I am new to this forum but I have a question...

Hey there everyone I haven't attempted programing in quite some time. However I am interested in 1 thing, and I wish I could get it leagly, I am looking for a working xbox emulator for the PC. I figured it would take some 15year old a day or 2 to make one up but I guess it turned out that it is tougher then I thought. I did send an e-mail to Microshaft and ask them if they were thinking about releasing an emulator for the pc but got no response. Simply put I would like this emulator so I could play Xbox games on my pc, I have afew games I would like to buy but it isn't worth me buying an xBox when my computer has twice the power and I have spent twice as much on my compuer. If anyone has the basic coding for the xbox please let me know with a post here or send an e-mail to zantax28@hotmail.com .

Thanks alot and I hope I don't offend anyone by asking this.

 

:smt043 Man thank you now i can go to :smt015 with a smile on my face! :smt043 :smt023 :smt040

 

To put it bluntly, you're completely out of luck.

There isn't much demand for emulators of newer systems, and even ones out for a while like the Dreamcast don't have PC emulators out for them that run retail games (although because of the GD, a Dreamcast emu is a moot point, but I digress). 128 bit consoles are pretty hard to emulate on modern PCs mainly for the reason that they (XBox especially) are getting to be so close to the PC in terms of power. I think there's been a PS2 emu in development for a few years, and it still doesn't run games on it.

My best advice to you is to pony up and get a new or used system - the prices are supposed to be dropping soon, and you should be able to get one for less than $150.

 

Why would Microsoft say yeah, emulate our hardware, don't buy it?????

It won't happen. The latest consoles are hard to emulate well on a PC, it wouldn't be worth it. Plus there are proprietary chips. As soon as you emulate them, Microsoft sues.

If you wanna play games, buy the console! If you hadn't noticed, this forum is full of collectors. They aren't really interested in playing emulated versions of games on a crappy PC, we like the REAL THING.

 

:smt043 :smt043 :smt043

Seriously dude, emulating new consoles is dirty...

Er...If I say anything else....Its probably gonna be mean

Buy Buy buy...

 

Because they're loosing money ecery time someone buys an Xbox, but gaining money every time someone buys a game.

The reason they would never release an emulator doesn't have to do with losing sales, it has to do with confusing the marketplace. It's the same reason the don't want to release a browser and keyboard and stuff like that. Microsoft has an uphill battle creating a non computer image for themselves to begin with, releasing an emulator wouldn't help.

Yeah, they'd sue, but there wouldn't be any legal grounds for it, certainly not anything having to do with the design of the chips. Thast doesn't seem to stop any of your larger brutish corporations these days, though.

And I have to wonder how hard it would really be to emulate an Xbox on a PC. It essentially *IS* a PC afterall so you could take tons of shortcuts. In fact, it would be a very different kind of emulator, more of an interpretter really. I'm sure many of todays modern computers that are over 2GHz and shit like that could do it, possibly quite easily if the pogrammers involved had the right concepts.

More than a few people on this forum have massive ROM and ISO "collections."


...word is bondage...

 

Sorry didn't mean to cause a ruckes...

Ok first of all everyone knows that no manufacturer makes there money of console sales. They lose money on the hardware plain and simple. Second everyone knows that they make there money on the Game sales and nothing more. I am not sure why people seem to think that the xbox is that much different then a pc the only thing that should be different is the country code/game protection hardware built into it. Otherwise the Xbox is nothing more then a Pentium III 733-(1000)...(side note they have anounced that they may be putting pIII 1000 into newer xboxs). To think that this console has anymore power then your average PC is actually quite ludicrus, it is nothing more then a PIII laptop with a very suped up videocard. It is not a 128Bit machine, it is the same as the PIII a 64Bit and not even a true 64 bit at that, the math coprocessor itself is still a 32 bit system. I will agree that other machines like the PSX2, dreamcast, GC..etc would be alot more difficult to emulate but that is because there architecture is SO different from a PC that you have to create a whole subsystem to interperate all the commands you would give to the systems processor. Lets face is risc processors are very difficult to emulate on a cisc instructions set. That is not saying it isn't possible you just need alot of power.

