Shagg88/COGBox

Gears of War Native - PC ports of Gears of War 2, Gears of War 3 and Gears of War: Judgment

PLEASE FOR NOW MAKE SURE TO USE THE LATEST TITLE UPDATE FOR EACH GAME

Fully Playable with a FEW hiccups. If you come across any PLEASE upload a log and I'll try to get to it!

Hello all, I'm Shagg and I'm building a launcher for my own native Windows versions of three(eventually four) Xbox 360 games, built by static recompilation, with a launcher called COGBox that sets up your own copy of each game and starts it. These games were one of my favorite franchises so this project is near and dear to my heart. Gears of War 1 is currently not a priority because there's about 5 versions (it feels like) that are available natively to PC.

Download the latest release · You need your own copy of each game. No game files are included or ever will be.

This is an unofficial fan project. It is not made by, endorsed by or connected to Microsoft, Xbox Game Studios,

The Coalition, Epic Games or People Can Fly. "Gears of War", "Xbox" and "Xbox 360" are trademarks of Microsoft.

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What it is

The games' original Xbox 360 code is translated ahead of time into C++ and compiled into ordinary Windows programs - no emulator interprets the game while you play. The parts the console's hardware did are supplied by our code, most importantly our own renderer, which draws every frame on Direct3D 12 (or Vulkan, experimental). That gives the ports what an emulator can't easily offer:

• Any resolution - 1x to 4x the original (up to 5K) or matched to your monitor, with real extra detail, not a

stretched picture - and a fast 1080p mode (720p drawn, upscaled and sharpened) for weaker graphics cards.

• Anti-aliasing and upscaling - SMAA, AMD FSR, NVIDIA DLSS and Intel XeSS, including upscaling modes for weaker GPUs.
• High frame rates - the 30 fps limit lifted, vsync with a cap matched to your monitor, AMD FSR frame

generation (highly experimental for now).

• Smooth play - the games' shaders are translated straight to Direct3D 12 shader code in under a millisecond each

(as Xenia Canary does), kept on your PC, and pipelines are made in the background - a new area shows a moment later instead of freezing the game.

• Vulkan (experimental) - a choice on each game's Graphics tab, for testing; close to Direct3D 12 already.
• Lower input lag - one frame in flight, NVIDIA Reflex / AMD Anti-Lag 2 where your GPU has them.
• HDR10, ultrawide 21:9 (all three games), 16x anisotropic filtering, field of view, and the games' own motion blur, depth of

field and lens flares as switches.

• Split-screen (Gears 2), keyboard and mouse (mouse look without the stick's speed limit, keys you can change),

Xbox and PlayStation controllers, title updates, chapter select.

• DLC and mods - add DLC packages from your console and mods as .zip files on each game's About tab.
• Every game language the US and European releases have (21), chosen per game - the ones on your copy work.
• In-game menu - Back + Start (Share + Options on PlayStation, or F1) during play: change settings, restart to

apply them, or quit.

The games

| Game | Version the port is made for | Status | |---|---|---| | Gears of War 2 | US disc (0.0.0.5) + Title Update 6 | Every chapter plays in testing; Title Update 6 is the default and fastest build | | Gears of War 3 | Disc + Title Update 6 | Playable; Title Update 6 is the default | | Gears of War: Judgment | Disc + Title Update 4 (required for now) | Playable |

"In testing" means on the developer's PC (an RTX 3080 Ti) and scripted test runs through the chapters. Other hardware hasn't been tried yet - please report what you find.

COGBox, the launcher

• The three games as boxes on a carousel; box art and backgrounds from the open

x360db archive, downloaded only when you press Get box art.

• Add your copy: drop your disc image (.iso), Games on Demand copy, title update package or extracted game folder

onto the window. COGBox recognises the game, unpacks it next to itself and checks it is the right release.

• A settings page per game with every option explained (rest the mouse on an option for its description).
• Play time, plain-English messages when a game closes unexpectedly, one-click problem reports, save backups.
• Updates itself from this page's releases: an UPDATE TO ... button appears when a new version is out.
• Works fully with a controller - Xbox or PlayStation (its button names switch to Cross / Circle / Square / Triangle).
• Grows with its window, and has a borderless option (its own minimise / maximise / close).
• In 11 languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Polish, Russian, Japanese,

Chinese (Simplified) and Korean - asked on first start, changeable on any game's About tab.

• DLC (Downloadable content on the About tab): add the packages from your console's

Content\0000000000000000\\00000002 folder; remove them there too.

• Mods (Mods on the About tab): add a mod's .zip or drop its folder into the game's mods folder, tick it, set the

order. A mod is laid out like the game's own files (GearGame\...) and replaces or adds files without changing your copy; programs are never taken from a mod.

• Desktop shortcuts for COGBox and each game.

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What you need

• Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit - or Linux / Steam Deck through Proton (experimental, see below).
• A CPU with AVX2 (Intel Haswell / AMD Ryzen or newer - roughly 2013 on).
• A DirectX 12 graphics card.
• Your own copy of the game, as a disc image (.iso) of the disc, a Games on Demand copy from your console, or a

folder with the disc's files you extracted yourself.

• For Gears 2 and 3, the last title update (Title Update 6) is recommended. It's a file on a console that has

played the game online, in Content\0000000000000000\\000B0000\ (Gears 2: 4D53082D, Gears 3: 4D5308AB, Judgment: 4D530A26).

• About 8-16 GB of free space per game if COGBox unpacks a disc image for you.

How to play

1. Download COGBox-.zip from Releases. 2. Unzip the whole folder somewhere you can write to, e.g. C:\Games\COGBox (not Program Files). 3. Start CogBox.exe. The programs aren't code-signed, so Windows may show "Windows protected your PC" - choose More info, then Run anyway. 4. Turn to a game and press ADD YOUR COPY (or drop the file on the window). Then add the title update the same way. 5. Press PLAY. SETTINGS has the graphics, frame rate, controls and gameplay options.

Controls in COGBox: the D-pad (or the arrow keys, the mouse wheel) turns the carousel; LB / RB choose Play or Settings and A presses it; X opens settings, Y gets box art. On a settings page LB / RB change tab, D-pad down past the last option reaches Library / Save / Play, and B jumps to Library.

PlayStation controllers work too - COGBox shows Cross / Circle / Square / Triangle and L1 / R1 instead.

In the game: Back + Start (Share + Options on PlayStation, or F1) opens the in-game menu - the same settings, Resume, Restart to apply and Quit game. Most settings take effect when the game restarts; Restart to apply does that for you.

Graphics API: Direct3D 12 is the default and the tested renderer. Vulkan (experimental) is on each game's Graphics tab - FSR / DLSS / XeSS and frame generation are Direct3D 12 only. Problem reports from Vulkan help a lot.

Linux and Steam Deck (experimental): unzip COGBox in your home folder, add CogBox.exe to Steam as a non-Steam game, and in its Properties > Compatibility force Proton Experimental (or a recent Proton / GE-Proton). On a small screen like the Deck's, COGBox starts maximised and borderless. Under Proton it skips exclusive fullscreen, Reflex and Anti-Lag. Both Direct3D 12 (through vkd3d-proton) and Vulkan can be tried. Untested on real hardware yet - reports very welcome.

Updating: use the update button on any game's About tab, or unzip a new release over the old folder. Your games, saves and settings are not in the zip, so they are kept.

If something goes wrong

• If a game closes unexpectedly, COGBox says what happened and offers a problem report: one zip on your desktop

with the log, your settings and a description of your PC - no saves, no game files, your Windows user name removed. Nothing is sent anywhere by itself.

• Open an issue, say what you were doing, and attach that zip.
• Common causes: a CPU without AVX2 (the game can't start), an outdated graphics driver, a different release of the

game than the one the port is made for (COGBox warns about this when you add it).

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Legal

• No game content is included. Not in the downloads, not in this repository's code or history. You supply your

own copy, and COGBox checks it.

• Please only use a copy of the game you own, and don't share game files, disc images or anything extracted from

them - here or anywhere. Issues or pull requests containing game files will be removed.

• What this project contains: our own code (MIT licence, see LICENSE) and pieces of the Xenia emulator projects

(BSD-3-Clause); the release adds the rexglue SDK runtime (BSD-3-Clause) and the vendors' own upscaler libraries (NVIDIA DLSS, AMD FidelityFX, Intel XeSS) and the DirectX Shader Compiler under their own licences. Every licence is in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md and in the release's licenses folder.

• Box art and backgrounds are not included; COGBox downloads them from the x360db archive only when you ask, onto

your own PC.

• This project is offered for preservation and personal use, as is, with no warranty. It is not legal advice, and the

rules differ by country.

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What's coming

Plans, not promises:

• Gamer Tag Login
• Texture packs - a texture dumper and replacement packs (mods and DLC are in since 0.2.0).
• Mac, Linux, Steamdeck - Linux and Steam Deck through Proton are in as experimental now; tested support next.
• Online Co-Op - Hopefully.
• Vulkan as the default - it's already a choice (experimental); next: matching Direct3D 12 everywhere, then default.
• Better frame generation - an OptiScaler-style frame generation to replace today's experimental AMD FSR one.
• Background art read from your own copy of each game inside COGBox.
• Multi-core rendering (the next step of the speed work) and shaders built at the main menu, for no first-visit hitches.
• DLSS Frame Generation and DLSS 4/5 features through NVIDIA Streamline on the cards that support them.
• More controllers (Switch and others) and an accessibility section in COGBox.
• Split-screen across two monitors, and the European releases at full speed.
• Achievements, kept locally.
• More of the Gears series.

