Xbox360 –> Windows Executable Converter (2017)

These (incredibly HLE emulators for Microsoft consoles trying to live off the idea "hey, it can't be that different than Windows, right?") emulators like CXBX for the original Xbox don't tend to work super well. There's such a huge impedance mismatch between the environments expected by this code versus what actual Xbox hardware can provide (remember that games run in kernel mode and quite a few drivers are statically compiled and optimized into the games) that it's just way less surface area to go the full system emulator approach in the first place.

So what you see is some tech demo samples perfectly and maybe a couple of bespoke games working OKish, but then the complexity burden overwhelms the project and it kind of stagnates.

Shekelphile2• 3 years ago

This emulator isn't taking the 'CXBX approach'. CXBX does not recompile the binary and relies on common system/graphics api calls not being inlined and easily replaceable with windows equivalents, which absolutely doesn't exist in any 360 game binary for all the important things.

monocasa5• 3 years ago

The point is that it's still HLEing all of the imports (like CXBX). Just going the extra mile and full system emulating pays massive dividends. No, it's not close enough to Windows in super subtle ways, so don't take the bait of the import names being the same.

dang3• 3 years ago

Recompiler: Porting Xbox360 Executables to Windows - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15474393 - Oct 2017 (58 comments)

woolion2• 3 years ago

At this point, is it still worth it to post these manually? Checking all post submissions, keeping only the ones with sufficient engagement, and a little summary line "7 other submissions ignored, the oldest dating from Oct 2018"

Maybe I'm too lazy, but that really sounds like something I would let a computer automatically do.

supriyo-biswas• 3 years ago

Technologically the task can be automated by scraping each submission when it’s submitted, calculate the sentence embeddings of the article, and compare the new submissions with other embeddings. However, that’s how you become a Facebook style social network with “more you might like” and whatnot.

stevefan19992• 3 years ago

Just like in database, deduplication is incredibly hard in practice.

dang3• 3 years ago

You can do exact URL matching that way, but that leaves out a great many related threads. That limitation doesn't show up in this case but see e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36713263 - same story, but very different articles and URLs.

Here's a recent case that would be even harder to automate because it's tracking the same story over quite a long period of time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36713290.

If anyone knows how to write code to build those sorts of lists, I'd love to know about it! the nice thing is that the relevant data is all public so anyone who wants to work on it can.

bob-09• 3 years ago

Since Xbox360 is PPC, does this convert to x86_64?

monocasa5• 3 years ago

Yes, it recompiles.

deaddodo• 3 years ago

The main README explains their approach. It disassembles PPC, generates equivalent C++ and compiles that into the target ISA (amd64).

stavros4• 3 years ago

Is it not completely crazy that this is even possible? This sounds like wizardry to me.

eltoto• 3 years ago

What is PPC please ? Can't find anything

stevefan19992• 3 years ago

By using C++ as a pseudo-optimal intermediate representation. I mean, at this point, I rather decompile back to LLVM yo.

kevingadd• 3 years ago

Something like this was even easier for XNA games, since you could download a bundle of C# dlls and exes from your console and then after a quick decryption process, patch them to swap the dependencies. I reverse engineered a couple games this way and was able to boot them part-way within a couple hours (of course, endianness and console-only shader instructions were a problem.)

heywhatupboys• 3 years ago

How I miss XNA

tomsato• 3 years ago

I vaguely remember this being done for FEZ back in the day. Funnily enough, the same is true for a number of cross-platform frameworks. One that sticks out was a port of David Cage game (which was largely written in lua) and making huge progress on porting the runtime from PS3 to PC.

anthk2• 3 years ago

Under OpenBSD you still have xnaify to wrap and run C# games with MonoGame or whatever was called.

xvilka• 3 years ago

There is a demand for XEX[1] file support in Rizin/Cutter, by the way, to simplify the reverse engineering workflow.

[1] https://github.com/rizinorg/ideas/issues/10

herunan• 3 years ago

Is it HN’s gaming emulators day? 4 posts in the last 12 hours regarding emulators.

Xbox360 –> Windows Executable Converter (2017) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36705223

The Simpsons Hit and Run leaked source code https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36703711

PCSX2 is an open source PS2 Emulator https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36702084

Xenia: Xbox 360 Emulator https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36702731

alexhaber• 3 years ago

The Simpsons Hit and Run got an official PC release

causality0• 3 years ago

I look forward to the HN discussions of Citra and CEMU.

genocidicbunny• 3 years ago

I'm guessing it's somewhat related to the recent news about emulators on the Xbox consoles.

npongratz• 3 years ago

Also in the last day:

RPCS3 – Open Source Playstation 3 Emulator https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36690498

mdtrooper• 3 years ago

Is "xbox360 -> m$win exe -> wine/proton" posible?

hospitalJail• 3 years ago

hahahaha I love the way you think.

Just wanted to thank you for the creativity.

kernal• 3 years ago

The readme was detailed and enjoyable to read. More projects should do this.

dehrmann• 3 years ago

Xbox360 is not yet abandonware :)

Considering a new Xbox Series X will play most Xbox 360 discs (or at least the ones you care about), it's not even close to abandonware.

Xbox360 –> Windows Executable Converter (2017)

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