Some original xbox queries

[Constipated Rat]

Hi .friends!!

I just ditched my PS2 and now have the old xbox and some burnt games. although it isnt chipped or modded lol.. I had these games for years, after buying them from a friend when his xbox died. Just kept them in a box, as knew they would be handy some day. I havent even played an old xbox before to be honest.. I dont have a clue about them.

Can some kind soul please tell me the quickest way to soft mod this. After looking on youtube and doing some quick googling I see there are a few ways to do the softmods, but most things I read are very old, so I need a more modern take on the ways this can be soft modded. Am looking something that maybe doesnt require buying anything like action replay.... did I hear there is a way this can be done that requires swapping the hard drive out and into a pc with both systems running?.. is this possible?

Also important question, how do I swap out the hard drive for a bigger one.. actually the hard drive in it is making a jingling sound, so I am afraid it may fail soon. Will this make the xbox useless? I heard the hard drive has boot files on it... can someone explain more to me about this, and how I can replace for a new drive, and what sizes etc.

Also one other thing I noticed. Why is the games smaller on the xbox. For example you can burn 3 or 4 games to one single layer DVD. I never seen that shit on PS2. When I look at the burn surface of single games I notice that almost all the games are pretty small, like 2 gigs or something, whereas my PS2 burnt disk have a much bigger burn area. I looked up GTA: San Andreas on the torrents and it is only 2 or 3 gigs, but on PS2 it is bigger it seems... why is this?

Also can this console do 720p, the component cables on ebay are 50 quid.. but only 10 quid on amazon. Anyone tell me whats the difference and should I buy the amazon one?.. is component worth it, or maybe just RGB wire instead?

Cheers for any feedback

[Inferno.]

I got my XBOX component cables for £6 each off eBay. They really do make all the difference if you're using an LCD and don't have access to a CRT, since the XBOX is a much more powerful system than the PS2 the component leads actually make a difference on an XBOX.

Too tired to write a detailed response to all your questions so I'll just write key points you can google for more info.

Hot swapping is possible yes, google for a hot swap tutorial.
If the hard drive dies you are screwed, because the hard drive stores the eeprom, and if you lose that or the HDD dies your XBOX is a massive door stop.
Google for the XBOX hard drive compatibility chart, there are loads of compatible drives, as long as it's IDE it should work though. Hell, even SATA drives are compatible with converters and the like, again Google.

The original XBOX didn't have media checks and stuff like the PS2 games do, so you can remove, modify, tamper with as much as you like with XBOX games and they'll still play, whereas the PS2 the games had to be 1:1 or been modified to load properly. You can remove anything you like on an XBOX game and as long as you patch the XBE it'll still load (within reason, depending on what you stripped) as for multi game discs, same applies, the checks on the original XBOX were very lacking.

[Constipated Rat]

Thanks alot Inferno. You answered the main ones I was worried about.

OK, so now I'm freaked about this hard drive crashing. I dont even want to turn it on until I have a gameplan together. But why did MS do this if they know all hard disks die after long?

[Inferno.]

Thanks alot Inferno. You answered the main ones I was worried about.

OK, so now I'm freaked about this hard drive crashing. I dont even want to turn it on until I have a gameplan together. But why did MS do this if they know all hard disks die after long?

There's probably nothing wrong with your XBOX's hard drive. All the ones I've had sounded funny when you turn the console on, like a kinda grinding noise... It's probably nothing to worry about, but since you plan to upgrade your XBOX's hard drive anyway you might as well get it switched out as soon as possible anyway.

http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=244043

This guide should have a part on how to hot swap and install a larger hard drive in the same process.

Or if you don't do it that way using Chimp with an XBOX 1.0 - 1.5 you can hot swap the hard drive and clone your 10GB drive across to your new one (be warned it doesn't support the 1.6 XBOXes, you have to telnet into it apparently. I have a 1.6 and tried Telnetting into Chimp and it didn't work for me. )

There are loads of guides on YouTube how to use Chimp to clone your old drive to your new one through your XBOX but it does need a molex splitter power cable or another XBOX/PC beside your XBOX to power the second hard drive.

[Constipated Rat]

I will check out the tuts on that site and look up more on this "Chimp" thing... Thanks mate.

One other small question, is it possible to run Dreamcast games on this xbox?.... I heard Shenmue 2 is just the Dreamcast game slightly modded or something. I know both consoles run similar with a modded Windows OS and both use DX to run games. Did I hear something about this years back, or was I imagining it?

[Inferno.]

I will check out the tuts on that site and look up more on this "Chimp" thing... Thanks mate.

One other small question, is it possible to run Dreamcast games on this xbox?.... I heard Shenmue 2 is just the Dreamcast game slightly modded or something. I know both consoles run similar with a modded Windows OS and both use DX to run games. Did I hear something about this years back, or was I imagining it?

Yes you can play Shenmue II on the XBOX because it was ported to the XBOX. No, you can't emulate Dreamcast games on the XBOX. Why? 700MHz CPU with 64MB RAM, way too underpowered. However, PS1, SNES, Megadrive, N64 (some games) and loads of arcade machines and loads of other systems are emulate-able.

