Category Archives: Xbox 360

iXtreme LT+ v3.0 for 0272/0225/0401/1071 Slim Liteons

Official release of the iXtreme LT+ v3.0 for 0272/0225/0401/1071 slim Liteons

- Support for topology data on AP25 enabled titles. Will correctly answer any ap25 challenge eliminating need for dae.bin to create a backup.
- No need to make new backups everytime dae.bin is updated on console
- Extra support for rare firmwares
Topology Data

When ap25 was first introduced I devised a way of calculating any challenge which I called the silver bullet which I made reference to along time ago.
This was withheld until it was absolutely necessary. It was easier to replay the fixed challenges.
With unique per console ap25 challenges it has become necessary to use the silver bullet.
A series of measurements are taken across the disk. This topology data is then used to calculate a response to any ap25 challenge.
It is very important that the drive used to create the topology data is reliable at reading discs as bad topology data equals bad ap25 responses.
Liteon drives using 0800 v3 seem to be more accurate for this purpose. Only ap25 enabled titles require topology data. Activation of ap25 on older non-ap25 games although technically possible is highly unlikely.
Currently topology data for xgd3 titles are similar and topology data from one xgd3 title will pass on another xgd3 title although this is not advisable.
Per title title topology data is best as there are slight differences between titles and newer titles could have different topology than existing ones.

abgx360 v1.0.6 Released

Changes affecting all platforms:

- XGD3 support.
- Replaced AP25 replay sector support with support for topology data (for consoles which do AP25 checks — make sure you have LT+ v3.0 or later).
- Added “Min Kernel Required” (to boot the game) when checking an XEX.
- Added improvements to AutoUpload (used by uploaders) including extended C/R for SS (using the original disc) to make sure files uploaded to the database have very accurate angle measurements.
- Added optional command line argument “–speed” for setting drive speed when checking a burned DVD. Example: “–speed 12″ will attempt to set the drive speed to 12x. You can try to set any speed you like, but setting a speed higher than what your media supports may cause read errors if the drive’s firmware doesn’t govern it. “–speed 0″ will set the drive’s default speed.
- Added optional command line argument “–showsstable” for when you want to see the SS C/R data but you still prefer medium or low verbosity. The SS C/R table has also been updated with “Mod?” being split into “Tol” (response tolerance) for the CCRT entry and “Mod” (response modifier) for the drive entry, also “Pad?” has been renamed to “Typ” (type). Thanks Redline99!
- Added vendor specific additional info and bus type when displaying optical drive names (bus type displayed on Windows only).
- Updated the list of optical drive sense code errors.
- Updated the game ratings definitions.
- Fixed a bug which negated the ability to recover from a write error when rebuilding an ISO using the low disk space method. It’s unlikely that a write error would be recovered on subsequent retries, but at least now it will write the data in the correct place if it does recover.
- Fixed a bug which caused “Unknown Media: 0×00000000″ to be displayed if the “Secure Virtual Optical Device” media flag was set and the “XGD2 Media Only” image flag was not set (The “XGD2 Media Only” flag has also been renamed to “Original Media Only” in abgx360 since they are using the same flag for XGD3).
- The archaic caution message about angle 359 was removed, but you are still able to “fix” it if you still have iXtreme < v1.4 (really old and not suitable for XBL anyway).
- Ability to “extract entire video partition (253 MB)” was removed; this doesn’t make sense for XGD3 and isn’t even very useful for XGD2 since it was just including a bunch of padding data that isn’t even part of the real video partition… it was only needed for very old methods of concatenating with stealth files and a game partition to make a working backup.

Note: The way video is checked/fixed is now a little different for both XGD2 and XGD3. The previous way was to check/fix both L0 video and L1 video off of L0, and then to check/fix “SplitVid” (L1 video on L1) afterwards by comparing it to L1 video on L0. Since XGD3 has no room for L1 video on L0, and to keep things consistent, video will now always be checked/fixed according to L0 on L0 and L1 on L1, and the “SplitVid” check is now gone (nominally). The only effective difference is that L1 video on L0 is no longer checked, but this is not a problem… it’s not even supposed to be there and it’s not visible to the host console when using a “safe” custom firmware. You can rest assured that only old and unsafe custom firmwares will read L1 video from L0; newer ones will read it properly from L1 (this is necessary in order to replicate the read/seek performance of an original disc).

There is also a big annoying yellow message if you have “Check/Fix Video padding” enabled and you check an XGD2 game with L1 video on L0 (or any data in that area). To make the message go away you will need to either add command line option “–pL0″ to confirm that you want to blank it out (XGD2 ISOs without L1 video on L0 will appear to have bad video data when checked with older versions of abgx360), or you can simply disable “Check/Fix Video padding”, as it still makes no difference in terms of stealth… this option only exists as a way to make sure ISOs are “clean”, with no extra data in areas that aren’t CRC checked. Note that this version of abgx360 doesn’t care about L1 video on L0… it will pad L0 video with zeroes whenever video is autofixed or manually patched.

Sorry if the command line options are annoying (you can add them under the “Misc” tab of the GUI), but you can be sure that an improved v1.1.0 GUI is in the works…

Note: The GUI has not been changed and will still display version 1.0.2, don’t worry about it as long as the CLI app displays v1.0.6

Download from www.abgx360.net or download abgx360 1.0.6 here

Patch and Play XGD3 Game Backups LT+ 3.0

Tool Needed:
1. Xbox Backup Creator v2.9 Build:0345
2. AP25 Topology Data (See Below)

Patching Current Games:
1. Until the new ABGX is released, games cannot be burned as they traditionally were.
2. Instead We will be using Xbox Backup Creator to inject the new Topology data for your games.

Follow These Steps:
1. Open Xbox Backup Creator v2.9.

2. Click on the Image Tools tab.

3. Change the Action from Extract to Inject.

4. Hit AP25 Sector.

5. Select the ISO you want to Patch. Then Select the corresponding AP25 Patch that you downloaded.

Master Topology Files:

http://www.xbox360iso.com/individual-xgd3-ap2-t536386.html (Need to register)

Thanks to kill_seth for his tutorial

Source: http://www.xboxmb.com

iXtreme LT+ v3.0 for BenQ and Phat Liteons

C4Evas iXtreme LT+ 3.0 in association with Team Jungle & Team Xecuter

- Official release of the iXtreme LT+ v3.0 for BenQ and phat Liteons
- Support for topology data on AP25 enabled titles. Will correctly answer any ap25 challenge eliminating need for dae.bin to create a backup.
- No need to make new backups everytime dae.bin is updated on console
- Topology Data

When ap25 was first introduced C4Eva devised a way of calculating any challenge which he called the silver bullet which I made reference to a long time ago. This was withheld until it was absolutely necessary. It was easier to replay the fixed challenges. With unique per console ap25 challenges it has become necessary to use the silver bullet. A series of measurements are taken across the disk. This topology data is then used to calculate a response to any ap25 challenge. It is very important that the drive used to create the topology data is reliable at reading discs as bad topology data equals bad ap25 responses. Liteon drives using 0800 v3 seem to be more accurate for this purpose. Only ap25 enabled titles require topology data. Activation of ap25 on older non-ap25 games although technically possible is highly unlikely.
Currently topology data for xgd3 titles are similar and topology data from one xgd3 title will pass on another xgd3 title although this is not advisable. Per title topology data is best as there are slight differences between titles and newer titles could have different topology than existing ones.

If you are using the latest dashboard and your xdg3 game backups are not working any more, you will need to get it flashed with LT+ 3.0.

Christmas Eve Release of iXtreme LT+ v3.0 Nears

Some Additional Info as the Christmas Eve Release of iXtreme LT+ v3.0 Nears

With the final testing stage of BenQ and phat Lite-On underway in preparation for the scheduled Christmas Eve release of c4eva’s iXtreme LT+ v3.0, we thought we’d drop some additional bits of info into your Stockings in the form of answers to some recent questions.

Version 3.0 of iXtreme LT+ for BenQ and Lite-On (both phat and slim) does in fact retain support for truncated backups, although it is strongly recommended to use full burns made with a compatible Lite-On iHAS drive flashed with the iXtreme Burner MAX fw. Support for truncated backups, however, remains excluded from Hitachi in its forthcoming 3.0 version.

While abgx360 v1.0.6 remains in progress, the new version of Xbox Backup Creator can be used temporarily as an alternative for injecting the necessary new AP25 topology data files into existing backup ISOs. XBC doesn’t perform the same degree of validation of topology data files, and provides no means to verify their authenticity or correctness, so be very cautious if using files from unknown sources until abgx360 is released. In addition to extracting/injecting AP25 topology data files, the new XBC also works with the existing 0800 v3.0 ripping firmware to dump backup ISOs that include proper topology data from original game discs. At the time of writing, it has yet to be definitively determined whether the new XBC will be released alongside LT v3.0, or if it will be released later. The new abgx360 is still under heavy development, and will release in due time.

Recently, there have been some rumors and bogus info spread by a sad individual that is attempting to trick and confuse people with fake release dates, false info, bogus IRC channels and Facebook accounts (note: we don’t post on Facebook, only Twitter), and mislabeling things as “official” when they are in fact not. We’d like to remind users that the only official sources for news and info from c4eva and the team are here at c4evaSpeaks.com, the #c4e channel on EFNet IRC, the Team-Xecuter, JungleFlasher, and abgx360 websites, as well as reliable news outlets such as Xbox-Scene. Be wary of news or information from other outlets that don’t cite the official #c4e IRC channel or one of the aforementioned sites as the original source.

Source: c4evaspeaks

iXtreme LT+ v3.0 to be Released After December 6

Here is some further details about the upcoming iXtreme LT+ v3.0, which is now targetted for release sometime after December 6, 2011. Earlier this week, Microsoft’s Major Nelson announced December 6 as the official release date for the final version of its Fall 2011 Dashboard Update. Scheduling LT+ v3.0 for release after this date will allow c4eva and the team a chance to analyze the final update so as to ensure no additional changes to v3.0 are necessary.

With the new iXtreme LT+ v3.0, original game discs will need to be analyzed by Xbox Backup Creator in order to gain disc topology data. This data replaces the need for AP2.5/dae.bin data and enables any AP2.5 challenge to be answered correctly. C4eva noted that the topology data method is very efficient — using only 24kB of space — and extremely accurate. Due to differences between them, each game will require its own individual set of topology data. A risk of backups being detected poses itself if the same topology data is used between two different titles. This risk is mitigated by using abgx360 to make certain that the backup contains the appropriate topology data.

Backups will remain the same layout, but will either need to have the topology data inserted by the new abgx360, or be re-dumped with the new Xbox Backup Creator. C4eva reconfirmed that all current AP2.5-active XGD2 and XGD3 backups with old AP25 replay data are not backward-compatible with iXtreme LT+ v3.0 and will indeed need to be patched or re-dumped and re-burned. Non-AP2.5 titles, however, will remain unchanged and do not require re-burning.

Free Xbox Live Gold Weekend

Sign in to Xbox LIVE this Holiday Weekend from Thursday November 24 through Sunday November 27, and get free access to movies, sports, music, online multiplayer gaming and more with Xbox LIVE Gold. After the 27th you’ll need to man up and subscribe…but use and abuse it while it lasts

Source: Xbox

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XGD3 Backups not Booting? Here is a Temporary Workaround

The recent silent DAE update stopped all AP2.5 / XGD3 backups from booting. Until a solid solution is released, here is a simple workaround.

For this example we are going to use MW3.

1. Get a USB flash drive, At least 1GB in size and format it (FAT)

2. Insert into Xbox and goto memory devices. Select USB and configure it as a storage device.

3. Download the this MW3 Title Update. Click here.

4. Download Horizon (Great game modding app btw – JTAG / Glitchers should be using the crap out of this – you can use other apps but this is my tool of choice). Click here

5. Select Tools > Device Explorer

6. Plug in USB device to PC

7. Device will be detected. Select Inject File

8. Load the the MW3 TU that you downloaded.

9. Connect the USB stick to your Xbox. Restart and boot your MW3 backup.

Notes: You may have to delete the system cache after every time you do a fresh boot of the game. But hey, it works.

You can get other title updates from here: http://www.xbuc.net

iXtreme LT 3.0 is coming – DAE/AP25 Gets The Silver Bullet!

iXtreme LT+ v3.0 is on the way! Yesterday, having revealed to the team yesterday an idea for countering the recent dae.bin/AP2.5 update, c4eva has today confirmed that he has in fact completely done away with the need for dae.bin/AP2.5 data. Although it’s early stages, c4eva has successfully completed several tests which validate this new method and classified his solution as the “silver bullet” for AP2.5. Rather than using captured challenge results each time the dae.bin changes, the new method builds a complete set of profile data for each disc and works for all AP2.5 challenges, regardless of how the dae.bin is changed. As a result, the format of backup ISOs will be changing as the AP25 replay sector will no longer be included and the profile data will instead take its place. Though c4eva noted that it will take some development time as it’s not a quick fix, both he and the team will now be putting their full efforts behind bringing this solution to life in the form of new versions of iXtreme LT+, Xbox Backup Creator, and abgx360.

Upcoming Xbox 360 Fall 2011 Dash (2.0.14686.0)

A new Xbox 360 dash will be released soon on the 25th of November 2011 - 2.0.14686.0 (currently in beta phase with few chosen testers) and it will be introducing a new, fresh layout. The new Xbox 360 dashboard update is said to also bring the following new features:

• New Xbox LIVE Dashboard with integrated voice and gesture controls - We’ve updated the dashboard, making it easier to navigate through content, whether you use Kinect or a controller. Use voice and gesture controls to float through the menu and select games, movies, music and applications.
• Beacons – Beacons allow you to tell your Xbox LIVE and Facebook friends that you want to play a game on Xbox LIVE, making it easier to jump in and play together. By setting a Beacon, you tell Xbox LIVE what you want to play. Then, Xbox LIVE lets you know when friends are playing or want to play the same game.
• Facebook Sharing – With Facebook Sharing, now it is easier than ever to brag about all your achievements to your social network. With the integrated “share” feature, you can tout your achievements and showcase your in-game accomplishments through instant, direct posts.
• Roaming Profile – With new roaming profiles you can now bring your complete Xbox LIVE profile to any Xbox 360, including game saves, friend lists and your Gold membership, to your friend’s house for more fun.

Do I have to get my console reflashed again with updated firmware since LT+ 2?

Apparently you wont have to, but don’t update to the latest dashboard just yet.  There now appears 2 tables of AP2.5 challenges, with a combined total of 192 challenges. c4eva has reported to the team that XGD2 and XGD3 backups are still booting under LT+ v2.0/2.01.

From team channel: [2011-11-10 08:58PM UTC] <c4eva> backups,xgd3 still booting). However, do not take this as a sign that everything is fine. We can confirm though that these changes will indeed necessitate new versions of and/or changes to Xbox Backup Creator, abgx360, and several other associated tools. It has also been confirmed by the team that drive fw’s are not affected. All the changes are currently being analyzed, and we’ll continue to update this post when further details become available.

*UPDATE* [2011-11-14]

There is still a lot of analysis to do. Unlike the changes to the dae.bin in the previous updates, this time around the changes aren’t so simple. In addition to possibly having to re-burn/re-press, accommodating the changes has a ripple effect across XBC, abgx360, other associated/internal tools, as well as potentially the fw itself. Right now it’s too early to make any definitive statements. It should be clarified in the original post where mention was made that “the drive fw’s are not affected” — this was not in reference to c4eva’s fw, but rather to the ofw re-flashing of non-updated drives. The fw versions those drives get updated to has not changed in this update (e.g. Lite-On phats to 02510C, and Lite-On slim 9504 to 0272). The team appreciates your patience. More concrete info about what these changes entail will be posted in the days ahead as analysis progresses.

*UPDATE* [2011-11-16]

DAE.bin is being silently updated through Xbox Live with an additional challenge table! This happens on the current public dashboard version 2.0.13604.0 and there is no confirmation dialog or any known means to prevent it besides disconnecting your console from the internet.

If your DAE.bin has already been silently updated, AP25 backups that are patched with current AP25 replay data will fail the normal AP25 challenges outright! Note that all XGD3 games use AP25.

Use your originals if you want to play on Xbox Live.

*UPDATE* [2011-11-17]

First and foremost, a warning — at this current time it is advised that you stay offline and avoid playing any AP2.5/XGD3 backups. It has been confirmed by the team that the dae.bin is now being silently updated on all LIVE-connected boxes.

This update is not being deployed via a SystemUpdate or TitleUpdate, but rather occurs in the background without any visual indication or prompt to the user. As such, there is no means by which it can be cancelled or avoided, other than not connecting to LIVE. If you’ve connected to LIVE in the past 24 hours, your system has likely already been updated with a changed dae.bin.

All AP2.5/XGD3 backups that contain the now older AP25 replay data will fail the system’s AP2.5 challenges and indeed flag your system (the flagging has also been confirmed by the team).

Like our news a few days ago, the dae.bin is now being changed by way of an appended challenge table in the same manner on current retail dashes (13604) as it is on the preview dash (14686), however the content of the challenge tables differ. The team has determined that the appended challenge table appears to be unique per console and contains indentifying information. This means that everyone’s dae.bin is different, and can potentially be traced back to your specific console. Therefore, sharing your dae.bin with others it not advisable.