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MS Engineer Speaks on Xbox 360 Backward Compatibility

K

Kleegamefan

K. LEE GAIDEN
http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/8357/MS-Engineer-Speaks-on-Xbox-360-Backward-Compatibility/

Now that it's been announced at E3, I can finally reveal that the Xbox 360 feature I work on is... Xbox backwards compatibility!

With those words, Michael Brundage, a software engineer at Microsoft, kicked off this week’s update on his blog, finally revealing his latest assignment at the Xbox division. He first discusses the project and explains why it is so special:

Xbox backwards compatibility is a unique project in so many ways, and I feel very fortunate to get to work on it. I'm sure it will be the hardest technical challenge of my career -- I can't imagine what could possibly top it in terms of sheer technical difficulty.

Then Brundage explains why the project represents such a challenge from a technical perspective:

For example, some people observe the CPU and GPU architectures are utterly different between the Xbox 360 and the Xbox, and then speculate about the difficulties those differences pose for emulation. Without really understanding anything that's involved, they're already convinced that backwards compatibility is a difficult task.

Lastly, Brundage paints a more detailed picture of what it will take to make backward compatibility a reality:

Finallly, there are a very few people who understand both Xbox systems inside and out to an expert level of detail that I'm not about to go into here. They perform more sophisticated calculations using the Art of Software Engineering, but ultimately reach the same conclusions as those not skilled in the Art: Backwards compatibility is impossible. One such skeptic interviewed me for my current job, and pointedly asked during the interview how I planned to handle the project's certain future cancellation. And yet, here it is. It's magic!

This is part of what makes working at Microsoft so much fun -- the opportunity to work on magical projects and do the impossible. It's a lot of hard work, of course, but the challenge makes it fun.

We'll have more on Xbox backward compatibility as it becomes available.
Click to expand...
 
Yeah unique project bla bla I'm so happy to work for MS bla bla.....
What are the games that are going to work?We just need to know this.
 
Thanks,

This post tells us absolutly nothing new! :lol
 
It's fairly easy to call a project successful and then show no viable proof of it.
 
What an incredibly thrilling f'n read.... I was on the edge of my damn seat the whole time....
 
An engineer puts up a little page on his personal site to explain what he is currently working on, THAT IS ALL.

He didn't do it to explain all of the questions we have here on GAF and I'm not sure he wanted it to become some major story on team xbox or wherever.

Yes, he doesn't have any details but it's not an MS press release or something.


This site was already discussed previously...
http://www.ga-forum.com/showthread.php?t=48266
 
Finallly, there are a very few people who understand both Xbox systems inside and out to an expert level of detail that I'm not about to go into here. They perform more sophisticated calculations using the Art of Software Engineering, but ultimately reach the same conclusions as those not skilled in the Art: Backwards compatibility is impossible. One such skeptic interviewed me for my current job, and pointedly asked during the interview how I planned to handle the project's certain future cancellation. And yet, here it is. It's magic!
Click to expand...

That's funny... most of us KNOW backwards compatibility is possible... we are simply curious to see HOW backwards compatilible you're able to pull off Mr. Tech-Head.

I do appreciate him taking the time to talk down to us at a level we can understand.

Software emulation is a always a challenge, I hope he has a high rate of success.
 
Also, if you look at his resume....

Recent Experience
Software Design Engineer, Xbox Base Software Team – May, 2004 to present
Microsoft Corporation – Redmond, WA

Implemented core features of the Xbox 2
Click to expand...

you can either assume he started on it back in May of last year or at some point later.
 
That guy is very articulate and (almost too) skilled at writing fluff for a techie software engineer, no offense but I smell a PR blog.
 
Actually go over to his site and read about Working at Microsoft very interesting stuff for people not truly familiar with the way Microsoft works.

Just read his resume...So cool that prior to working on XBOX2 he was working on .NET Framework and SQL Data. For a .NET geek like myself it is very interesting to see the diversity in the type of work he has had a chance to participate in.
 
One such skeptic interviewed me for my current job, and pointedly asked during the interview how I planned to handle the project's certain future cancellation. And yet, here it is. It's magic!
Click to expand...

Well, at least Mr. Magic over here thinks it can be done with any amount of real scope. Is he the only one?
 
nightez said:
Yeah getting 100% Xbox BC is more difficult than landing someone on the moon.
Click to expand...
actually you are probably right considering most roles of this sort at NASA would be more minimalized in comparison. IE: you have a ton more people finding solutions at NASA.
 
