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OG Xbox Appreciation and Lack of Emulation Thread of the big black box of doom

Mzo

Member
The 360 is not backwards compatible with old Xbox games in general. MS released patches that made games playable in waves but they hardly include every Xbox game out there. I'm sure a list would be pretty easy to find.
 

Borman

Member
Hoping to have at least two more builds of unreleased Xbox games shortly. Two games I've covered in the past, but these should be more complete builds :)

Missed this:
It's cool to see footage of this game, I was wondering what it looked like. Based on that video, it reminds me a bit of a not-as-good version of Motocross Madness with much less air on the jumps. The destructible fences are cool, though.

Also, considering that they are supposedly unrelated, it's kind of odd that both Fuel games are bike or ATV racing games...

The developers of this Fuel weren't happy at first, but I imagine money smoothed that over. But really, Fuel isn't the most unique name, so it's not that surprising.
 

Yarbskoo

Member
Well, I just bought another copy of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2x from the local game shop for $5, and it works just fine in my 360. Looks like the Amazon seller sold me a faulty disc.
 

Lambtron

Unconfirmed Member
I've been on an Xbox kick lately for some reason... I went nuts on eBay yesterday ordering a bunch of games I remember fondly (KOTOR I & II, Burnout 3, NBA Jam Vol. 2, etc.) and then went to the game store to buy a Duke. When my component cables get here I'm going to hook it up and play some JSRF with the Duke to remind me of the day I originally bought an OG Xbox.
 

Shaneus

Member
2x is the only 60fps version of THPS2 right? I can't remember if the DC port by Treyarch was.
PC definitely was and I recall the DC version being smooth as hell... I think it might've been 60fps?

The DC port was definitely 30fps.
Huh. Must've been some great motion blur then. I just remember it was smooth as hell (don't remember the framerate all that clearly). Remember it looking a shitload better than the Xbox version though, that just looked murky and lower-res to me.
 

Danny Dudekisser

I paid good money for this Dynex!
Okay, I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this but I'll try anyway.

4 days ago I bought a new 500 GB Xbox 360 E console, and ordered a "like new" copy of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2x from an Amazon seller. When the game arrived, I put it in the console only to get a "This disc is unreadable." error. The Fable Anniversary disc that came with the console works fine.

The seller's response was "The older xbox games don't work on the 360."

Is he right? Is this a problem with the hardware and not the disc itself? Backwards compatibility was a huge reason why I bought the thing in the first place, since I never owned an original Xbox. Are 360s no longer backwards compatible and people just didn't notice?

Man, the 360's BC is sooooo bad.

I'd argue it's worse than just having no BC, because at least in that case, people would play the games on the real system, where they run how they're supposed to.
 
I don't have the game and can't try it on my launch 360; but my guess would be they dropped the software BC completely and silently somewhere down the line before releasing the slim models or something?
 
I've been playing Panzer Dragoon on 360 lately after hearing it held up. So far, so good in the first 3 chapters and it looks amazing upscaled of course. Also heard Genma Onimusha ran well too, might try it out tonight. and NG Black is perfect, so I'm gonna vote for being happy with just having cock-tease BC. The rest would be nice, but it seemed like they threw this solution together in the first place and obviously weren't super dedicated to it even when the system first came out. It was most evident in the last update, which says MVC2 is "playable" and it's an utter mess lol
 
Considering the 360 has been completely hacked to shit and beyond, why has nobody just gone through the BC software on the 360 and reverse engineered it for the PC, I wonder..
 
Considering the 360 has been completely hacked to shit and beyond, why has nobody just gone through the BC software on the 360 and reverse engineered it for the PC, I wonder..


I'm guessing that's not a simple process and the reality is that people probably don't care to support an emulator that would only really be for a handful of good exclusives that have to be played on an original xbox.
 

Borman

Member
Considering the 360 has been completely hacked to shit and beyond, why has nobody just gone through the BC software on the 360 and reverse engineered it for the PC, I wonder..

