sm2port

sm2port

An unofficial native Windows port of Spider-Man 2 for the original Xbox (the Italian, the European French/German/Spanish and the World releases). It runs the game from your own disc image, with 16:9 widescreen, up to 60 fps, a higher internal resolution, keyboard and mouse, and optional modern effects.

What it is

sm2port is a port, not a remaster. It runs the original 2004 game, with its own city, missions and soundtrack. The game's x86 code runs natively on your PC; sm2port replaces the Xbox around it: its kernel, the NV2A graphics chip (on Direct3D 11), the sound chip (on XAudio2) and the controllers (on SDL3, keyboard and mouse).

Compared with the console:

• True 16:9: the game's own widescreen mode, with a wider view and no black bars. The full picture of the PAL game is shown (576 lines).
• 30 fps like the Xbox, or 60 fps (in the launcher's settings; 60 needs a PC that handles twice the work).
• Higher internal resolution (up to 4K, or as many lines as your screen) with anisotropic filtering.
• Modern effects, all optional: light glow, sharpening, colour, vignette and ambient occlusion (F10 switches them on and off to compare).
• Keyboard and mouse, with the mouse moving the camera, and Xbox controllers for the first player.
• A launcher that checks your disc and holds the settings, and an in-game menu (F1, or Back+Start on a controller) that pauses the game.

Requirements

• Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit. Nothing else to install: Direct3D 11, XAudio2 and the shader compiler are part of Windows. Windows N editions: install the Media Feature Pack, or sm2runtime.dll will not load.

• A graphics card and driver with Direct3D 11 (feature level 11_0). One fast processor core matters more than a powerful graphics card.

• A disc image (.iso or .cci) of Spider-Man 2 for the Xbox in one of these releases:

  Release	SHA-256 of default.xbe
  Italy	2c0032e3b579c2c4b51bd1740b46e37e9a5c77ab9e5788e1d4667e15ed4c2597
  Europe (French, German, Spanish)	0c466591001257abee3d96fc8844635b045cb037d66b0925ccb1a8c6d1b866fb
  World	e8353bf6d975b281a77c5f41f49bb9a05e9e82db93bfa8ba73af0c424a4313af

  XISO and full Redump dumps both work, in one file or split in parts, and so does the compressed CCI format. Other releases are not supported: sm2port checks the executable and tells you if the disc is a different version.

Installing

Installer: download sm2port-<version>-windows-x86-setup.exe from the releases page and run it. It installs for your user only (no administrator rights) and adds Start menu and desktop shortcuts.

Portable: download sm2port-<version>-windows-x86.zip, extract it where you like and start sm2.exe. The files are not code signed, so Windows SmartScreen may ask once whether you trust them ("More info", then "Run anyway"). To check a download, compare its SHA-256 with the SHA256SUMS file of the release.

Your settings (sm2port.ini), saves (xbox_hdd), logs (logs) and shader cache live in your Documents\sm2port folder (C:\Users\<you>\Documents\sm2port), so updates and uninstalling never touch them and they are easy to find and copy. If you played an earlier version (0.1.1 or before), your files are in %LOCALAPPDATA%\sm2port and stay in use there until you move them: the launcher offers to, and moving never overwrites anything. To keep everything next to sm2.exe instead (a USB stick, say), create an empty file named portable.txt there. Started by RecompLauncher, the game always keeps them next to sm2.exe.

First start

The launcher opens and asks for your disc image. Choose the .iso (or .cci) file: sm2port checks it and remembers where it is. Then pick a quality preset and the frame rate and press PLAY.

Controls

A controller is recommended. Xbox controllers (360, One and Series) work as on the console. PlayStation, Switch and most other USB or Bluetooth pads work too, through SDL3, with the buttons in the Xbox positions (the bottom face button is A); their buttons can be moved around in the launcher's Controls page (Controller tab). Without a controller, the keyboard and the mouse are controller 1; every key can be changed on the same page (Keyboard tab).