[Zorlon]

Emulators for XBOX list this lists the ones worth using and links to a site you can aquire them as they can be hard to get hold of because of Microsofts Dev kit legallity of something like that

I own shenmue II for both Dreamcast and Xbox, the xbox version is a port rather than emulation and adds a few of it's own features such as a couple of extra weather effects and full english voice overs.. I still like the dreamcast version more myself being that you can import save data from the previous game to gain extra figures and moves but thats about it for the extras, just a shame there is no Shenmue III

[Constipated Rat]

OK, thanks for the info dudes.

Damn!! Very powerful piece of kit the original xbox was ... some good emus for it.

[Inferno.]

Yep, and the games it does have look very nice on an LCD through a component cable so it's definitely a console worth keeping around.

[Zorlon]

There are a large number of great games on the old xbox without the emulated systems to start with

A few Dreamcast ports on there but what system from that time doesn't

• Grand Theft Auto 3 to San Andreas Just Great Specially San Andreas being the best GTA game so far
• Project Zero 1 and 2 Great Horrors
• Fable the lost Chapters A very nice RPG
• Dead or Alive 1 to 3 Good old beat em up
• Star Wars Knights of the old Republic 1 & 2 Great RPG's
• Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth Great Horror
• Phantasy Star Online Episodes 1 & 2 (make sure you get the hacked version) Great RPG

to name a few

P.S. might be looking at Fable next to mod, could do a re-mix aswell as added content, this are mods for this already but not much of anything great yet, though may end up taking a bit of a break soon anyway

[Inferno.]

Some of my favourites:

Star Wars Knights of the old Republic one, never got into the second one.
Fable
Halo (the others are arse.)
Project Gotham Racing 2
Sega GT 2002 (Absolutely horrible now. )
Jet Set Radio: Future
Star Wars Republic Commando
Forza Motorsport
Soul Calibur II

Such a fantastic system.

[Jackhammer]

You can mod by hotswapping. You need a PC with an IDE connection.

A couple of links:
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=244043
http://forums.xbox-scene.com/index.php?showtopic=332179

Here is a cd image with softmod ready installed. You use this with the hotswap method. Nothing to buy except a blank cd.

Download Links:
Links are hidden from guests. Please register to be able to view these links.

Use at your own risk, hotswapping isn't without risk...

[Constipated Rat]

Great!!.. thanks for the pointers and image link Jackhammer

@Zorlon/Inferno

I have most of them games(I have 300 or so games here, all backups) and no telling what is on the "4 in 1" disks, possibly more from your lists.. my mate knew his stuff, what to buy and what not to buy.

After looking at the specs of this thing I've noticed it is WAY more powerful than the PS2 lol. I cant believe I was so loyal to Sony when this monster should have been the console I was using during the PS2/xbox era... It's also just dawned on me how much games suffered slowdown and glitching on the PS2. Games like GTA San Andreas had bad draw distance when flying around, although on the back of the cover it showed really good clear views from the air lol... or when the car spawning AI use to mess up and cause pile ups right before your eyes on the highways lol!, and cars use to jutter when crusing beside them even on empty roads. Seemed the game was too much for it.... so I'm guessing games like this on the more powerful xbox wont suffer these, Right?...

OK, now I'm psyched!!... this is my new interest for the rest of the summer, getting all this up and running the way I want it.!!

Thanks for all the input guys, I will check out the links and let you know how it goes, Cheers.

[Gypsy]

After looking at the specs of this thing I've noticed it is WAY more powerful than the PS2 lol. I cant believe I was so loyal to Sony when this monster should have been the console I was using during the PS2/xbox era... It's also just dawned on me how much games suffered slowdown and glitching on the PS2. Games like GTA San Andreas had bad draw distance when flying around, although on the back of the cover it showed really good clear views from the air lol... or when the car spawning AI use to mess up and cause pile ups right before your eyes on the highways lol!, and cars use to jutter when crusing beside them even on empty roads. Seemed the game was too much for it.... so I'm guessing games like this on the more powerful xbox wont suffer these, Right?...

To be fair the PS2 had the better side of the exclusives.

Also, no reason to play Morrowind on Xbox when you can play it on PC.

Morrowind I have yet to look at so not sure what has been done with that one

Probably lots but not as much as what is available for PC.

This thread reminds me that I still need to pick up an original xbox again and turn it into an emulating machine for rare PS1 and SNES I've been meaning to play.

Are there any ways to use alternate controllers on the Xbox? The main reason I never got into Xbox that much was the controller.

[Constipated Rat]

To be fair the PS2 had the better side of the exclusives.

Yeah, no doubt about it mate. Was still a great console and Sony and game developers knew it would fly off the shelf.

MS also had LIVE to help spin money for them in the after sales, so they needed it to be equipped and nifty to make an impact. So you can see how and why both consoles had their perks.

I would rather play emu's also on a console if the emulation is good, Sitting at a pc is annoying sometimes, also makes you want to use save states to beat levels or bosses when you get frustrated lol. I did have some emu's on Ps2, like snes station, but music in games was too slow, and some later gen games had some frame issues. I hate wasting my time playing unless its almost perfect. The xbox should be good, and as you say PS1.. looking forward to seeing how it goes.

And yeah, dont fancy the feel of the xbox controller myself, playstation controllers are what I've used for the last 15 or so years, good to see there is adapters. I'm also looking forward to the 720p as I actually played a good deal of my games on a 20inch 4:3 TV, so going flat panel 32 inch at 720p should be good to relive some memories. I just wish I wasn't so "johnny come lately" to it. lol