New Xbox owner Q's...regarding general system issues

[Sniderman]

Hey gang,

Finally gave in an got an Xbox to sit next to my stalwart PS2 (bought on launch day and still workin' fine after all these years). Anyway, I have some questions - probably basic Xbox n00b stuff - but I gotta know if it's just me, or is it the system itself....

1. Does the Xbox have a hellacious loading time for every friggin' game? Takes forever to load even the simplest of games.

2. My PS2 is incredibly forgiving when it comes to slightly scuffed game discs. Hell, it even plays ones I'd classify as "rough." But the Xbox seems to freeze, lock up, or even not boot at all if the CD has even the slightest blemish. Is the Xbox truly this "touchy" when it comes to flawless game discs only? Even my Sega CD seems to be more forgiving than the Xbox is.

3. I got 2 FPS-type games (Tron 2.0 and Land of the Dead, of course). Both game discs are damn near new. However, both have the slowest frame rate I've ever seen on a console or computer. Tron has obvious delays when turning, and God forbid I'm near a wall or object. The scaling is horrid. It's like I'm playing a game on a computer without enough memory. So, once again, is this a system issue, a game disc issue, or is it just the nature of the Xbox?

Gotta say, when it runs well, it's amazing. But these issues have me concerned that the system itself is generally a lemon. Give me some feedback as to whether these are common complaints or not. Thanks for the advice and help!

[PapaStu]

Well my first question back to you is what does the cd tray look like when its opened (and theres no disc in it)? I'm looking for the pic that shows all three rom types. I know we've got a link posted here on DP in a few threads, but i've got to look a little more.

Thompson drives are a shitton more finnkey than the others, not to mention that a good portion of the later games have the data on them in a manner that makes those drives have to work a helluva lot harder than the Phillips or Samsung drives do. Trying to play Doom 3 on my older Thompson system was horrible, as the game would freeze and crash all the time. Pausing the game was a fiasco and it made the game unplayable.

I've never had discs that didn't look anything less than good so I don't know about that one.

Another semi-downside to a bunch of the XBox shooters is that the frame rates are pretty crappy. I thought that Tron 2.0's rate was OK, but nothing to write home about. I've not played Land of the Dead to say much about that one.

[Ed Oscuro]

Game issue on the loading and frame refresh speed. Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath is an exceptional example of a title that requires little loading time. In terms of having a good framerate, Ninja Gaiden seems a good enough choice, and Otogi II is a decent example of how much chaos is necessary to start bogging down the system.

[Ed Oscuro]

Thompson drives are a shitton more finnkey than the others, not to mention that a good portion of the later games have the data on them in a manner that makes those drives have to work a helluva lot harder than the Phillips or Samsung drives do. Trying to play Doom 3 on my older Thompson system was horrible, as the game would freeze and crash all the time. Pausing the game was a fiasco and it made the game unplayable.
Mine actually performed perfectly until recently. Months and months of playing Morrowind on that thing, and it didn't even blink at any games until recently (it refuses to run Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven, which is a shame).

[PapaStu]

Thompson drives are a shitton more finnkey than the others, not to mention that a good portion of the later games have the data on them in a manner that makes those drives have to work a helluva lot harder than the Phillips or Samsung drives do. Trying to play Doom 3 on my older Thompson system was horrible, as the game would freeze and crash all the time. Pausing the game was a fiasco and it made the game unplayable.
Mine actually performed perfectly until recently. Months and months of playing Morrowind on that thing, and it didn't even blink at any games until recently (it refuses to run Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven, which is a shame).

I replaced mine last summer when it started to get REALLY bad. My Samsung drive has been awesome so far. But my original one rocked pretty great almost the entire time I had it... up until Doom 3. That seemed to just kill the poor thing. After that it was never the same. And that includes the massive Nightly Halo LAN fest that was my junior year of College (3 semesters) and tons of XBL to boot.

[Sothy]

snider return it get a used older xbox.

I dunno the details but ya theres some with shitty dvd drives.

Tron 2.0 sucks btw. I couldnt get 15 minutes into that game without being sickened.

Grabbing a movie license for the sole purpose of getting away with shit graphics does not a good game make.

oh and make sure you manually go into the xbox system options and set it for hdtv.... noone told me...

[Richter Belmount]

dude get chronicles of riddick escape from butcher bay. best 7 bucks i spent. Shenmue 2 also if you played the 1st.

[ddockery]

Load times vary from game to game, that's on the developers - but overall I find the XBOX titles to load much faster than PS2. Gamecube beats both though.

[jonjandran]

Actually the latest Xbox's have the LG\Hitatchi drive in it which are even better than the Samsung. But either one of those will load just about anything and thay are very reliable.

http://www.xbox-linux.org/wiki/Xbox_Linux_Boot_CD/DVD_Burning_HOWTO

http://www.xbox-linux.org/wiki/Talk:Xbox_Linux_Boot_CD/DVD_Burning_HOWTO

[Kid Ice]

But these issues have me concerned that the system itself is generally a lemon.

I too waited all these years to get one, and it's finicky as hell. In the time it takes Top Spin to load a match I can play a set of Virtua Tennis. Who ever heard of getting a new drive for a game console? And buying a remote to be able to play DVDs? What BS.

I do like some of the games and overall it is worthwhile simply because the games are so cheap (honestly I've never seen games this cheap...I got Top Spin, Crimson Skies, and JSRF for $3 each).

[roushimsx]

Tron 2.0's problem isn't the framerate imo, it's the hellacious tearing that goes on for whatever reason. Someone forgot to enable the vsync before they went gold :( Really, really disappointing since the PC version is one of my favorite FPS of all time. The only other lithtech-engine game I can think of that got a console port was No One Lives Forever on PS2, and that port sucked ass, too :(

I'm going to have to lodge another vote for the awesomeness of Chronicles of Riddick. Initially I wrote it off as not being my cup of tea (the movie sucked and the people liked the movie raved nonstop about the game), but holy fucking shit is it an awesome game. Top 5 FPS ever imo. :)

Oddworld Stranger's Wrath was one of the reasons I got an Xbox and I'm damned happy with it. Really, really fun and original title.

Right now I'm about done with Half Life 2 on Xbox and it has some serious framerate issues (near Rare-level). I think it's a testament to the game's awesomeness that it's still fun and playable, but god damn ...I can't wait to play through it on PC again.

I hear Hulk: Ultimate Destruction has a pretty smooth framerate/good engine. Confirm/Deny?

Also, does anyone have any recommendations on where to buy a new Xbox DVD ROM from? eBay looks like the easiest choice, but I'm kind of hoping y'all might have a reputable US-based seller that I could go through (mainly because I'm tired of getting fucked on eBay and having to go through the dispute and claim process)

[Joker T]

http://www.llamma.com/xbox

that site has alot of info on Xbox versions and stuff. You may wanna look there.

[Neil Koch]

I hear Hulk: Ultimate Destruction has a pretty smooth framerate/good engine. Confirm/Deny?

It plays fast and smooth with nice explosion effects, but the graphics aren't very detalied - a lot of buildings lok the same, and there's only a handful of car/pedestrian models. Pretty fun game tho, excepting an uneven difficulty level and short play time.

Getting back to the original poster, it does sound like they have one of the "bad" DVD drives. I have about 50 Xbox games, and load times haven't been an issue in any of them except for Midnight Club 3.