OgXHD - A tool for patching XBEs to run in 720p

[MarvelousMirth]

I've created a tool that attempts to patch original Xbox executables to run in 720p. It doesn't seem to work very well at the moment. Out of about 10 games I've tried so far, I've only had some success with one, which was the demo of Lamborghini. I can't test any more, as I only have the stock 10gb hard drive, and need to get a larger one, which is why I'm making the tool public now, so hopefully some of you can try it out, and let me know if you get any positive results.

Here's a screenshot of the tool:


If you want to try it out with games already on your Xbox hard drive, copy the games default.xbe back to your PC, and patch it with the tool (I'd recommend trying the normal scan range first). It will not modify the default.xbe, but instead will create a new file called defaultXHD.xbe. Copy that file back into the games directory, and launch it using a file manager on your Xbox.

I'd really love to hear what works, and what doesn't. All feedback is appreciated
In theory it should work with I-Ninja, OTOGI, and PGR2, but I haven't tried yet.

[maGer]

Wow Very Nice... Welcome to Tiz
There are at of xbox fans on here and this will be a great addition to Tiz

There is a buy/sell and "Trade" section... here on tiz you can trade for a hdd or...what you got?
Welcome again read all rules and have fun

[Hardak]

Cool, thanx for this! Welcome to TIZ.

[Code-Red]

Ill give it a try over the weekend and post a list of what I've got working.

[ZX81v2]

Well that's one way of making friends

Welcome to TiZ Forums

Enjoy

ZX81v2

[zaykho]

Interesting ! I will give a try ! =)

Just one thing, it seems that doing 720p hex edit on games without widescreen support is really really hard (even with widescreen patch), in counterparts, game without widescreen support can have customs resolution, you can put anything you want. :p

EDIT: Also, it seems your software work only on 64bit (XP 32bit failed to start it)

TEST: OTOGI PAL is not working. (freeze with black screen, nothing appear)

[MarvelousMirth]

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome

Just one thing, it seems that doing 720p hex edit on games without widescreen support is really really hard (even with widescreen patch), in counterparts, game without widescreen support can have customs resolution, you can put anything you want. :p

I was not aware of that. Thanks for the info. I haven't really been able to test, or figure out much due to niggling problems, but hope to be able tinker more in future.
BTW, it's your work to begin with that actually lead me to make the tool, so I'm also very grateful for that . Although, there's still a lot of work, and a lot of research to be done.

EDIT: Also, it seems your software work only on 64bit (XP 32bit failed to start it)

That's strange. I'll see if I can fix that.

[zaykho]

Thanks everyone for the warm welcome

Just one thing, it seems that doing 720p hex edit on games without widescreen support is really really hard (even with widescreen patch), in counterparts, game without widescreen support can have customs resolution, you can put anything you want. :p

I was not aware of that. Thanks for the info. I haven't really been able to test, or figure out much due to niggling problems, but hope to be able tinker more in future.
BTW, it's your work to begin with that actually lead me to make the tool, so I'm also very grateful for that . Although, there's still a lot of work, and a lot of research to be done.

EDIT: Also, it seems your software work only on 64bit (XP 32bit failed to start it)

That's strange. I'll see if I can fix that.

Thank you =)

Just a reminder, PAL and NTSC will not have the same value, I think an universal patch can work, but we will need to get a lot of data from different game, to know how wide the scan need to "forget" before thinking the value/function is not related to display.


Also, I have found some interesting info with IDA, like the AvSetModeDisplay, a function that every .xbe have, it aceept 3 arguments, maybe 480p/720p/1080i ? I don't know, need to test....

[MarvelousMirth]

Just a reminder, PAL and NTSC will not have the same value, I think an universal patch can work, but we will need to get a lot of data from different game, to know how wide the scan need to "forget" before thinking the value/function is not related to display.

I probably should have mentioned that this tool will primarily work with NTSC versions, as they have a much wider support for 480p, which is what the tool replaces (but I do intend to improve this). I'm just working off the info that yourself and others have provided. From what I've seen, a good all-round byte scan distance, seems about 32, but yeah, obviously that's quite haphazard.

Also, I have found some interesting info with IDA, like the AvSetModeDisplay, a function that every .xbe have, it aceept 3 arguments, maybe 480p/720p/1080i ? I don't know, need to test....

That sounds promising! Please let me know if you make any progress. The tool already includes this patch, if that's related.

[SmokeMonster]

Incredible work MM. Thanks for bringing it to TIZ!

[REDSLATE]

Awesome, man! A couple of us have been interested in exactly this.

Is it possible to change the parameters to something aside from 720p? A few ideas were tossed around, and something along the line of 600p might be ideal as it would offer an increased resolution (comperable to HD) at a reasonable framerate.

