Type X Replication

[mjclark]

All the furore about Taito Type X and Type X2 games now being made playable has got me really fascinated.
1) Since Type X machines just run embedded XP, why has it taken so long for the games to become playable at home? Why isn't it just a matter of using appropriate drivers?
2) How easy would it be to build a replica of a Type X machine but using a different mobo? Is the Type X platform just in the software or in the firmware on the original boards?
3) Could I set up a PC at home to boot straight into the Type X environment, and if so how?
Hmm....

[Zapf]

I think there was at least one type x2 game that got leaked and sorta playable on PC (blazblue CS)

[Fudoh]

you're not up to date Street Fighter IV, Battle Fantasia, KOF98UM, KOF12/13 are TX2 games and they've all been leaked.

[Ex-Cyber]

Why isn't it just a matter of using appropriate drivers?

I haven't seen anything about the latest wave of games, so I'm only recalling discussion from when BBCS was leaked, but basically it comes down to the fact that the games were never intended to run on a wide range of PC configurations. BBCS reportedly had some GPU compatibility issues (GPU drivers are notorious for inconsistent features/behavior/performance), hardcoded paths assuming a specific partition layout, and JVS-specific details in the I/O code. The latter was somehow patched/bypassed/simulated by means of a loader.

[mjclark]

Wooh! I just found these same questions being discussed 4 years ago in the Raiden IV thread:
http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.ph ... 91#p215891

[shmuppyLove]

I grabbed the BB:CS leak about a year or so ago, and it was fantastic. No issues at all running on my Vista (at the time) desktop w/an AMD dual-core CPU and an nvidia 9800GT video card, which is completely different from the 'native' Type X system (Intel CPU w/ATI graphics).

BB:CT of course officially released on the PC, and has full custom controller support and better video support.

From what I've seen, the games look like a combo IDE hard drive + USB protection dongle (though I would imagine SATA would work just as well, by the time the OS loads and the game software is running, they would be functionally identical). Presumably the hard drive contains the OS (XPe) that boots the system and loads the game.

XP Embedded is tricky though, and I believe requires certain information encoded into the BIOS for licensing, similar to the way major OEMs like Dell, HP do it.

Good ol' System 16 to the rescue!

[Ex-Cyber]

the 'native' Type X system (Intel CPU w/ATI graphics)

It's been a while since I've seen the details discussed, but IIRC ATI was used for the original Type X and the Type X2 Satellite Terminal, while the standard Type X2 uses a GeForce 7900GS.

[Jorel]

By the way, I think KOF13 runs slow on the PC. It seems to be faster at the arcade I work at. I figured it was because KOF13 was using the same loader from BBCS. I could be totally wrong though.

[ShutokouBattle]

I wish they'd do Battle Gear 4.

[Ex-Cyber]

By the way, I think KOF13 runs slow on the PC. It seems to be faster at the arcade I work at. I figured it was because KOF13 was using the same loader from BBCS. I could be totally wrong though.

It's surely conceivable that a game could run at different gameplay speeds on different configurations, though the necessary mix of design decisions (for the scenario I'm thinking of) strikes me as mildly contrived. Short version: try playing with refresh rate and vsync settings and see what happens.

[Jorel]

By the way, I think KOF13 runs slow on the PC. It seems to be faster at the arcade I work at. I figured it was because KOF13 was using the same loader from BBCS. I could be totally wrong though.

It's surely conceivable that a game could run at different gameplay speeds on different configurations, though the necessary mix of design decisions (for the scenario I'm thinking of) strikes me as mildly contrived. Short version: try playing with refresh rate and vsync settings and see what happens.

In the leaked version, the timer changes at the same rate of speed no matter what PC or vsync or refresh you're on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIB5g7si ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzcqXKfh ... re=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKTnWqvH ... re=related

Check the footage I've linked above. This is footage from the real arcade board. Now compare it to a leaked version. You'll notice in the arcade footage, the timer changes with every real life second. In the leaked version, the timer is running slower. I've actually seen this happen on a Taito X2 board, with bootleg KOF13 software as well.

