Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.action (
More info?)
On 20 Sep 2005 02:47:39 GMT, Knight37 <knight37m@gmail.com> wrote:
>john.dsl@verizon.net (John Lewis) once tried to test me with:
>
>> On Mon, 19 Sep 2005 10:22:43 -0700, "bunboy" <bunboy@cox.net> wrote:
>>
>>>I have heard that many of the reasons consoles are so cheap given the
>>>horsepower they put out is the are sold for cost or even under cost
>>>because the profit margin is so high on the software. After they
>>>sell it too they have no tech support or patching problems or expenses
>>>although maybe they will start with all this internet connecting.
>>> By the way anybody know if old x box games can be played on the
>>> Xbox
>>>360?
>>>
>>
>> Ask M$$. The Xbox360 is not backward compatible for ANY Xbox game
>> without a PATCH for each Xbox game loaded to the Xbox360 hard disk.
>> ( A Xbox360 without a hard-disk will not run any Xbox games ) M$$ did
>> a last-minute about-face on the subject of backward-compatibility
>> about 4 months ago and licensed the emulation rights from nVidia
>> ( Must have been some very big smiles in the nVidia board-room --
>> finally rid of M$$ as a cheese-pairing customer, plus a nice fat
>> license-contract ). M$$ uses the politically evasive title of
>> "emulation profile" for these patches.
>>
>> Lots of words from M$$ 'representatives' at various shows, but no
>> hard-copy M$$-published list yet of which games will be patched -
>> don't expect any non-mainstream Xbox titles ever to be patched. The
>> new programming and testing work is significant and the development
>> team for older games is unlikely to be around any more. Also, no
>> mention of the size of each "emulation profile". The "emulation
>> profile" is expected to be a completely re-compiled game executable
>> plus new libraries, so expect each one to be large, maybe in the
>> hundreds of megabytes range.
>
>Cite source? Everything I've heard about the emulation is that it will be
>an emulation software, not recompiles of the games.
>
See:-
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?section_name=dev&aid=8996
Without recompile an Xbox game will run on only one of the processor
cores and be as slow as sludge. Each core is capable of only in-order
execution, like the Pentium1 and unlike the P3 processor in the Xbox,
so such an emulator has to be very tricky indeed besides having to
emulate the nVidia GPU and sound in the ATi/PPC hardware. If the
Xbox game has used some hardware tricks outside standard libraries,
as many of the 3D action games have done --- to squeeze
as much graphics performance out of the Xbox as possible -- then
there is no other alternate but to recompile (and debug and test) the
game code for the Xbox360. And, of course, if the original development
team was long gone, such an activity would be financially pointless.
Hence, expect the backward compatibility of the Xbox360 to be very
spotty indeed.
It will be very interesting indeed to see how Sony approaches the
issue of backward compatibility -- they do have time to incorporate
custom code and/or hardware to assist in the emulation. Let's see
if they really can do any better....
M$$ decided to support some form of backward compatibility under
pressure from software developers and retailers but far too late and
after the Xbox360 hardware design was complete. Maybe future versions
of the Xbox360 will include HD Blu-ray and backward-compatibility
hardware
For some more technical info on the Xbox360 Xenon processor,
Google it or see:-
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/xbox360-2.ars
and
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2453
Nice to know that when I decide to upgrade my PC there will
only be trivial backward-compatibility problems with my rather large
collection of PC games. Instead of all this console nonsense
with garages stacked full of old consoles and very expensive
(when first purchased) software now incompatible with new
hardware.
John Lewis
- Technology early-birds are flying guinea-pigs.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram