As title really I have been reading about it and can't get a straight answer. does changing the stock IDE ribbon to ata 166 make games load faster? people are saying for optimal performance you need a matching harddrive but in theory it will work. mine has a 160gb Samsung harddrive in it and how would I know it is compatible or is it a pointless waste of time?
IDE channels are subject to waiting on the slowest device on the channel. You're talking tiny differences in speed. Now if you were to use a SSD it would be much faster, but I don't know of anyone who has done that yet. Even more interesting would be to use Disk on Module http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_sacat=0&_from=R40&_nkw=disk+on+module&=&rt=nc&LH_ItemCondition=3
In order of ascending complexity as well as preciseness: - fire up a game and compare loading times before and after the mod with a stopwatch. Run it from the HDD, the DVD drive would be a bottleneck - copy a file from one partition to another, e.g. in XBMC), measure the time taken with a stopwatch and/or trust XBMC's progress report (I *think* it shows the current transfer speed while working...) - whip up some code to generate (on the fly) and write some data, and have it measure the time taken
BTW assembler, The Disk on Module does not work on the xbox. I tried that last year and it just wont reconize it!
Hard- or softmodded? Maybe it's just the BIOS acting up because the DOM doesn't implement disk locking. Or it's a Master/Slave vs Cable Select issue (same one some people had when trying CF adapters, apparently the XBOX only works w/ CS)?
I don't know myself but I do know that as long as the HDD is set to C/S or Master it will work. This was done on a hardmod console with IND-BIOS 5003 and a 40GB Seagate HDD that is unlocked.
The DOM is a 32 gig Kingspec. It has the same connector as the hard drive does (MALE) so it fits right back on the IDE cable in the same spot without having to use a gender changer. I also tried the 40 wire and 80 wire IDE cable. I tried all the bioses that I have listed below with the chips I have listed below. All bioses that are marked 67 and 137 mean drive F gets 137 gigs and the remaining goes to drive G All bioses that are marked 06 means that F gets everything and there is no G drive The X3 bios lets you select on the fly if F gets everything or splits between F and G drive version 1.1 motherboard, samsung DVD drive, X3 mod chip Bios X3-3294 and X2-5035 vga frosty the snowman version version 1.0 motherboard, samsung DVD drive, smartxx version 2 mod chip Bios X2-5035.137 and X2-5035.67 and X2-4981.06 and X2-4981.67 and evox.m8plus version 1.4 motherboard, samsung DVD drive, xenium ICE mod chip Bios X2-5035.137 and X2-4983.67 version 1.4 motherboard, phillips DVD drive , TSOP flash Bios iND-BiOS.5003.06 So as you can see I really tried just about every bios that is currently used. I also tried them with F only and with F and G drives. I really want to get the DOM working. I think the load times would be crazy fast! But to tell the truth I only tried the 32 gig DOM. I do not have it any more and that was the only DOM that I ever owned. I know it worked properly, I ordered it for this project and it did work on my PC after I could not get it to work on the xbox. Since then I have sold it on ebay. If you have any ideas on something that I missed please let me know! I have over 30 different mod chips that I could try with any bios that you can think of! If you want to send me another DOM for testing I am ready to help out. It may just have been the DOM I was using. Maybe a different model would work.
It does improve load times from the HDD. That much I can tell for fact. With a decent speed drive the gains are massive. The Xbox ATA speed is rated up to 133 so a drive with at least 133 Mbps and a ATA133 cable can give some big gains. I found this to be true when I was copying one drive to another using the Xbox Linux method. I was getting constant rates of 115 Mbps or faster. The gains from the DVD drive are negligible at best unless you want to shave a few seconds off of loading some Halo levels.
Now HEXIGON the ata133/ata166 (80 wire) IDE cable does work better than the standard ata 33 cable (40 wire) the xbox comes with. I was only talking about the DOM (disk on module) that assembler was talking about. I put the ata166 cable on all of my modded xboxs. Tansfers from the DVD drive to the hard drive are also quicker. Look at this link below, there are the bench mark results from the IDE cable upgrade. http://www.llamma.com/xbox/Mods/xbox_ata100_cable_benchmark.htm The xbox motherboard is ATA100. I do not know why microsoft did not use the proper cable to start with! I guess to save a few pennies! Just be careful that the upgraded cable does not have the little hole in it. Some IDE cables near the motherboard IDE connector has a hole were a little piece of 1 wire is missing. I do not know why some cables are like that but they do not work on the xbox.
Is there such a thing as over modding a console? All the upgrades or modding is for performance for me. The thing that I really really hate about modding consoles is the people that put so many LEDs that you can light up you whole house with it! I really really hate that! I have seen a few tasteful xboxs done with LEDs but that is rare! I mainly go for improving the overall function.
