Emulators For Modded Xbox?

[norkusa]

After years of wanting a modded Xbox, I finally got one in the mail today. I'm loving it so far but I'd like to update the emulators + apps since most of ones that came pre-isntalled on it are old and out of date. The problem though is that I can't find any place to download current apps and emulators from and the sites that I did find haven't been updated in years.

Is there some secret oasis online for modded Xbox owners to get their apps and emulators from? If there is, I'd love to know about it.

[NE146]

Yes. #xbins on Efnet and an FTP program will get you everything you need. Here's a tutorial: http://xbox-scene.com/articles/xbins.php

The details are there, but in a nutshell you log into the #xbins channel, acquire a temporary FTP logon & password from the bot, then simply log onto the FTP using the program of your choice and leech away.

And just to save you the hassle of looking, the emulators are in /XBOX/Console Based Applications/apps/emulators/

[norkusa]

Ugh. Thanks for the response NE1, but isn't there an easier way to get those files? I spend the past hour downloading mIRC + FlashFXP and setting everything up. I got as far as connecting to xbins and seeing all the files for download, but I kept getting disconnected after that and couldn't download any of them.

Don't they have sites up where you can just download emulators from individually, or is this basically the only way to get them?

[Auxilla]

Yeah its shady business due to them being made with the XDK.If you have that stuff out in the open ol Bill will shut you down.

[norkusa]

Yeah its shady business due to them being made with the XDK.If you have that stuff out in the open ol Bill will shut you down.

Ahhh, that explains why they are so impossible to find. I was thinking they'd be like the PSP emulators where you could just go to any site and download them.

Think I'll have to go the bittorrent route to find these.

[OdSquad64]

search google for Xbox-sky Tracker, I'm not sure of the exact url, but thats the best place to get torrents for anything xbox related. you have to sign up, but its free. anything you could ever possibly want you'll find there

[norkusa]

Oh wow. Thank you, OdSquad! That site is great.

I owe you one. :-D

[Goblin]

Welcome to the club norusa. I've had one for about 3 months now and it is the most useful thing ever. In fact I am waiting on the stuff in the mail to mod my second one. The best site I have found is: http://www.eurasia.nu/

The have all the emulators and homebrew titles. This is really the only site I visit for files anymore.

[norkusa]

Welcome to the club norusa. I've had one for about 3 months now and it is the most useful thing ever. In fact I am waiting on the stuff in the mail to mod my second one. The best site I have found is: http://www.eurasia.nu/

The have all the emulators and homebrew titles. This is really the only site I visit for files anymore.

Thanks a ton, Goblin. That site is even better since I can just grab the emu's from there instead of having to BT them. The more I use this modded Xbox, the more I'm kicking myself for not getting one sooner. I'm loving it.


BTW, I'm about to try my first Xbox emulator install via FTP. I got the FTP working and my Xbox is showing up as a bunch of folders (D,E,F,J,etc.). I forget which folder my emulators are in but all i have to do is place the emu folders in there and it should be ready to play?

[agbulls]

how well does a modded xbox run mame and games like Tmnt arcade and simpsons?

[norkusa]

I just gave TMNT a try on mame and it works great. Full speed and good sound. Just wish I could figure out how to add new emulators to this thing.

[Goblin]

Thanks a ton, Goblin. That site is even better since I can just grab the emu's from there instead of having to BT them. The more I use this modded Xbox, the more I'm kicking myself for not getting one sooner. I'm loving it.

Glad I could help. I got screwed early on when I connected to xbins and downloaded a bunch of files before I realized which biod file I needed. By then it was too late and they wouldn't let me connected. I searched high and low and was saved when I found this site.

I too am kicking myself for not getting one sooner. I am now carefully watching the next generation scene, and as soon as I hear one of the systems can do something even remotely close I'm jumping. I won't make the same mistake again.

[norkusa]

I too am kicking myself for not getting one sooner. I am now carefully watching the next generation scene, and as soon as I hear one of the systems can do something even remotely close I'm jumping. I won't make the same mistake again.

Oh yeah, me too. Ever since I got my modded PStwo earlier this year, I made up my mind that I'm going to get all my current gen consoles modded as soon as they are hacked. There's just too many cool things you can do with them (and I'm not talking playing copied games either). I just got a 360, but I'd rather wait till a chip comes out for that until I do anything with it.



