Xbox Emulation

[Sebastian]

Can someone (who is using it) explain Xbox emulation to me?

questions:
1. Is it pefect emulation?
- slowdowns, sound issues, etc

2. What game systems are supported?

3. When is Xbox going $99 so that i can start the emulation craze?

4. Any websources one could offer to me?

5. Thanks 4 help mates! :D

[pragmatic insanester]

the xbox needs some better controllers too. i can't stand trying to play MAME on it with the ones my friend has.

[AB Positive]

questions:
1. Is it pefect emulation?
- slowdowns, sound issues, etc

It's as perfect as you can get from a PC running at 700 mhz with 64MB ram. MAME is hit or miss, bigger stuff doesn't run well. Pretty much anything SNES era down runs perfectly. Playstation emulation is said to be really good to, but you need to burn it to the HDD

2. What game systems are supported?

Um... sorta already answered that :D

3. When is Xbox going $99 so that i can start the emulation craze?

Who knows, possibly after the 360 release. HOWEVER you will need to mod it. End of story. And if you want a decent allowance for rom size, a good HDD will also be needed. Mine's 120 GB


4. Any websources one could offer to me?

www.xbox-scene.com - everything you could want to know.

5. Thanks 4 help mates!


no problem! :)


-AG

[AJay17]

He is right ^^^

[SoulBlazer]

Related question -- how much should I expect to pay if I want to send my XBox off to be modded for emulation purposes? Don't want a bigger HD or a new DVD drive or anything -- just for emulation. Thanks. :)

Also, what about XBox Live? I use that a lot and I don't want to be booted off the service for having a 'modded' XBox.

[PS2Hawk]

you can enable/disable the modchips but honestly emulation without a bigger harddrive is lame!!!

[K3V]

you can enable/disable the modchips but honestly emulation without a bigger harddrive is lame!!!

It's true, you will fill up the wimpy Xbox HDD before you know it. Add a bigger HD while you're at it and you'll not be sorry.

I got a second Xbox to mod and kept one unmodded for Live play. You can get a switch installed to turn off the modchip for Live play, but I didn't want to take the risk of forgetting to switch it off and getting banned from Live. And now I've got a permanent LAN Setup in my house (had CAT-5 run down to my living room last night) so it's instant LAN party whenever my gaming buddies come over.

[Lord Contaminous]

Omnedon did my XBox, and put the BIOS switch on it so I can still get on Live if I had it.

I looked at XBox scene.com, I tried reading the instructions on what to do, but they talk about it in long paragraphs and makes you think "should I really attempt this by myself?"

I recently bought a 60G HDD and all I wanna do is just swap it and still keep the stuff I have on there.

And I know people that mod boxes in my area, but they're either hard to get in touch with, or just want too much money just to swap a HDD.

[nate1749]

You don't actually need a chip in your xbox for it to be modded - check out the website above. And there's no swapping or anything crazy like that to do with the method either, it's just an exploit to get around the security system so you can do whatever you want with your system.

As for the hard drive, you can fit the following complete usa sets on a stock 10 gig hard drive and these all run 100% from my experience.

Atari 2600
GameGear
Lynx
NES
NeoGeo
SNES
Genesis
TG16
and a few others I never play like Intellivision and GB and GBC - and there's still a gig left over to save games & music.

Mame & N64 all fit on 1 dvd disc - these games aren't always 100% though. There are over 100 working N64 titles, but sometimes the game will glitch after awhile or if you try do unlock more functionality (4 player bond) it will jam. The setup I've seen actually has 3 n64 emulators and it picks the best one for each game (pretty neat).

I know a guy who puts all those complete sets on the stock system and mods it (not with a chip) for $150. It's the nicest setup I've ever seen though. Most people's dashboards look messy, his is perfectly clean and has screenshots for every game (and there are thousands of them). Plus the latest thing to put on your xbox is dos emulation, so I've seen it with leisure suit larry and warcraft on it as well - pretty neat.

PSX runs crappy from my experience, only old ps1 games that are small run fine.

Nate

[Cauterize]

PSX runs crappy from my experience, only old ps1 games that are small run fine.

Also the 2d PSX games work well IIRC...

[nate1749]

PSX runs crappy from my experience, only old ps1 games that are small run fine.

Also the 2d PSX games work well IIRC...

The old ps1 games that run were probably 2d games, I didn't even think of looking for a pattern like that. So I'm sure newer 2d games fine as well - good catch!

It should be noted that neogeocd will not work on the hard drive currently, not because it doesn't have the power, but rather the author of the emulator only allows it to boot games from cds and not ISOs (to prevent piracy). So you can play neogeo cd games on your xbox, just can't put them on your hard drive (have to put each game in cd tray when you want to play).

Has anyone seen a capability list for PSX games on Xbox? I'm still looking for a list of PSX games that work on Dreamcast (with the bleemcast red/blue disc).