That's like saying why cant someone just port a 360 game to the PC after it was only released on the 360. It just doesn't work that way, not in the slightest. That said, there are hacked compatibility files that allow more games to at least load on the 360, but it is more miss than hit.
 

BGMNTS

Member
My weirdest backwards compatibility adventure was definitel Silent Hill 2.

I'd put it in, it would load up like it was ready to play, go to a black screen and that was it for a few minutes. THEN the main menu cutscene would kick in, just the audio. Black screen still there. No button I pressed did anything, it was awesome. It would just play on loop.
 

flohen95

Member
I've been meaning to ask this for a while, so here goes:

About a year back (a bit more even, I think), I impulse bought an Xbox on eBay. I wasn't really interested at the time and didn't even know what games I wanted to play on it, but the auction was ending and it was cheap - 20€ for the console with all the cables needed, a controller and 6 (mostly unremarkable) games.
The seller had specified in the describtion that the Xbox is very loud, though he wasn't sure if this was normal or not.
Now, I've used the thing more or less regularily since then (and I really like it - so far I've bought the DOA games, JSRF, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Conker and Shenmue II), and it does everything just fine, but it is indeed extremely loud (and I don't really think this is normal, because there's no way anyone would have accepted such a noise level). It doesn't matter if it idles in the menu, if it plays a game or music, the noise is always the same in both sound and volume.
So I wanted to ask if you guys can take an educated guess at what might cause this and if it might be worth looking into to repair. I don't expect this to really help me, because I can't really give a lot of information on this, but I wanted to at least ask before I open the thing up - if I don't decide to just deal with it or buy another Xbox.

tl;dr: My Xbox is very loud regardless of what it does and I wanted to ask if you guys have any idea what might cause it. If this is too general to be worth an answer (and I imagine it might be), I apologize. It's not that important anyway since I've dealt with it for the last year and the Xbox was cheap to begin with.
 

Borman

Member
Where is the noise coming from? The DVD drive? Or the back? And has the unit been opened or modded in any way?

There are mods for upping the fan speed which causes it to be really, really loud.
 

flohen95

Member
I don't think it's the disc drive (unless that works all the time regardless of there being a disc inserted or not) and I also don't think that it's been opened before - the stickers on the bottom are all intact (and I assume at least one of the screws is hidden under one of them).
 
i wonder if SH2 and MVC2 are the most broken BC games. Or if there's something even worse! Maybe there's something so bad that it's worth seeing.
 

Timu

Member
i wonder if SH2 and MVC2 are the most broken BC games. Or if there's something even worse! Maybe there's something so bad that it's worth seeing.
Conker Live and reloaded has lots of problems from sound cut outs to stuttering to graphical errors, but this stands out the most:

Console may freeze and/or reset by itself.

Yeah it happens to me when I play it on there at times, so annoying.
 

Borman

Member
I don't think it's the disc drive (unless that works all the time regardless of there being a disc inserted or not) and I also don't think that it's been opened before - the stickers on the bottom are all intact (and I assume at least one of the screws is hidden under one of them).

Still could be a fan thing.
 
Conker Live and reloaded has lots of problems from sound cut outs to stuttering to graphical errors, but this stands out the most:

Console may freeze and/or reset by itself.

Yeah it happens to me when I play it on there at times, so annoying.


oh man, I'm looking for like "haha funny" glitched out, but that's pretty serious!
 

FyreWulff

Member
Considering the 360 has been completely hacked to shit and beyond, why has nobody just gone through the BC software on the 360 and reverse engineered it for the PC, I wonder..

If somebody had the technical skill or ability to do this they would not be giving it away for free.
 

flohen95

Member
Still could be a fan thing.

I see. I had some laptops were the fans malfunctioned and that noise always ended up being irregular, so I wasn't too sure. I guess it's the most likely thing though.