BTW, can someone help me out with this problem I'm having installing emulators on my Xbox? FTP is working and I can send files from/to the Xbox, but I have no idea where the new emulators go.

Common sense tells me to place them in the Xbox's 'F' folder where the rest of the emulators are but they aren't showing up in the dashboard after I do this. For example, I download the Atari7800(v3) emulator. After unraring it, I placed the folder named 'Atari7800' and all its contents in the Xbox's 'F' folder but nothing is showing up in my Emulators dashboard. Checked the other folders (C, D, E, X, Y, Z) and didn't see anything in these that look related to the emulators. Am I skipping a step somewhere?

[meancode]

Well I had a longer F'ing post, but it got erased.

Yes, put them on the F drive. It is the largest.

It has to go into an "Emulators" dir at the root of the F drive.

Then it should show in your dash and XBMC.

I am slowly learning too, from other DP members as well :)

[norkusa]

Yes, put them on the F drive. It is the largest.

It has to go into an "Emulators" dir at the root of the F drive.


That's the problem...there is no 'Emulators' dir at the root of my F drive. I just have a list of folders that look like this:

Atari
BoXplorer
ConfigMagic
dvd2xbox5_9
dvdx
EEpromer
extremeGB
Games (Xbox game rips in here)
Genesis
HDDLoader
lynx
Mame-X
N64
sms
snes9x
UnleashX
XBcopy
XBFTP
XBmedia
xnes

The thing is, all these folders are in different sub-directories in the dashboard. For instance, XBFTP and XBmedia are under the 'Utilities' section in my dashboard but stuff like xnes and sms are under 'Emulators'. Yet, they are all lumped together in my 'F' drive folder like this. Makes me think that there is another folder somewhere where the Emulators/Applications/Utilities go inside of so the dashboard knows which is which. I looked everywhere though and can't find anything.

[NE146]

So you can FTP into the xbox, but can't ftp to Xbins? ;) Oh well at least you got what you needed :) The ftp is 'the' source though.. and you can bet it gets updated zero minute.

By the way, as far as where you place your emulators, figure out where your current working emulators are either by deduction or by reading the .ini file of whatever dashboard your running. In general it's usually F:\emulators or F:\emus, etc.

Then, just put the folder in there and make sure the DEFAULT.XBE is in the root of the folder. e.g. F:\EMULATORS\ZSNES9X\DEFAULT.XBE

And if your dashboard knows to point to that directory, it will see the default.xbe and list it. Piece o' cake :)

[norkusa]

Thanks again, NE1. I looked at the .ini file of my EvoX and it says this:



Section "Emulators"

Item "Arcade","f:\Mame-X\default.xbe"
Item "Atari","f:\Atari\default.xbe"
Item "GameBoy","f:\extremegb\disc\default.xbe"
Item "Lynx","f:\Lynx\default.xbe"
Item "Nintendo","f:\xnes\default.xbe"
Item "Ninteno 64","f:\N64\default.xbe"
Item "Sega Genesis","f:\Genesis\default.xbe"
Item "Sega Master System","f:\SMS\default.xbe"
Item "Super Nintendo","f:\snes9x\default.xbe"


I should be able to just drop the new emulators into the F: drive and they should show up, right? I'm doing that but they still wont show up for some reason. The 'default.xbe' are in the root of the folder too. I don't get it. :confused:

[meancode]

Thanks again, NE1. I looked at the .ini file of my EvoX and it says this:



Section "Emulators"

Item "Arcade","f:\Mame-X\default.xbe"
Item "Atari","f:\Atari\default.xbe"
Item "GameBoy","f:\extremegb\disc\default.xbe"
Item "Lynx","f:\Lynx\default.xbe"
Item "Nintendo","f:\xnes\default.xbe"
Item "Ninteno 64","f:\N64\default.xbe"
Item "Sega Genesis","f:\Genesis\default.xbe"
Item "Sega Master System","f:\SMS\default.xbe"
Item "Super Nintendo","f:\snes9x\default.xbe"


I should be able to just drop the new emulators into the F: drive and they should show up, right? I'm doing that but they still wont show up for some reason. The 'default.xbe' are in the root of the folder too. I don't get it. :confused:

Your EvoX is setup a bit differently than mine. I don't have all the different emus hard coded. It looks like you would have to hard code one for each new emu you install, such as:

Item "Atari 7800","f:\ Atari7800\default.xbe"

[norkusa]

Thanks for the tip. But how exactly do I hard code it? Do I just manually type in Atari 7800","f:\Atari7800\default.xbe" into the Emulators section in the .ini file?

