Boom Boom Rocket Revolution

Boom Boom Rocket Revolution

Boom Boom Rocket (Xbox Live Arcade) as a native Windows game, played from your own copy, smooth at any refresh rate, sharper and wider than the original, with modern rhythm-game options, calibration, local leaderboards and achievements.

Version 1.0.0

Boom Boom Rocket Revolution is a static recompilation of the original Xbox 360 executable, made with the ReXGlue SDK: the game's own code turned into a native Windows program, not an emulator running it.

No part of Boom Boom Rocket is included here or in the download. You need your own copy of the game (and any DLC you own). The launcher checks your files and installs them next to itself.

38 new features and 38 new settings on top of the original game, all listed below.

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What's in it

Smooth play on modern screens

• Judder fixed: the original engine paced its frames unevenly, so arrows and the city stuttered even at a steady frame rate. Each frame now starts on a real refresh of your display, and the song clock is smoothed, so motion is even at 60, 120, 144 or 240 Hz.
• High frame rates: runs at your monitor's refresh rate (up to 240 fps), with the game's timing, fades and slow-downs kept at their original speed.
• Frame Rate setting: lock to 60, 120, 144 or 240, unlock it, or follow the monitor, so a slower PC with a fast monitor can still play steadily.
• Any shape of screen: widescreen and ultrawide (16:9, 21:9, 32:9 or match the window) with a wider view of the city instead of stretching; menus can sit at the screen edges or stay centred.
• Higher resolutions: 720p (the Xbox 360's own) up to 2880p.
• Window modes: fullscreen, windowed or borderless.

Better-looking fireworks

• City Lighting: buildings near a firework light up in its colour, fading with distance (from subtle to "Acid Trip").
• Water Glow: the shine on the water takes the colour of the fireworks and moves to where they burst.
• Glow: a soft bloom around fireworks and bright lights, leaving the HUD crisp.
• HDR output for HDR displays.
• Particle Density: from no sparks at all up to five times the original amount.
• Anti-aliasing (FXAA) and Texture Filtering (up to 16x) for cleaner edges and sharper distant textures.

Timing you can trust

• Song clock locked to the music: notes follow the audio actually being played, with no drift over a song.
• 1 ms button timing: Xbox pad presses are timed to the millisecond on their own thread, not once a frame; PlayStation and other pads are read every millisecond so no press is lost or late.
• Auto Calibration: two short tap tests (sound, then picture) set your audio and input offsets.
• Audio Offset and Input Offset to fine-tune by hand.
• Show Accuracy: each hit shows how early or late it was in milliseconds, StepMania style, and the results screen adds your average and spread.
• Offset suggestion: after a song, the results screen tells you which way to move Input Offset if most of your hits were early or late.
• Assist Tick: a click on the exact moment of every rocket, to practise timing.

Modifiers

• Scroll Speed: 0.25x to 4x; arrows travel faster and further apart while the timing stays the same. Change it mid-song with LB / RB, and see it on the song select screen.
• Autoplay: watch any song played perfectly (no scores or achievements are saved).
• Background Off: hides the city behind the arrows for distraction-free practice.
• Camera Speed: slows the camera's flight through the city, down to standing still, for anyone the moving background bothers.
• Rocket Acceleration: arrows speed up like rockets (the original) or climb at an even pace.
• Horizontal Drift: arrows drift sideways as in the original, or climb straight up their column.
• DDR Mode: arrows climb in four lanes in the middle of the screen, sorted by button.

More of the game

• Local leaderboards: the Leaderboards menu works again, with every profile's best scores on this PC.
• Achievements unlock and can be viewed in the game.
• Profiles: up to 8 local players, each with their own name, saves, scores and achievements; two can play together.
• Player 1 Controller: choose which pad is Player 1.
• Your DLC: owned track packs install straight from the original package files, and the unfinished prototype packs are repaired so they play.
• Visualizer that listens to your PC: fireworks go off to whatever music Windows is playing, with a sensitivity setting and a camera that pulls back for a wide view.
• Song lengths and tempos on the song lists.
• Skip Intro: straight to the title screen.

Controls

• Any controller Windows knows: Xbox pads, PlayStation, Switch Pro and most others (button maps from SDL_GameControllerDB are included).
• Keyboard play, with every button rebindable in the game.

The launcher

One window takes you from your game files to playing:

1. Game files: choose default.xex in your unpacked game folder, or the game's package file exactly as it came from your Xbox 360. Every file is checked against the retail copy.
2. DLC (optional): add your DLC package files (or drop them on the window).
3. Install: the files are copied next to the launcher.
4. Game Settings: your gamertag and the video settings, before you start.
5. Play.

In-game settings

Everything is in the game: Help & Options > BBRR Settings. A saves, B leaves without saving, X restores the defaults. Settings are saved in Documents\boomboomrocket\settings.ini.

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Playing

You need

• Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit, and a DirectX 12 graphics card.
• Your own copy of Boom Boom Rocket (Xbox 360 XBLA): the unpacked game folder with default.xex, or the original package file. DLC packages are optional.
• A controller is recommended; the keyboard works too.

Install

1. Download BoomBoomRocketRevolution-v<version>-windows-x64.zip from the Releases page.
2. Unzip it to a folder of its own, for example C:\Games\BoomBoomRocket.
3. Run BoomBoomRocketRevolution.exe and follow the Setup tab from top to bottom.

Updating

Unzip the new version over the old folder. Your game files, DLC, saves, profiles and settings are kept.

