With the final testing stage of BenQ and phat Lite-On underway in preparation for the scheduled Christmas Eve release of c4eva’s iXtreme LT+ v3.0, we thought we’d drop some additional bits of info into your Stockings in the form of answers to some recent questions.

Version 3.0 of iXtreme LT+ for BenQ and Lite-On (both phat and slim) does in fact retain support for truncated backups, although it is strongly recommended to use full burns made with a compatible Lite-On iHAS drive flashed with the iXtreme Burner MAX fw. Support for truncated backups, however, remains excluded from Hitachi in its forthcoming 3.0 version.

While abgx360 v1.0.6 remains in progress, the new version of Xbox Backup Creator can be used temporarily as an alternative for injecting the necessary new AP25 topology data files into existing backup ISOs. XBC doesn’t perform the same degree of validation of topology data files, and provides no means to verify their authenticity or correctness, so be very cautious if using files from unknown sources until abgx360 is released. In addition to extracting/injecting AP25 topology data files, the new XBC also works with the existing 0800 v3.0 ripping firmware to dump backup ISOs that include proper topology data from original game discs. At the time of writing, it has yet to be definitively determined whether the new XBC will be released alongside LT v3.0, or if it will be released later. The new abgx360 is still under heavy development, and will release in due time.

Recently, there have been some rumors and bogus info spread by a sad individual that is attempting to trick and confuse people with fake release dates, false info, bogus IRC channels and Facebook accounts (note: we don’t post on Facebook, only Twitter), and mislabeling things as “official” when they are in fact not. We’d like to remind users that the only official sources for news and info from c4eva and the team are here at c4evaSpeaks.com, the #c4e channel on EFNet IRC, the Team-Xecuter, JungleFlasher, and abgx360 websites, as well as reliable news outlets such as Xbox-Scene. Be wary of news or information from other outlets that don’t cite the official #c4e IRC channel or one of the aforementioned sites as the original source.