Gaming I need some sort of guide...

[G2K]

Hey everyone! So I've had my Wii modded for a while now, and it was easy to figure out thanks to the amazing GBAtemp! Now I want to try my 360, but I need some sort of guide. I found one for modifying to play backups, but right now I only want homebrew, for emulators and such. I don't get much from google, but it seems like something about flashing some drive or another (I've heard the DVD drive and the HDD). Where is some sort of simple guide I can follow, that will easily allow me to add backup playing abilities later? And what are the precautions - I'm guessing don't play homebrew when on Live? And since this will most likely void my warranty, what happens if I RROD (never happened yet, thankfully.)?

 

[FAST6191]

There is a limited amount of homebrew on the 360 but it requires a specific set of conditions (an early xbox, a chip (quite rare and expensive) and a given game (kong if memory serves), precludes you from online play (old kernel needed) and by extension new games. This also means there is very little for it:
http://www.free60.org/wiki/First_Steps

Frankly I suggest modding an original xbox- it can do "HD" and has a whole lot more in the way of homebrew.

 

[G2K]

OK, so screw the 360 idea, mines unmoddable.

But I was thinking today... why not buy an original Xbox and mod that? I want to do a hard drive replacement, what would be a good size for storing audio, DVDs, games, and homebrew (mostly emulators)? Just to be clear, I couldn't run all of that stuff plus XBMC from an external USB drive, right? Also, you CAN copy retail Xbox games to the hard drive and play them from there, no disc inserted, right? Where could I find a guide to setting this all up (replacing HDD, etc.)?

Next up, how do I actually soft mod the thing? And There is a full speed emu for N64, am I correct, or is that just for the 360? I have heard XBMC doesn't really theme too well on the Xbox version, is this true? Can I still use all of the features found in PC versions, like widgets and things?

Oh, and how would my setup work here... my PC in connected to the internet wirelessly through a router connected to a high speed modem on the other side of the house. My 360 is connected via ethernet cable to either the router or modem, I can't remember. To use FTP on the Xbox (Original), how would this be setup? Ethernet to the router?

Sorry for all the questions, I'm just stoopid.

 

[Blake1710]

I'm just getting into this whole xbox homebrew thing as well, but i can help you out with some of the questions.

For the guides, Google is your friend.

When your hacking the xbox, you've got 3 options. You can "hot-swap" the hard drive, install a softmod, or solder a modchip onto the motherboard.

Hotswapping involves booting the xbox, taking out the harddrive, plugging into a pc, and then transferring the required files. Softmodding involves loading a hacked save file for certain games, and i think you know what a modchip is. Hotswap guides can be found here, softmod guides can be found here and modchip guides here.

There is a really well developed N64 emu that is a built around UltraHLE, Project 64 and 1964, so it has really quite good compatibility. Not too sure about the XBMC thing.

About your FTP question, you two options there would be to either run a crossover cable from your PC, or a standard cable from your XBOX to your router.

 

[FAST6191]

To answer your questions:
The xbox ports are little more than glorified USB ports, you can make an adapter by opening up the wires on the xbox cable and a USB extension cable and soldering like coloured wires (you will be left with a yellow wire, leave it connected to the xbox). You can stick a few USB devices into them but they have to be the proper USB spec (a fair few use other specs or twisted versions of it that work on PCs but not on the xbox) and I think it was 2 gigs that is the limit in size.

Hard drive: my opinion on drives is whatever space you have you will use.
Yes you can copy retail games (the might even work better than they would from the disc). In my experience good xbox games hover around the 2 to 3 gig mark but some are far higher and others lower. You can also rip videos and whatnot from the games.

Normal scene style xvid videos look great on a standard def TV and even NTSC is not that much lower than what passes for high definition these days. I tend to encode videos I make myself slightly bigger though.

Audio: just about any format you care to have can be played so I leave that to you.

Homebrew: emulators have roms and I will leave you to decide how big they need to be for that. Complete older sets are not that much bigger than xbox games leaving the big games in the form of PS1 and N64 which brings us to the next question.
PS1 is good (probably in line with the PSP after some fiddling) although you need isos and N64 has many playable games if you are willing to fiddle with the options a little bit.