Controls

	Controller	Keyboard
A / B / X / Y (play the arrows)	A / B / X / Y	S / D / A / W (as on the pad), Enter is A too, Backspace is B too
Menus	D-pad	Arrow keys
Scroll speed down / up (in a song)	LB / RB	Q / E
Bonus Run	Both triggers	Space
Pause	Start	Esc
Back	Back	Tab
Visualizer: zoom in / pull back / pull back further	RB / A / X	E / S / A

Keys are changed in BBRR Settings > Keyboard.

Settings

Page	Setting	What it does
Profiles	Player 1 / Player 2	Who is playing; each profile has its own saves, scores and achievements
	Player 1 Controller	Which pad plays as Player 1
	Rename Player 1 / 2, New Profile	Change a gamertag or add a player (up to 8)
Calibration	Auto Calibration	Two short tap tests that set both offsets for you
	Audio Offset	Moves the notes against the music
	Input Offset	Moves how your presses are judged
Video Settings	Resolution	720p up to 2880p (restart)
	Window Mode	Fullscreen, windowed or borderless
	Aspect Ratio	Match the window, 16:9, 21:9 or 32:9
	Frame Rate	60, 120, 144, 240, unlocked, or match the monitor (restart)
	HDR	Output for HDR displays
	Anti-Aliasing	Smooths jagged edges (FXAA)
	Texture Filtering	Keeps distant textures sharp
	Particle Density	How many sparks each firework throws
	City Lighting	Lights buildings in the colour of nearby fireworks
	Water Glow	Colours the water with the fireworks
	Glow	A soft glow around bright things
Modifiers	Scroll Speed	How fast the arrows travel
	Show Accuracy	Shows how early or late each hit was
	Assist Tick	A click on every rocket
	Autoplay	The game plays the song for you
	Background	Hides the city during songs
	Camera Speed	How fast the camera moves through the city
	Rocket Acceleration	Rockets speed up, or climb at an even pace
	Horizontal Drift	Arrows drift sideways, or climb straight up
	DDR Mode	Four lanes in the middle of the screen
	Visualizer Sensitivity	How strongly the Visualizer reacts to your music
Keyboard	Use Keyboard, D-pad, key for each button	Play with the keyboard and choose its keys
	Skip Intro	Skips the start-up logos
	Menu Layout	Menus at the screen edges, or centred as on a 16:9 TV

The full details of every setting and the command-line options are in docs/USER_GUIDE.md.

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Things to know (from testing)

Windows Defender or SmartScreen may warn about the launcher or the game. They're new and not code-signed. For SmartScreen ("Windows protected your PC"), click More info → Run anyway. The source code is all here to check.

On a slower PC, start with 720p (the default) and Frame Rate 60. A GTX 1650 ran about 86 fps at 720p and about 33 fps at 1440p. A steady 60 plays better than an uneven higher rate.

Calibrate once on each PC. Speakers, headphones, TVs and controllers all add their own delay: BBRR Settings > Calibration > Auto Calibration takes a minute.

If something goes wrong, the logs (one per start) and any crash dumps are in Documents\boomboomrocket\logs. Please attach the newest log, and the crash dump if there is one, to an issue.

Known issues: in Endurance, Autoplay misses the first notes of each lap. Freestyle mode has not had the same polish as the other modes.

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Building from source (developers)

The release is ready to play; this is only for working on the port itself.

Prerequisites: Visual Studio 2022 (Desktop development with C++, which includes CMake and Ninja), LLVM/Clang 20+ installed separately (VS 2022 bundles Clang 19), Git, Python 3.

git clone --recursive https://github.com/CorrieDivitt/BoomBoomRocketRevolution
cd BoomBoomRocketRevolution
# put your unpacked game in "Game Files\" (git-ignored)
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts\bootstrap.ps1
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts\patch-sdk.ps1
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts\build.ps1

patch-sdk.ps1 applies the port's changes to the ReXGlue SDK (patches/rexglue-sdk/) and installs it; run it again whenever a patch is added. build.ps1 runs the code generation and builds the game and the launcher.

Make the release zip (refuses to include any game data; also writes a checksum and a symbols zip for reading crash dumps):

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File scripts\package.ps1 -Version 1.0.0

Project layout

Path	What it is
src/	The port's features: settings, timing, modifiers, lighting, profiles, leaderboards, DLC, crash reports
launcher/	The launcher (Dear ImGui on Direct3D 11)
ui_scripts/	The port's menu screens and changes to the game's own (Lua)
patches/rexglue-sdk/	Changes to the ReXGlue SDK, applied by scripts\patch-sdk.ps1
config/	Code-generation settings and hooks into the game's code
calibration_sounds/	Metronome sounds for Auto Calibration
docs/	Plan, analysis of the game, timing and graphics notes, user guide, requirements
tools/	XEX analysis and shader-source recovery helpers
scripts/	Setup, build and packaging
thirdparty/	ReXGlue SDK (submodule) and SDL_GameControllerDB

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AI use

Yes, this project uses AI. Much of the code and documentation was written with Claude (Anthropic), directed and tested in play by the project owner.

Credits

ReXGlue SDK, Xenia, XenonRecomp/XenosRecomp, and the Xbox 360 preservation community.

Licence

• Boom Boom Rocket Revolution's own code: BSD 3-Clause.
• The ReXGlue SDK, Xenia, FFmpeg, SDL, Dear ImGui and the other software it is built on are listed with their licences in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

Boom Boom Rocket is © Electronic Arts. This project is unofficial and not affiliated with or endorsed by Electronic Arts, Bizarre Creations or Microsoft. No game files are included.