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v0.1.0 Release

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@MiddleDucky MiddleDucky released this 25 Oct 20:34
· 2 commits to main since this release
v0.1.0
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Changes

v0.1.0 (2026-10-25): first release

The whole game, from the Burrow to the Chamber, runs natively on Windows 10 and 11, with no emulator. It needs the files from your own Xbox disc, or a disc image. Everything below is what the port adds to, or changes from, the original Xbox game.

Graphics

  • Direct3D 12 renderer: Direct3D 12 replaces the Xbox's graphics chip. You can choose:
    • an internal resolution from the Xbox's own 480 lines up to 4K, or one that follows the window, with render scale and a height cap;
    • MSAA (2x, 4x, 8x) and SMAA anti-aliasing, alone or together;
    • anisotropic filtering up to 16x;
    • brightness and contrast;
    • windowed, borderless or fullscreen, with vsync and an FPS counter.
  • True 16:9:
    • The camera shows more at the sides, while the vertical view stays as on the console.
    • The HUD goes out to the screen's edges: the life meters, the button cluster, the counters and Quidditch's scores. The broom race countdown stays in the middle.
    • Menus, the inventory, the books and the loading screens keep their 4:3 layout, with their backdrops filling the screen.
    • Cutscene shots that would show more than the console did are framed to the 4:3 width.
    • Leaving the inventory or a wizard card's screen brings 16:9 straight back.
    • Centred text in menu messages stays centred.
  • Draw everything in view (on by default): objects at the screen's edges and in rooms seen through doorways stay drawn, where the Xbox left some out.
  • Sharper at high resolutions:
    • 2D pieces meet without seams.
    • Lines are drawn the way the console draws them.
    • Glows keep their shape when upscaled.
    • Depth precision is improved.
  • Smaller visual fixes compared to original behavior:
    • Fading objects (sludge, cut curtains) are drawn in the right order.
    • When Hermione, Ron and Tom Riddle talk, their teeth and gums no longer show through the chin as the jaw closes.
    • There's no blue flash at the start of a level.
    • The game window is black, not white, while the game starts.
  • The original games' movies play through the same window.

Smoother play

  • Shaders come with the port, prepared on another PC. Every effect the game draws on your PC is also recorded and prepared again, in the background, at the next start ("Preparing shaders" shows in the corner). A level's first visit doesn't pause for shaders it has seen before.
  • Rain is drawn in one go instead of one drop at a time (it ran at 30 fps in the rain).
  • Background loading doesn't stall the picture on Windows: the game's file-cache worker shares the processor fairly with the game, instead of taking it for up to 0.4 s at a time.
  • Inventory loads stay quick while that worker is busy.
  • The game's clock ticks every millisecond, as the console's does. Windows' own timer moves in steps of about 15.6 ms, which made music and timing slightly uneven.
  • Freed memory is given back, as the console does, instead of the game retrying the same memory request thousands of times.
  • The game's checksum routine runs natively, much faster.

Sound

  • DirectSound is replaced by a native mixer. Sounds fade in and out over a few milliseconds instead of clicking.
  • No more crackle: the music and ambience keep their timing on Windows.
  • 5.1 surround: the console's own speaker mix with each channel on its own speaker (F10 > Audio > Speakers). Stereo is still the default.
  • Music fixes compared to original behavior:
    • In the Basilisk fight, the sword's theme keeps playing once it has started, instead of stopping and restarting every time the sword is dropped and picked up.
    • A spell book's jingle no longer plays twice in Defence Against the Dark Arts (Expelliarmus).
    • A chest's lid sound no longer plays when a level load reopens it.

Controls

  • Xbox controllers, with vibration and a vibration strength.
  • Keyboard and mouse play alongside a controller. Every key can be rebound, and the mouse sensitivity and Y inversion can be set.
  • Movement pace for the keys: Slow walk, Walk or Run, on the mouse wheel or in F10 > Controls.
  • Controller settings: button remapping, deadzones and sensitivity for each stick, and camera inversion. The stick's full range reaches a run on PC pads.
  • Several controllers all drive player 1, so a pad that Windows shows twice no longer splits the input.
  • Use controller (launcher and F10): turn it off to ignore a connected pad.
  • Alohomora: pressing the left trigger during the cast no longer moves the spell's light. Aiming first and then casting still works.

Game fixes

  • The Whomping Willow's right hand finishes its solo strike, instead of ending it on its first frame.
  • A Grand Staircase box whose lid never opened now opens.
  • Vases on the Grand Staircase no longer vanish after going through the library annex.
  • The tower bounce and other moves reached only through pointers in the game's code now work.
  • Saves and the clock: saves are stamped with your PC's local time and time zone (it was a fixed UTC+5). The game's region is the one your disc is made for, so the US release plays in US English.
  • The cache partition is kept between starts instead of being formatted at every start.
  • Quit To Desktop in the title and pause menus.
  • The Gringotts portrait door, a GameCube Game Boy Advance bonus, is enabled.
  • House points keep mattering: on the Xbox the nightly board stops Slytherin at 300 points, so past that Gryffindor leads every night. Here Slytherin has no cap, and Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff can reach 600. Being caught as Goyle always costs 5, 10 or 20 points, where the Xbox could also cost nothing. RECOMP_HOUSE_CAPS=0 keeps the Xbox's caps.

Options and the launcher

  • The launcher sets the aspect ratio, display, graphics and controls before the game starts, and can be skipped (hold Shift to see it again). It unpacks a .xiso or .iso in the game folder the first time.
  • F10 options over the game. Most changes apply at once. "Defaults (this page)" resets only the page you're on.
  • Colour-blind correction filters, with a strength setting.
  • Only one copy of the game runs at a time. Starting it again brings the running game to the front.
  • Logs for problem reports: a log of each start is written to logs\runs (the newest 10 are kept). F10's Debug tab opens that folder, marks a moment in the log, and captures a frame (F12).

Known differences

  • On a new graphics card or driver, the first visit to an area can still pause briefly while shaders are prepared; the loading picture stays up meanwhile.
  • In the Chamber's last cutscene, Tom Riddle's eyes and mouth can show through his face when he looks down. This is original behavior.
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