Xbox 360 backwards compatibility: consfused

[Rob]

Archived from groups: alt.games.video.xbox (More info?)

I don't see the difference here:

My PC can pretty much play every game from the mid 90's until now. Except
maybe some sound or speed issues with the old DOS games.

Why is it such a feat for MS to make the xbox 360 backward compatible? I
thought the XBOX was essentially a PC.

Am I wrong?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.video.xbox (More info?)

Rob wrote:

> Why is it such a feat for MS to make the xbox 360 backward
> compatible? I thought the XBOX was essentially a PC.

Can you run PC games on your Mac? That's the best analogy. Different CPU
architecture, different video card architecture, the whole thing. Unlike
computer games, which are coded to run on a specific OS rather than hardware
set, console games are coded with very specific hardware in mind. Change the
hardware, and you have to have a whole bunch of software emulation involved
to run the old games.

-Z-

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.video.xbox (More info?)

"Rob" <robertnospamaccomando@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:FcbOe.7594$RZ2.3342@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...
> I don't see the difference here:
>
> My PC can pretty much play every game from the mid 90's until now. Except
> maybe some sound or speed issues with the old DOS games.
>
> Why is it such a feat for MS to make the xbox 360 backward compatible? I
> thought the XBOX was essentially a PC.
>
> Am I wrong?

You are correct, however, the Xbox 360 is basically a Mac, not a PC. (Well,
it's a powerpc, which is close enough). Thus lies the problem - just like
you can't run PC stuff on a Mac without an emulator, neither will the 360.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.video.xbox (More info?)

Rob <robertnospamaccomando@earthlink.net> wrote:

> Why is it such a feat for MS to make the xbox 360 backward compatible? I
> thought the XBOX was essentially a PC.

If XBox is essentially a PC...then Xbox360 is essentially a Macintosh.

The Xbox360 uses the same PowerPC CPU found inside Apple Macintoshes, and
also uses a different video chipset from the Xbox.

So, what the Xbox360 is going to do is use an emulator so that the Xbox
games will think they're running on an Xbox, but in reality, they're
running within the emulator, which will translate the game's XBox
instructions into Xbox360 instructions, and vice/versa.

If you've ever played around with other emulators on your PC, such as
MAME, or SNESX, you'll know that there are always little problems trying to
get the emulator to accurate depict the target's hardware platform
accurately, and still be fast enough that when you run a game it doesn't
feel slow. For this reason, emulators usually require a hardware platform
many times more powerful/faster than the hardware being emulated. I'm not
fully convinced that the XBox360 is going to be powerful enough to be able
to run emulated Xbox games exactly like they were running on a real Xbox.

Furthermore, most emulators need to be "tuned" for each specific game.
This tweaking and tuning can take awhile to get right, which is why
Microsoft has stated that their backward compatibility feature will only
support a limited number of games initially. Supposedly, the number of
supported games will increase as newer versions of the emulator are
released. However, this all presumes that Microsoft will actually
continue to work on the emulator once the 360 is released...

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.video.xbox (More info?)

J. Allard <AllJard@msn.com> wrote:

> Raises Hand... Um...

> PS3 is fully backwards compatible with PS1 and PS2 games.
> PS3 is a new architecture.

Correct.

However, the PS2 contains an entire PS1 processor inside. So when you
play a PS1 game on your PS2, you are, in esscense, running PS1 hardware.
Likewise, the PS3 will contain a PS2 inside, allowing you to play PS2 and
PS1 games on the same machine.

Since you are using nearly native hardware (the processors) there's hardly
any compatibility issues, and no slow down problem.s

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.video.xbox (More info?)

Jeremy Reaban <jer@connectria.com> wrote:

> Well, Sony did PS1 on the PS2 by sticking a PS1 cpu in the PS2. And
> presumably the same will happen with the PS3.

> MS can't really do that with the 360. Beyond the royalties, they'd have to
> stick PC hardware in it, which is simply too big.

And expensive.

Since Sony owns the PS1/PS2 CPUs, they were able to shrink them down using
newer technology. Microsoft doesn't own either the CPU or graphics
processor, and trying to get the 2 companies to work together on a new
reduced chip would be horrendously expensive, complicated and expensive.