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

televator

Member
Mine's a 1.6. I haven't replaced the thermal compound but I've been considering it. Is the default easy to remove? A lot of heatsinks in those days were attached with epoxy.

Yeah, it was epoxy. Took a good effort to get 99% of it off. It's not as bad as the modern stuff though.
 

kingwingin

Member
So with Seamus Blackley working on that duke++ controller for xbox one, i was thinking it would be cool if they could also release a huge batch of thumbsticks that people could use to repace the worn out sticks on their original controllers.

Id like to be able to own a few with nice sticks without having to buying expensive sealed units and opening them up.
 
So with Seamus Blackley working on that duke++ controller for xbox one, i was thinking it would be cool if they could also release a huge batch of thumbsticks that people could use to repace the worn out sticks on their original controllers.

Id like to be able to own a few with nice sticks without having to buying expensive sealed units and opening them up.

I bought a bunch of new sticks on ebay from China for cheap and they worked well. They are almost identical to the ones in the S controller, size and everything, and even work in 360 and PS2/PS3 controllers if you want to go there. They're not a perfect match for the ones in the Duke but they'd fit and work at least.

Doesn't fix the analog unit mechanism if that's worn out but all of mine were at least decent.
 

Cday

Banned
If there's anything that needs replacing on Xbox controllers, it's the cords. Fuck those cords. One day I'm just going to have to go through and fix all my broken controllers. The real bastard is salvaging the stress relief part.
 

Conezays

Member
Been enjoying playing Ninja Gaiden: Black lately on the Xbox. The game really holds up graphically playing in 480p :). One question: is a loose power cord normal when plugging into the back of the system? I believe mine came with a third party cord so I decided to order an OEM one off Ebay (at worst, I assume it can't hurt). Any help is much appreciated!
 

dubc35

Member
I bought a bunch of new sticks on ebay from China for cheap and they worked well. They are almost identical to the ones in the S controller, size and everything, and even work in 360 and PS2/PS3 controllers if you want to go there. They're not a perfect match for the ones in the Duke but they'd fit and work at least.

Doesn't fix the analog unit mechanism if that's worn out but all of mine were at least decent.
I need to look into some new sticks. My controller is ok, but the sticks have seen better days.


Been enjoying playing Ninja Gaiden: Black lately on the Xbox. The game really holds up graphically playing in 480p :). One question: is a loose power cord normal when plugging into the back of the system? I believe mine came with a third party cord so I decided to order an OEM one off Ebay (at worst, I assume it can't hurt). Any help is much appreciated!
Yep, NG:B holds up really well. I agree, it looks great in 480p! I need more free time to play it (and all games for that matter). Sorry, I'm not sure about the cord. Is it causing issues?
 

Conezays

Member
I need to look into some new sticks. My controller is ok, but the sticks have seen better days.



Yep, NG:B holds up really well. I agree, it looks great in 480p! I need more free time to play it (and all games for that matter). Sorry, I'm not sure about the cord. Is it causing issues?

Haven't had any issues myself yet but read a couple old forum posts across sites mentioning faulty PSU's or power cords causing some issues? Barring that, sometimes the system displays as black and white when turning on; seems to be an issue changing from HDMI input to component. Not sure if that's specific to my system, TV, or something else. Regardless, I figured ordering the OEM cord couldn't hurt.

Finished Chapter 9 just now. I recently beat Nioh so playing this is sort of interesting in comparison. I knew of NG: Black and played the NES originals but never had an original Xbox in the early 2000's.
 

Crynox

Neo Member
I bought a bunch of new sticks on ebay from China for cheap and they worked well. They are almost identical to the ones in the S controller, size and everything, and even work in 360 and PS2/PS3 controllers if you want to go there. They're not a perfect match for the ones in the Duke but they'd fit and work at least.

Doesn't fix the analog unit mechanism if that's worn out but all of mine were at least decent.