I actually wouldn't be surprised if the budget to send something into space is similar to the money Microsoft spent on Xbox so far.
 
I'm sure it will be the hardest technical challenge of my career -- I can't imagine what could possibly top it in terms of sheer technical difficulty.
Click to expand...
For example, some people observe the CPU and GPU architectures are utterly different between the Xbox 360 and the Xbox, and then speculate about the difficulties those differences pose for emulation. Without really understanding anything that's involved, they're already convinced that backwards compatibility is a difficult task.
Click to expand...
It's a lot of hard work, of course, but the challenge makes it fun.
Click to expand...


So.... it's going to be the most difficult job in his career.

But most people write off BC as impossible because of the architecture difference, implying that they don't know the specific details about the hardware, so they essentially "getting it all wrong" because of their lack of understanding.

Then he says it'll be difficult.

That clears a lot of it up.
 
here's the entire blog entry

http://www.qbrundage.com/michaelb/pubs/essays/xbox360.html

Now that it's been announced at E3, I can finally reveal that the Xbox 360 feature I work on is... Xbox backwards compatibility!


Yes, it's real. It's been fun to watch all the wild speculation over the past year or so as to whether the Xbox 360 would or wouldn't be backwards compatible. And reading all the crazy ideas people have about how hard or easy it would be.

Xbox backwards compatibility is a unique project in so many ways, and I feel very fortunate to get to work on it. I'm sure it will be the hardest technical challenge of my career -- I can't imagine what could possibly top it in terms of sheer technical difficulty. It's not just the difficulty of emulating completely different processors and devices. It's also all the arcane knowledge I've needed to acquire about kernel-level development, advanced graphics processing, operating systems and computer architectures. It's changed the way I think about software.

To me, the most appealing aspect of backwards compatibility is its "magical" quality. Normally, once you understand how something magical works, it's much less amazing. With Xbox backwards compatibility, the opposite is true -- the more you understand what it needs to do, the more certain you are that it's impossible, and consequently the more amazed you are to see it in action.

For example, some people observe the CPU and GPU architectures are utterly different between the Xbox 360 and the Xbox, and then speculate about the difficulties those differences pose for emulation. Without really understanding anything that's involved, they're already convinced that backwards compatibility is a difficult task.

Others apply more knowledge and compare the situation to something familiar, such as existing x86 emulators for PPC. For example, Virtual PC for Mac is great for many tasks, but gaming isn't one of them. On my 1.25 GHz Powerbook, VPC 7 emulates a 295 MHz PC. Even solitaire feels slow, let alone anything graphically challenging. And the Xbox isn't just any x86 machine, it's a computing powerhouse. Emulating it seems beyond today's technology.

Other people compare the Xbox 360 against the Xbox
Click to expand...


When I look at these numbers, I think: Wow! The Xbox is already a very powerful machine, and the Xbox 360 blows it away. The Xbox 360 will be fantastic for high-definition gaming!


But emulation is a difficult challenge any time the emulator isn't several orders of magnitude faster than what it's emulating. So a few people who understand how emulators work look at these numbers, impressive as they are, and conclude that Xbox backwards compatibility will not work. (And then when they see backwards compatibility working, they realize the Xbox 360 is even more impressive than they thought!)

Finallly, there are a very few people who understand both Xbox systems inside and out to an expert level of detail that I'm not about to go into here. They perform more sophisticated calculations using the Art of Software Engineering, but ultimately reach the same conclusions as those not skilled in the Art: Backwards compatibility is impossible. One such skeptic interviewed me for my current job, and pointedly asked during the interview how I planned to handle the project's certain future cancellation.

And yet, here it is. It's magic!

This is part of what makes working at Microsoft so much fun -- the opportunity to work on magical projects and do the impossible. It's a lot of hard work, of course, but the challenge makes it fun.
Click to expand...
 
I just hope they can emulate all the features in the games.... It's going to suck if they have to drop the framerate or not include bump mapping or something just to make the game work right...

Better hold on to your XB1... I don't think I've ever seen a company try to emulate really powerful hardware like the XB1 on hardware that's only one generation removed.

Think about it this way, the PS2 had a few troubles with BC and it had most of the actual hardware built it.
 
Judging from the wonderful positivity in his entry, I certainly hope this isn't his first emu project, or he's screwed.
 
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