Nate

[The_EniGma]

Most ps1 are very glitchy, some work well.

If your going to play just roms and they are mame, i think a standard hdd might suffice. Mines full up with many games on it. If your on a budget i suggest getting the smartXX OPX modchip, its cheap and incase you screw up your bios flash you can fix it.

As for mame, it can run most games well, just the pre game loading time for some is a kick in the teeth (kof2002 takes about 4 or 5m ins to load, same with metal slug 4&5) but in those games i get a steady 60fps+ which is very good.

Have fun in the scene!

-EniGma

[NE146]

these all run 100% from my experience.

Atari 2600
GameGear
Lynx
NES
NeoGeo
SNES
Genesis
TG16


TG16 emulation on the xbox is just Hugo.. which kinda sucks in my opinion. But most of the inconsistancies are with sound... and unless someone is familiar with the real thing, they probably wouldn't notice. Other downfalls are more serious like the problems with the lighting effects (in the intro to Legendary Axe II). Or the crashes on Military Madness when trying to play a map larger than one screen

Probably just nitpicking... but for example Devils Crush/Crash may look like it works great. But it's missing bass (for the "thud" when the targets get hit), the music seems to wack out a bit halfway through, and other little things like when you lose a ball, the skeleton head should laugh out like 'MWUHAHAHAHAHA'. But in the emu'd version you can barely hear him.

But yeah.. the gameplay and speed is all there.

[nate1749]

these all run 100% from my experience.

Atari 2600
GameGear
Lynx
NES
NeoGeo
SNES
Genesis
TG16


TG16 emulation on the xbox is just Hugo.. which kinda sucks in my opinion. But most of the inconsistancies are with sound... and unless someone is familiar with the real thing, they probably wouldn't notice. Other downfalls are more serious like the problems with the lighting effects (in the intro to Legendary Axe II). Or the crashes on Military Madness when trying to play a map larger than one screen

Probably just nitpicking... but for example Devils Crush/Crash may look like it works great. But it's missing bass (for the "thud" when the targets get hit), the music seems to wack out a bit halfway through, and other little things like when you lose a ball, the skeleton head should laugh out like 'MWUHAHAHAHAHA'. But in the emu'd version you can barely hear him.

But yeah.. the gameplay and speed is all there.

No offense, but yeah, you are nitpicking. I mean to each their own, but TG16 emulation sucks, are you crazy? Perhaps you're right though, I didn't own my own TG16 as a kid so I don't know any better - just used to play at a friend's house on occasion so was never aware and sure don't remember specific details about the sound (obviously this chip was hard to emulate).

Just so everyone knows though, emulation (as any developer knows) will never be truly 100%. If you want every detail to be true & every musical note to be in the right octave, then you go buy the original. A huge benefit with emulation for me is the ability to speed up the game since sometimes you are forced to sit through long storylines and what not.

Also, I'm curious. When you say crashes, do you mean the game itself crashes when you're playing it or like when a crash happens in a battle or something that it isn't 100% like the real game. I'll have to check that game out.

And what do you mean by "hugo?"

Nate

[Lord Contaminous]

Ha that reminds me, when I play Dracula X on the XBox Hugo emulator, I can't hear that "AAAAHHHHHH" scream when Richter dies.

[Richter]

Hugo - name of the TG-16 emulator for the PC

--

has the banning issue been resolved yet? IIRC those who have been on Live and mod their system, can no longer go back on Live.

Good thing i done all my changes, then signed up for Live

[nate1749]

Hugo - name of the TG-16 emulator for the PC

Ohhhh, thank you. I think mine says X-Port emulation which means hugo is real emulator behind it, I'll have to double check.

[GaijinPunch]

Hugo is the real emulator written by a French guy... a pretty nice one as well. It is very much a WIP, and does not have fantastic compatibility. Magice Engine is a commercial product, and is one of the rare emulators that's probably worth it. Why? It's the the best PC-Engine emulator out there, and number two is Hugo, which isn't good enough for most PC-Engine fans. Trust me. Hugo has issues. I was playing an RPG on my Xbox, and it skipped all the cut scenes, and eventually I got stuck b/c of an incompatibility. Yame is actually better than Hugo I'd say, but is very old, and not updated.

Mame emulation on the Xbox is mediocre at best 'd say. Lots of issues...namely RAM. Apparently these clear up if you get the 128MB Ram upgrade. Play them on your PC. More filter choices to make it look authentic, although most people here don't mind damaging their retinas it seems. :)

[NE146]

Also, I'm curious. When you say crashes, do you mean the game itself crashes when you're playing it or like when a crash happens in a battle or something that it isn't 100% like the real game. I'll have to check that game out.

I mean CRASHES :) If you play Military Madness in Hugo it seems like it works great... for the first few stages (which are only single screen) But when you get to a stage that's larger than one screen, once you try moving that cursor further away, BAM. The thing glitches out and crashes :P