It's a real problem. I recently got a Duke controller and to my surprise quite like it. Does anyone know of where you can buy replacement analogue joysticks that you can solder to the boards ?

On a controller S I did try to swap the RH and LH sticks by desoldering from the board but it didn't seem to work, when plugged in the new LH stick was permanently moving up and the analogue triggers although working, ie acerlarating and braking in the game, the car does not move! Which is really strange considering I didn't touch them!

I wish they made enough spare controller's when they canned the Xbox like Sega seemed to with the DC.
 

horkrux

Member
After that DF video on Halo 1 I suddenly decided to get an Xbox. Never wanted one lol
It came in the mail yesterday, together with the stuff I needed for a softmod - sweet! Also did a TSOP flash, because why not lol
Wiggled out that nasty capacitor while I was at it too. Shit was already leaking a little bit.
The box has kind of grown on me already <3

Getting games will be a bitch tho, just like for PS2. German + PAL = double fucked. Gotta sort through the games that came with it, maybe I can keep some of them. I only have Halo 1 as NTSC atm.
Annoyingly the component cable I ordered is being shipped from China. That will take a while to arrive I guess...
 

luka

Loves Robotech S1
hey all, i have a bit of a weird problem. i recently picked up an xbox and found a brand new japanese controller for it. i didn't really consider this would be an issue, but when i opened it i realized the material in the cord was starting to break down and is really sticky.

does anyone have an idea what would be a good way to clean it up a bit and make it less unpleasant to the touch? goo-gone maybe? i considered just swapping it with the cable from another pad but the wires seem glued in to the connector on the board and id like to avoid soldering if possible


also finally being able to play stuff like gunvalkyrie, otogi and spikeout after all these years is awesome. :)

edit: i guess once plastic starts to degrade its just going to keep getting worse, i might as well just replace it.
 

televator

Member
After that DF video on Halo 1 I suddenly decided to get an Xbox. Never wanted one lol
It came in the mail yesterday, together with the stuff I needed for a softmod - sweet! Also did a TSOP flash, because why not lol
Wiggled out that nasty capacitor while I was at it too. Shit was already leaking a little bit.
The box has kind of grown on me already <3

Getting games will be a bitch tho, just like for PS2. German + PAL = double fucked. Gotta sort through the games that came with it, maybe I can keep some of them. I only have Halo 1 as NTSC atm.
Annoyingly the component cable I ordered is being shipped from China. That will take a while to arrive I guess...

Nice going joining the club. Off to a great start with the mod. I recommend a larger HDD + 80 pin IDE ribbon. Improves loading drastically.
 

Wounded

Member
After that DF video on Halo 1 I suddenly decided to get an Xbox. Never wanted one lol
It came in the mail yesterday, together with the stuff I needed for a softmod - sweet! Also did a TSOP flash, because why not lol
Wiggled out that nasty capacitor while I was at it too. Shit was already leaking a little bit.
The box has kind of grown on me already <3

Getting games will be a bitch tho, just like for PS2. German + PAL = double fucked. Gotta sort through the games that came with it, maybe I can keep some of them. I only have Halo 1 as NTSC atm.
Annoyingly the component cable I ordered is being shipped from China. That will take a while to arrive I guess...

A good chunk of games will work properly in NTSC mode or will have PAL60. Halo 1 is one of the most noticeable ones that doesn't have you have that already so it's not a totally huge issue, at least not as much as on PS2 and other consoles.
 

horkrux

Member
Nice going joining the club. Off to a great start with the mod. I recommend a larger HDD + 80 pin IDE ribbon. Improves loading drastically.

Thanks for the tip with the cable. I even happen to have a few of those lying still around

A good chunk of games will work properly in NTSC mode or will have PAL60. Halo 1 is one of the most noticeable ones that doesn't have you have that already so it's not a totally huge issue, at least not as much as on PS2 and other consoles.

