NHL Hitz Pro Recomp

NHL Hitz Pro for PC

A native Windows build of NHL Hitz Pro (original Xbox, 2003, USA release), made by statically recompiling the game with the xboxrecomp toolkit. It plays the intro movies, menus, team select and full matches at 60 fps on a current PC.

This project contains no game content. You need your own copy of the Xbox disc.

Playing

Requirements

• Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit
• A GPU with Direct3D 11 support (any from the last decade)
• A multi-core CPU (the game's vertex work and audio run on the CPU)
• About 2 GB of free disk space
• Your own NHL Hitz Pro (USA) disc, as an .iso / .xiso image or as a folder with the game's files (the folder that holds default.xbe)

Install

1. Run NHLHitzPro-Setup-1.0.4.exe and choose where to install.
2. When asked, pick your disc image or folder. Setup checks that it is the supported version and copies the game files it needs (about 1.5 GB).
3. Start NHL Hitz Pro from the Start menu.

If the game is already installed, Setup says so and shows the installed version and the new one. A different version only updates the program files after you confirm (no disc needed, game files and saves kept); the same version offers Repair or Quit.

Saves and the shader cache are kept in %LOCALAPPDATA%\NHLHitzPro. Uninstalling removes the game files but leaves your saves.

Controls

	Xbox controller	Keyboard
Start	Start	Enter
A / B / X / Y	A / B / X / Y	Z / X / C / V
Move, D-pad	Left stick, D-pad	W A S D, arrow keys
Fullscreen / window		F11 or Alt+Enter (starts fullscreen; the last mode is remembered)
Pause and quit		Esc pauses the game and asks to quit: Yes (Y or Enter) or No (N or Esc, resumes)

Esc pauses the game (clocks, timers and sound stop) and asks "Do you want to quit?"; choosing No resumes exactly where you left off. The game starts in borderless fullscreen and remembers the last mode you used.

XInput controllers (Xbox 360, Xbox One, most PC pads) work without setup, up to four for the four-player game: they can be plugged in or removed while the game runs, and controller N is player N. The keyboard is an extra input for player 1. The window keeps the game's 4:3 shape; in fullscreen it is centred with black bars.

Settings menu (F1, or hold Back and press Start on controller 1): pauses the game and lets you change the Render Scale (one multiplier for all of the game's drawing: 1x is the Xbox's native 640x480, up to 5x, 3200x2400), fullscreen, Stretch image (off keeps the game's 4:3 shape; on fills the window, stretched), VSync, anti-aliasing (2x, 4x or 8x MSAA) and anisotropic filtering. Use the keyboard (Up/Down, Left/Right, Enter, Esc) or controller 1 (D-pad or left stick, A to confirm, B or Start to close); the mouse and the other controllers do nothing while it is open. Changes are saved automatically in %LOCALAPPDATA%\NHLHitzPro\settings.ini. Esc still opens the quit prompt.

Settings program: run NHL Hitz Pro Settings (config.exe, in the install folder and the Start menu) to set things before you start the game. Its Video tab, shown first, has the same options as the F1 menu (render scale, fullscreen, stretch image, VSync, anti-aliasing, anisotropic filter). Its Controls tab remaps the keyboard.

Changing the keyboard keys (Controls tab): pick an action, click Change key and press the key you want; each action also has an alternate key. Save applies the keys the next time the game starts, and Reset to defaults brings the original layout back. Esc, F11 and Alt+Enter are used by the game itself and can't be assigned. The choices are stored in %LOCALAPPDATA%\NHLHitzPro\keymap.ini.

Known issues

• The first time through a new part of the game, a short stutter can appear while shaders are built. It does not return once they are cached.
• Some visual details differ from the original console: the entrance tunnel haze, the ice and jersey look, and skate-wear textures on the ice.
• On rare starts the screen stays black after the intro; close the game and start it again.
• Only the USA release is supported. The disc check will refuse any other region or revision.

Building from source

The recompiled game code is generated from your own default.xbe, so it is not in this repository.

Requirements: Windows 10/11 x64, Visual Studio 2022 (Desktop C++ workload, Windows SDK 10.0.26100), CMake 3.20 or newer, Python 3.12 with pip install -r requirements.txt, and a fast multi-core CPU (generating and building the code takes a long time).

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/dalves408/nhlhitzpro-recomp.git
cd nhlhitzpro-recomp
pip install -r requirements.txt

Put your game files in game_files/ (so that game_files/default.xbe exists). native/build/nhl_import.exe <disc image or folder> game_files does this from an ISO. Then generate the code and build:

python scripts/prepare.py --full
cd native
cmake -S . -B build -G "Visual Studio 17 2022" -A x64
cmake --build build --config RelWithDebInfo --parallel

Run native\build\RelWithDebInfo\nhl_hitz_pro_recomp.exe from the native folder. For the player build (no logging, data in %LOCALAPPDATA%, static runtime):

cmake -S native -B native/build-release -DNHL_RELEASE=ON
cmake --build native/build-release --config Release --target nhl_hitz_pro_recomp nhl_import

The installer script is native/installer/nhl_hitz_pro.iss (Inno Setup). native/installer/gen_manifest.py regenerates the list of disc files and the default.xbe hash it checks.

How it works

1. scripts/prepare.py drives the xboxrecomp pipeline over default.xbe: parse, disassemble, identify functions, recover calling conventions, lift to C.
2. scripts/tool_runner.py wraps each stage and injects this game's hooks while the code is lifted.
3. native/ is the Windows CMake project. It links the generated C with the toolkit's runtime (kernel, emulated NV2A GPU, audio, input, file system) and adds a Direct3D 11 back end (native/src/backend_d3d11.c).

Path	Contents
scripts/	Pipeline driver and lift-time hooks
native/	CMake project, startup code, the D3D11 back end, project overrides of toolkit files (native/overrides/)
native/installer/	Disc import tool and installer script
native/config/	config.exe, the settings program (keyboard remapper)
tools/xboxrecomp/	The toolkit, a git submodule pinned to the tested commit

Credits and legal

• xboxrecomp by sp00nz and contributors (MIT; some runtime parts LGPL-2.1, see its NOTICE). Some files in native/overrides/ are modified copies of its files (xemu-derived parts are LGPL-2.1).
• NHL Hitz Pro is © Midway. This project is not affiliated with or endorsed by Midway, the NHL or the NHLPA, and distributes none of their content.