x-box - softmodding

[Visper]

The only two Xbox games I really liked and finished were Galleon (from the creator of Lara Croft) and XIII (a cell-shaded fps)

[Retroplay]

These are definately worth checking out too.

• Forza Motorsport
• Ninja Gaiden/Ninja Gaiden Black
• Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath
• Panzer Dragoon Orta
• Shenmue II

[alexh]

Originally Posted by Visper

The only two Xbox games I really liked and finished were Galleon (from the creator of Lara Croft) and XIII (a cell-shaded fps)

Never tried either of those.

[Anubis]

I'm done with copying games to HD. Total of 34 games, and still have a room for a lot of other games. I finally was able to change size of some games after I changed default settings regarding deletion of unneeded files. (Not sure why is this by default set to No)

Also on the emus I have most of consoles already set. It was easy to set up rom location in ini files. Now I have to work on computer setups. (C64, ZX Spectrum, CPC 464 and Atari ST)

Music and pictures are already copied and some of videos that we watch frequently. (cartoons etc.)

I really like xbmc. Simple and a lot of options. '

As for games I have OutRun 2 and it's really nice, but I plaid more Project Gotham Racing games. Last night played some Unreal Tournament games. Nice shooter.

[alexh]

Some emulators support what is called "Box art", "Screenshot art", getting these packs can be cool if you have 1000's of games and not quite sure what each one is like from the filename.

Unfortunately the best site for getting theses "Art packs" seems to have died. It was called The Xbox emulation repository

But there are some other resources:

http://www.emumovies.com/console.html

http://savvygeek.com/mame_packs/

http://no-intro.dlgsoftware.net/main...o=packs&lang=1

http://www.kppshngthbttn.com/wide-icons-for-xbmc/
http://kppshngthbttn.com/xtras/xbox_skins.rar

[gklinger]

I've found EurAsia to be a tremendous resource.

[killergorilla]

Dunno if anyone is interested but I've written a script to batch convert my WHD zips into HDF format. I wrote the script solely for creating whdload versions I could use on WinUAEX as it doesn't support mounting zips as harddrives. I don't mind uploading the hdfs somewhere for people if they really want them. The script itself relies too heavily on the location of all the files on my computer and I can't be bothered to write it nicely for others to use

[whiteb]

Originally Posted by killergorilla

Dunno if anyone is interested but I've written a script to batch convert my WHD zips into HDF format. I wrote the script solely for creating whdload versions I could use on WinUAEX as it doesn't support mounting zips as harddrives. I don't mind uploading the hdfs somewhere for people if they really want them. The script itself relies too heavily on the location of all the files on my computer and I can't be bothered to write it nicely for others to use

Is it just a Dos Batch file ? Should be easy for anyone to alter it to suit their locations.

[killergorilla]

It's a vbscript file, and a batch file.

It probably is easy enough for people to alter but I can't be arsed with the questions about it

It's very crude!

The batch file reads all zip files from a directory and creates a list, with every odd numbered line being the name of the zip file (from my whdload packs) and every even line being the list output from the program Unzip (so I can get the uncompressed size of the archive).

The vbscript file then moves through the list and stores every line in an array. It then copies the first zip file into a temp dir and renames the zip file temp.zip. Then it uses regular expressions to extract only the uncompressed size of the archive (from the list output of Unzip). It then checks to see if the uncompressed size of the archive is under 1MB, 2MB, 3MB.... (upto 10MB - with a little leeway for save files etc.) and whichever is the smallest size it satisfies it copies an already created/formatted hdf file (1MB.hdf, 2MB.hdf etc.) into a temp dir and then renames it temp.hdf.

With both temp.zip and temp.hdf in a directory it launches WinUAE with a custom built startup sequence, and mounts temp.zip and temp.hdf as HD1 and HD2, copies the contents of HD1/gamename/ to HD2, renames any slave file it finds to game.slave. It then kills winuae.

After it's done all of the copying it moves the newly created hdf to the Done folder and names it the same as the original zip file (with hdf on the end). Then it repeats all this for the new zip file in the list.

That's it! As you can see it relies quite a lot on knowing where winuae is, where the directory you are running it from is, the structure of the dirs (done/todo/hdfs/temp) the winuae config itself (and where it is stored), you'll also need the startup sequence I have setup in WinUAE and you'll need DlxRename and uae-configuration in your Amiga C folder.

It's hardly impossible to adapt, so if it's still wanted I can probably whack it somewhere, although you have been warned!

[rare_j]

Great stuff killergorilla as always,
By coincidence I'm also working on a script to do exactly the same thing, but doing the work on the amiga side.
To create the HDF's it works in a similar way to yours except using amiga tools to create a empty hardfile on the amiga filesystem (to the size of the extracted zip + a couple of bytes), then mount it as a virtual drive and do the copying etc.

There's a couple of issues I found that complicate the process -

Once you're in winuaex how do you start the game?
You cant write whdload, the key, and the config to each hdf because then you cant distribute them and it's a royal pain when a new version of whdload comes out or you need to change your config. I thought I'd create 1 floppy image with whdload on, the config, my key, and a startup-sequence that starts whatever slave is in DH0, then stick that floppy in the configuration for each hdf in winuaex. This allows you to have different emulator settings for each hdf.

This is a biggie: some game zips have multiple slaves, e.g. that dizzy compilation. This'll be a problem if you're renaming them all to game.slave.
It also makes the boot or master disk more complicated as you potentially have to find *.slave in DH0 on the fly, and if there's more than one let the user select which to start. I thought that during the conversion to HDF process I would generate a list in a txt file with is basically the paths to each slave in the zip, then the boot disk could look in that file and decide what to do.

I was going to make the HDF's read only in winuaex and just use savestates for the scores etc but I guess that's down to preference (i like to cheat, some of those old games are tough).

Also I found you can compress the the HDF's to zips and winuax will still read them (although read only), which is nice! (saves a few bytes of disk per hdf)

Fancy a bit of collaboration KG???

[killergorilla]

Hi mate, bit of a coincidence eh

I'll deal with your points one by one...

In WinUAEX, I have 2 hdfs for each game. One called _whdload.hdf (the underscore to keep it at the top of the list. And one with the game name.

It means a little more setting up because you have to add 2 hdfs for each game but you only have to do it once for each game so it's not too difficult.

The _whdload.hdf is simply a few files (cd, whdload, setpatch, whdload.key and a few more I can't think of...). It has a startup-sequence which pretty much says:

CD game: (all my hdf's are named "game")
WHDLoad SLAVE=game.slave PRELOAD

This then starts the game. Pretty simple really. It means you can update the whdload file in the single hdf if a new version is released.

This does have the flaw that if you want to run any specific tooltypes you'll need another _whdload_custom1.hdf or whatever but the standard preload tooltypes work for 99% of the games.

As for zipping up the hdf files, I tried this and had massive problems. Your configs will strangely forget where the hdf files are. No idea why, but if I setup a couple of hdf files and then loaded the game, the next time I came to load that game it wouldn't load. I did some testing and discovered it was due to the zipped hdf files.

As for multiple slaves, I've recently made a database of all the games in my packs and what slaves/icons they have, and there are only about 8 games which have multiple slaves. This isn't really a problem as it's much easier to just manually create these ones.

As for savestates, yeah it's a good idea. Here's what I do...

Setup the game and load it until the title screen.
Make a savestate.
Set auto load last save state in winuaex. (so it loads really quickly next time)
Enable "NoWriteCache" in whdload.prefs

This means whenever you edit the high scores, edit your characters, save your game (non-savestate) etc. it writes immediately to the hdf, and then when you have decided you want to finish your game, just save the state again (over the previous one) and exit.

That way your savestates will never conflict with the information stored on the hdf.

Oh and another thing, I'd recommend you put a blank adf file in DF0: whenever you are loading an hdf, it speeds up loading a LOT because there is a bug in winuaex which thinks the entire disk drive has been removed if there is nothing in DF0: . This leads to massive wait times while the amiga figures out there is no floppy drive.

Oh and one last thing... I tested my script with 102 whdload games, it converted them in 20 minutes which isn't too bad. I now have about 250 lined up to be converted!

[Anubis]

@alexh, I bookmarked those web pages and downloaded some of packs. (not sure yet how to use them - I have some of nointro sets from the time GT (our friendly french site but whose name we can't mention here )had FTP access for their servers.

Last night finally I played a bit with Mame 128 Plus! First had some trouble to populate roms list and finally was able to play Pang! a bit. I could not figure out how to get menu and options back. (I tried all buttons) I guess I should read more about this emu.

Also I might look more after working set. (not even sure what happened with my Mame set. It was very outdated, but it shouldn't be that bad. Most of the games I'm interested are older 'golden' games.

@KG, how playable are your packs in xbox?? If they work, I would like first script so that I can check if I can edit it. It shouldn't be bad to have unofficial HD version of your packs.

Also some instructions as where to place my whdload key etc. would be nice. (xBox n00b here )

[rare_j]

Ah i see so multiple slaves in the zip isn't really an issue, cool.

Nice tips about zipping the HDF's, i'll give that a miss then.
Also didn't know about the NoWriteCache option. In theory that means you can both savestate and have the slave save scores (as long as you remember to savestate before you quit).

Regarding the tooltypes, am I correct in saying that you've already set the tooltypes in each icon for each slave correctly?
If that's the case, instead of starting launching whdload through it's dos command, I was going to use wbstart.lha off aminet which is a cli tool you can stick in the startup-sequence. It's a tiny program with a library that will easily fit on a floppy. You just give it the appropriate icon as an argument and it emulates double-clicking it in workbench e.g. "wbstart game:lotusturbo". (you have to leave off the .info) This means it uses the default tool and all tooltypes that you've set in the icon. I've tested wbstart and it works well.
It also means that if people want to change the tooltypes they can load up the HDF with a workbench boot disk, make the change in the icon and save it and job done.

Regarding the advantage of having a floppy present at all times, that's why I was going to make the master drive an adf rather than an hdf... stick the floppy speed to turbo and it solves two problems at once.
Problem there is how do you fit all the necessary kickstart files on the floppy master diskin devs/kickstarts? I was going to have two floppies one with kickstart 1.2 and 1.3 and a second with 3.1.

[killergorilla]

Hmm... good idea with the info file. I have indeed set the tooltypes to load the games correctly, although again 99.9% are simply slave & preload. I did have a look at wbstartup, it needs a couple of extra libs which I don't have in my whdload.hdf but they shouldn't be too hard to add.

My startup-sequence will need a bit of tweaking though as I'll need to leave the slave name as it is, and rename the info file... there are normally at least 2 .info files in the main dir (game and readme, sometimes more)...

Hmm. Whether I can bothered or not....

I definitely think the 2 hdfs and 1 blank adf is the way to go, even if it's a bit of a hassle setting that up for every game

[Anubis]

Can someone attach mame .84 dat file?

Also there is no read me file for MameoX 128 Plus!

I'm looking to edit configuration for directories etc.

@ KG - Can you send me 2-3 games to try whdload?

[Zetr0]

Originally Posted by Anubis

.....
Last night finally I played a bit with Mame 128 Plus! First had some trouble to populate roms list and finally was able to play Pang! a bit. I could not figure out how to get menu and options back. (I tried all buttons) I guess I should read more about this emu.
...

Heys Anubie, I was under the impression that MAME128 was for the DreamX XBox with 128MB of RAM not the 64MB standard....

have a lookie here

[Anubis]

Most of the games I'll play would work on 32MB .

And there is *ahm* virtual memory *ahm* thingy.

BTW, nice project.

[killergorilla]

MameOx128 works fine on the standard xbox, although I would recommend MamedOx CoinOps+ as the best version of MAME on the xbox, it's setup much better, has all keymaps configured and if you find the torrents (or usenet), comes with all the supported games.

Anubis: I'll sort you out some games to try later mate

[rare_j]

Originally Posted by killergorilla

Hmm... good idea with the info file. I have indeed set the tooltypes to load the games correctly, although again 99.9% are simply slave & preload. I did have a look at wbstartup, it needs a couple of extra libs which I don't have in my whdload.hdf but they shouldn't be too hard to add.

I found that WBStart.lha works better than wbstartup. And it's just one lib and the command as I remember.
wbstartup doesn't seem to handle quitting the app properly.

My startup-sequence will need a bit of tweaking though as I'll need to leave the slave name as it is, and rename the info file... there are normally at least 2 .info files in the main dir (game and readme, sometimes more)...

Yes that is a problem, if you're doing the conversion process on the amiga side you can search for #?.info in the extracted zip and then I was using tttool to query the default tool of each icon, if the deftool=whdload then that's your icon. (it didn't go unnoticed that you set the deftool the same in all the packs )

Hmm. Whether I can bothered or not....

If you reckon 99% of the tooltypes are the same anyway it makes me wonder if it's worth bothering with myself...

I definitely think the 2 hdfs and 1 blank adf is the way to go, even if it's a bit of a hassle setting that up for every game

You may be right there...hmm still in two minds about this.

[killergorilla]

Sorry I actually meant wbstart, not wbstartup.

Good idea with checking the default tool, I never thought of that. Should be easy to change my script then. The actual copying of files is done within WinUAE so I'll probably do exactly as you suggested and load the info file instead. Although I really am not sure I can bothered knowing that most of them are fine as they are....

EDIT: You'd still have problems with games which load from multiple icons though, but that's the same deal with the multiple slave malarkey, just have to do those ones manually.

I shall see.