EDIT: That's worked! Thanks meancode :-D


Man, this EvolutionX dashboard that I'm using must be really old. I probably should update that next but I'm almost scared to since getting this lousy 7800 emu on there was such a pain. Is installing a new dash as hard as it looks?

[meancode]

Thanks for the tip. But how exactly do I hard code it? Do I just manually type in Atari 7800","f:\Atari7800\default.xbe" into the Emulators section in the .ini file?

EDIT: That's worked! Thanks meancode :-D


Man, this EvolutionX dashboard that I'm using must be really old. I probably should update that next but I'm almost scared to since getting this lousy 7800 emu on there was such a pain. Is installing a new dash as hard as it looks?

Yay! I am glad it worked.

[NE146]

Thanks for the tip. But how exactly do I hard code it? Do I just manually type in Atari 7800","f:\Atari7800\default.xbe" into the Emulators section in the .ini file?


Also, is there any way to tell which version of EvolutionX I'm running? I have a feeling that the one that's on there right now is ancient.

Yeah you got your evox set up quite a bit differently LOL .. it sounds like you basically got every emulator folder right there on your F: drive, and then your evox.ini points to it specifically! Generally you shouldn't have to do that.

ok. Here's the skinny on you getting your stuff to work as is with your current setup. Just plop on the emulator onto your root with the default.xbe in there. e.g. F:\GENESIS\DEFAULT.XBE then, modify your evox.ini in notepad or something (make a backup of it first) and simply add in the line where everything else is! Of course follow the format.

Section "Emulators"
<every other previous emulator listing emulator listing you have up there>
Item "Sega Genesis", "f:\GENESIS\default.xbe" <-- add that.

etc

Once you modify it, upload it to your new evox.ini to your xbox and that should be it.

----------------------------------------------------------------

If however in the future you want to mess around and want to make it how it usually is... In your evox.ini look for the [menu] section and make sure it has the following lines in it:

[Menu]
Section "Emulators",
{
Line "--------------------",1
AutoAddItem "f:\emulators\"
AutoAddItem "e:\emulators\"
AutoAddItem "g:\emulators\"
SortAll
Line "--------------------",1
}

Then, you can just put your emulators into any one of those folders and evox will see it. f:\emulators\gamegear\default.xbe or e:\emulators\gba\default.xbe

Again, make sure you keep copies of your evox.ini before you edit it in case you screw it up. Evox is a pretty solid dashboard.. but it's a little outdated. You might want to try XBMC as your dash. But that's another story.

[meancode]

I have been told that using EvoX is not the best dash to use. But I go right into XBMC anyways, so I don't have a burning desire to install a better dash.

I have no idea how hard it is to install a new/different dash, but I likely will some day.

[norkusa]

Thanks a TON for that walktrhu, NE1. That's really going to help. I'll try updating the .ini later with those lines so I can just drag-and-drop them in. It'd be so much easier than what I'm doing now.


So I guess next up is a new dashboard.LOL Any suggestions on what I should install? Everyone says XBMC is the way to go so I guess I'll try that. I'm open to other options though.

And any tips on installing dashboards? Is it pretty easy or do I have to worry about destroying my Xbox if I screw it up?

[meancode]

XBMC is pretty nice, it even has a 360 Dashboard-type skin to it. Can't remember the dash I have been told to install, starts with an A.

You would be much better off putting those AutoAddItem arguments in your evox ini file. Just remember to put all your emulators in the "Emulators" folder :D

Plus, it makes for a better organized drive.

[norkusa]

You would be much better off putting those AutoAddItem arguments in your evox ini file. Just remember to put all your emulators in the "Emulators" folder :D

Plus, it makes for a better organized drive.

