Modding xbox?

[jackassboy]

I don't know where else to put this, but i have heard that it is possible to mod the San andreas version for xbox. How would one go about doing this? Do i need an action replay? I was planning on buying one for xbox, it costs around 50 bucks, though.

[Hollaz]

You can put mods on your Xbox, but it's warez to talk about how you modify your Xbox to make the xbox SA moddable on Xbox.

[jackassboy]

I heard it voids warranty, but my xbox is old now...so that wouldn't matter anyways.

[Gouveia]

Well, it is posible to mod GTA on the Xbox, and it is supported on GTAF, because there are mods in this forums that are able to be on the Xbox. I guess all you have to do is to get GTASA on the Xbox's Hard Drive.

[ugen]

There are mods for many xbox games which are just converted pc mods because xbox is using direct X and they have similat structure to pc. For example you can mod vice city for xbox the same way as for pc by editing gta3.img, but san andreas is a little bit different from PC because it has compressed audio files so that it needs only 2,8 GB, but there is still gta3.img so that you can still install mods at the same way as for PC but remember that xbox has only 64 MB RAM. I have already modden the elder scrolls 3 morrowind on xbox but only 80% of all PC mods worked correctly, some mods even slowed the framerate down to about 20 fps (because there were more than 30 fishes in balmora). I havent tried to mod the xbox version of gta san andreas but the gta 3 and vice city mods worked correctly in about 85% of all mods. If you want to know how to mod just PM me.

[AK-73]

There are mods for many xbox games which are just converted pc mods because xbox is using direct X and they have similat structure to pc. For example you can mod vice city for xbox the same way as for pc by editing gta3.img, but san andreas is a little bit different from PC because it has compressed audio files so that it needs only 2,8 GB, but there is still gta3.img so that you can still install mods at the same way as for PC but remember that xbox has only 64 MB RAM. I have already modden the elder scrolls 3 morrowind on xbox but only 80% of all PC mods worked correctly, some mods even slowed the framerate down to about 20 fps (because there were more than 30 fishes in balmora). I havent tried to mod the xbox version of gta san andreas but the gta 3 and vice city mods worked correctly in about 85% of all mods. If you want to know how to mod just PM me.

Last thing I heard was that xbox GTA3 was unmoddable - that the files inside the img had been compressed.

 

Is there any update on that status?

 

Alex

 

[ugen]

It is possible to decompress the img files, just look at the psp version, you can mod gta lcs/vcs too, but not so good as gta on xbox.

[AK-73]

 

It is possible to decompress the img files, just look at the psp version, you can mod gta lcs/vcs too, but not so good as gta on xbox.

 

Lol, that's what I was asking back then, I think - if LCS can be decompressed, why not xbox gta3?

 

After decompression - does the xbox gta3 use .dffs? Or the new LCS format? Does anybody know? Anyway, I am *very* interested in that issue - because if xbox gta3 dff and txd files can be decompressed, I know someone who is going to buy a legit copy of the game. Even though he doesn't own an xbox.

 

Alex

 

 

[ugen]

I dont think that gta 3 on xbox uses same filetype as gta lcs on psp because lcs came some years later out. Im not sure but i think that gta 3 on xbox uses dffs because vice city uses exactly the same filetype as PC and gta 3 on xbox has same release date as vice city and vice city uses dffs. But to mod it you need a modchip and some programmes for file transfer/FTP.

EDIT: I have tried to oper the gta3.img file of gta 3 for xbox and img tool 2 opens it without problems! and the xbox version of gta 3/vice city hat better graphic than on pc (but there is no apartment with blood and chainsaw even after 100% but there are some nice effects, just try the chainsaw on xbox out )

EDIT2: Here is a tutorial how to mod vice city on xbox: click here!

Edited January 4, 2008 by ugen

[AK-73]

 

I dont think that gta 3 on xbox uses same filetype as gta lcs on psp because lcs came some years later out. Im not sure but i think that gta 3 on xbox uses dffs because vice city uses exactly the same filetype as PC and gta 3 on xbox has same release date as vice city and vice city uses dffs. But to mod it you need a modchip and some programmes for file transfer/FTP.

EDIT: I have tried to oper the gta3.img file of gta 3 for xbox and img tool 2 opens it without problems! and the xbox version of gta 3/vice city hat better graphic than on pc (but there is no apartment with blood and chainsaw even after 100% but there are some nice effects, just try the chainsaw on xbox out  )

 

 

That's amazing. Now I got one important thing I'd like to ask you (or anyone with a modded xbox and the game) to do: could you verify whether the player model (or any non-cs actor) in GTA3 is a skins&bones model or a model composited out of various body parts?

 

Extract the player.dff and look at it in rwanalyze or some hexeditor. PC GTA3 models have body parts named Shead, Swaist, etc. Skins and Bones models, as in VC, have different names for the bones and they have a geometry skin.

 

This news could have great impact on the GTA:LC project. If xbox GTA3 uses skins and bones, the project could simply adopt/convert animations and models, optionally. To circumvent copyright issues, one could write a conversion tool: xbox GTA3 to GTA:VC.

 

Otherwise, if it uses geometry body parts, one could at least write a tool to overwrite PC world and vehicle models with the improved xbox models.

