Game compatibility — ATF Gold & USNF'97

The Fighters Anthology formats were reverse-engineered from FA (1998). FA is the last and richest member of a family built on one continuously-evolved engine, so its predecessors were expected to share most formats. This page records what happens when fx is actually run against real retail installs of the two nearest relatives, resolving the "Confirmation needed" note in the README (#57).

Titles verified

Title	Retail version	Media
Advanced Tactical Fighters — Gold	1.00F (disc label ATFG_1_00F)	atf_*.lib + setup.esa
U.S. Navy Fighters '97	1.04F (disc label USNF_1_04F)	usnf_*.lib + setup.esa

Headline result: every format fx implements decodes on both titles, and both container formats round-trip byte-identically. The engine is shared closely enough that the FA format specs describe ATF and USNF as well, with only minor, self-describing structural deltas (below). The one format fx does not cover on any title is .XMI (Miles XMIDI music) — that is external-converter territory, not an FA-family codec, and its absence is not an ATF/USNF-specific gap.

Method

Reproducible from the retail discs with no game install:

# mount the disc image read-only (loop), then, e.g. for ATF:
fx esa ls   "$DISC/setup.esa"                 # installer payload: EXE, SMS, inner LIBs, DLLs
fx esa extract "$DISC/setup.esa" ATF_1.LIB -o out
fx lib ls   out/ATF_1.LIB                      # the installed content archive
fx lib extract out/ATF_1.LIB A10.SH -o out     # any entry
fx sh  unpack out/A10.SH -o A10.obj             # run the codec

The disc-resident *.lib archives hold the CD-streamed media (audio, images, and — on USNF — the .VDO/.FBC cutscenes); the executables, 3D shapes, missions, type records, palettes and terrain live in setup.esa's inner LIBs (ATF_1/2/4B.LIB, USNF_1/2.LIB), exactly as FA splits its own content. Both titles ship their own game executable and symbol map (ATF.EXE+ATF.SMS, USNF.EXE+USNF.SMS) and the same overlay-DLL family as FA (WAIL32.DLL, CDRVDL32/HF32/XF32.DLL, COMMSC32.DLL).

Containers — byte-identical round-trip

The strongest proof: the container codecs re-emit both titles' archives byte-for-byte.

Format	fx command	ATF	USNF	Notes
LIB	fx lib repack	✅ byte-identical	✅ byte-identical	same DCL/LZSS/PxPk entry compression as FA
ESA	fx esa repack	✅ byte-identical	✅ byte-identical	installer payload; PKWARE-compressed + stored entries

Content formats — decoded on both titles

Every format below was extracted from a real ATF and USNF install and run through its fx codec. ✅ = decodes/parses correctly; where a codec round-trips on FA it round-trips here too (the byte logic is title-independent).

Format	fx command	ATF	USNF	Spec
PIC (image)	pic unpack	✅ decodes to PNG	✅ decodes to PNG	PIC
PAL (palette)	pal info	✅	✅	PAL
SH (3D shape)	sh unpack	✅ → OBJ	✅ → OBJ	SH
CB8 (video)	cb8 info	✅	✅	CB8
VDO / FBC (cutscene)	vdo/fbc	— (not shipped)	✅	VDO
5K / 11K / 8K (audio)	audio info	✅	✅	11K
INF (tech sheet)	inf dump	✅	✅	INF
M / MM / MC (mission)	mission info	✅	✅	M
T2 (terrain)	t2 info	✅	✅	T2
OT/NT/PT/JT/SEE/ECM/GAS (BRF types)	ot info …	✅	✅	BRF
SEQ (cutscene timeline)	seq dump	✅	✅	SEQ
HUD (cockpit layout)	hud dump	✅	✅	HUD
LAY (sky/atmosphere)	lay dump	✅	✅	LAY
FNT (bitmap font)	fnt info	✅	✅	FNT
MUS (music playlist)	mus dump	✅	✅	MUS
BI / AI (AI bytecode)	bi dump / ai compile	✅	✅	BI
CAM (campaign)	cam info	✅	✅	CAM
DLG / MNU (UI overlay)	dlg/mnu info	✅	✅	DLG
PTS / HGR / BIN (data)	pts/hgr/bin info	✅	✅	PTS
TXT / MT (text)	txt/mt info	✅	✅	TXT
SMS (symbol map)	sms dump	✅ (3,615 syms)	✅ (3,440 syms)	—
XMI (Miles XMIDI music)	—	❌ no codec	❌ no codec	not an FA-family format

Observed deltas

None of these required a code change — the formats are self-describing, so one codec reads every variant:

• BRF type records carry different field/block counts per title. The same aircraft's .PT decodes to 219 fields / 20 blocks on ATF but 218 / 18 on USNF; .NT is 73/7 vs 72/7; .OT 64/2 vs 63/2. Each record states its own layout (the BRF header enumerates its fields), so fx's parser follows the record rather than a hard-coded FA schema, and every variant decodes. This is the mechanism that makes the type formats title-independent.
• Cutscene media differs by title. USNF ships .VDO/.FBC full-motion cutscenes on the disc; ATF Gold ships .CB8 block-video. Both formats decode; the two titles simply carry different content.
• Each title has its own executable and symbol map. ATF.EXE/USNF.EXE are distinct binaries from FA.EXE; their .SMS maps parse with fx sms dump (ATF 3,615 symbols, USNF 3,440). This page verifies the asset formats, not those executables — a per-title reconstruction is out of scope for the verification pass.
• The pilot save record is shared across the family, but generationally sized. FA and ATF Gold use the identical pilot record — a legacy 0x15B4-byte format migrated field-by-field to the current 0x25E0 (9,696-byte) layout by _ConvertPilotFiles. USNF'97 uses the prior generation (0x1514 → 0x2540, 160 bytes smaller): the two differ by a single ~160-byte block in the mission-history region (USNF's converter copies 0x384 dwords where ATF/FA copy 0x3AC), which shifts every later field down 0xA0 — so USNF carries the same store table, stats counters and campaign-phase region, just 160 bytes earlier, not truncated. Each title's own _CampaignSave and _ConvertPilotFiles agree on the size three ways: the _campaignPilot→_pilotName symbol gap, the save-loop rep movs dword count, and the _SaveFile byte count all match. See the FA pilot format at P.

Scope and status

This was a timeboxed verification pass (#57): its job is to state exactly what is confirmed per title, which is what the table above does. It is not a commitment to maintain ATF/USNF as first-class targets — the FA specs remain the authority, and these titles are documented as verified-compatible rather than separately specified.

Not attempted here (honest markers, available as follow-ups): wiring the ATF/USNF discs into the FX_FA_ROOT-style integration test harness for CI-durable proof, and any reconstruction of the ATF.EXE/USNF.EXE executables.