at this point, as the next release will be vastly different as he plans to remove much of the HLE stuff.

Link: http://cxbx-reloaded.co.uk/

It's also highly encouraged that you contribute to the compatibility list.  The website gathers information on your game's .xbe, lets you choose the status of the game, and then saves the result, it's that easy.  So have at it.

As proof of concept from my end, I shared a few screens of Innocent Tears *almost* going ingame.  It would be awesome if it did considering that not only is this an Xbox exclusive title, but was almost never released to begin with AFAIK.

So have at it.  I'd try more, but I don't really have access to many games while I'm at work.  Looking forward to what else he's got planned.

Shogun.

Cxbx-Reloaded continues

I wanted to make at least a brief mention of this at the very least.  SoullessSentinel is still working on Cxbx-Reloaded.  It's kind of surprising since I haven't talked to him in quite a while nor have I even kept up on his progress.  So far, it appears to be coming along somewhat.

After looking through the git repository, it looks like someone fixed a handful of things that I was either too lazy to implement properly or just completely forgot about.  One thing he fixed was my implementation of section loading; a proper solution was lacking and I lazily added what was necessary for a few games just to test it.  I looked through that code thinking "man, I sure hope somebody fixed that", and bam, it was there, lol.  They also did a way with alot of the previous FS stuff.  Interesting nonetheless.

If you want to take a look at the repro, click here: https://github.com/LukeUsher/Cxbx-Reloaded

And if you want to see screens, click here: http://imgur.com/a/Bzvti

Some of these titles I've never seen run before, so I guess that's some good progress in itself.  Best wishes for this branch.

Shogun.

Azurik: A hack worth a mention

This was the positive result of a hack done by JayFox some time ago, and I don't believe I've ever shared it here.  And the reason I'm sharing this is because it's screen footage of XQEMU running my favourite Xbox game, Azurik: Rize of Perathia!

There's a reason why I've always considered this game to be one of, if not the, hardest games to emulate on Xbox.  I couldn't fix it on Cxbx (and I tried for years), Microsoft couldn't do it, and even JayFox himself had quite a bit of trouble with it.  In order for this game to work, JayFox had to add a series of hacks.  I don't remember what he did, but getting it this far was quite a feat.  From what I remember, he tells me that the bug you see is an issue with floating point precision for vertex skinned meshes.  I ran into a similar issue on Cxbx, but it was much more severe as everything was greatly distorted.

The hacks used to get this far are not in his main branch, so I cannot replicate it.  Just wanting to share a bit of news that never seemed to get the mention it deserved.

Shogun.

Oh no, is xqemu dead??

Heh, of course not!

Now, your concern about the xqemu project is greatly appreciated, however it's important to remember that JayFox and espes are two busy people.  Both of them last I checked are busy with University classes and what not, and espes has a job also.  So lately they've had their hands full.  Every once and a while progress on an emu will slow down due to IRL taking priority, that doesn't mean that it's dead because you haven't heard anything in a while or haven't seen any updates on github in a few months.  Trust me, it's not going anywhere; *Madara Uchiha voice* settle down!

So, for all of you SEGA fans out there, please enjoy this video of House of the Dead 3.  Runs quite nicely, no?

The speed of the video was increased by 8x roughly.  So considering how problematic this game was to emulate on Cxbx and xqemu at first, I'd say that xqemu is doing just fine.  The compatibility is pretty good in many cases, just a few things to sort out here and there.

Shogun.