XBox - Softmodding

Anubis · Master of Amiga Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Age: 40 Posts: 1311

Some of you might already know, but in last couple of weeks I softmoded my xBox and the thing turned my boring xBox into great media center.

With help of couple of EAB members and great support from Alexh I was able to perform soft mode, replace HD and install a lot of nice retro emulators. (thanks for links for Retroplay)

Just wonder how many of you have softmoded xBox and what programs/emus you like to use.

gklinger · Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 6:29 pm Post subject: Re: XBox - Softmodding

Anubis · Master of Amiga Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Age: 40 Posts: 1311

I actually copied only the games that I own. (as those are the only that I'm interested in)

As for emulators, all emulators I tried so far worked better then I expected. Shocked

The one I tried I downloaded from Retroply's post at snesorama.

WinUAEx is great.

I also tried SNES, NES, MegaDrive/Genesis, Master System and PC-Engine emulators and didn't have any problems.

Only thing that I have to adjust for all of them is screen size.

I just tried Mame emu, and it worked fine, but had a problem ti access menu (didn't know key combination - back + white and back + black) I will try that tonight again. Smile

killergorilla · Amiga Enthusiast Joined: 22 Jul 2004 Posts: 532

gklinger · Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 1:10 am Post subject:

How do I unwrap these avis? Smile

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Commie-Kid · Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 1:36 am Post subject:

Softmodding?
What mod software did you use?
I've tried before, and managed to kill my PC hard drive in a bad hotswap accident... Fear

Anubis · Master of Amiga Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Age: 40 Posts: 1311

gklinger,

I'm not sure that you can do that, except to reformat video to some different format. But first try to play your video with VLC media player and press Ctrl + I (media info) and click advanced info. This will tell you what codec and stream your file is using.

It worked for me for files I created as well as for files I downloaded.

KG, what problems do you have resizing on ZSnesxBox? I tried it, and it seems to resize properly. You can even setup pixel-perfect emulation. Wink

@Commie-Kid - I used save game exploit to first softmode my xBox. It requires you to have a memory card and a way to access that memory card on your PC (I used xBox controller which I converted into USB controller, and xBox connector I used with female USB port, so now I can connect keyboard or mouse on XBox) or you can use Action Replay if you have one. Other way is to have someone with hard/soft moded xBox.

When that was done, I copied eeprom key to my PC and with FTP access and XBoxHDM I created bootable CD with good copy of my xBox C drive and saves from E drive.

I setup new HD on my PC with CD rom I just created in above step. It automatically created key to unlock drive, I formated and installed C and E drives and locked HD. After that I replaced disk with my original (which I will just keep as backup in the case something goes wrong) softmoded it again (because I used original HD configuration) and lastly I used xboxpartitioner to setup F drive because my HD is bigger then 250 GB.

You can read original thread at EAB. It took me some time to gather all information, but with help of alexh and couple other members I was able to do it right first time. Smile

ps. I never liked hot swaps even for drives which are intended to support them.

gklinger · Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 2:42 pm Post subject:

I'll look into it, Anubis. I figured I could convert the video to something else if need be.

That's almost exactly what I did. I didn't use a 3rd part formatter though so I had to go with two (F: and G:) partitions on my 320GB drive. Worked out though. I've got F: filled with ROMs and mp3s and such and G: is exclusively for XBOX games.
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Anubis · Master of Amiga Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Age: 40 Posts: 1311

Some folks lost data on F and G when they used XBoxHDM, so be careful (and ready to redo the process if needed Wink

)

To create avi files from DVD i used DVDFab Platinum. Easy to use, has a lot of options including capturing close caption and a lot of options for video and sound bit rates.

To convert files I used DivX Converter. Probably not the best tool out there, but it does the job. Smile

killergorilla · Amiga Enthusiast Joined: 22 Jul 2004 Posts: 532

Anubis, you can't setup pixel perfect emulation with zsnexbox unless you have it setup at standard resolution. My xbox outputs at 720p so it is VERY difficult to find out the pixel perfect resolutions due to the stupid way of resizing. I have all of the xport emus setup perfectly to output pixel perfect output.
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Anubis · Master of Amiga Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Age: 40 Posts: 1311

Can't you change xBox output per emulator? Rolling Eyes

I haven't mess yet with output mode. My TV will support 1080, but not sure if I like to change it yet. Smile

killergorilla · Amiga Enthusiast Joined: 22 Jul 2004 Posts: 532

Yeah you can change output for each emulator.

But outputting the playstation emulator in a multiple of the original resolution looks better than outputting in the original resolution and letting my TV upscale it.
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gklinger · Posted: Thu Aug 14, 2008 6:07 pm Post subject:

Anubis · Master of Amiga Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Age: 40 Posts: 1311

AlexH posted that you can use data due to incorrect format of clusters (iirc) in XBoxHD.

Ask him, he can tell more precise answer.

I remember reading that some folks have lost a lot of data until they noticed.

Anubis · Master of Amiga Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Age: 40 Posts: 1311