Skate1Recompiled

An unofficial native PC port of skate (EA Black Box, 2007) for Windows, made by statically recompiling the Xbox 360 executable to C++ with ReXGlue, the SDK fork used by the Skate 3 PC recompilation. Same approach as Skate2Port.

No game files are included. You need your own Xbox 360 copy of skate as an ISO. Everything derived from the game (extracted files, decrypted image, generated C++) is produced locally and is ignored by git.

Status: boots, intro videos, menus, audio, career start and Freeskate all work. See NOTES.md for the boot log, fixes and how Skate 1 differs from Skate 2.

Building

Requirements: Windows, Visual Studio 2022 Build Tools, LLVM/Clang 18+, CMake 3.25+, Ninja, Python 3. ReXGlue requires Clang.

git clone --recursive https://github.com/cookingwithsimon/Skate1Recompiled
cd Skate1Recompiled

rem SDK fixes this port needs (see "SDK patch" below)
git -C third_party/rexglue-sdk apply ../../patches/rexglue-sdk.patch

rem 1. Extract your own ISO into game/
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File tools\extract_iso.ps1 -Iso "Skate. (USA).iso" -Out game

rem 2. Configure (builds the SDK as part of the project)
devenv.bat cmake --preset win-amd64-relwithdebinfo

rem 3. Build the rexglue tool, then recompile the game (about 9 minutes)
devenv.bat cmake --build out/build/win-amd64-relwithdebinfo --target rexglue
third_party\rexglue-sdk\out\win-amd64\rexglue.exe codegen skate1_manifest.toml

rem 4. Reconfigure so CMake sees the generated sources, then build
devenv.bat cmake --preset win-amd64-relwithdebinfo
devenv.bat cmake --build out/build/win-amd64-relwithdebinfo

Copy config/skate1.runtime.toml next to skate1.exe as skate1.toml. It holds the settings Skate 1 needs (vsync, depth conversion, memory coherency). game_data_root may be relative to the exe. A portable.txt beside the exe keeps saves in a userdata folder there.

To make the intro movies skippable, create an empty game/data/AllowMovieSkip.txt (the game checks for it; the retail disc doesn't ship it).

To use an SDK checkout elsewhere, configure with -DREXSDK_DIR=<path>.

macOS (Apple Silicon, untested)

The SDK supports macOS on ARM64 through Vulkan on MoltenVK. Nobody has run the game on a Mac yet, so expect rendering bugs; reports in the issues are welcome. Intel Macs are not supported. Apple Clang is rejected by the SDK, so use Homebrew LLVM.

brew install llvm cmake ninja python molten-vk vulkan-loader
git clone https://github.com/cookingwithsimon/Skate1Recompiled
cd Skate1Recompiled
git submodule update --init third_party/rexglue-sdk
cd third_party/rexglue-sdk
for p in $(git config --file .gitmodules --get-regexp '\.path$' | awk '{print $2}'); do
  git submodule update --init --recursive "$p"
done
git -C thirdparty/imgui fetch origin tag v1.92.2 && git -C thirdparty/imgui checkout v1.92.2
cd ../..
git -C third_party/rexglue-sdk apply ../../patches/rexglue-sdk.patch

python3 tools/extract_iso.py "Skate. (USA).iso" game

# Build the rexglue tool from the SDK on its own: the project can't be
# configured until codegen has written generated/rexglue.cmake.
cmake -S third_party/rexglue-sdk -B out/sdk -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
  -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/bin/clang \
  -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=/opt/homebrew/opt/llvm/bin/clang++ \
  -DCMAKE_OSX_ARCHITECTURES=arm64 -DREXGLUE_ENABLE_TRACY=OFF
cmake --build out/sdk --target rexglue
REXGLUE=third_party/rexglue-sdk/out/macos-arm64/rexglue   # the SDK writes the tool here, not under out/sdk
"$REXGLUE" codegen skate1_manifest.toml   # answer yes if it asks to write generated files

cmake --preset macos-arm64-relwithdebinfo
cmake --build out/build/macos-arm64-relwithdebinfo

The build copies libMoltenVK.dylib, the Vulkan loader and a MoltenVK_icd.json next to the skate1 binary. Copy config/skate1.runtime.toml there as skate1.toml and put the extracted game/ folder beside it, or point game_data_root at it. The d3d12_* settings are ignored on macOS.

SDK patch

patches/rexglue-sdk.patch applies on top of rexglue-skate3 commit 7eb0faf:

• codegen: vpkuwus/vpkuhus aliasing. When the destination register equals a source (vpkuwus v0,v12,v0), the generated code overwrote its input mid-way. Skate 1's VP6 video decoder always uses that form, causing green block corruption in every video.
• Guest backtrace on calls to unregistered functions (finding missed functions).
• imgui: works with stock imgui (the fork's pinned imgui commit is not fetchable), and the overlay draw loop uses CmdLists.Size.
• Win32: a lone Alt press no longer opens the system menu and freezes input.
• GPU page state: the frame-end refresh of GPU-written page flags always copies the whole table. The partial copy went into a buffer two frames stale and caused alternating-frame flicker once frames got faster.

The presets build with REXGLUE_ENABLE_PERF_COUNTERS=OFF (about 6% CPU saved on the GPU thread). To update an SDK checkout that has an older patch applied, run git -C third_party/rexglue-sdk checkout -- src and apply the patch again.

If the thirdparty/imgui submodule fails to fetch its pinned commit, check out upstream imgui v1.92.2 there (newer master dropped tab colour names the SDK still uses). That failure can stop git submodule update before the rest are fetched, so run it again per submodule if any folder under thirdparty/ is empty.

Layout

Path	What
skate1_manifest.toml	ReXGlue project manifest
config/skate1_functions.toml	setjmp/longjmp and function boundary overrides
config/skate1.runtime.toml	runtime settings to copy next to the exe
src/	app shell (portable path handling)
tools/	ISO extractor, codegen/build/run loop, missed-function scanners, screenshot and input scripts
patches/	SDK changes

Credits

ReXGlue SDK and the Skate 3 recompilation by their authors; this repo only adds the Skate 1 project, configuration and tools. skate is a trademark of Electronic Arts.