Yeah, I think I'll do that now. But when I enter those 'AutoAddItem' lines in there....am I overwriting the lines that are already in there, like "Arcade","f:\Mame-X\default.xbe" stuff or am I adding to to those?

And once I do put those 'AutoAddItem' lines in, do I need to create a folder in the F drive called 'Emulators' and place all the emus that I'm drag-and-dropping into that? Looks like I do but I just want to make sure before I attempt it.

@NE1...those AutoAdd lines you wrote were for F, E, & G. So I can use those other 2 drives to store my emulators in as well? I'm not just stuck with F?

[NE146]

Changing the dash is pretty easy. Since you're running evox just look where that's running from.. it's probably running from the c:\ drive. Although usually xbox executables are generally named DEFAULT.XBE often times the dash, based on the bios could be named something different. For example I'm guessing your evox executable is named EVOXDASH.XBE or something similar to that.. look in your c:\ drive and do some deduction. (the reason I say that is if your box is chipped, it's in the C:\ most likely. If it's softmodded, it might be somewhere else odd like E:\boot or something)

Anyway.. like I said, its easy. Figure out where and what the launch .XBE is, upload your new dash to there (xbmc, avaluanch, or whatever), and then rename the original .xbe to something else (like evoxdash.xbe -> evoxdash_OLD.xbe), then rename your new dash's DEFAULT.XBE to "evoxdash.xbe" or whatever the name was. And that's it!

hmmm did that make any sense?

[NE146]

Yeah, I think I'll do that now. But when I enter those 'AutoAddItem' lines in there....am I overwriting the lines that are already in there, like "Arcade","f:\Mame-X\default.xbe" stuff or am I adding to to those?

Well if you're overwriting your old emulators or making a new directory yeah of course you'd update it to the correct folder name.


And once I do put those 'AutoAddItem' lines in, do I need to create a folder in the F drive called 'Emulators' and place all the emus that I'm drag-and-dropping into that? Looks like I do but I just want to make sure before I attempt it.

yes


@NE1...those AutoAdd lines you wrote were for F, E, & G. So I can use those other 2 drives to store my emulators in as well? I'm not just stuck with F?

Absolutely. All that .ini is doing is scripting the evox dash menu where to point to for whatever executables you want to launch. In this case, emulators :)

[meancode]

Yeah, I think I'll do that now. But when I enter those 'AutoAddItem' lines in there....am I overwriting the lines that are already in there, like "Arcade","f:\Mame-X\default.xbe" stuff or am I adding to to those?

And once I do put those 'AutoAddItem' lines in, do I need to create a folder in the F drive called 'Emulators' and place all the emus that I'm drag-and-dropping into that? Looks like I do but I just want to make sure before I attempt it.

@NE1...those AutoAdd lines you wrote were for F, E, & G. So I can use those other 2 drives to store my emulators in as well? I'm not just stuck with F?

Correct, when you add the AutoAddItem lines, you do not need the hard coded lines like that one for Mame-X. DO NOT FORGET TO BACKUP THE OLD INI FILE!!!! I can't stress that enough.

Correct, you will need to create a dir on F "Emulators" and place them all in there.

The example with F, E, & G that NE1 gave is just how my evox ini came (at least for people other than you, heh). You can put stuff on those drives, but they are not very big. For example of the 200 GB drive I have, the F drive is a little over 180 GB of that.

I have been told to not put stuff on any other drive than F. But your Xbox is not going to burst into flames if you use the E drive. By default (and again, it seems your modded Xbox is NOT setup "by default") the emus save things such as save states and screen shots to the E drive. Check the specific emu ini file and you will see where those items get stored.

[norkusa]

Thanks again for all the help, guys. I'd be going crazy trying to figure this out if it weren't for you. :) I included those 'AutoAdd' lines to .ini an it worked great. Now I can finally just drop the emus in there and they'll show up in the dashboard! The only thing is that the name of the emulator doesn't match the name of the folder...like 'Atari7800' shows up as 7800x in the dash. Not really a big deal though and I can live with it.


NE1...is that really all there is to putting a new dash in? I don't have my Xbox hooked up to FTP right now, but I remember seeing a whole mess of files and folder in some of those drives. I figured they were all related to the dash that's on there now. You're saying that it's just a single .xbe file that needs to be replaced though? Will I screw anything up permanently if I install incorrectly?

