Questions About Emulators for the original Xbox

[Tempest]

A few weeks ago I was able to play around with a modded Xbox. While the prospect of having hundreds of retail Xbox games on a hard drive was mildly interesting (I always prefer to buy the real things when possible), the thing that really caught my eye were the emulators. I had no idea so many emulators were available for the Xbox. Currently I use my Wii for emulating older systems, but as Nintendo seems determined to patch this ability out, I was considering buying a modded Xbox to fill the void. I have several questions first though:

1. How good are the emulators? Are they 'runs games but without sound or with serious glitches' type things or are they pretty flawless? MAME in particular is of interest to me.

2. What emulators are available? I saw MAME, an SNES emulator, and an Atari 7800 emulator.

3. What's the going rate on a modded Xbox? I think there was someone on a local craigslist selling one for $85 or so.

4. What mod should I look for? Are some better than others?

5. Do the original Xboxs have the same reliability problems as the 360?

Tempest

[norkusa]

A few weeks ago I was able to play around with a modded Xbox. While the prospect of having hundreds of retail Xbox games on a hard drive was mildly interesting (I always prefer to buy the real things when possible), the thing that really caught my eye were the emulators. I had no idea so many emulators were available for the Xbox. Currently I use my Wii for emulating older systems, but as Nintendo seems determined to patch this ability out, I was considering buying a modded Xbox to fill the void. I have several questions first though:

1. How good are the emulators? Are they 'runs games but without sound or with serious glitches' type things or are they pretty flawless? MAME in particular is of interest to me.

2. What emulators are available? I saw MAME, an SNES emulator, and an Atari 7800 emulator.

3. What's the going rate on a modded Xbox? I think there was someone on a local craigslist selling one for $85 or so.

4. What mod should I look for? Are some better than others?

5. Do the original Xboxs have the same reliability problems as the 360?

Tempest


1. The Xbox emulators are very good. I've got all the major, popular ones on my Xbox right now and they all run full speed. Tons of options too including themes, save states, 1080p and 5.1 Dolby Digital. TG-16 and Genesis emus even play CD games too (originals, back-ups, or disc images). The only glitchy emu I've experienced so far is the PS1 emu but a lot of stuff is still playable on it, including Castlevania SotN. I remember the Virtual Boy and Vectrex emus being buggy too but those were betas or very early releases which might have been fixed by now.

2. Name a console or computer and there is most likely an Xbox emu available for it. Daphne, Spectrum, Amiga, C64, TG-16, Neo Geo, DOSbox, SCUMM, Lynx, Ti-99, GBA, etc. Most aren't updated anymore but that doesn't matter since they all run smoothly and are loaded with options & features. CoinOPS (MAME) still gets regular updates and it's by far my favorite emu. The only emulators I want that aren't available are Saturn, 3DO, CD-i and Jaguar but I guess those are very hard to emulate.

3. Modded Xbox's are cheap. You should easily be able to get a softmoded system + accessories for under $75. If you want a bigger hdd inside (and you'll want one if you're playing a lot of emus), expect to pay more. Get at least a 250GB hdd. I've got a 500GB in mine and it's about 2/3 full.

4. Since you can't play the original Xbox online anymore, a softmoded console will do exactly the same things as a chipped console, so go with one of thoese. It'll be a lot cheaper too. There isn't really a specific mod to look for...once the system is modded, it's modded. You'll definitely want Xbox Media Center installed on it as the main dashboard though.

5. In a word, no.

BTW, there's 3 different dvd drives that came installed on Xbox consoles. I forget their names and how to ID them, but basically one doesn't play dvd-r's or cd-r's, the other will play dvd-r's but no cd-r's, and the other will play both. So you might want to look into that before purchasing a system if that's important to you.

[kedawa]

Soft mods are a pain in the ass. Get something with a flashed BIOS if you can.

[Tempest]

Soft mods are a pain in the ass. Get something with a flashed BIOS if you can.
Yeah I'm looking for something chipped or flashed. Since there is no LIVE for the original Xbox now there's really no harm in it.

Tempest

[Howie6925]

You need to get your hand on the 4 Big Ass Emulator Disks. Has all systems(no N64 or higher) plus the mame and capcom Cs1 and 2.

[Dobie]

I haven't updated the EMUs on my Xbox in a while (2+ years), but I found MAME slows down for the more modern arcade games and some of the bullet hell shooters.