Anyway, thanks for the help. If I decide to further look into the issue, I'll report back.
 

Jamix012

Member
Are there even any notable Xbox games that run flawlessly on the 360? I prefer the 360 controller so if there are, I'd most likely prefer to play them on that if possible.
 

Raldoh

Member
Are there even any notable Xbox games that run flawlessly on the 360? I prefer the 360 controller so if there are, I'd most likely prefer to play them on that if possible.

Might be wrong but didn't Halo 2 receive special treatment? I remember it looking really sharp, but that might be the case for all BC games due to upscaling?
 
Just finished both MechAssault games this week. I played MechWarrior 2, 3 & Mercenaries on the PC back in the day so when the MA games were released, I was some what disappointed in the arcade type feel to them. However, I actually really enjoyed both of these games and can see revisiting them again down the road. The story is campy but the music, graphics and gameplay were all pretty good. I probably would have really enjoyed the online mode.
 
Back when I had a 360 a few months back (since traded it towards a PS4), I tried to get behind the emulation, but it really is just sort of meh and there.

Would honestly love to just snatch up an OG Xbox at some point.
 

Shaneus

Member
Are there even any notable Xbox games that run flawlessly on the 360? I prefer the 360 controller so if there are, I'd most likely prefer to play them on that if possible.
Quantum Redshift. Runs flawlessly and looks great... I'd say close to a solid XBLA title.

Also, if one has a JTAG/modded 360 and the "unlocked" backwards compatibility, Rallisport Challenge 2 looks and plays great on the 360 as well. Better than most officially released BC titles :(
 

nicoga3000

Saint Nic
So I'm getting my OG Xbox from my family next time I see them. Is it considered kosher to discuss soft or hard modding in this thread?
 

Shaneus

Member
I've seen people mention soft-modding via the Splinter Cell exploit in this thread. I'm not sure the details were fleshed out here, but it's definitely been glossed over at least.
 
Quantum Redshift. Runs flawlessly and looks great... I'd say close to a solid XBLA title.

Also, if one has a JTAG/modded 360 and the "unlocked" backwards compatibility, Rallisport Challenge 2 looks and plays great on the 360 as well. Better than most officially released BC titles :(

Can confirm, although most tracks have glitchy shadows on the player's car that kinda ruin it.
 

koopas

Member
Are there even any notable Xbox games that run flawlessly on the 360? I prefer the 360 controller so if there are, I'd most likely prefer to play them on that if possible.
Ninja Gaiden Black & Halo 2 as mentioned both run very well almost perfect. There's an (exclusive) bust a move game for Xbox that runs amazing if that's your thing.
 

Glowsquid

Member
I got a replacement xbox (my original one was bricked, likely due to the capacitor) two weeks ago and I've been replaying through my collection. I've also grabbed the following games:

Airforce Delta Storm
Battlestar Galactica
Seablade (got that one for free... I get why)
Gungriffon: Allied Strike

Gungriffon is an interesting game... It's very ugly and poorly programmed, but there's a good game under the dirt.
 

REDSLATE

Member
I've been on an Xbox kick lately for some reason... I went nuts on eBay yesterday ordering a bunch of games I remember fondly (KOTOR I & II, Burnout 3, NBA Jam Vol. 2, etc.) and then went to the game store to buy a Duke. When my component cables get here I'm going to hook it up and play some JSRF with the Duke to remind me of the day I originally bought an OG Xbox.

Nice. Grab Breakdown while you're at it. It's difficult, but easily one of the best games you'll ever play.

Just finished both MechAssault games this week. I played MechWarrior 2, 3 & Mercenaries on the PC back in the day so when the MA games were released, I was some what disappointed in the arcade type feel to them. However, I actually really enjoyed both of these games and can see revisiting them again down the road. The story is campy but the music, graphics and gameplay were all pretty good. I probably would have really enjoyed the online mode.
Unfortunately, a lot of BattleTech fans look down on the MechAssault series simply because they're "not MW," which isn't really fair as they never tried to be. Ironically, MechCommander never really got this treatment.