Another thing I'm worried about with the dash install is putting one in that's not compatible with my set-up. I was browsing around some of the downloads and I saw dozens of different dashboards, many with several versions. Do I need to worry about that or should any one do fine? I'd like to get the latest version of XBMC if possible. And I do have a chipped Xbox if that makes a difference (Xecuter2 + 80gb hd)

[NE146]

NE1...is that really all there is to putting a new dash in? I don't have my Xbox hooked up to FTP right now, but I remember seeing a whole mess of files and folder in some of those drives. I figured they were all related to the dash that's on there now. You're saying that it's just a single .xbe file that needs to be replaced though? Will I screw anything up permanently if I install incorrectly?

Yeah it is that easy. You gotta realize the 'dashboard' is just an xbox executable that launches. If you have multiple .XBE's (just think of a windows .EXE file) in there that are dashboards, you can launch any of them using an xbox file manager and that dashboard will come right up.

So yeah, dont 'replace' anything as far as the other files and directories go. Simply slap on the new dashboard files (which will have a default.xbe file in there) onto the c:, and rename the old evoxdash.xbe (I'm assuming that's your current dash's name) to evoxdash_OLD.xbe. Then rename the new dash's default.xbe that you just put on there to evoxdash.xbe (if that is indeed the name.. MAKE SURE) and thus it takes over as the launch dashboard.

It's super simple.. but I think I overworded it. Does it make any sense? Just make sure you know what your launch .xbe is named.. since I dont really know for sure.

================================================


Another thing I'm worried about with the dash install is putting one in that's not compatible with my set-up. I was browsing around some of the downloads and I saw dozens of different dashboards, many with several versions. Do I need to worry about that or should any one do fine? I'd like to get the latest version of XBMC if possible. And I do have a chipped Xbox if that makes a difference (Xecuter2 + 80gb hd)

So just test drive them!

By the way, just to show you how easy it is conceptually.. download a dashboard or two (even XBMC) and try just treat them like the emus, putting it them in their own directories in your F:\Emulator folder. Bam. You'll see it listed and you can even launch it just like your emulators to give them a test drive LOL That's all a dash is.. just another xbox executable except you set it so it's started at launch.

[norkusa]

Alright, I think I understand that clearly. I'm getting ready to instal XBMC 2.0.1 (slim) as my dash...just want to make sure I got it right before I continue:

The XBMC that I downloaded comes as a folder called XBMC. Inside this folder is the 'default.xbe' and 11 other folders like 'Language', 'Media', 'Sound', 'Skins', etc...I take all these files out of the XBMC folder and place them inside of C: after I rename the .xbe's?

Looking in my C: right now, I see the evoxdash.xbe as well as a bunch of other files and folders:

Audio (folder)
backup (folder)
bios (folder)
evox.ini
evoxdash.xbe
fonts (folder)
HDDLoader (folder)
items.txt
settings_adoc.xip
Skin (folder)
Xbox Book.xtf
xboxdash.xbe
xboxdashdata.185ead00 (folder)
xodash (folder)

So I take the evoxdash.xbe thats in C: right now and re-name it to evoxdash_OLD.xbe? After that, take the default.xbe inside of the XBMC folder I downloaded and re-name that to evoxdash.xbe? Then I take that and the 11 folders *out* of the root XBMC folder and place them all into C: ?

If that's right, do I have to delete any of the folders that are currently in my C:, like Audio, Skin, or xodash? Will any of those conflict with the new XBMC after installing?

[NE146]

Don't delete anything.. you never know when you might want to run Evox again..

Just do this.

1. Take the XBMC folder, and simply transfer the entire contents as is to the C:\ drive (not the folder itself. I mean the contents... so the default.xbe and those 11 folders you mention reside on the C:\ drive)

2. Once everything is on the Xbox. Rename your "evoxdash.xbe" to "evoxdash_old.xbe" or something. This will make it not run since your xbox bios is going to look for the 'evoxdash.xbe' to run at startup.

3. Rename the c:\default.xbe to "evoxdash.xbe". Even though XBMC is not really an "Evox Dashboard", this will make your xbox bios run XBMC at startup since it's looking for the evoxdash.xbe file.