Yeah, it doesn't seem to be as bad as I thought
 

Conezays

Member
Just beat Ninja Gaiden: Black. Had a lot of trouble with the last boss as I had run out of items during the multiple bosses prior, lol. Enjoyed it quite a bit. The graphics and music hold up really well, but the camera was definitely a little troublesome in places.
 

Vespa

Member
Anyone here able to recommend a good but not crazy expensive box that will take component cables in and convert to HDMI?

Still looking for one myself, I recently tried the blue Portta (non-scaler edition) which I posted about an issue I found over on shmups here it's almost perfect but crushes black :/ if you play fairly 'colourful' games you might be able to tolerate it, I was playing SF3 and Soul Calibur 2 and it looked great but in Halo CE it's not something you can look past.

There are a couple more converters I was going to try but from reading some of the reviews they also seem to crush black, forget the model numbers, probably clones. I was hoping Fudoh would report back on ones that work but he's a busy man. I'll try and dig up those models so you can avoid them.
 

mechafan64

Neo Member
I have the Xbox connected to a Sony PVM 20L5 through component with 480p enabled. Some games, such as Ninja Gaiden Black, look nice and sharp, while many others, such as Burnout 3, Phantom Dust, or Panzer Dragoon Orta look blurry. If anything, running them in 480i with the filter flicker disabled via XBMC yields a noticeably sharper image.

Has anyone else had a similar experience? Is this due to how certain games implement anti-aliasing methods? Any hacks to disable this?
 

REDSLATE

Member
I have the Xbox connected to a Sony PVM 20L5 through component with 480p enabled. Some games, such as Ninja Gaiden Black, look nice and sharp, while many others, such as Burnout 3, Phantom Dust, or Panzer Dragoon Orta look blurry. If anything, running them in 480i with the filter flicker disabled via XBMC yields a noticeably sharper image.

Has anyone else had a similar experience? Is this due to how certain games implement anti-aliasing methods? Any hacks to disable this?

Flicker filter (and softening) should be turned off regardless. They're legacy settings for use with CRTs. Those only serve to degrade image quality on a modern display.

Are you sure your games are actually outputting 480p? What region are they? Many European titles only output in interlaced. NTSC (particularly North American NTSC) is preferable.

Also, what aspect ratio is your display versus your output. If you play a widescreen (16:9) game at 480p, it's not going to be as sharp as a standard (4:3) display at 480p, because you're using the same number of pixels to cover a wider area (essentially, the pixels are being stretched horizontally, into rectangles, via a scaling factor).

Burnout 3 looks just fine for me. Again, this is one of the few games that supports anamorphic widescreen, so, if you're outputting a widescreen image, the overall picture won't be as sharp as a standard 4:3 output, though it will fill the entirety of a 16:9 display.

I don't believe Phantom Dust supports widescreen, so your choice is limited to 4:3 480p. It also looks just fine for me.

Panzer Dragoon
is a bit of an oddball. For one, it's one of the early SEGA games that doesn't play nicely with v1.6 Xboxes (which is a separate issue). Additionally, I don't think it actually outputs 480p. It's like 3XXp or something. You'll have to check on that one, but it, in fact, does not look very sharp for me (though that's simply due to it's nature).
 

Khaz

Member
Quick question: I ordered Jade Empire limited edition off ebay, but the game came with only the bonus disc. Is the game disc the same as in the original edition or should I track specifically a limited edition game disc?
 
Quick question: I ordered Jade Empire limited edition off ebay, but the game came with only the bonus disc. Is the game disc the same as in the original edition or should I track specifically a limited edition game disc?

The game disc is the same as the regular edition.
 
I remember some really ugly Soul Calibur 2 cosmetic mods with Linkin Park BGM and shit back in the day.

The KI announcer yelled COMBO BREAKERRRRR every time you hit a guard impact.

edit: oh yeah and they hack Link's moveset into the game over a generic character model
 

Timu

Member
I remember some really ugly Soul Calibur 2 cosmetic mods with Linkin Park BGM and shit back in the day.