Thank you

This project stands on the work of many open-source projects and their communities. Thank you to:

• Xenia - Ben Vanik and the Xenia contributors, and the Xenia Canary and Xenia Edge forks.

Their open code and years of research into the Xbox 360 made this possible; much of our renderer's exact behaviour, its texture and resolve rules, and the fast shader translation follow their work.

• rexglue SDK - the static-recompilation toolchain and runtime the ports are built

with (Xenia-derived).

• SDL3 - windows, controllers (Xbox, PlayStation and more) and input, in the games and COGBox.
• Dear ImGui - the COGBox launcher and the in-game menu.
• SMAA - Jorge Jimenez and co-authors, the anti-aliasing.
• xxHash, miniz and

stb - fast hashing, zip files and images.

• DirectX Shader Compiler and the

Vulkan Headers - Microsoft and the Khronos Group.

• AMD FidelityFX (FSR), NVIDIA DLSS and Intel XeSS - the upscalers, under their vendors' own licences.
• Xenia Manager and its x360db

archive - the box art and backgrounds COGBox downloads.

• The Gears community patches - ultrawide by boma and TudorHorse (Gears 2, 3 and Judgment), ported here as switches.
• Microsoft DirectX 12 Agility SDK - the DirectX 12 runtime the ports bring along (so Windows 10 works too).
• NVIDIA FLIP - the picture comparisons in our test runs.
• The Anton and Barlow fonts (SIL Open Font License).

Every licence is in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md and in the release's licenses folder. If we've missed anyone, please open an issue and we'll add them.

How it's made

• Static recompilation with the rexglue SDK toolchain (a Xenia-derived runtime), clang 23.
• A four-layer design so every game shares the work: the Xbox 360 GPU (our renderer), the console's D3D library

version, Unreal Engine 3, and each game.

• Built and tested with a scripted test harness: chapter starts, scripted controller input, frame captures compared

with NVIDIA FLIP, and unit tests.

• Credits: the Xenia project and its Canary / Edge forks, whose open code and research made the

renderer's exact rules possible; the community Gears patches (ultrawide by boma and TudorHorse) ported as switches; Xenia Manager's x360db for artwork; AMD, NVIDIA and Intel for their upscalers.

Repository layout - one folder per game, side by side (the folder names matter: Gears 3 and Judgment build against ../Gears2-Native):

• Gears2-Native/ - Gears of War 2, the shared renderer and runtime layers (src/layer0_xenos and up), the COGBox

launcher (cogbox/), the unit tests and the toolchain notes (notes/30).

• Gears3-Native/ - Gears of War 3 (layers 2-3 for its engine and game, its SDK patches in patches/).
• GearsJ-Native/ - Gears of War: Judgment.

Each folder has src/, tools/ (build and test scripts; tools/build.ps1 builds) and notes/ (design notes and decisions log). Building it yourself needs your own game copy and the toolchain in Gears2-Native/notes/30.

Where things are (on the PC)

C:\COGBox is the whole project in one folder:

| Folder | What | In git | |---|---|---| | Gears2-Native\, Gears3-Native\, GearsJ-Native\ | Each game's port: source (src, tools, notes), and on the PC its third_party (build tools / SDK), game (your own game files), build and out | source only | | Gears2-Native\cogbox\ | The COGBox launcher | yes | | releases\\ | Every release: the zip, its .sha256 and the release text | no | | history\ | The work history: the chats' mailbox, the full old git histories, notes | no | | work\ | Test copies (work\cogbox-dev) | no |

Build a game: \tools\build.ps1 (Gears 2 TU6: -Config Release -Tu6). Pack a release: Gears2-Native\cogbox\tools\package_cogbox.ps1 (lands in releases\).

Licences

COGBox and the ports' own code are under the MIT licence (LICENSE).

Also used, each under its own licence: Xenia / Canary / Edge (BSD-3), the rexglue SDK (BSD-style), FFmpeg (LGPL-2.1+, for the game movies), SDL3 (zlib), Dear ImGui (MIT), SMAA (MIT), xxHash (BSD-2), miniz (MIT), stb (MIT), the DirectX Shader Compiler, the Vulkan Headers, AMD FidelityFX and Anti-Lag 2, NVIDIA DLSS and Reflex, Intel XeSS, and the Anton / Barlow fonts (SIL OFL). Full texts are in THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md and the release's licenses folder.

No game content is included. "Gears of War" and "Xbox" are trademarks of Microsoft; this is an unofficial fan project.