[D]

I wish they'd do Battle Gear 4.

I am eagerly awaiting that too. thing is, who even has that system (at home). Chances seem slim.
But the type-x games run great, even on a normal firm laptop! I think you only really need directx. From there it is just executing the .bat file and it runs. I feel more people should give it a go.

[spl]

I wish they'd do Battle Gear 4.

No point mate, racing games cannot be emulated.

Lack of genuine steering wheel has prevented ports as far back as Daytona USA from being successful.

Sure you can use a piece of shit Logitech G25 or something but it will never be the same. At least with joystick games like STG you can use the exact same hardware.

[kernow]

I feel more people should give it a go.

I feel more people should break into peoples houses!

[Zapf]

I feel more people should give it a go.

I feel more people should break into peoples houses!

What a coincidence, I wish it was a crime to make shit posts!

[D]

Battle Gear 4 has been leaked, not yet playable or even runable for that matter
http://www.neogamez.net/foro/aportes/(d ... le-gear-4/
http://www.snk-neofighters.info/forum/s ... -4-Taito-X
Looks promising

[PC Engine Fan X!]

If this Battle Gear 4: Tuned Version can be made playable, it'd just be a matter of d/l the appropiate drivers for a PC-based force-feedback steering wheel setup.

I do recall d/l'ing the appropiate Logitech drivers for use with Win98 OS and with a PS2-based GT Force wheel setup back in the day (to make it do double-duty on both PS2 & PC platforms).

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[CMPXCHG8B]

I grabbed the BB:CS leak about a year or so ago, and it was fantastic. No issues at all running on my Vista (at the time) desktop w/an AMD dual-core CPU and an nvidia 9800GT video card, which is completely different from the 'native' Type X system (Intel CPU w/ATI graphics).

BB:CT of course officially released on the PC, and has full custom controller support and better video support.

From what I've seen, the games look like a combo IDE hard drive + USB protection dongle (though I would imagine SATA would work just as well, by the time the OS loads and the game software is running, they would be functionally identical). Presumably the hard drive contains the OS (XPe) that boots the system and loads the game.

XP Embedded is tricky though, and I believe requires certain information encoded into the BIOS for licensing, similar to the way major OEMs like Dell, HP do it.

Good ol' System 16 to the rescue!

Actually, XP Embedded doesn't really give a shit about licensing, unless you've added something that does so yourself.

All the XP Embedded OS cares about is the Runtime Licensing serial. This is checked when you first boot your fresh image on your hardware and the First Boot Agent (FBA) is ran, it verifies the serial number and either allows the OS to continue to run as a licensed image (no restrictions) OR if the serial fails validation (or isn't present at all)- it will convert the installation into a 90/180 day trial instead.

XP Embedded does not include online activation of any kind. It's simply not there.

Your typical XPe development cycle looks like this:

1) Setup the XPe modules you want included in the base image
2) Create your own modules by importing your own software for inclusion in the same image
3) Build the whole thing (this basically just means the entire image is dumped to a folder somewhere)
4) Write the resulting OS image to a bootable device somewhere
5) Run it on your actual hardware, and let FBA initialize the drivers and boot the system
6) Capture the post-FBA image, and write that to your production hardware

You can change the hardware and XPe won't care licensing wise, however- you're going to be limited to whatever that XPe release has drivers for. Since the image is post-FBA, if you change HALs (ie, Intel <-> AMD) you'll cause the system to BSOD on bootup. There is a 99% chance that they didn't include the provisions for actually installing drivers in the XPe image (to save space), so you're basically hosed if your hardware isn't directly compatible with the system the image originally targeted.

The Taito Type X systems are extremely conservative in this way. Their XPe images contain nearly nothing extra in them- just enough to support the hardware and bootstrap the GUI to launch a program as the "shell" (this is usually the game binary instead of Explorer.exe or cmd.exe). The actual Taito games reside on an encrypted partition on the IDE disk drive, the encryption/decryption is handled through the hardware USB dongle.