Simple eh? :) Did you try running your xbmc already by the way? Like I said you can just put it in your emulator folder and try running it for a test drive. XBMC has it's own config.ini file I believe and you might have to make it point to your f:\emulators folder as well. Just saying..

[norkusa]

Woah, it worked! Looks soooo much better than that old EvoX dash I had on there. And I love how it's connected to weather stats and Apple trailers too. The drag-and-drop for the emulators work great as well. Thanks NE1, I guess it really was as easy as you said :D .Just a few questions though:

Looking at my Xbox via FTP after the new dash install, I see only 4 drives on there now (C, D, E, & F) instead of the 6 or 7 that I had on there earlier, is that bad?

Also, when I go to the 'My Programs' blade in the dash, I see 3 drive icons for Games, Emulators, and Programs. Games + Emulators have everything in them that should be there but there is nothing in the Programs area. Do I have to hard code that section in the .ini file like I did earlier with the AutoAdd lines and create a Programs folder in F to drop them into?

One more thing, there are 'My Audio/Pictures/Video' blades in the dashboard but I don't have any clue how to get stuff into there? More hard coding?

[NE146]

Woah, it worked! Looks soooo much better than that old EvoX dash I had on there. And I love how it's connected to weather stats and Apple trailers too. The drag-and-drop for the emulators work great as well.
Don't forget the ability to stream videos from a pc. Just download a vid, share out the folder (right mouse click->sharing and security->"share this folder on the network") then in XBMC just go to videos->workgroup(smb) network, and you should see the folder you shared and thus can watch any vid right off your pc.



Looking at my Xbox via FTP after the new dash install, I see only 4 drives on there now (C, D, E, & F) instead of the 6 or 7 that I had on there earlier, is that bad?

Don't worry about that. All you need is the C, E, and F drives really.


Also, when I go to the 'My Programs' blade in the dash, I see 3 drive icons for Games, Emulators, and Programs. Games + Emulators have everything in them that should be there but there is nothing in the Programs area. Do I have to hard code that section in the .ini file like I did earlier with the AutoAdd lines and create a Programs folder in F to drop them into?
Look in the .ini file and see where XMBC is looking for the 'programs' folder. Then, just put whatever you want as your 'programs' (file managers, dvd2xbox, dvd player, whatever) into that folder. It's probably f:\applications or f:\apps or something like that.


One more thing, there are 'My Audio/Pictures/Video' blades in the dashboard but I don't have any clue how to get stuff into there? More hard coding?

See above for streaming stuff. Same applies to the rest.. just share out a folder on your pc, then in the audio/pic/video just go to the 'workgroup' listing to see shared folders on your network. Share out a picture folder. A video Folder, or your MP3 folders. Whatever the heck you want.

Alternatively, you can just FTP whatever you want onto your xbox hard drive of course if you don't want to stream over the network. That shouldn't be too hard to figure out. "put audio/video/mp3 files on xbox" :P probably in f:\pictures or f:\video or f:\music or f:\mp3s.. whatever your .ini file is pointing to. You can make it whatever you want.

[norkusa]

Thanks again, NE1. All those tips you gave actually worked and now I can finally view videos, pics, and music on the Xbox. :D

I was surprised how easy it was. I thought I would have to create more of those 'AutoAdd' sections on the .ini but all I had to do was create a Videos, Music, and Pics folder in the F: and drag-and-drop the flies into them.

I don't know about streaming though. The thing is that I'm on a Mac, so I think the process is different for me. I got streaming from the Mac to my 360 working easily, but I don't know how it'll be on a regular Xbox. FTP'ing them is working fine for me now though so I don't think I'll ever mess around with it anyway.

About the videos though...is there some kind of codec pack you can get for XBMC? I threw a .AVI, .MPG, and .MOV on there to test it out. Only the .MOV didn't work though. Is there any way to play those or does XBMC not like them?

(BTW, I did that 'AutoAdd' lines on the .ini for the Apps section. That worked so I could finally view files in the 'Programs' partition that I couldn't see earlier. But it wouldn't let me change the name of the folder I put the files into for some reason, even after changing the path names from "Apps" to "Programs" in the .ini)