1.6 XBOX Softmod HD (720p) Woes

I have only been looking at softmodded xbox for about 2 week and this week after getting all the relevant bits i softmodded my first xbox, a crystal one never the less, because its a crystal xbox its obviously a 1.6 xbox which until today i didn't even know had issues with some games when playing in HD and/or off the hardrive

LSDArcade over on the xbomc4xbox forums did an extensive test back in 2013 and found the following issues for 1.6 xbox systems.....


These games will not play on Xbox version 1.6 in HD mode.

Curse: The Eye of Isis - Freezes on load.
Headhunter - Redemption - Freezes on load.
Hello Kitty - Screen is undersized in places.
Jacked - Screen is undersized in places.
Max Payne - Screen is oversized.
Mission Impossible - Freezes on load.
Outlaw Golf - 9 More Holes of X-Mas - Freezes on load.
Pirates of the Carribean - Won't unscramble in HD even when launched from evox.
Secret Weapons Over Normandy - Freezes on load.
Spartan: Total Warrior - Freezes on load.
Tecmo Classic Arcade - Freezes on load.


These games will be scrambled if launched from XBMC4XBOX but will play fine if launched from evox:

Arctic Thunder
Battle Engine Aquila
Commandos 2
Dark Summit
Fable
Galleon
Gun Metal
Gun Valkyrie
Hunter The Reckoning: Redemption
Jet Set Radio Future
Men of Valor
Mission Impossible
MLB Slugfest 20-03
Night Caster
Over the Hedge
Panzer Dragoon Orta
Quantum Redshift
Serious Sam
The Sims 2
Tetris Worlds
Voodoo Vince
Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions

Now i know that there has been patches default.xbe files for Panzer Dragoon Orta & Gun Valkyrie to fix the scrambles graphic problem but did any other games ever get any fixes or did xbmc fix these issue with updates at all?. As at the moment i seriously considering getting a non 1.6 xbox and using that instead?

 

I'm not sure if any others came out with a patch or not. It seemed like too much of a hassle to patch everything when its so easy/cheap to just get a non 1.6 board. Its all caused by the video encoder chip used on the 1.6 motherboard, I don't believe XBMC ever bothered trying to improve that issue.

 

XBMC isn't a great dashboard to begin with. Try UnleashX, and mess around with some settings with it. I have no issues with Wreckless, I've played the game pretty much on most version boards, apart from 1.5. It's one of my favourite titles
I'll test some of the other titles you mentioned on my 1.6 crystal consoles too.

 

Also, even by having an unleashx will not help you out, I did have an 1.6 long time ago (2 years), and I was getting trouble with some games too, Burnout 3 takedown (will not work with pal, but play ntsc and crash later in mission, no matter where your retail game come from, the game is almost impossible to finish), same about Mechassault 2, impossible to start the game when the console got soft-modded, when before softmod my retail disc was working great ......

And I think I forget a tons of more games......

 

Fable
Gun Valkyrie
Jet Set Radio Future
Panzer Dragoon Orta

Those don't run on 1.6 even in retail disc form, they're all well known for that. There is a way (by loading Panzer Dragoon from Orta disc) first, and they will run. Not sure about the rest, I guess if I get around to it I could test them. I use UnleashX.

 

Come to think of it, Silent Hill 4: The Room struggles as well. I forgot about the incompatibility with certain games. This can also happen with certain DVD-ROM Drives too.

Well, it works for me. Just tried it now. I know certain Xboxes had different RAM, unless that's an issue instead of the encoder chip I'm not sure. All I can say is that the game runs on my 1.6. I'll try the crystal consoles soon since they're the ones in question right now.

 

Which game works? The 3-4 Sega games I know for certain won't load on my 1.6, not until I get it in the proper "mode" by running Panzer Classic first.

 

Panzer Dragoon from retail disc.

 

Yes but from what region ? PAL ? Ntsc ? I know PDO is the only one where you can "trick" your 1.6 with ntsc/pal swap xbe/dash (don't remember), then after done this you need to auto-patch the .xbe, that's why you can find some people (like me and you) that got PDO working, but for others games (like Burnout 3 or MEchassualt 2), I will say : Good luck !!

 

PAL.

 

I never tried a PAL disc (don't have any). Someone did upload a 480p fix for Panzer Dragoon Orta and GunValkyrie though. It worked on my NTSC 1.6 with NTSC ISO's.

http://www.theisozone.com/downloads...er-dragoon-orta-and-gunvalkyrie-on-a-16-xbox/

As for the 2013 list, I probably wouldn't have downloaded most of those games, but I did just try Tecmo Classic Arcade (NTSC as is) from HDD, and it ran fine. Again I'm using UnleashX.

 

A lot of these if not them all can be fixed using a loader to launch, set the video resolution & the load the game xbe.
(scrambled image games)

I used CDX as the loader, as it can be setup to auto launch a specific xbe on load.
(it's instant & you don't notice anything)

 

Not really related to the topic, but were there any Crystal Xbox console that were lower than 1.6 ?

 

High performance pack one isn't.

 

So it would be much easier to find a regular Xbox pre 1.6 and swap it into a crystal case.

 

Yes, but the left centre screw can't be used & you would need to remove the metal tab on the bottom shield or it will frag your Xbox.

Also the daughter board on v1.0 Xboxs causes issues, controller ports are difficult to fit due to the wire being so small on controller port 1 & 2, so use a v1.1+ controller port.

 

Correct, you would have to swap the controller ports around as well.

 

Erm sorry to say, but I have a soft modded 160gb 1.6 crystal Xbox running unleash x. And guess what, Fable works!

 

I too played jsrf on my softmodded 1.6, launched only from xbmc, so it seems you got something wrong indeed

 

Only happens if 480p is enabled & it doesn't happen on all 1.6 Xboxs, GTA San Andreas is another one that has display issues, but it works fine on my 1.6 test box, yet JSRF doesn't.
(note I'm talking about the scrambled screen issue)