As for my original post about makeing a Xbox emulator I am still looking for one regardless of what people may think. I just thought people who do alot of assembly would be the first people to talk to about something like this. Since they know the ins and outs of talking in machine language. Don't get me wrong I do value all of your input even when it gets rude.

However please don't tell me that the system is so radicly different that it can't be done because if you can load mame onto xbox, or linux it can't be that different. All I am asking for is to reverse it, because I don't want to buy the xbox when my laptop is just as powerful as it (disregarding video card).

So if you can help me out then please do, I would appreciate it alot.

 

Re: Sorry didn't mean to cause a ruckes...

Where did you get the idea we do alot of assembly? :smt043

Based on that view you can also emulate the dreamcast cos it cant be that different! The Dreamcast also runs linux and mame. Also lets not forget so does that ps2. . .

Well then you wont be playing xbox games! :smt040

Better off asking somewhere else. Tho they will do pretty much the same as we did!

 

Heh, yeah, nobody's trying to be an arse here, but it is sortof a ridiculous request. Yes, console companies usually don't make their profits off of the hardware, but the reason they even made the system in the first place instead of just endorsing a line of games to the PC is so you'd get caught up in the whole shebang - the memory cards, the colored controllers, the online services.

And running XBox software on your PC isn't feasable for several reasons. Firstoff, you're not just trying to run games designed for a slower system, you're actually going to be trying to emulate a console that has roughly 1/2 to 1/3 the power of your PC - that's a tall order. Despite it's similarities to the PC, the XBox is still a dedicated gaming console, with both the processor (very close to desktop Pentium IIIs) and the graphics chip (codesigned by nVIDIA and MS) being custom made for the console. As much as one could get it to act that way, the XBox is NOT a standalone computer. You're more than welcome to work at an emulator, but I'm not really sure if modern PCs would be able to get anything usable from XBox emulation. Like everyone has been saying, your best option is to just get the console itself, work with the system in the way it was meant to be done.

 

Re: Sorry didn't mean to cause a ruckes...

Well I do a lot of assembly... not that I feel inclined to work on something as far-fetched as a Xbox emu, I got enough projects on my own

 

re

The "assembly" idea isn't so far-fetched. It was actually how I found this board (looking for programming tips ):smt024.

 

myself personally am pretty much against emulators and roms alltogether

you want to play xbox games? buy an xbox!

you want to play any classic games? buy the classic games + relevant systems!


will save mucho time, effort, hassle, legal shit and would look a hel of a lot cooler than some scabby cd-r :butthead:

 

Wouldn't it be illegal to run Xbox games on a PC, since the original Xbox DVD can't be read from a PC? (shoot me down if I'm wrong...but...)

Doesn't the format of Xbox DVDs differ from PC?. I'm thinking of the process to back up Xbox games involves FTPing the game from the Xbox to a PC - i.e. a PC can't directly read the DVD correctly.

If the above is true then original Xbox games couldn't be properly read on the PC, making the use of the emulator illegal even if all other factors were 'solved'.

With the prices of xbox's falling, it's becoming hard to argue against not buying one on price grounds (I appreciate it's not so easy when you're a student).

 

Re: Sorry didn't mean to cause a ruckes...

Sony have been making money on the PS2 from day one.
http://www.actsofgord.com/Proclamations/chapter02.html

Since when was a P3 a 64-bit CPU?

Check out Xeon and CXBX. Just don't expect them to run games perfectly any time soon.

Heard it all before... usually sounds more like "GIMME TEH FREE GAMeZoRZ!!!111" though...

