# how long until 360 emulated properly?



## Zalda (Jan 3, 2012)

okay so i'll probably get disappointed but if you see the state the ps2 emulation currently is in, it gives me hope. ps2 was released in 2000, and pcsx2 started shortly after that, and about 6 years later, it was possible to run just about all games (ff x for example) at 60FPS on a decent pc. now after 10 years (aprox.) in development any game can be emulated, perfectly, faster than 60fps, upscaled, whatever 

so the 360 is now over 6 years old, how long until it gets emulated properly? i haven't heard of any 360 emulators, so that isn't promising..... by this time in the ps2 emulation (and probably NGC too), some games could be emulated perfectly already.

so how long before i can give RDR a try :yay360:


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## FireGrey (Jan 3, 2012)

Unless the computer is using the same hardware as a 360, you will need a computer much more powerful than a 360, but they aren't as common as they will be in a few years so there won't be too much people to use the 360 emulator.
Anyway I think that with Windows 8 Microsoft is allowing computers to use Xbox Live and perhaps play Xbox 360 games (or NextBox games, I have a crazy feeling though that the NextBox is going to be a computer running a special Windows 8 OS with the games designed to be optimized to it's hardware, if that's the case I may skip getting the Wii U and a gaming PC and just go for the NextBox, It will be an amazing and smart move, since Microsoft is mostly computer people, it will be logical to do so)


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## DinohScene (Jan 3, 2012)

360 emulation won't happen any time soon.

The 360 CPU is a 3.6 Ghz tricore PowerPC CPU that needs to be emulated.
That won't ever work on a simple hexa/octa core CPU.

Besides it's way cheaper to buy a 360 then a beast computer that is capable of emulating a 360 somewhere in 2020.


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## Foxi4 (Jan 3, 2012)

The moment we will have PC's that have roughly 3x more processing power then the XBox 360, same goes for GPU's. That should about cover the losses on architecture emulation and OS resources.

Just to explain what I mean in more detail...

CPU-wise, it's 6 Operations Per Cycle x 2 Hardware Threads x 3 Physical Processors x 3.2GHz clock rate = 115.2 GFLOPs for the XBox360. Go on ahead and check how high the i7 ranks, you might be unpleasantly suprised.

Consoles are specifically designed for the purpose of gaming - computers are not. It will take about 10 years to properly emulate the 360. In fact, we don't even have a good XBox emulator to begin with.


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## Zalda (Jan 3, 2012)

FireGrey said:


> Unless the computer is using the same hardware as a 360, you will need a computer much more powerful than a 360, but they aren't as common as they will be in a few years so there won't be too much people to use the 360 emulator.
> Anyway I think that with Windows 8 Microsoft is allowing computers to use Xbox Live and perhaps play Xbox 360 games (or NextBox games, I have a crazy feeling though that the NextBox is going to be a computer running a special Windows 8 OS with the games designed to be optimized to it's hardware, if that's the case I may skip getting the Wii U and a gaming PC and just go for the NextBox, It will be an amazing and smart move, since Microsoft is mostly computer people, it will be logical to do so)


lets hope so, if windows 8 leans closer to the architecture of the nextbox, than it'll be a real emulating party 


DinohScene said:


> 360 emulation won't happen any time soon.
> 
> The 360 CPU is a 3.6 Ghz tricore PowerPC CPU that needs to be emulated.
> That won't ever work on a simple hexa/octa core CPU.
> ...


2020 seems overreacted, 2016 seems more like it, surely the hardware pc world will keep evolving?


Foxi4 said:


> The moment we will have PC's that have roughly 3x more processing power then the XBox 360, same goes for GPU's. That should about cover the losses on architecture emulation and OS resources.
> 
> Just to explain what I mean in more detail...
> 
> ...


just googled and the highest FLOPS any cpu got according to wiki:


> As of 2010, the fastest six-core PC processor reaches *109 GFLOPS* (Intel Core i7 980 XE)[14] in double precision calculations. *GPUs are considerably more powerful.* For example, Nvidia Tesla C2050 GPU computing processors perform around 515 GFLOPS[15] in double precision calculations, and the AMD FireStream 9270 peaks at 240 GFLOPS.[16]



surely i must be forgetting something, else this is a pleasant surprise!


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## Foxi4 (Jan 3, 2012)

Zalda said:


> FireGrey said:
> 
> 
> > Unless the computer is using the same hardware as a 360, you will need a computer much more powerful than a 360, but they aren't as common as they will be in a few years so there won't be too much people to use the 360 emulator.
> ...