And, yeah, LIVE was pretty fun. Luckily, LAN is still a viable option.

Back when I had a 360 a few months back (since traded it towards a PS4), I tried to get behind the emulation, but it really is just sort of meh and there.

Would honestly love to just snatch up an OG Xbox at some point.

Go for it, man. It's well worth it.
 

Khaz

Member
How do I play Enter the Matrix (NTSC) on my PAL console? It's softmodded and switched to NTSC with Enigmah but the console refuses to load the game because it's region-locked.
 
How do I play Enter the Matrix (NTSC) on my PAL console? It's softmodded and switched to NTSC with Enigmah but the console refuses to load the game because it's region-locked.

I don't know the answer to that question but Enter the Matrix is pretty terrible. Path of Neo is far superior with better gameplay.
 

REDSLATE

Member
How do I play Enter the Matrix (NTSC) on my PAL console? It's softmodded and switched to NTSC with Enigmah but the console refuses to load the game because it's region-locked.

Your console shouldn't be region locked if you soft-modded it.

I'm not familiar with the Matrix games, but there are a handful of games that require a modified .xbe in order to play them from the HDD. Everything or Nothing is one of them.
 

Tain

Member
So, I followed this thread on playing PS2 games off of an SD card to huge success:

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=54015

Does anybody have any experience or ideas for doing something like this with an Xbox? I found some dusty old 2009 thread googling around where someone says they got an Xbox to boot off of an SD card, but isn't the Xbox hard drive password locking stuff a hardware feature of older IDE hard drives? Is that something that could be done on some kind of SD card adapter?

And that's not even touching the speed concerns.
 

Shaneus

Member
So, I followed this thread on playing PS2 games off of an SD card to huge success:

http://shmups.system11.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=54015

Does anybody have any experience or ideas for doing something like this with an Xbox? I found some dusty old 2009 thread googling around where someone says they got an Xbox to boot off of an SD card, but isn't the Xbox hard drive password locking stuff a hardware feature of older IDE hard drives? Is that something that could be done on some kind of SD card adapter?

And that's not even touching the speed concerns.
You probably could do that, but given that's talking about still running them off what the PS2 thinks is an external HDD and there's no such way to configure the Xbox in that fashion, it would be kind of pointless to do. Be far easier to just track down a cheap, biggish IDE HDD and use FTP to copy to it. And it would also need to be modded in some fashion.

You'd need to partition each card into the correct number of drives (I can't recall how many it uses, but I think there are at least three or four), mirror (somehow) the original Xbox OS onto it and then install a third-party dashboard. I also don't believe you can get any software for PC that will read Xbox-format drives when they're directly connected (I could be wrong), so you'd have to FTP the games across. And if you could

I know you could do some funky things with USB storage (including card readers) but they have a 4GB limitation according to this.

tl;dr You probably could use an SD card in an Xbox, but it wouldn't be as worthwhile as you think. Get a big IDE HDD (or maybe a SATA-IDE converter and a newer HDD) instead.
 

Hubbl3

Unconfirmed Member
So I bought a set of Monster Gamelink 400X component cables for my Xbox and I received them last night. I didn't get around to testing them until today and was pissed after I found out the eBay seller sold me a bad product after their described it in "Good, working condition".

I figured the wire had a break in it somewhere or the RCA plugs were bad. Luckily, you're able to get to the plug/wire connection really easily with these and after I did so, my suspicions were confirmed. I was able to resolder the connection luckily, but I'm still pissed.

NUqMPHF.jpg

aHU6Ykz.jpg

My rage has kind of subsided after playing some OG Xbox games through component cables. Holy SHIT do games look good now! I think Conker Live & Reloaded is the best looking game so far:

 
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