v1.0.4

CTR360 now converts your disc image on the console, runs faster with steadier frame pacing, and fixes the freezes and crashes reported in split-screen and in Adventure mode.

What's new, most important first

• Faster frames. The console no longer leaves the GPU idle for about 10 ms of every frame: each frame's drawing is sent to the GPU before the game waits for the TV, so busy scenes such as Oxide Station keep up with 60 FPS far more often.
• Steady frame pacing. Frames are now timed to your TV's actual refreshes. The game used to run on its own 59.83 Hz clock, which drifted against the TV, so some frames showed a refresh late and motion stuttered; a frame that runs late no longer slips an extra refresh either.
• Converts your disc image on the console, no PC needed. Copy your .bin and .cue beside default.xex and start the game: the first start converts it behind a progress bar in a few minutes, deletes the .bin and .cue, and starts the game. A dump that isn't the USA disc is left alone, and the screen says why. The PC converter is still included if you prefer it.
• Fixed the freeze at the end of every race with two or more players (VS, Arcade and Battle), reported in issue #2.
• Fixed the crash to the dashboard when a Clock is used in a race with fewer than eight karts: every VS race, 2-player Arcade and the Purple Gem Cup.
• Fixed the black screen after winning Oxide Station's podium, when Citadel City's boss scene loads Pinstripe. Disc images converted for earlier releases are fixed as they're read; you don't need to convert again.
• Fixed the black screen at the first scene change of the ending credits; the title screen's intro scenes change properly again too. Start skips the credits, as in the original.
• Item icons show again for every player in 3- and 4-player races, inside the TV's safe area.
• Fixed dark checkered patches on the track in 2-player races. The original shows them only for a moment as distant track comes into view; they no longer stay on screen.
• Karts far away in split-screen are no longer garbled.
• Turbo flames stay on the kart's exhaust at the start of each boost and at speed, instead of appearing above it.
• The in-between frames at 60 FPS are drawn exactly halfway between the two real camera views, so they no longer add a back-and-forth jitter of their own to the ground. The slight jumpiness of the ground at low speed is the original's.
• New [graphics] close_seams = 1 (on by default) closes the hairline cracks between nearby pieces of the track. Set it to 0 for the original's track edges.
• The track previews on the track select screen play at full speed; the menu used to slow to about 6 FPS while one played.
• Widescreen: the kart windows on the character and track select screens stay inside their frames, and the split-screen dividers span the whole screen.
• Back + Start now always returns to the dashboard, including when the Homebrew App Store started the game.
• The disc image is read in 64 KB blocks instead of 1 KB, with far fewer USB requests per read.

Downloads

• CTR360-Xbox360-1.0.4.0.zip: for installing by hand. It holds an apps folder to copy to the root of the console's hard drive and the optional PC disc converter. See README.txt.
• ctr360-1.0.4.0.zip: the package the Homebrew App Store installs. You don't need to download it yourself.

Updating from v1.0.3

Copy the files from apps\ctr360 in CTR360-Xbox360-1.0.4.0.zip over your existing apps\ctr360 folder. You don't need to convert your disc image again, and your saves and ctr360.ini are kept. To get the new close_seams setting listed in your ctr360.ini, copy its lines from ctr360.example.ini; it's on even without them. The Homebrew App Store updates its install once the catalogue lists 1.0.4.

New installation

Download CTR360-Xbox360-1.0.4.0.zip and follow README.txt. You need your own Crash Team Racing (USA, SCUS-94426) disc image as .bin and .cue.