1.7

• Fixed a handful of lingering audio issues (no more random audio pops!)
• Fixed some timing issues for high-refresh gameplay.
• Refreshed the installer's look.
• Added ultrawide (21:9) to Graphics settings.
• Added motion blur toggle to Enhancements settings.
• Tweaked certain HUD elements at 16:9 and 21:9 for consistency and accuracy.
• Added a "Loop Track" option to the in-game Music Selection screen.

1.6 — Smooth high-refresh gameplay and rendering fixes

Improvements

• Reworked high-refresh motion for cars, cameras, menus and HUD animations, with an Unlimited refresh-rate option. No more shitty interpolation!
• Corrected timing for handling, opponents, replays, How to Play, loading screens, sound effects, spinning scenery, fades and the boost filter.
• Fixed jittery Time Attack ghosts and car shadows, transparent wheels and Crash-mode cars, taillight trails, MSAA artifacts and menu transition flashes.
• Corrected widescreen HUD proportions and text placement while keeping the HUD at the screen edges. Boosting no longer darkens the speedometer or boost meter.
• Fixed extended-distance scenery and overlapping buildings, including Sunrise Valley Springs, while retaining the extra draw distance.
• Added optional Ambient occlusion, with three quality levels and adjustable strength, and fixed shading lingering over car and track selection menus.
• Updated the executable and settings icons with the new logo.
• Fixed a crash when switching game modes.

Temporarily unavailable

Sign In, New Account and Manage Account(s) are disabled for now. Perhaps they'll come back in the future😉

Known limitations

Testing across all modes, tracks and saved-game progression is ongoing. Experimental DLSS, FSR and XeSS have visual issues and may reduce performance.

Updating

Close the game and builder. Back up data/user and data/local/settings.cfg beside b2.exe, plus data/local/custom-music if used. Extract Installation.zip into your existing source folder containing Build.cmd, replacing source files while keeping build and data. Run Build.cmd again and select your Burnout 2 XISO.

See the installation and update instructions. Your own US Xbox Burnout 2 XISO and the listed build tools are required; game files are not included.

1.5 — HUD, draw distance and settings improvements

Improvements

• Improved HUD/text interpolation with less repeated graphics work.
• Correctness and efficiency fixes for memory access, file loading, game timing, thread cleanup, sound processing and controller rumble.
• A single Draw distance setting replaces the LOD and render-distance overrides. Choose Original, 2x or 4x, including traffic detail at greater distances.
• Improved car reflections and reduced distant building flicker with extended draw distance.
• Fixed snow particle size and texturing, and improved the inputs used by DLSS, FSR and XeSS.
• Refreshed settings with the recomp's logo, clearer categories and custom icons. The game now opens without a separate terminal window.
• Shortened the README's Game Settings guide.

Known issues

Increased draw distance can still cause missing or incorrect scenery, including on Sunrise Valley Springs. The setting's tooltip now warns about this; further fixes are deferred to a future release. Use Original draw distance if affected.

Frame interpolation can still distort thin objects and transparent overlays. Experimental upscaling has visual issues and may reduce performance.

Updating

Close the game and builder. Back up data/user and data/local/settings.cfg beside b2.exe, plus data/local/custom-music if used. Extract Installation.zip into your existing source folder containing Build.cmd, replacing source files while keeping build and data. Run Build.cmd again and select your XISO.

See the installation and update instructions. Your own US Xbox XISO and the listed build tools are required; game files are not included.

1.4 — Performance, rendering fixes and new features

Performance

• Faster game code and less repeated graphics work.
• Fixed competing frame-rate limits with V-sync, including with frame interpolation enabled. Presentation follows the monitor's refresh rate; lower selected rates retain their cap.
• Reduced frame interpolation and upscaling overhead. Upscaling now reconstructs the output resolution selected in Graphics instead of doubling an already enlarged image.

Rendering fixes

• Fixed the square in the sky (moon) caused by incorrect fog handling.
• Fixed incorrect trackside wall textures on Heartbreak Hills [R], restoring its green arrows.
• Fixed a crash caused by graphics resource handling and bounded graphics resource caches during extended play.
• Fixed various issues that caused sun VFX to not work.

Features

• Import custom music for the game's Music Selection menu: MP3, WAV, WMA, FLAC, M4A and AAC.
• MSAA 2x/4x/8x, FXAA and anisotropic filtering up to 16x.
• Optional LOD override and increased render distance.
• Experimental DLSS, FSR and XeSS. All three have visual issues and may reduce performance; settings now show this warning.
• Skip intro splash screens now stops at the PRESS START title screen.
• The mouse cursor hides after two idle seconds and returns on mouse input.

Updating

Close the game and builder. Back up data/user and data/local/settings.cfg beside b2.exe, plus data/local/custom-music if you imported music. Extract the new Installation.zip into your existing source folder containing Build.cmd, replacing source files while keeping the existing build and data folders. Run Build.cmd again and select your XISO; your other settings, saves and imported music are preserved.

For a new-folder installation, build first, restore the backups beside the new b2.exe, then run Build.cmd once more to refresh game-file locations.

See the installation and update instructions. LLVM 22.1 or newer, Visual Studio C++ tools, CMake, Git and Ninja are required. Your own US Xbox XISO is required; game files are not included.

1.3 — Performance, audio, graphics and interpolation improvements

1.3 installation hotfix: Ninja (ninja.exe) is now explicitly listed as a prerequisite, with installation steps and a clearer missing-tool message. Download the updated Installation.zip if setup reported missing Ninja. Install C++ CMake tools for Windows through Visual Studio Installer → Modify, or download ninja-win.zip from the official Ninja releases and add its extracted folder to Path.

