Fuzion Frenzy Recomp

Fuzion Frenzy - Static Recompilation

An unofficial native PC port of the original Xbox release of Fuzion Frenzy (USA), produced by statically recompiling the game's x86 XBE with the XboxXBERecomp SDK fork (vendored in sdk/ as a submodule on branch fuzion-frenzy-port). Windows uses Direct3D 12 and XAudio2; Linux is a native Vulkan and SDL3 build - no Wine.

Status: playable on Linux. Both binaries build from this repository on Linux (FuzionFrenzy for Linux, FuzionFrenzy.exe cross-compiled for Windows). The Linux build boots, plays the intro movie, runs the menus and character select, and reaches the minigames and plays them, at a mean of 59.9 fps over 199 s of driven play (worst second 29.9). Characters render skinned and textured, and the in-game clock runs at real time.

The Windows exe is cross-compiled here and has never been run on Windows; under Wine 11.20 it reaches a minigame in play with zero shader failures. Audio has never been verified. One arena's floor shades flat white - a known, unfixed defect recorded in docs/render-defect.md.

The exact state, with evidence, is in docs/status.md; the first boot and what it proved is in docs/boot-crash.md.

This repository contains no game code and no game assets. It holds tooling, configuration and host-side glue only. You must supply your own legally acquired copy of the disc.

The game

Field	Value
Title ID	0x4D530002 (MS-2)
Region / media	North America / dvd_x2
XBE	default.xbe, 2,834,432 bytes, SHA-1 c6fb6082900532cde5fa8dbb7de8dfa202f0fdad
Base / entry	0x00010000 / 0x00030F7F
Built	2001-09-25
XDK	3925 (D3D8, DSOUND); 3911 (XAPILIB, XBOXKRNL, LIBC, XGRAPHC)
Kernel imports	111, all 111 covered by the SDK runtime
Disc	148 entries, 136 files, 2,083,933,828 bytes of file data

The build is pinned to this exact XBE. A different region or revision needs its own analysis pass.

Why this one is hard

Fuzion Frenzy was an Xbox launch title. Its XDK, 3925, is nearly two years older than the 5558 of the sibling Sims: Bustin' Out port and three years older than the SDK's own 5849 reference set, and this XBE has no .XTLID section. .XTLID is the export-id table whose ids are API identities stable across XDK builds; it is what let the sibling port name 65 library functions outright on its first scan. With it absent, and byte signatures from a different build worthless, xbe_symbols names only 14 of the 200 library functions this image actually links:

xbe_symbols assets/default.xbe sdk/xdk --out config/game.toml
  found 14 of 240 functions, 0 of 12 data

(240 minus the 40 XNET, BINK and XONLINE names this XBE has no section for = 200 reachable.)

Every 0 in [symbols] means the game's own console code runs. For D3D8 that code drives the NV2A directly, which is what the first boot proved: a signal 11 reading the NV2A register window at 0xFD000000 from the title's own device-init path. The remaining names are therefore being established by static analysis of the image, verified against properties measured to be stable across two real XDK builds (ret identical in 171/171 names, regs in 175/175, byte length in 171/175). docs/xbe-analysis.md has the full account, including the seeding experiments that did not help.

Status

Stage	State
Disc image read and extracted (tools/xiso_extract.py)	done - 136 files in assets/
XBE identified and analysed (tools/xbe_info.py)	done - see the table above
XDK signature set for build 3925	seeded only - sdk/xdk/3925/signatures.toml from tools/sig_bootstrap.py; no .XTLID, so it rests on constants alone
config/game.toml	15 of 240 [symbols] named, 2 of 12 [data] named
sdk/xdk/3925/layout.toml	empty - only CDevice_Push = 0x0 and the miniport at CDevice + 0x2308 are proven so far
Recompilation	done - 10,587 functions, 633,913 instructions, 2,165,441 of 2,368,328 code bytes (91.4%)
Kernel import coverage (tools/kernel_coverage.py)	done - 111 of 111 (docs/kernel-coverage.md)
Native Linux build (Vulkan + SDL3)	done - builds, links, boots
Windows build (D3D12 + XAudio2), cross-compiled on Linux	done - builds and links; never run on Windows
Picture on screen	not reached
Audio	not reached
F1 / F2 panels in play	not verified - the code is carried over whole but has never been seen running

Controls

The game only ever reads an Xbox pad, so the host translates keyboard and mouse into one on port 0, and controllers are picked up in the order they are plugged in. This is the host layer's mapping as src/common/input_kbm.cpp implements it. None of it has been exercised in this game yet.

Keyboard / mouse	Pad
W A S D	left stick
arrow keys	D-pad
mouse, right button held	right stick
Q / E	right stick left/right
R / F	right stick up/down
mouse wheel	right stick up/down, in pulses
space	A
escape, backspace	B
X / Y	X / Y
Z / C	left / right trigger
1 / 2	black / white
enter	Start
tab	Back
shift / ctrl, middle mouse	left / right stick click

Keys are read only while the game window has focus. While the F1 settings panel is up it owns the keyboard and the mouse and the game sees neither.

Settings, F1 / F2 overlay

F1 opens the host settings panel (display mode, resolution, aspect ratio, ultrawide, vsync, frame cap, render scale, anisotropic filtering, HDR on Windows, and a Cheats section) and F2 the frame-time graph. F3 captures a frame when XBE_CAPTURE_DIR is set. In the F1 panel the Resolution control is greyed out in borderless mode - borderless always follows the display it is on - and is editable in windowed and fullscreen, with the stored value surviving a mode switch.

The Cheats section currently shows "No cheats identified for this title yet." No cheat code or cheat setter address has been found in this image; the plumbing is real and the table is empty rather than invented.

Settings live in settings.toml beside the executable; the first run also creates logs/ and hdd/ (where saves go) beside it. Keys are read by sdk/runtime/app/settings.cpp:

Key	Values / default
display_mode	fullscreen / borderless / windowed (default borderless)
width, height	output size in pixels; 0 = desktop mode (default)
render_percent	render scale as a percent of the output height (default 100)
fps_cap	frame-rate cap; 0 = unlimited (default 60)
vsync	true / false (default true)
anisotropic_filtering	0 = as the game asks (default)
aspect_ratio	auto (default), 4:3, 16:9, 16:10, 21:9, 32:9
ultrawide	true (default) / false
hdr, hdr_paper_white, hdr_peak	Windows/D3D12 only
join_ip	system-link co-op host address (empty by default)

Diagnostic environment variables

Variable	Effect
XBE_PERF=1	per-second perf: log lines (fps, draws, upload, clears)
XBE_CAPTURE_DIR=<dir>	where F3 frame captures and periodic front-buffer dumps are written
XBE_VK_CAPTURE_EVERY=<n>	dump the guest front buffer every n presents
XBE_MUTE=1	silence SDL audio output for capture or benchmark runs
XBE_VK_DEBUG_DRAW=1	full per-draw Vulkan dump
FUZION_AUTOSTART=1	scripted pad self-test on port 0 (blind Start/Up/A cycle)
FUZION_STEP=<file>	step mode: each token written to the file is one burst of pad-0 pulses
FUZION_NO_STEP=1	disable the frame-step fix in src/game/hooks.cpp (there is none yet)

XBE_VK_DEBUG=1 enables the Vulkan validation layer. The sibling port records that it hard-froze this machine twice; prefer the logging and capture paths above.

Layout

assets/        your disc image and/or the files extracted from it (never committed)
cmake/         windows-cross.cmake - clang-cl + xwin toolchain for the Windows exe on Linux
config/        game.toml (the recompiler config), found-*.toml (proven symbols, merged into it),
               ref/5558-signed.toml (a second XDK build's signature set, used as a reference)
docs/          analysis and bring-up notes
sdk/           XboxXBERecomp SDK submodule (recompiler, runtime, XDK HLE, renderers)
src/common/    host-side code: F1/F2 overlay, keyboard-as-pad, GameInfo
src/game/      hooks and overrides for recompiled functions
tools/         xiso_extract.py, xbe_info.py, kernel_coverage.py, sig_bootstrap.py,
               align_symbols.py, merge_symbols.py, and the screenshot/driving helpers
generated/     recompiler output (never committed)

Build it from source

You supply the game: the USA Xbox release, as either

• the whole disc image (.iso) on its own in assets/, or
• the fully extracted files in assets/ (default.xbe plus the Packages folder and everything else).

Warning: a folder holding only default.xbe is the one shape that does not work. The build needs assets/default.xbe to hash and recompile, while the game needs its data files; that folder alone leaves the title with nothing to load.

1. Put your disc image in the repository root, or the extracted files in assets/.

2. Extract it:

   python3 tools/xiso_extract.py info    "Fuzion Frenzy (USA).xiso.iso"
   python3 tools/xiso_extract.py extract "Fuzion Frenzy (USA).xiso.iso" assets
   

3. Check the XBE is the one this configuration targets - the SHA-1 must match the table above:

   python3 tools/xbe_info.py assets/default.xbe
   

4. Build:

   Linux (native Vulkan + SDL3):

   ./build.sh
   

   builds FuzionFrenzy into out/build/linux-release. You need clang, cmake and ninja on PATH, plus SDL3 and the Vulkan headers and loader.

   Windows, cross-compiled on Linux (needs an xwin sysroot at ~/.cache/xwin/sysroot):

   cmake --preset host-tools    && cmake --build out/build/host-tools
   cmake --preset windows-cross && cmake --build out/build/windows-cross
   

   config/game.toml is already written and committed for this XBE, so neither route needs to regenerate it.

Working on the port

• Never edit anything in generated/; it is rewritten on every recompile.
• Newly proven XDK symbols go into a config/found-*.toml and are merged with python3 tools/merge_symbols.py --apply, which refuses a name claimed at two addresses, two names at one address, an address outside the image, and an address in the wrong library section.
• Behaviour changes go in src/game/ as X86_FUNC(sub_XXXXXXXX) overrides, or as [[hook]] entries in config/game.toml.
• Analysis mistakes are corrected in config/game.toml with [[function]], [[switch]] and [xbe] data_ranges.

Legal

Bring your own disc. Do not commit or distribute the XBE, the disc image, extracted assets, or any key material. assets/, generated/, *.iso, *.xbe and out/ are ignored by git for that reason. The SDK is MIT licensed; see sdk/LICENSE and sdk/THIRD_PARTY.txt.