I don't think you'd be able to get the Type X image to boot on anything other then Type X hardware. However, as everyone else has found out- since the Type X is just a standard XP 32-bit environment at its core, if you can decrypt the game partition and yank out the data there's a good chance it'll run everywhere else since Type X targets Direct X and there's nothing special about the DX9 implementation XP Embedded offers.

All the furore about Taito Type X and Type X2 games now being made playable has got me really fascinated.
1) Since Type X machines just run embedded XP, why has it taken so long for the games to become playable at home? Why isn't it just a matter of using appropriate drivers?

Type X games are stored on an encrypted partition that is only decryptable with the matching hardware USB dongle. I don't know the details of how the system works, but I do know that the same guys who figured out the Taito G-Net CF card system also figured out how to swap games on a Type X, but I believe this requires a customized USB dongle to properly operate. I'm guessing it only took so long as it took because it took that long for whomever to get interested in prying the system open. Again, I'm not familiar with the exact method of protection, because that's a Taito proprietary thing.

2) How easy would it be to build a replica of a Type X machine but using a different mobo? Is the Type X platform just in the software or in the firmware on the original boards?

Hard, see above.

XPe images only contain the drivers required to boot the system, and nothing else. If even so much as a single VID or PID on one of your hardware devices is off, there's a good chance the XPe driver won't bother to load and with nothing else present to fall back on- the system will probably hang or blue screen during boot. Most XPe images lack the required software to install drivers, so you can't even boot them up on the original hardware to prep them for moving to another system (that and sometimes the XPe image is marked as read only).

The Type X motherboard is just a standard BIOS-booting Intel system. Nothing special in or about the firmware, everything is on disk, and the boot process for XP Embedded is vastly identical to Windows XP (just with specific hardware support, plus whatever the manufacture added).

3) Could I set up a PC at home to boot straight into the Type X environment, and if so how?

You could try, you'd need to basically ghost the Type X disk drive then write it back to your own disk drive in your own machine. But again, this probably won't get you anything since the XPe installation won't have drivers for your different hardware. Even if you did get it to boot, the Type X contains additional hardware for the cabinet control panel and the whole USB authentication/security system. The Type X software Taito includes in the image (which I believe is a set of drivers and userland stuff) definitely won't want to run, and therefore the game data will remain inaccessible (encrypted).

The only way to play Type X games on your computer is the way everyone else does right now, because any other way requires access to a Type X booting the targeted XPe image.

If you were really obsessed for some reason, you *could* just go grab the XPe development environment yourself from Microsoft (it's easy to find), then build your own XPe image that boots straight into your pre-ripped Type X game. This would give you a similar "experience" to the Type X. However, while building XPe images is extremely straight forward it isn't exactly simple. I see no practical advantage to building your own XPe images for all your Type X games versus just running them under Windows XP Home or Professional. The end result will basically be the same in either case.

PS: I spent 2 years working with XPe in an official capacity, so I know it rather well.

-CMPX

[D]

If this Battle Gear 4: Tuned Version can be made playable, it'd just be a matter of d/l the appropiate drivers for a PC-based force-feedback steering wheel setup.

I do recall d/l'ing the appropiate Logitech drivers for use with Win98 OS and with a PS2-based GT Force wheel setup back in the day (to make it do double-duty on both PS2 & PC platforms).

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

There is no analog support yet for any type-x game. BG4 is probably the first leaked analog game. First things first. As of now it cannot be run yet. Seems the dump is not complete and lacking many actual 'game' files. I am not sure who or why 'leaked' this. Could be some stupid attempt to run it on another system and somebody made a copy of it. Again, incomplete. Not running at all. I am the biggest BG fan in the world. I have put many many hours in BG2 & BG3. I can run ps2 BG3 in widescreen with a pnach file. BG2 has built in widescreen mode. Will it ever happen? I'd buy a dedicated machine if my laptop cannot run BG4.
And it does seem to be the Tuned version that was leaked.