Six-core processors coupled with Tesla cards are out of reach for an everyday user, you do realize that? Of course it's an unwritten rule, but you'd have to reach three times the calculation power of the XBox 360 to emulate it, that's a whooping 115.2 GFLOP's on the processor only, and then there's emulating the graphics chip... altogether little over 1TFLOP, correct me if I'm wrong That, and you have to think of the MIPS too.

As far as "revolutions in the computer scene", don't expect any of large magnitude anytime soon - we pretty much reached the point where we can't make the silicone any faster, hence we're just adding more and more cores until an alternative is found.


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## kthnxshwn (Jan 3, 2012)

The 360 is a computer.


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## DinohScene (Jan 3, 2012)

kthnxshwn said:


> The 360 is a computer.



So is the PS3 and the Wii because it can run Linux..
but that doesn't mean it's a PC.

The original xbox indeed was very much a PC.
It had a modified x86 Pentium 3 CPU and a Geforce 4 GPU chip iirc.

"The Xbox is based on commodity PC hardware and is much larger and heavier than its contemporaries. This is largely due to a bulky tray-loading DVD-ROM drive and the standard-size 3.5 inch hard drive."

Source is: Wikipedia


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## kthnxshwn (Jan 4, 2012)

DinohScene said:


> kthnxshwn said:
> 
> 
> > The 360 is a computer.
> ...


I never said it was a computer because it can run Linux.


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## Zalda (Jan 4, 2012)

Foxi4 said:


> Six-core processors coupled with Tesla cards are out of reach for an everyday user, you do realize that? Of course it's an unwritten rule, but you'd have to reach three times the calculation power of the XBox 360 to emulate it, that's a whooping 345 GFLOP's on the processor only, and then there's emulating the graphics chip... That, and you have to think of the MIPS too.
> 
> As far as "revolutions in the computer scene", don't expect any of large magnitude anytime soon - we pretty much reached the point where we can't make the silicone any faster, hence we're just adding more and more cores until an alternative is found.


oh right, that makes sense..... so in 5 years, even the best CPU's on the market won't be able to emulate the 360?

what if the Nextbox is hacked and can run emulation, surely it's possible then? that's made to run games alone (nothing else) and maybe it even has backwards compat. surely that's possible?


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## Hells Malice (Jan 4, 2012)

If the Netbox is already backwards compatible, it could probably run 360 games when hacked. Otherwise no probably not.

Y'know what's simpler than waiting 10+ years for something to emulate the 360?
Buying one, they're dirt cheap.


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## DinohScene (Jan 4, 2012)

kthnxshwn said:


> DinohScene said:
> 
> 
> > kthnxshwn said:
> ...



Then why is the 360 a computer in your opinion?


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## Zalda (Jan 4, 2012)

Hells Malice said:


> If the Netbox is already backwards compatible, it could probably run 360 games when hacked. Otherwise no probably not.
> 
> Y'know what's simpler than waiting 10+ years for something to emulate the 360?
> Buying one, they're dirt cheap.


i know that's simpler but it just makes no sense at all to buy one now, it's at the end of it's life.... besides i'm scared of all the problems the consoles have (just dies after 3 years, RROD, hacking = Xblive ban, ....)
i saw some secondhand consoles go for about 100 euros, sounds good but another thing with me buying a 360 now would give me an even bigger form of piracy syndrome  there are probably 50 titles out there i really really should play and would enjoy (excluded all the multiplatform/online shooters like CoD and Halo), and i'm NEVER going to find time to play them all, NEVER.

+ i need to buy a tv then, + get wifi running here


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## Hells Malice (Jan 5, 2012)

Why would it make no sense to buy a console with dozens of good games, all patched up to not have bugs, all of the games are cheap, the console itself is dirt cheap.
Theoretically this is the BEST time to get it. RROD is gone unless you abuse your 360. I've had my launch 360 Elite since...well, it launched. The Elites killed RRoD, and now every 360 is essentially RRoD free.

As for your other things, wat. You wanted to emulate it but wouldn't have time to even play it?
Sense no make.


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## DinohScene (Jan 5, 2012)

Thats not entirely true since the first Elites had Zephyr boards.

The Falcon 360's already removed most of the RRoD problems, they still RRoD but if you take good care of it it will last FAR longer then the Xenon and Zephyr.
The Jasper boards (2009) have put an hold to RRoD, Kronos boards (last 360 Phat revision released) don't even heat up, at least mine doesn't (GPU and CPU heatsinks are comfy to touch)
Trinity/Velje revisions are the first slims which is RRoD free.
Corona is the newest revision.