[Tempest]

I haven't updated the EMUs on my Xbox in a while (2+ years), but I found MAME slows down for the more modern arcade games and some of the bullet hell shooters.
Well I'm really not interested in emulating much past 2000 or so. Maybe some of the later shumps, but nothing 3D or requiring a hard drive image.

Tempest

[norkusa]

I haven't updated the EMUs on my Xbox in a while (2+ years), but I found MAME slows down for the more modern arcade games and some of the bullet hell shooters.

Yeah, there really isn't anything that can be done about that. I've heard of people doubling their RAM to 128mb but I think you need to be running an emulator that allows you to take advantage of that. CoinOPS runs a lot of games MAMEdOX can't handle though. Especially the mid-late 90's Williams games like Kombat and Rampage World Tour.

[Tempest]

Yeah and the RAM upgrade requires some soldering that I'm not going to do. So I'm stuck with the 64MB. I probably wouldn't play anything much later than the early/mid 90's anyway.

Tempest

[NE146]

You need to get your hand on the 4 Big Ass Emulator Disks. Has all systems(no N64 or higher) plus the mame and capcom Cs1 and 2.

Just fyi those BAE discs were made a long time ago and are severely outdated. They were ok for their time though.

For example I think it has Hugo for the TG16/PCE emulation which is really poor compared to the more up-to-date Mednefen. There are lots of other examples.

[megasdkirby]

Soft mods are a pain in the ass. Get something with a flashed BIOS if you can.

I've never had any issues with softmodded consoles. Are there any known issues that can cause problems?

I've had mine for years and it works superbly well. Emulators, programs...everything runs fine.

There are many emulators on the Xbox that are fantastic, like the NES and SMS ones. Others are a bit glitchy, like the SegaCD emulators (though Genesis roms on said emulators run fine). I am playing them on UnleashedX, so I am not sure how they play if you use any other "OS", such as XBMC (I run this as a program).

[nickerous]

Got an xbox off ebay for less than $30. Got the soft mod tools for about $20. Super easy procedure.

[Mr Mort]

I too have been running with a softmod for years, never once have I had a problem with it. The only thing you may want to avoid is selecting the online mode in any original Xbox games.

As for the emulators, the ones I have are a bit old, but anything from the 16-bit era and older work flawlessly. I've seen slowdown and other issues with mame and PS1 emulators tho, and I don't use them much as a result.

I'm running UnleashX and it's been a very solid dashboard IMO. I don't care for XBMC's interface, and I've heard a few people say it takes up more resources if you're running it as your dash, but I don't know how true this is.

[Tempest]

Odd question, but since Live is gone is there any reason to hook the Xbox up to the internet?

Tempest

[Compute]

XBMC is updated quite a bit, and the newer versions have an auto-update feature. In addition to that I use it to stream stuff to the livingroom from my media server. Unless you're concerned about keeping xbmc up to date, no real need to hook to the internet.

[megasdkirby]

Although excellent, the emulators haven't been updated for quite some time, which is a shame. With a little more tweaking, the emulators would be almost 100% compatible with all games, and perhaps with nifty features added to them. However, they are fine the way they are now, and emulate classic consoles quite nicely, sans those listed above by Norkusa and a few other emulators. Also, the Xbox can output 1080p? I thought the maximum it can output is 1080i? Definitely need to recheck that on my Xbox. :)

Installing a new HDD is not as expensive either. As long as you extract a few files that are in your dashboard (using available installers on the net), adding a new HDD is pretty easy. The only cost to the costumer is the HDD itself, which I highly recommend Western Digital HDD's, as they provide the best compatibility. Others work, but not all HDD's are compatible. There is a list online on which models are compatible, but it too hasn't been updated for quite some time.

I would not put XBMC as the main dashboard, though, unless the RAM upgrade is performed (soldered onto the motherboard). For some reason, it runs slower than other dashboards, like UnleashedX, and can sometimes freeze for some reason. I have better control having it as an application than as a dashboard. That's me anyway.

To play emulators and such, I upload them via FTP, using FlashFXP as it's the easiest to do. Also, I can stream directly from a NAS or PC, so I don't always have to copy the files to the Xbox when I want to view a movie or play an MP3. For games and emulators, however, I would recommend installing them directly on the console's HDD.

[causticsoda]

3. Modded Xbox's are cheap. You should easily be able to get a softmoded system + accessories for under $75. If you want a bigger hdd inside (and you'll want one if you're playing a lot of emus), expect to pay more. Get at least a 250GB hdd. I've got a 500GB in mine and it's about 2/3 full.


I thought there was a limit on the size of a hdd that the xbox could recognise? My memory tells me it was something like 137gig. Or is it possible to use larger HDD's?

My Xbox still has the original 10gig drive, which I have been looking at upgrading, so would be good to know.

[megasdkirby]

I thought there was a limit on the size of a hdd that the xbox could recognise? My memory tells me it was something like 137gig. Or is it possible to use larger HDD's?

My Xbox still has the original 10gig drive, which I have been looking at upgrading, so would be good to know.

Yes, you can use higher HDD's. You just need to partition them and "activate" the partition in the corresponding dashboard.

My Xbox has a 250GB WD HDD and after the initial 137GB or so, partition G contains the leftover amount, which is accessible.

[Tempest]

I'm mainly interested in playing arcade games (MAME) and some of my older neo-classic consoles (NES, SMS, and maybe Genesis). Those emulators seem to be pretty solid from what I've read. I don't need to emulate more modern things since I already have all that stuff hooked up.

I don't suppose there's an X68000 emulator or some version of Daphne is there?

Tempest

[kedawa]

I've set up XBOXs with partitions much larger than 137GB, but it required one of the last executer BIOSs that got released.

Another thing to keep in mind when upgrading the HDD is that most drives have faster rotational speeds than the stock drive, as well as more cache memory, which means they produce more heat.
Drilling a ventilation hole in the back of the black plastic HDD housing inside the XBOX will help keep it cool by exposing it to the system fan's air flow.

[norkusa]

I don't suppose there's an X68000 emulator or some version of Daphne is there?

Tempest

Yes, there's X68000 and Daphne emulators available for Xbox. I've got them installed on mine.


@megasdkirby - I guess I misspoke when I said the emulators were in 1080p. My bad, they're only 1080i.


I never really understood why people are against having XMBC as the start-up dash. It looks great and has a ton of features - media streaming, weather updates, news ticker, banner/thumbnails support, script support. I think UnleashX looks very unattractive and terribly dated compared to XBMC, so I always avoided using it. Never noticed any problems with XBMC either when running it as my main dash either. When I first installed it on my Xbox though, it would take almost 10 seconds to boot. Then I found out it was a BIOS issue and it would boot up super fast after I got that fixed.

[NE146]

I don't suppose there's an X68000 emulator or some version of Daphne is there?

Yes.. Daphne runs great. But don't expect every laserdisc game. Just the basics like DL/DL2/Space Ace and some others. Cobra Command does not run. And yes there's an X68000 emulator.

Here, check out my vid. You can see the Daphne emulator around 6:09 in. I also show a little PSX and some video capabilities (with Starcade :p) It uses XBMC with the MC360 skin.. to look like a 360, but of course the 360 no longer looks like that LOL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWkBOy_fZwc



Although excellent, the emulators haven't been updated for quite some time, which is a shame.Shannon from Atariage, aka "MadMab" has been updating a number of xports emulators. He's done some amazing stuff with the Atari 5200/8bit things like adding dual analog support for Space Dungeon & Robotron. He's also update the 7800 stuff. So there are still some things happening now and then. :)

[LaughingMAN.S9]

The only issues i've ever had with my box was one where i tried to play a super scratched copy of the suffering i think and it froze my screen, after i reset, it fucked up my softmod and for watever reason i couldnt reinstall it, ended up getting a new halo edition xbox instead and installing a spare 60 gig drive i had laying around, so it all worked out for the best i guess lol



also another minor issue, which is kinda major to me, but i imagine most ppl wont give a fuck is that once u softmod your system, you wont be able to any new custom game soundtracks, i've got my xbox set up to dual boot into the original system dashboard but when i try to rip music it says something about a memory problem even tho i've got like another 10 gigs left, so guess no more custom game soundtracks in motogp or gta san andreas for me :(




edit: i just remembered, does anyone have any idea wtf could be wrong with my ethernet port? i used to be able to ftp shit into my xbox via gftp under ubuntu and smartftp under windows no problem, then 1 day, i just cant. anybody got any clues? im sick of having to go thru blank dvds everytime i need to update something, assuming its possible i somehow burnt out my ethernet port, how easy is it to replace it?