Input	Xbox controller
W / A / S / D	left stick (move)
Mouse, or the arrow keys	right stick (camera)
Space	A (jump)
E	B (cling to walls)
Left mouse button	X (attack)
Right mouse button	right trigger
Q	left trigger
R	Y
C / Left Shift / Left Ctrl	left stick click / Black / White
Middle mouse button	right stick click
I / J / K / L	D-pad
Enter / Backspace	Start (pause) / Back

PC key	Action
F1 (controller: Back+Start)	in-game menu: settings, controls, resume, exit; the game pauses meanwhile
F11 or Alt+Enter	full screen on and off
F10	modern effects on and off
F7	HUD hidden and shown again (for photos and videos)

The mouse moves the camera while the game window is in front and the game runs (the cursor hides after a few seconds without moving). Settings mouse_look and mouse_sensitivity in sm2port.ini turn it off or change its speed.

Settings

Everything is in the launcher's Settings page, in the in-game menu (F1) and in sm2port.ini (each key is explained there). Language, frame rate, aspect ratio, resolution and filtering apply the next time the game starts.

Setting	What it does
Game language	the game's own languages for your release, by default like Windows
Frames per second	30 like the Xbox, or 60
Aspect ratio	16:9 (the game's widescreen mode) or 4:3
Time of day	the game's own clock, or always dawn, day, sunset or night
Round HUD in 16:9	the health ring keeps its shape in 16:9 instead of stretching
Field of view	75% to 130% of the game's own
Quality	Original (like the Xbox), Balanced or High: filtering and effects together
Internal resolution	Auto (as many lines as your screen), or from SD 480p up to 4K
Modern effects	glow, sharpening, colour, vignette, ambient occlusion
Pause in the background	opens the in-game menu (and pauses) when you switch to another window

Known issues

• Textures: some textures look wrong in places (blurred or stretched surfaces, odd stripes on some buildings).
• Sound: the game's sounds, music and films play, but some DirectSound calls (3D positioning among them) are not emulated yet and the Xbox sound chip's own effects are left out. The sound may differ from the console.
• Online play (Xbox Live) is not available. Only the Italian, the European (French, German, Spanish) and the World releases are supported.
• On monitors wider than 16:9 there are thin black bars at the sides.
• Linux (Wine, Proton) has not been tried with this game.

Troubleshooting

• "Cannot load sm2runtime.dll": the file must be next to sm2.exe. On Windows N editions install the Media Feature Pack; an antivirus may also have quarantined the file (the SHA-256 in SHA256SUMS lets you check it).
• The program closes at once, or the game crashes: open the launcher's About page and press Log folder; sm2port.log says what happened last.
• The game is not smooth: choose 30 fps, a lower internal resolution, or the Balanced or Original preset.
• The disc is refused: only the releases in the table above are supported; the launcher's message says what it found.

To report a problem, press Report a problem on the launcher's About page: it opens the form on GitHub with your version and PC filled in, and the folder with sm2port.log to attach.

Building from source

sm2port's game-specific code is here; the shared runtime it builds on (the Xbox kernel, memory and threads, the graphics chip's registers and textures, disc reading) is an open-source library shared with mc3port: xport, a git submodule in external/xport.

You need Visual Studio with "Desktop development with C++" (MSVC x86 tools, Windows SDK, CMake tools), git submodule update --init, then from a Developer PowerShell in the project folder:

cmake -S . -B build/pc-x86 -A Win32
cmake --build build/pc-x86 --config Release

tools/package.ps1 (PowerShell 7) builds the release zip and its SHA256SUMS in dist/. Technical notes, test switches and debugging tools are in docs/DEVELOPMENT.md (in Italian).

How this was made

sm2port was written with heavy use of AI (Anthropic's Claude), directed and tested by the author on real hardware. xemu and other open-source Xbox projects were studied as references only; no code was copied from them.

Credits

• Dear ImGui by Omar Cornut, MIT licence: the launcher's interface.
• Barlow by Jeremy Tribby, SIL Open Font License: the launcher's font.
• The launcher's background music and its background pictures were generated for the project with ElevenLabs Music and Magnific. The program icon and logo are the project's own (tools/make_icon.py).

Supporting the project

sm2port is free and always will be: no paid builds, no early access, no locked features. If you enjoy it and want to say thanks, you can support its author on GitHub Sponsors or Ko-fi. It is never needed to play, and it buys nothing: it gives more time for fixes, features and the next port.

Licence

sm2port's code in this repository is released under the MIT licence, and so is the shared runtime xport. Third-party parts keep their own licences, listed in THIRD_PARTY.md. The game itself, and everything read from your disc, belongs to its owners.