How to correctly burn XGD3 games

Hello, I will be showing you how to make successful quality burns with an ihas b burner for XGD3 games. This is the safest and most secure method for playing backups/pirated games on your flashed console for Xbox Live. (but remember, nothing is 100% safe or risk free when using a flashed console on Live!)

*Note All text and pictures were created by me from scratch. If you wish to copy or use any of my TUT, you do not need my permission, but please give me credit.


Before I actually show you the steps on what to do, I believe having an understanding of what you are doing is important.

What is XGD3? It stands for Xbox Game Disc 3 which started rolling out onto retail Xbox 360 games about a year +ago. Compared to an XGD2, the game partition was increased by 1GB. This was meant to help developers with the increased memory for new games but also to combat piracy. The full iso of an XGD3 game now exceeded the 8.5GB limit on typical DVD DL discs.

This led to the truncate burning method. This involved pretty much burning the game as you would an XGD2. Only difference is that you just write till you ran out of room and then discarded the remaining data. The reason why this method would work is because the discarded data (around 200MB) did not contain any of the game data and was only just random padding and security checks.

Now it doesn’t take a genius to figure out how unsafe and unreliable the truncate method is. This is where the great C4E comes along and creates his awesome burner max fw for Lite-On ihas b burners. The new fw unlocks the DVD DL discs from 8.5 to 8.7GB and allowing a full burn of an XGD3 image. The only downside to this is that you are pushing the discs past their designed capacity. This then leads to worrying about getting a proper quality burn.

Correct settings for getting quality burns can vary greatly for each person. The settings I will be telling you to choose in this TUT will be ones that seem to have worked the best for most people. You can tweak them through trial and error later for better results. The reason why settings vary is because of all the variables that exist (many different computer configurations, quality of burner chipset, quality of lasers, etc.). These variables exist because we go past the design capacity of the disc.

Things you need
- Image file of game (.iso) already properly stealth patched through ABGX (make sure autofix is set to lvl 3)
- DVD+R DL disc (highly recommended to choose verbatims)
- Lite-On ihas b burner flashed with burner max fw
- Imgburn
- Kprobe2

Why verbatims? Because they are high-grade quality discs (considered the best from tests), and since you’re pushing the discs past what they were intended, you’re going to need them. Better quality burns means less chance of errors and less work for your laser. There is no real reason not to use them. So I’m going to be assuming you are using verbs for this TUT. Also if possible try and get ones that are made in Singapore (this helps ensure high-grade quality).

Alright enough reading paragraphs; let’s get burning!

1) Put your blank DVD+R DL disc (should be a verbatim) into the burner and open Imgburn (ensure you have latest version). Now choose “Write image file to disc”

2) Find out which type of verbatim disc you have by looking at the box on the right. Beside MID it will either say mkm001 or mkm003. Remember which one you have. Also ensure you flashed your ihas burner correctly by seeing that 8.7GB is free on the disc.



3) Now let’s change the settings to the default settings for burning XGD3 games (settings that people have the most successful quality burns). Click advanced settings near the lower right corner.


Next choose the Lite-On tab. Now enable all except OverSpeed and clear OPC history. Be sure to click the change button above the OK for it to take effect.


*Note you could have already chosen these settings in the EEPROM utility when you were flashing your ihas burner. It does not matter which one you use to enable them. But if you want to disable them, make sure they are both disabled in Imgburn and the EEPROM utility.

4) Now go to Tools -> Settings -> Write. Disable Burn-Proof and make sure layer break is set to Calculate Optimal. For Preform OPC, check it for mkm003 discs and uncheck it for mkm001.


5) Almost done with settings! Now click on the I/O tab -> Page 2. Set the buffer size to 512MB


6) Now it’s time to burn! Click browse file under Source and select the .dvd file. (if you do not have one for some reason, just open notepad and save as .dvd but abgx should have at least created one for you if you ran your iso through it). Also make sure the iso is in the same folder as your .dvd



7) Now select your write speed. For mkm001 choose x2.4. For mkm003 choose x4. Now before you click burn, try to minimize the use of your computer resources as much as you can (close everything that you do not need at this time, browser, Skype, anti virus, etc. You can use the task manager processes tab to help, but make sure you know exactly what processes you are ending). Do not do anything while the game burns. This will help a lot in making sure you get a good quality burn.

Now click burn! Go make a snack or something while it burns.
There is no need to verify in Imgburn as it will tell you nothing useful. We will check our burn with kprobe2.


Checking Burn Quality 
Open up kprobe2. Leave all the default settings alone and only change the speed to 4x. Start the test and do what you did with Imgburn by closing all applications and not starting any new ones while the test is being done.
A good quality burn is one where PI max is less than 100 and PI avg is less than 5. PIF max less than 4 and PIF avg less than .20 (remember this is just a guideline, it is up to you to make the call if you think it is a good enough burn.)
Once test finishes, you should get something similar to this.


This is my burn with the same settings in the TUT (I can get a little better results with disabling SmartBurn and enabling BurnProof). Getting spikes at layerbreak is pretty common. As you can see my PI turned out very nice, but my PIF spiked to 5. Does this mean my burn was bad and the game will not play well? Not at all, games can still play pretty smoothly with poor quality burns(unless weak laser) but will fail any CIV (content integrity verification) checks or possibly any other hidden security checks.


In my case, this disc will most likely work fine, as it almost meets the guidelines of a good burn, and should pass any CIV or other checks.


Hopefully your burn came back with good results from the settings chosen in the TUT. Don’t freak out if it didn’t, as this is pretty common. You will have to play around with the settings to try and find what works best for you but be prepared for a lot of coasters! 


Tips and Tricks for ensuring good burns
- Make sure the iso is on your local hdd and not on some portable device.
- Reduce as many applications running on your comp. (you can use tsk mng to help with this)
- defrag hdd
- Burn in safe mode
- using a sata connection
- dont let your computer go to sleep/screensaver while waiting for burn

Tips and Tricks when getting poor burns
- Try burning mkm003 at x2.4 or mkm001 at x4
- turning on or off OPC
- clearing OPC cache
- Play around enabling and disabling force/online hypertuning, OverSpeed, and SmartBurn in imgburn and/or EEPROM utility
- Changing buffer size, en/disabling buffer recovery.
- try different media

**If you still have trouble getting good results and have tried almost all these settings to no avail then feel free to post a listing of all the settings you tried as well as roughly what the results were. More details the better. Then hopefully we can determine the problem from there.

Getting read errors with very good burn results
- Replace laser (they sell for cheap)
- Pot tweaking you xbox dvd drive (adjusting the laser) You require a multi meter and a small screwdriver. You simply measure and reduce the resistance in your laser, giving it more power to read games. There’s a good guide posted by Ubergeek on Team Xecuter you can follow, it is pretty simple.


Thanks and I hope you enjoyed my TUT.
Feel free to post questions and/or any constructive criticism about it
http://www.se7ensins.com/forums/threads/tut-how-to-correctly-burn-xgd3-games.798973/