kinda also thinking somehow my crossover cable went dead, any clues as to how i can rectify this would be appreciated

[norkusa]

edit: i just remembered, does anyone have any idea wtf could be wrong with my ethernet port? i used to be able to ftp shit into my xbox via gftp under ubuntu and smartftp under windows no problem, then 1 day, i just cant. anybody got any clues? im sick of having to go thru blank dvds everytime i need to update something, assuming its possible i somehow burnt out my ethernet port, how easy is it to replace it?

kinda also thinking somehow my crossover cable went dead, any clues as to how i can rectify this would be appreciated

I kinda had the same problem recently. One day all of a sudden I couldn't FTP to my Xbox any more. I'd would always get some kind of error message in my FTP client as soon as I started to transfer something over. As a temporary fix I used a USB flash drive with one of those USB controller adapter cables along with the built-in XBMC ftp app. Not as fast as ethernet but it did the job. The strange thing is I that I didn't have any problems transferring files *FROM* the Xbox. It was only when I FTP'd files to the Xbox that I had problems.

Then recently I re-did my entire basement AV setup. Got rid of my Pelican System Selector Pro (which I ran my ethernet thru) and bought a new 5-port switch & ethernet cables. Everything working fine after that.

[NE146]

The only issues i've ever had with my box was one where i tried to play a super scratched copy of the suffering i think and it froze my screen, after i reset, it fucked up my softmod and for watever reason i couldnt reinstall it, ended up getting a new halo edition xbox instead and installing a spare 60 gig drive i had laying around, so it all worked out for the best i guess lol


also another minor issue, which is kinda major to me, but i imagine most ppl wont give a fuck is that once u softmod your system, you wont be able to any new custom game soundtracks, i've got my xbox set up to dual boot into the original system dashboard but when i try to rip music it says something about a memory problem even tho i've got like another 10 gigs left, so guess no more custom game soundtracks in motogp or gta san andreas for me :(

Sounds like you got maybe an older softmod on there? It's pretty hard to mess up the current softmod especially with a virtual C: drive. Also music rips should work as normal.

[Enigmus]

If you're concerned with compatibility, why not get a Wii, use Smash Stack, and use Homebrew Channel? It's much easier, not to mention it can run things off of portable hard drives, like I do with my 80 gig one. That, and a lot of the emus are very good, not to mention all the other things made for it.

[Leo_A]

If you're concerned with compatibility, why not get a Wii, use Smash Stack, and use Homebrew Channel? It's much easier, not to mention it can run things off of portable hard drives, like I do with my 80 gig one. That, and a lot of the emus are very good, not to mention all the other things made for it.

He addresses this in his initial post:


Currently I use my Wii for emulating older systems, but as Nintendo seems determined to patch this ability out, I was considering buying a modded Xbox to fill the void. I have several questions first though:

[norkusa]

Does anyone know much about XBMC scripts? I just installed a current version of XBMC and it came bundled with SVN Rep Installer. Messed around with it a little last night and really liked a lot of the scripts that were available (mainly the TV streaming ones).

Is there a definitive site for downloading XBMC scripts? I searched around and could only find 2-3 year old ones that weren't compatible with my system. Or is the SVN Installer the way most people get their scripts now?

[NE146]

If you're concerned with compatibility, why not get a Wii, use Smash Stack, and use Homebrew Channel? It's much easier, not to mention it can run things off of portable hard drives, like I do with my 80 gig one. That, and a lot of the emus are very good, not to mention all the other things made for it.

Easier? I don't know who would think that to be honest. I mean, I like my softmodded Wii as much as the next guy, but the xbox totally smokes it when it comes to emulators and is the last great console to offer it. (And no, a jtagged 360 doesn't count.. now THAT is harder than all the rest :p)

<edit>.. i meant to say the jtag is a lot harder. Not sure how it ended up saying "not harder". Oh well.. fixed. :p

[norkusa]

Does anyone know much about XBMC scripts? I just installed the 8/28/10 Latest Nightly Build of XBMC and it came bundled with SVN Rep Installer. Never played around with scripts before but I really liked the few I tried (mainly the TV streaming stuff).

Is there a definitive XBMC scripts site? I searched around and could mostly find 2-3 year old scripts that weren't compatible with my system. Or is the SVN Installer the way most people are getting their scripts now?