 

 

 

EDIT2: Here is a tutorial how to mod vice city on xbox: click here!

 

[DexX]

alrighty, i guess i'll tell the kids there's no santa. The xbox gta3 and vc dff/txd's formats never got cracked. to date it is unknown if they are simply compressed (suspected) or somehow protected/encrypted (can't rule it out). The wheels.dff/txd, particle.txd are not stored in the same format as the assets in the gta3.img, which is why they, and only they, can be re-used.

 

The reason you can put mods on the xbox, is because

a. Renderware will read generic dff's that are not optimized for a specific platform, which happens to be the same as the PC uses (IE, the xbox can read PC dff's, but the pc cannot read dff's that have been optimized for the xbox, which is pretty near every dff in the gta3.img).

b. txd's saved with Jernej's txd workshop, are saved in the same format as the wheels.txd and particle.txd on the xbox. Those txd files are the exception and not the rule. Like the dff's, the txd's in the gta3.img are unreadable, due to the likely combination of being compressed and/or optimized for the xbox.

 

i don't want to say it's impossible to crack those formats, because i don't think it is. however i've been giving this explanation to various people on and off, many of them respected modders and tool coders, since fall of 2003.

 

on that note, i don't have a modded xbox, so i don't have any files available for testing (anymore, i did at one point, hence the info i have now ).

[ugen]

rwanalyse shows only "unknown" file in both, 3 and vc and in vc has the same skin called "player.bmp"as on PC. (In fact an xbox is 99% PC and 1% Anti linux and anti homebrew sh*t.) All files have same folders as PC and same files +default.xbe instead of xxx.exe to launch the game. But I tried to open kuruma.dff with zmodeler and kuruma.txd with txd editor, both seems to be unsupported. I will try to convert a mod to gta 3 and if it will work ir will mean that xbox gta 3 works the same way as gta 3 on PC. (but where is sense to convert xbox gta 3 to pc? Only to have a bit better graphics and nicer car models?) And i think that overwriting of files (even if it will work great) isnt a good idea because the xbox version has automaticat aim at most of guns and only bazooka, sniper and m4 have precision aim (but this aiming works better than in lcs)

[AK-73]

 

rwanalyse shows only "unknown" file in both, 3 and vc and in vc has the same skin called "player.bmp"as on PC. (In fact an xbox is 99% PC and 1% Anti linux and anti homebrew sh*t.) All files have same folders as PC and same files +default.xbe instead of xxx.exe to launch the game. But I tried to open kuruma.dff with zmodeler and kuruma.txd with txd editor, both seems to be unsupported. I will try to convert a mod to gta 3 and if it will work ir will mean that xbox gta 3 works the same way as gta 3 on PC. (but where is sense to convert xbox gta 3 to pc? Only to have a bit better graphics and nicer car models?) And i think that overwriting of files (even if it will work great) isnt a good idea because the xbox version has automaticat aim at most of guns and only bazooka, sniper and m4 have precision aim (but this aiming works better than in lcs)

 

The point is not so much in modding xbox gta3 but in *extracting improved models* to use them on the PC.

 

I'll tell you what - if there is a ped.ifp file in the anim folder of the game, could you email me like the first 10% of the file (to avoid copyright issues)? Just open it in an editor and cut out the bottom 90% of the file.

 

Send me a pm for my email adress please.

 

Thanks,

Alex

 

@Dexx: We have been through this more than once, I think. As you can see I haven't given up on this at all. I just never had the time to get deeper into it. :.)

[ugen]

Is there an app to make a bmp smaller but keep the same resolution? I have installed a player mod and the model works perfect and looks better than I cold expect from xbox and the framerate is still as good as with original model but the skin is too big so vic vance has no texture. the old skin had 60kb and the new has 193kb.

[AK-73]

 

Is there an app to make a bmp smaller but keep the same resolution? I have installed a player mod and the model works perfect and looks better than I cold expect from xbox and the framerate is still as good as with original model but the skin is too big so vic vance has no texture. the old skin had 60kb and the new has 193kb.

 

Looks like it's the old GTA3 bodyparts format. Damn.

 

@ugen: sounds like you'd have to resample the new texture. If so, open it in irfanview and resample it with ctrl+r.

 

Alex

 

[The Hero]

@Dexx: Do you know if there is also a generic txd format, that the PS2 and Xbox can read or do they only support their native txd formats?

I changed two skins yesterday in Vice City for PS2; using a generic format would be easier, hence my question.

Edited January 7, 2008 by THE HERO

[DexX]

 

@Dexx: Do you know if there is also a generic txd format, that the PS2 and Xbox can read or do they only support their native txd formats?

I changed two skins yesterday in Vice City for PS2; using a generic format would be easier, hence my question.

The final txd's are optimized for each platform, so no. There are only native txd's.

[The Hero]

But how come that one can mod the xbox with pc txds? Or am I missing something there?

[DexX]

 

But how come that one can mod the xbox with pc txds? Or am I missing something there?

it doesn't. re-read my first post in this topic. the particle and wheels txd files from the xbox gta3/vc versions of the game, are stored in a very similar format to the pc txd's, due to the nature of directx, and it's use on both systems. Support for that type of xbox txd file was relatively easy to add as there were minimal differences.

[ugen]

@ AK It still doesnt work Here are some pics: