nhlhitz2003recomp

NHL Hitz 2003 — Static Recompilation for Windows and Linux

A native port of the original Xbox NHL Hitz 2003 (USA). The game's x86 executable (default.xbe) is statically recompiled to C. Windows uses D3D11, XAudio2 and XInput. Linux uses OpenGL and SDL2.

Download 1.0.3

Get the appropriate package from the 1.0.3 release.

How you play	Download
Windows standalone	NHLHitz2003-Setup-1.0.3.exe
Linux standalone	NHLHitz2003-1.0.3-Standalone.AppImage
RecompLauncher on Windows	NHLHitz2003-1.0.3-Windows-x64.zip
RecompLauncher on Linux	NHLHitz2003-1.0.3-Linux-x64.tar.gz

Windows 1.0.3 fixes in-match controller rumble and the audio mix for skates, hits, and puck sounds. Setup skips downloading the current texture pack when it is already installed. Linux 1.0.3 is the first public Linux build. Make the AppImage executable, then open it. Setup can reuse valid game files and existing textures, and adds separate Play and Settings menu entries. Fresh settings start fullscreen at 1× scale with the original 4:3 aspect ratio and a 60 FPS cap. Existing settings are preserved.

Both RecompLauncher packages include a manifest for direct Play, settings, and headless game-data import. See the RecompLauncher integration guide and the 1.0.3 release notes for requirements and details.

Windows 1.0.2 adds an optional hi-res texture download in Setup, resumable downloads with size/speed statistics, a Textures tab in Settings, F8 texture toggling at 2x+ scale, and Windows idle display/sleep prevention. See the 1.0.2 release notes. The public installer contains no debug kit or original game data and preserves settings and saves. The separate 4x texture addon uses the same shared download as game Setup.

No game data is included. You need your own legally owned copy of the game (Title ID 0x4D57000B). The ISO, its extracted files, the XBE and the C generated from it are never committed.

Windows build requirements

• Windows 10/11 x64, a D3D11 GPU
• Visual Studio 2022 (or Build Tools) with the C++ workload
• CMake 3.20+
• Python 3.12 with capstone 5.0.7 (pip install capstone==5.0.7)

Build on Windows

For Linux source and packaging instructions, see the Linux source branch and the Linux packaging notes.

1. Clone with the toolkit submodule

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/dalves408/nhlhitz2003recomp.git
cd nhlhitz2003recomp

The recompiler and runtime are sp00nznet/xboxrecomp, pinned in tools/xboxrecomp.

2. Provide the game files

extract-xiso -x "NHL Hitz 2003 (USA).iso" -d extracted
mkdir game_files; copy extracted\default.xbe game_files\
cmd /c mklink /J native\game extracted

3. Recompile the XBE to C

python scripts/prepare.py

This writes the generated C into native/src/recomp/gen/. It takes about 15 minutes. Use --from-stage disasm|identify|abi|recompile to resume a later stage.

4. Build and run

cmake -S native -B native/build -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" -A x64
cmake --build native/build --config Release --target nhl_hitz_2003_recomp --parallel 6
cd native
.\build\Release\nhl_hitz_2003.exe

Or double-click play.bat, which builds and launches. play-debug.bat builds the debug flavor (-DHITZ_DEBUGKIT=ON), which writes crash, hang and mark dumps to %LOCALAPPDATA%\NHLHitz2003\debug.

Windows builds use nhl_hitz_2003.exe for normal play and nhl_hitz_2003-db.exe for the debug kit. Debug banners show the configured version and stay inside the game window. Updated installers remove the legacy nhl_hitz_2003_recomp.exe during repair/update and preserve the other new EXE when it is already installed. See debug installer behavior.

Settings and saves are stored in %LOCALAPPDATA%\NHLHitz2003. Press F1 in game for the settings overlay. Press F8 to toggle an installed hi-res texture pack at Render Scale 2x or higher. At native 1x scale F8 is ignored. The toggle saves the same setting as the F1 menu. While running, the Windows game prevents idle display-off and automatic sleep, including during controller-only play. Normal power behavior resumes on exit.

Controls

An Xbox/XInput controller works directly. Keyboard:

Key	Xbox
Enter / Backspace	Start / Back
Z / X / C / V	A / B / X / Y
Arrows	D-pad
W A S D / I J K L	Left / right stick
Q / E	White / Black
1 / 3	Left / right trigger

Credits and licenses

• xboxrecomp by sp00nznet (MIT; the APU and NV2A components derive from xemu, LGPL-2.1+). Files in native/overrides/ are modified copies of toolkit files and keep their licenses.
• NHL Hitz 2003 is © Midway. This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by Midway, the NHL or Microsoft, and it distributes no game code or assets.

Windows replacement-pack DDS support, caching, asynchronous loading, controls and measured limitations are documented in Windows texture performance.

The graphics-pool exhaustion fix and timestamped runtime video-setting logs are described in Windows memory recovery.

The optional DDS pack is available through the standalone texture add-on installer. It detects the installed game folder and extracts without an uninstaller or Windows application registration. The included config.exe has a Textures tab for the master switch and texture categories. The 1.0.2 game installer has an optional texture-pack checkbox. Both installers prefer a verified texture.bin beside Setup and otherwise share a resumable download cache. After success, Setup asks whether to keep its cached BIN for repairs/reinstalls or delete it on exit. User-supplied sibling BINs are preserved. The shared payload and installer notes include the published BIN URL, checksum, build commands and validation results. The texture detection notes describe how Windows 1.0.3 Setup recognizes and keeps the current pack.