Reinstall when upgrading to 1.3. The build now uses LLVM/Clang and LLD. Install LLVM 22.1 or newer, download the new Installation.zip, extract it into your existing source folder, and run Build.cmd again. Back up data/user beside b2.exe first. Rebuilding in the existing folder preserves settings and saves; a new-folder installation can restore that save folder after building. Visual Studio and the Windows SDK are still required.

Keep V-sync disabled for now. It has known issues in this release. New installations default to V-sync off; existing saved settings retain their value, so check Graphics after upgrading.

• Faster gameplay and more consistent frame times through game-code, graphics and audio improvements.
• Fixed overly-loud engine sounds.
• Fixed stale graphics resources that could cause incorrect textures and growing memory use after extended play.
• Sharper frame interpolation with fewer distorted moving edges and steadier text. Some artifacts remain on fine details and transparent overlays.
• Native Widescreen (16:9) support.
• Faster compilation and linking with the new compiler.

Download Installation.zip below and follow the installation and upgrade instructions. Your own US Xbox XISO is required; game files are not included.

1.2 — Crash, audio, performance and installation fixes

Version 1.2 fixes crashes, audio crackling, intermittent slowdowns and installation errors.

• Fixed crashes when starting races and proceeding with Burnout 1 music enabled. Original Burnout 1 music now plays correctly.
• Fixed sound-effect crackling from abrupt volume and effect changes in the shared audio mixer.
• Disabling frame interpolation now allows gameplay to run above 60 Hz at the selected rate. Higher rates speed up gameplay when interpolation is off; enabling it keeps gameplay at 60 Hz.
• Fixed intermittent slowdowns caused by interpolated frames blocking gameplay when the display queue fills.
• Fixed the fresh-install assembly build failure reported in issue #13, along with builds in folders containing non-English characters.
• Improved setup handling of outdated tools, repeated builds, moved folders, cancellation and updated disc paths. Existing settings and saves are preserved.

Download Installation.zip, extract it, and run Build.cmd. Build tools and setup instructions are included in README.md and BUILDING.txt. You need your own partition-only XISO image of the US Xbox release; game files are not included.

Validation included a clean Windows installation in Japanese and accented folder paths, a repeat setup with downloads blocked, and the existing CPU, audio, music, platform-binding and rendering diagnostics.

1.1 — Major performance improvements

Major performance improvements are the focus of 1.1, alongside new settings and a smaller installation package.

Comparable manual race recordings on a Ryzen 5 5600X and RTX 5060 Ti, at 60 Hz and native resolution with interpolation off and VSync on, show:

Measure	Before optimization	1.1
Average FPS	43.75	60.02
Typical frame time	23.12 ms	16.67 ms
Slow-frame time (99th percentile)	30.84 ms	17.95 ms
Peak process RAM	530 MiB	204 MiB

That is about 37% higher average FPS, 42% less slow-frame time and 61% less peak RAM in the recorded workload. Reused graphics upload buffers, fewer unnecessary CPU/GPU waits, faster graphics command processing and optimized static floating-point blocks drive these improvements. Heavy scenes still have occasional dips, and testing across all modes, tracks and PCs continues. Measurement details.

Also included:

• Custom keyboard bindings with clear and restore-default options.
• Internal resolution from 1× (640 × 480) to 4× (2560 × 1920), including HUD and transition corrections.
• Frame interpolation in General, enabled automatically when choosing a display rate above 60 Hz, with a manual opt-out. Game timing stays at 60 Hz.
• Optional game/display FPS counter.
• F9 performance recording with CPU, GPU, memory and audio diagnostics for offline inspection.
• A Windows application icon.

Download Installation.zip, extract it, install the requirements in README.md, and double-click Build.cmd. Select your supported US Xbox disc image; the builder prepares the game files and builds the app. Click Open game folder and launch b2.exe.

The installation archive contains only build sources, required build inputs, setup instructions and license notices. It is approximately 404 KiB. Research notes, screenshots, generated binaries and private game files stay out of the package.

Requires 64-bit Windows, a DirectX 11-capable graphics card, Visual Studio 2026 with Desktop development with C++ and its Windows SDK, CMake 4.2+, Git for Windows, and your own supported US Xbox disc image. First setup needs an internet connection to download dependencies. Existing settings and saves are preserved by the builder.

1.0

The first release of the fresh Windows static recompilation of the original Xbox game.

Download burnout2-1.0-source.zip, extract it, install the requirements listed in README.md, and double-click Build.cmd. Select your supported US Xbox disc image; the builder prepares the game files and builds the app automatically. Open the game folder and launch b2.exe.

Included in this release:

• Menus, driving lessons and Crash mode loading, with fixes for lesson video playback.
• Profile saving and loading through the game's Load/Save menu.
• Restored in-game sound effects and corrected engine balance.
• Improvements to shadows, reflections, boost blur and distant textures.
• Settings for General, Audio, Graphics and Controls, with a default 60 Hz limit.
• Automatic failure logs and optional frame/audio captures for offline debugging.

This is still in development. Full mode, track and progression testing, remaining graphics issues, performance verification and custom control bindings remain ongoing; see README.md for current status.

Requires 64-bit Windows, a DirectX 11-capable graphics card, Visual Studio 2026 with Desktop development with C++, CMake 4.2+, Git for Windows, and your own supported US Xbox disc image. Game files are not included.