The KI announcer yelled COMBO BREAKERRRRR every time you hit a guard impact.

edit: oh yeah and they hack Link's moveset into the game over a generic character model
Lol WTF???
 

mechafan64

Neo Member
Flicker filter (and softening) should be turned off regardless. They're legacy settings for use with CRTs. Those only serve to degrade image quality on a modern display.

Are you sure your games are actually outputting 480p? What region are they? Many European titles only output in interlaced. NTSC (particularly North American NTSC) is preferable.

Also, what aspect ratio is your display versus your output. If you play a widescreen (16:9) game at 480p, it's not going to be as sharp as a standard (4:3) display at 480p, because you're using the same number of pixels to cover a wider area (essentially, the pixels are being stretched horizontally, into rectangles, via a scaling factor).

Burnout 3 looks just fine for me. Again, this is one of the few games that supports anamorphic widescreen, so, if you're outputting a widescreen image, the overall picture won't be as sharp as a standard 4:3 output, though it will fill the entirety of a 16:9 display.

I don't believe Phantom Dust supports widescreen, so your choice is limited to 4:3 480p. It also looks just fine for me.

Panzer Dragoon
is a bit of an oddball. For one, it's one of the early SEGA games that doesn't play nicely with v1.6 Xboxes (which is a separate issue). Additionally, I don't think it actually outputs 480p. It's like 3XXp or something. You'll have to check on that one, but it, in fact, does not look very sharp for me (though that's simply due to it's nature).

NTSC 1.1 console, playing NTSC games, with both the filter flicker and softener off. Although the 20L5 can do 16:9, I exclusively play in 4:3 mode, and so in-game and in-XBMC widescreen modes are always disabled. 480p is indeed being displayed, it's just that a select few titles are noticeably sharper than the rest. Phantom Dust is certainly a blurry mess, for example.

Since you mentioned Orta not actually rendering at 480, is there a list of commonly used rendering resolutions for the Xbox?
 

REDSLATE

Member
NTSC 1.1 console, playing NTSC games, with both the filter flicker and softener off. Although the 20L5 can do 16:9, I exclusively play in 4:3 mode, and so in-game and in-XBMC widescreen modes are always disabled. 480p is indeed being displayed, it's just that a select few titles are noticeably sharper than the rest. Phantom Dust is certainly a blurry mess, for example.

Since you mentioned Orta not actually rendering at 480, is there a list of commonly used rendering resolutions for the Xbox?

I'm guessing "20L5" is your display? Did you also set your MS dashboard to 4:3 and 480p? If not, there will be conflict with XBMC. This could impact games as well.

Again, my knowledge of Panzer Dragoon is limited, though I believe it's up-resed to 480.
 

Tain

Member
I remember some really ugly Soul Calibur 2 cosmetic mods with Linkin Park BGM and shit back in the day.

The KI announcer yelled COMBO BREAKERRRRR every time you hit a guard impact.

edit: oh yeah and they hack Link's moveset into the game over a generic character model

A full-fledged transplant of Link into Xbox SC2 makes way too much sense.

Wonder if there's a good one out there.
 
tumblr_nt0lu5vs1n1qf56wto1_500.gif
 

PGamer

fucking juniors
For those who are interested here is an update on the Xbox emulation scene since I last posted. A year ago XQEMU was looking like the most promising Xbox emulator in development but unfortunately since then progress has greatly slowed. The main developer appears to be busy with other things these days and the second most active developer has shifted his focus to Nintendo 3DS emulation instead. However, over the past few months another attempt at an Xbox emulator by the name of CXBX-Reloaded has gained some momentum. It attempts to combine the previous work of the emulators CXBX and DXBX as a base to hopefully improve on what they were able to achieve. A number of titles are now able to boot in CXBX-Reloaded including Jet Set Radio Future. This may be a program to watch for over the coming months.
 

Shaneus

Member
Oh god I hope you're right, PGamer. I'm still itching for Outrun 2 at a solid framerate (and at a better resolution, but that's secondary). Plus having it work on Xbox likely means the arcade version will work, too.
 