[zaykho]

Awesome, man! A couple of us have been interested in exactly this.

Is it possible to change the parameters to something aside from 720p? A few ideas were tossed around, and something along the line of 600p might be ideal as it would offer an increased resolution (comperable to HD) at a reasonable framerate.

It will be possible only on old/non widescreen games (until we found where the flag about displaymode in .xbe), jet set radio, otogi etc... will be bale to get custom resolution, but others, like pgr2, halo2 etc.. will stick to 480/720/1080, any custom resolution will make the game reboot the xbox.

[zombiegauze]

Exceptional release, great job btw. I will test and report back my findings.

[zaykho]

Ok, sorry for double post, but this is really interesting info:

http://openxdk.maturion.de/apihal.html

Requests that the video mode be set to the requested mode. This function does some validation to ensure that the requested parameters are valid. Typical invocations might be:

XVideoSetMode(640, 480, 24, 50); /* for PAL */
XVideoSetMode(640, 480, 24, 60); /* for NTSC */
XVideoSetMode(720, 480, 24, 50); /* for PAL */
XVideoSetMode(720, 480, 24, 60); /* for NTSC */

Returns a boolean indicating whether the mode was able to be changed.

after some research, I found that the most important value to change in this .xbe are located like the example above.

[TheTechDoc]

Oh I can tell we are gonna be goood friends haha, welcome to tiz man! sick upload, will definitely try it out

[REDSLATE]

Awesome, man! A couple of us have been interested in exactly this.

Is it possible to change the parameters to something aside from 720p? A few ideas were tossed around, and something along the line of 600p might be ideal as it would offer an increased resolution (comperable to HD) at a reasonable framerate.

It will be possible only on old/non widescreen games (until we found where the flag about displaymode in .xbe), jet set radio, otogi etc... will be bale to get custom resolution, but others, like pgr2, halo2 etc.. will stick to 480/720/1080, any custom resolution will make the game reboot the xbox.

Okay, cool. That makes sense.

JSRF was actually one of the games being tinkered with previously. It ran at 720p, but experienced slowdown. Really hoping someone can crack the code for the more complex games. Lot of hidden gems on the 'box.

[MarvelousMirth]

Ok, sorry for double post, but this is really interesting info:

http://openxdk.maturion.de/apihal.html

Requests that the video mode be set to the requested mode. This function does some validation to ensure that the requested parameters are valid. Typical invocations might be:

XVideoSetMode(640, 480, 24, 50); /* for PAL */
XVideoSetMode(640, 480, 24, 60); /* for NTSC */
XVideoSetMode(720, 480, 24, 50); /* for PAL */
XVideoSetMode(720, 480, 24, 60); /* for NTSC */

Returns a boolean indicating whether the mode was able to be changed.

after some research, I found that the most important value to change in this .xbe are located like the example above.

While I can't find the specific hex values for that function, surely the hex values for the resolution (eg 640 480: 0280 E001) would still be the same? And if that's the case, they are being replaced.

[MarvelousMirth]

I've just noticed a gigantic error my tools code, but bizarrely, fixing this error seems to make things worse. For now, I recommend not to use the tool until I have it sorted. I'm busy with family affairs tomorrow, but the moment I have free time, I'll get back to it.

[Renn]

Hi to all, im new to the forum.
Here's what i've tested so far:
Forza Motorsport - black screen
Colin 2005 - black screen
Conker Bad Fur Day - works but forces 480p
Shenmue 2 - stuck at loading screen
Project Gotham Racing 1 - kinda works but screen is fucked up - screen is doubled 1.5x 4:3 and also no colors - black&white

[zaykho]

Ok, sorry for double post, but this is really interesting info:

http://openxdk.maturion.de/apihal.html

Requests that the video mode be set to the requested mode. This function does some validation to ensure that the requested parameters are valid. Typical invocations might be:

XVideoSetMode(640, 480, 24, 50); /* for PAL */
XVideoSetMode(640, 480, 24, 60); /* for NTSC */
XVideoSetMode(720, 480, 24, 50); /* for PAL */
XVideoSetMode(720, 480, 24, 60); /* for NTSC */

Returns a boolean indicating whether the mode was able to be changed.

after some research, I found that the most important value to change in this .xbe are located like the example above.

While I can't find the specific hex values for that function, surely the hex values for the resolution (eg 640 480: 0280 E001) would still be the same? And if that's the case, they are being replaced.

Yes, but that mean we need to first (or only) search for a place where:
width: 640 [280h]
height : 480 [1E0h]
color: 16/24/32 [10h/18h/20h]
hz: 50/60 [32/3C]

I did found a place like this in Otogi, (didn't have the hex with me right now), and that place did store all those value....(wi/he/co/hz)