Xenon has a 90nm GPU and a 90nm CPU with a aluminum GPU heatsink and a heatpipe based CPU heatsink.
Zephyr has a 80nm GPU and a 90nm CPU with a heatpipe based GPU heatsink and a heatpipe based CPU heatsink.
Falcon has a 80nm GPU and 65nm CPU with a heatpipe based GPU heatsink and a aluminum CPU heatsink.
Opus is identical to the Falcon but with a 90nm GPU. (rare console without HDMI)
Jasper has a 65nm GPU and a 65nm CPU with the same heatsinks as the Falcon.
Kronos is the same as the Jasper but with a new GPU (65nm) wich paved the way for a Xenon styled GPU heatsink.
Trinity/Velje has a 45nm CPU and GPU combined in one chip wich sits under a single big blocked aluminum heatsink with a fan blowing directly onto it.
Corona is the same as the Trinity/Velje but it has the HANA chip removed (wich caused E74 errors) wich also removed the RGH.

To sum this all up:
Xenon (2005-2007) = RRoD machine
Zephyr (2007-2007)  = RRoD machine
Falcon (~2008-2009) = non RRoD machine IF taken care of.
Opus (2008) = Same as the Falcon but are rare and only available from MS due to RRoD repairs.
Jasper (2009-2010) = non RRoD machine
Kronos (late 2009 -2010) = non RRoD machine
Trinity/Velje (2010-2011) = non RRoD machine
Corona (2011-201x) = non RRoD machine.

It's safe to say that you could own a 360 for years and years provided that you keep it in a well vented area and regularly clean it from dust bunnies.


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## FAST6191 (Jan 5, 2012)

I am probably supposed to laugh here but if the PCI expansion stuff takes off (you can buy a cell chip in a PCI card form to stick on any old PC although it costs a pretty penny) and/or some of the dynamic recompilation/decompilation stuff takes off (I am not sure what languages are used but a nice C# and DRM locked (see things like dashlaunch adding a portion of unhashed memory) not to mention some people getting somewhere with C++ decompilation and C decompilation has been looking good for a while) along with a few more engine source releases (more than a few games use modded source, unreal, quake/doom/ID and suchlike engines) and/or extensive modding kits for the same we might see some way of playing a game- see some of the projects to punch the doom engine into shape for running games that did not have source releases but owed a passing nod to such games. If however you want something like the 8,16 and 32bit era consoles (consider we are still exploring ultra accurate emulators there) the that would elicit the *laughs* response.


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## Zalda (Jan 5, 2012)

Hells Malice said:


> Why would it make no sense to buy a console with dozens of good games, all patched up to not have bugs, all of the games are cheap, the console itself is dirt cheap.
> Theoretically this is the BEST time to get it. RROD is gone unless you abuse your 360. I've had my launch 360 Elite since...well, it launched. The Elites killed RRoD, and now every 360 is essentially RRoD free.
> 
> As for your other things, wat. You wanted to emulate it but wouldn't have time to even play it?
> Sense no make.


i wanted to emulate them because then i would spend 0 euros on this, 0. So even if i couldn't play 20% of the titles i would want to, it wouldn't matter because i spent nothing on this platform, hence i wouldn't lose any money. then I wouldn't feel so bad that i couldn't play them.
if I would buy it for around 100 euros, then i would have to go through the hassle of cracking it, downloading thegames, setting up wifi, setting up xb live, pay for xbox live, AND BUY A TV, which would easily set me back 350 euros in total.


DinohScene said:


> Thats not entirely true since the first Elites had Zephyr boards.
> 
> The Falcon 360's already removed most of the RRoD problems, they still RRoD but if you take good care of it it will last FAR longer then the Xenon and Zephyr.
> The Jasper boards (2009) have put an hold to RRoD, Kronos boards (last 360 Phat revision released) don't even heat up, at least mine doesn't (GPU and CPU heatsinks are comfy to touch)
> ...


thanks! i haven't followed the scene at all, didn't know they had that much motherboards in circulation!