 

Errr... where does this 'info' come from? The CPU itself is not 'really' 64 bit, granted it has a 64 bit data bus but no single integer operation can directly operate on 64 bit, the general purpose registers are 32 bit in size, addressing modes assume 32 bits, and all individual memory accesses by the integer unit are 32 bit (apart from some oddballs maybe)... the math coprocessor, in contrary, has 80 bit registers and can perform math on 64 bit quantities too.

 

OK to answer some random points....

Yes the chip design IS an issue. You DO NOT have the right to modify your console, you own the hardware NOT the rights. Microsoft DO own the rights. If people go copying the code in their proprietary hardware, they sue. Sweater Fish, it has EVERYTHING to do with the code in the chips.

PCs are never going to emulate current hardware properly. Games consoles are dedicated machines with custom software for one task only (granted they often use Win CE now, bit bloated still). PCs are multi-purpose workhorses. They are VERY inefficient, especially running Windows. You CANNOT have a program running efficiently in the already bloated architecture to emulate another machine, then run that machine's code, efficiently with out a much faster machine. You cannot compare the specs of an XBOX to the specs of a PC.

Oh, and laptops ALWAYS suck for gaming. They are naturally inferior machines. Pentium 4s were never originally designed to be crammed into such a small space... look at the size of a heatsink on a REAL chip.

As for Microsoft losing money on Xbox sales... if they did, they wouldn't bother. They already have spent millions on research and development. You'd be surprised how little each machine costs to make. And they don't make a huge amount on software. Remember, they aren't the developer (in most cases). Sure, they may have a cut of the profits, but they have to sell the games to distributors, who then sell to shops, who then sell to the public. That £40 (or whatever) does NOT all go to microsoft... far from it. Microsoft would probably be lucky to see 10% of that.

Oh, and by the way, when you have a copy protection system, do you REALLY think that the emulator writer will emulate that too, so you can only play originals? Not likely... in which case do you REALLY think MS will allow a "chipped" emulator?

 

Zantax: Here is what is available so far:

http://www.caustik.com/cxbx/

If you want it to get to a playable state within your lifetime (based on its current rate of progress), you had better learn to program in C (The language it seams to consist of).

End of discussion

 

I disagree with some points.

I mean, why can't i have the right to mod my console? Example: Some original game for the same system is released only in japan.

Just because i own a american console, why can't i be able to play it? Just because SCEA don't want to release it? I paid for the system. Why can't i choose the game i play?

The companies just don't get that it's best to release the consoles without region locking (i'm not talking about DVD's, just games).If i buy an original Japanese PS2 title, in the end SONY will still make profit.

It's just like DVD. They set up those regions, and nowadays almost all DVD Players are region free (mine is a 1 and half year old Pioneer and was Region Free from start, no mods).

What's was the point of spending money creating regions, formats?

Nowadays you can't block imports. With internet you can buy almost anything. There's no point locking by region.

I do agree that piracy must be banished some way. But region locking is just stupidity

 

Already are. Check out dolphin.

Um, no. Windows CE was used as a development kit for a handfull of Dreamcast games, and the Xbox has a cut down W2K Kernal. No other major console uses Windows it at all.

The Xbox is a PC. It has a P3 CPU, an Nvidia GPU, has DDR ram, uses IDE and USB, and contains a hardisk. As such it doesn't need to be low-level emulated using an interpreter, or even HLE'd: the kernal calls can just be remapped onto the relevent PC ones, with a bit of emulation for the custom chips. The normal resource-intensity of CPU emulation has been sidestepped.

http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2003/06/02/story7.html
"We lose money on every console we sell," Hufford [product manager for Xbox] said. "So the strategy is to make money selling software."

What you're talking about makes no sense. The lockout chips can be emulated without using any Microsoft-copyrighted code. As such Microsoft won't (don't) have much choice but to accept that emulators can play isos.

 

Ive said it before and ill say it again

if you want to play xbox games buy an xbox :smt019

however even if such an emulator was made it would definitely not be right for it to use iso's - it should read the ORIGINAL discs from a physical optical drive in your system :smt024