FyreWulff

Member
I've always wondered if they brought back OXbox emulation on the One, if they'd just make a virtual LAN for all the games. About 95% of the popular online titles also had LAN, and it'd be relatively easier to just pull an XBC/Xlinkkai and just emulate a virtual LAN than reimplement a Live shim + restore the middleware for each game (ie, even if you got a Live shim working, you'd also need to get Halo 2's playlist backend up and running still, etc)

For most games it'd even work seamlessly as they already had browsers for games to join on LAN. I would guess they'd make it work by having to invite specific people to your "virtual LAN" though.
 
I remember some really ugly Soul Calibur 2 cosmetic mods with Linkin Park BGM and shit back in the day.

The KI announcer yelled COMBO BREAKERRRRR every time you hit a guard impact.

edit: oh yeah and they hack Link's moveset into the game over a generic character model

There were a TON of DOA3 and DOAX mods...
 

Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.

MattyH

Member
finally got round to replacing the hard drive in my softmodded 1.6 crystal last week went from 80gb (put it in back in 04 when i got the xbox) to a 200gb (planning to go bigger).
Planning to replace the dvd drive back to a samsung soon (old drive died) so is currently a Thompson
 

Oozer3993

Member
I finally lurched off my lazy duff and removed the clock capacitor from my box a couple weeks ago. Last night I replaced the stock hard drive with a 160GB one that I ripped out of an old external case. My Xbox is good to go for the near future. I'm kinda surprised at how well it still runs, for a console from October 2001 sporting a Thompson drive. But it still manages to spin up most games I put in it (though it likes to put up a fuss sometimes), and usually stays within a decent temperature range. Tonight: ripping games to it. And maybe finally getting around to putting the Halo 2 Multiplayer Beta on it.
 

MattyH

Member
I finally lurched off my lazy duff and removed the clock capacitor from my box a couple weeks ago. Last night I replaced the stock hard drive with a 160GB one that I ripped out of an old external case. My Xbox is good to go for the near future. I'm kinda surprised at how well it still runs, for a console from October 2001 sporting a Thompson drive. But it still manages to spin up most games I put in it (though it likes to put up a fuss sometimes), and usually stays within a decent temperature range. Tonight: ripping games to it. And maybe finally getting around to putting the Halo 2 Multiplayer Beta on it.
Burnout 3 for me it's superior on xbox compared to ps2
 

Tain

Member
It looks like one of the core CXBX-Reloaded developers has decided to jump on the Patreon bandwagon: https://www.patreon.com/LukeUsher

Patreon support has had a big impact on the Wii U and PS3 emulation scenes over the past year or so. I wonder if they can replicate those successes here.

Luke has also posted a few new CXBX-Reloaded videos on YouTube (volume warning):

- Battlestar Galactica
- Burnout
- Gunvalkyrie

Yeah, I've been excited for this. Here's hoping!
 

EmiPrime

Member
I don't buy it very often but the Official UK Xbox Magazine had a feature on OG Xbox so I thought why not, in the trolley it goes. I get home and it's only 3 pages and the games themselves (4 of them) only got a small boxout with postage stamp size screenshots on one of the pages.

Wankers, never buying that mag again.
 

Oozer3993

Member
For once I actually did what I claimed I would do:

JhNHPJg.jpg


And of course, the Mongoose and the Flamethrower:

oS9vggD.jpg


If anyone happens to have Lockout for the beta, I would be forever grateful.

I've had Jade Empire for years. This recent burst of Xbox energy I've had might finally get me to play it.
 

PantsuJo

Member

Glowsquid

Member
crossposting from the Dreamcast thread because this is something I'm curious about: does Metropolis Street Racer have any major gameplay differences or features not in Project Gotham Racing (beside that amazing Richard Jacques soundtrack)? Or does PGR and its sequel completely obselete it?
 
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