XBMC themes, I have not really played with the PC versions of xbmc but there are many great themes on the xbox version (the PC stuff came far later in the life of xbmc remember) and I have all manner of scripts for everything from IRC to updaters to trainer downloaders to proto web browsers (site specific stuff) to rss and beyond.

Networking, I should have you note that streaming via network is very well developed for the xbox version of xbmc and if your wireless is wireless g you should have no problems using your PC (wireless b can happily do music but it might choke on some video if you do it in real time). Standard windows file sharing (SMB which is also available via the SAMBA application in unix style systems)
From what you describe you have a little box from the ISP which is hooked into router/hub/similar that is probably providing all the addresses and most of the network functionality.
Regarding the crossover cable it will work but most modern network hardware (wireless is somewhat modern) does not require one, many guides are generally written when the xbox first appeared or are rehashed from them when the older style hardware was less common).

I know you did not ask but I will mention it anyway the xbox DVD drive is a fairly cheap and nasty thing but you can replace it (it is not such a nice thing to do but it is easy enough) and if you know how bit setting works you should be good:
http://www.xbox-linux.org/wiki/Xbox_Linux_...D_Burning_HOWTO

As for how to Blake1710 has already taken it but I will go a bit more in depth. There are many guides around here and places like http://www.xbox-scene.com/tutorials.php

1) The xbox hard drive is locked as standard (locking a somewhat rare part of the IDE spec, more on that after the methods), it does however unlock for a time after you power the xbox at which time you can yank the cable and plug it into your PC. It is not designed for such a thing but it can be done and is done quite often and is otherwise free. For all intents and purposes this is a softmod.

2) The conventional softmod requires one of game and a way to get a hacked save file onto the xbox; you can use a memory card or you can use a USB drive with an adapter that I described above.
There is PC software for the task (both USB and memory card readers like those from datel) or if you know someone with a hacked xbox you can have them transfer it for you.

3) Chips are twofold: one is the actual chip and another is the TSOP flash. Both require you to open the xbox and the TSOP flash involves you soldering/bridging connections and only works on the older xbox models.

I mentioned locking on hard drives: it is a fairly rare thing and because of that some drives do not support it. The locking is checked before softmod is loaded but chips and TSOP bypass it hence softmods needing a drive that can be locked.
There is no danger in trying to lock the drive as it either will or it will not. The only thing I will say is note what key you use to lock it for if you do not know the key you gain a brick for a hard drive unless you are exceptionally lucky and the drive has a master reset code (the data will be lost but the drive will not be).
You will need to unlock the stock drive as well for which you will need your EEPROM dump for, most softmods have a fake EEPROM if you try and read it but dumping it is part of the softmod and you can use a tool like liveinfo (I mentioned it here: http://gbatemp.net/index.php?showtopic=155701 ).

 

[G2K]

OK, so thankfully I found some of that out after a bit of research last night, but the info was all over the place, and almost every guide I read said that it was severely outdated and to look for another guide. So it seems I need an Xbox that is somehow modded in order to replace the HDD, right? So would the correct order to do this all be;

1) Buy Xbox and HDD
2) Mod using hotswap (My preffered choice)
3) Upgrade Harddrive
4) Remod after upgrading*
5) Install XBMC

*Unsure if needs to be done
Also, apparently I need to do the hotswap quickly... if I don't, can it ruin anything, or will it just not work and I have to try again?

 

[FAST6191]

My apologies despite thinking about it I failed to link up. Site about what drives do and do not work with the xbox:
http://xboxdrives.x-pec.com/?p=list&v_...&sort=brand

1) But of course.

2) Sure

3) Yes

4) Part of the installing a new drive thing is copying the old drive over.

5) If it was not already installed then yes. If you are going for a hotswap then the is little stopping you from installing xbmc right off the bat.

Hotswap:
As mentioned the drives in the IDE spec are not designed to be hotswapped. As for actually messing it up in theory it could but I have yet to see anyone who paid attention while doing it mess it up.
Many people like to loosen the drive cable before it all kicks off.