Sonic And All-Stars Racing Transformed is Now Backwards Compatible with Xbox One

[EmmBee]

Supposed to be happening at some point today.

[Menace2Society]

It's great to know you can play it on the Xbox ONE, but I already own the Wii U version, so it wasn't something I was seriously hoping for. Plus, I don't really own a Xbone yet, so yeah, lol.

Again, good to know it's playable on it, though. Hopefully Unleashed and Generations will be playable on it soon. I'll immediately get an Xbox ONE if they're both added to the backwards compatibility list at any point.

[Jeffhog]

And promptly news'd. Thanks a tonly!

On the topic of backwards compatibility, I'm not the only one who wants '06 back, do I? I'd like to keep my saves on my friend's Xbox One by the time I move. :'v

[ccawley2011]

56 minutes ago, Jeffhog said:

On the topic of backwards compatibility, I'm not the only one who wants '06 back, do I? I'd like to keep my saves on my friend's Xbox One by the time I move. :'v

I'm kind of surprised that games like 2006 and Unleashed HD don't get priority when it comes to backwards compatibility, considering that both games are only available on PS3 and Xbox 360, compared to the games already made available on Xbox One (except Sonic the Fighters) which have already been ported to quite a few other systems.

[EmmBee]

11 minutes ago, ccawley2011 said:

I'm kind of surprised that games like 2006 and Unleashed HD don't get priority when it comes to backwards compatibility, considering that both games are only available on PS3 and Xbox 360, compared to the games already made available on Xbox One (except Sonic the Fighters) which have already been ported to quite a few other systems.

There's a lot of work that has to go into making these games run well in the 360 emulator, so that's probably why the more simple games have been coming first.

[Menace2Society]

1 hour ago, Jeffhog said:

And promptly news'd. Thanks a tonly!

On the topic of backwards compatibility, I'm not the only one who wants '06 back, do I? I'd like to keep my saves on my friend's Xbox One by the time I move. :'v

Yeah, backwards compatibility support for 06 wouldn't hurt. Yeah, the game was... not so good, but if people want to be able to play 06 on their Xbox Ones, then they should be allowed to.

Plus... I actually kinda wanna play 06 again. Yeah, I know it's filled with a bunch of flaws and all, but I'm sure I can have some fun with it ironically.

[Jeffhog]

One Facebook comment on the story reminded me to ask something:

If anyone has already downloaded it, have you noticed any issues that popped up or is the game running smoothly on the One?

[EmmBee]

18 minutes ago, Jeffhog said:

One Facebook comment on the story reminded me to ask something:

If anyone has already downloaded it, have you noticed any issues that popped up or is the game running smoothly on the One?

I played a bit of it just now, but I have to admit it's been a long time since I've played the 360 version. I'm more used to the PC version, so I'm not really sure what are actual emulation problems or just changes the 360 version had to run smoother. I noticed Tails' eyes looking poor quality and pixilated, alongside a lot of poor shadows (which actually looked more like running the PC version on very low settings). Aside from that though, performance was smooth.

I'm hoping this prompts Digital Foundry to do an analysis on the game. They tend to do ones whenever big BC releases like this happen.

[-Ace-]

Nice, now let's get Generations and both Adventure games next for the One 

[FantasticMrRobb]

Downloading it now, does it look or play any better than the 360 version?

[PickleBrows]

39 minutes ago, FantasticMrRobb said:

Downloading it now, does it look or play any better than the 360 version?

It literally is the 360 version so you should find it identical.

[Menace2Society]

So, how does this backwards compatibility thing work? Do they have to optimize the game a bit, so it can be playable on the Xbox ONE, or something?

[Edward850]

12 hours ago, YoshiParty said:

So, how does this backwards compatibility thing work? Do they have to optimize the game a bit, so it can be playable on the Xbox ONE, or something?

The Xbox One OS is built using modified Hyper-V layers, one for games (exclusively sandboxed) and another shared one for apps. The 360 backwards compatibility takes advantage of the Hyper-V server in that it's literally just another Xbox One game, but designed specifically to run the 360 game's bytecode alongside the 360's operating system (slightly rebuilt for purpose). Effectively, the Xbox One think's it's running a normal game, and the emulated game thinks it's running on a 360. You'll note that I mentioned it's an exclusive sandbox, which does mean that each game needs its own copy of the OS (about 500MB), but it also needs to be repackaged, which is why they all have to be digitally downloaded even if you have the disc, and also why they need permission from each publisher for each game.

As for the technical details, it's the same emulation code for each game (either as some kind of offline/online recompile or something else, as the 360 was a PowerPC processor, not x64), but the performance they are getting out of it for software emulation has left some engineers completely gobsmacked, to say the least. They just recently patched Halo Reach, which went from utterly dogged to actually mildly better than the 360. That's somewhat normal for anything bottlenecked by the GPU, as only the CPU needs emulating. The games, however, are not modified at all. They are exactly the same as their 360 counterpart, in fact Microsoft in most cases wouldn't be able to modify the game, even if they were allowed to.

TL;DR It's in incredibly well made custom Hyper-V running the 360 OS running the original game untouched.

Super note: If you're paying attention, you may have noticed this means the Sonic games on backwards compatibility are run via XOne OS::Exclusive HyperV->360OS::Backbone Genesis Emulator->Sonic ROM.