FAST6191 said:


> I am probably supposed to laugh here but if the PCI expansion stuff takes off (you can buy a cell chip in a PCI card form to stick on any old PC although it costs a pretty penny) and/or some of the dynamic recompilation/decompilation stuff takes off (I am not sure what languages are used but a nice C# and DRM locked (see things like dashlaunch adding a portion of unhashed memory) not to mention some people getting somewhere with C++ decompilation and C decompilation has been looking good for a while) along with a few more engine source releases (more than a few games use modded source, unreal, quake/doom/ID and suchlike engines) and/or extensive modding kits for the same we might see some way of playing a game- see some of the projects to punch the doom engine into shape for running games that did not have source releases but owed a passing nod to such games. If however you want something like the 8,16 and 32bit era consoles (consider we are still exploring ultra accurate emulators there) the that would elicit the *laughs* response.


okay, so after reading your message 5 times trying to get some sense out of it, it is possible to emulate the 360 on an excellent PC in some time, IF a new PCI technology is developed?
you try to help but I'm very sorry, i don't understand anything what you are saying


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## DinohScene (Jan 5, 2012)

You can search for hours on the internet but you won't find a 360 emulator.

It's just better to buy a preflashed console,
You don't have to pay for XBLive since its a free service and ONLY online multiplayer is paid.
Plus you can get VGA cables to hook it up to your monitor.


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## DinohScene (Jan 5, 2012)

If you want to play over the internet you'll need a Gold membership indeed.
It doesn't cost 20 bucks since MS also has dscounts on memberships very often.

Co-op and Syslink are free.
DLC download is free (only costs MSpoints)

Hmm, then the only real cost would be the TV indeed.


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## Zalda (Jan 5, 2012)

DinohScene said:


> You can search for hours on the internet but you won't find a 360 emulator.
> 
> It's just better to buy a preflashed console,
> You don't have to pay for XBLive since its a free service and ONLY online multiplayer is paid.
> Plus you can get VGA cables to hook it up to your monitor.


i know that, gbatemp helped me with that info, i know there is no working 360 emulator atm.

oh, so only if i want to play RDR co-op/download DLC/play multiplayer i would have to pay for xbox live? tnx, didn't know that. still it's an added costs though, another 20 euros for 3 months or so, that's a lot for a service i'll probably won't use enough.

i don't have a monitor, just a laptop atm. it would be a 32 inch TV that i'll need


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## Foxi4 (Jan 6, 2012)

FAST6191 said:


> I am probably supposed to laugh here but if the PCI expansion stuff takes off (you can buy a cell chip in a PCI card form to stick on any old PC although it costs a pretty penny) and/or some of the dynamic recompilation/decompilation stuff takes off (I am not sure what languages are used but a nice C# and DRM locked (see things like dashlaunch adding a portion of unhashed memory) not to mention some people getting somewhere with C++ decompilation and C decompilation has been looking good for a while) along with a few more engine source releases (more than a few games use modded source, unreal, quake/doom/ID and suchlike engines) and/or extensive modding kits for the same we might see some way of playing a game- see some of the projects to punch the doom engine into shape for running games that did not have source releases but owed a passing nod to such games. If however you want something like the 8,16 and 32bit era consoles (consider we are still exploring ultra accurate emulators there) the that would elicit the *laughs* response.


If you are pointing this at me, I thought I clearly stated that building a rig of sufficient processing power is possible, but not for the average consumer, and it won't be possible for the average consumer for quite some time, regardless whether or not decompilation will take off. Some things are really down to hardware, and even if you optimize the code as much as humanly possible, an x86/x64 will still choke during Cell emulation and Cell PCI-E cards will STILL be expensive in a few year's time.


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## FAST6191 (Jan 6, 2012)

@Foxi4 it was not meant to directed at any one.

Anyhow I was asked to expand on it

PCI cards- the rules of thumb regarding how much faster/more powerful a machine needs to be to do emulation of another relate to the differences in system layout and if you can bolt on some custom hardware like a nice PCI card with the requisite/similar chips onboard (or maybe a beefy future FPGA) to narrow the gap it could get easier- I then mentioned the cell processor on a PCI card as an example. Frankly though I do not imagine it is not going to be nice to code for and I hate to think what kind of latency and bandwidth issues you will run into (arguably such things are some of the reasons CUDA and co have not set the world on fire).

Recompilation/decompilation (dynamic and otherwise)- three concepts here 1) the irreversibility of computation is lessening via the application of some techniques (most of which have been seen for years in emulation- ever had a game that does not work properly where something like bsnes does work...) http://www.cs.princeton.edu/courses/archive/fall06/cos576/papers/bennett73.html has some on the concept but if you look at some of the stuff coming out of the decompilation and anti virus world it gets good.
2) Looking at the marketplace there is a lot of code in C# (well .NET) which is a language with extensive libraries to do most things. To this end if you can get it to hook into a PC version you then only have to do a little bit of work. Likewise the early N64 emulators (and current ones/ones made for lower powered systems) did a similar thing with plain C to attempt to get it to work on a PC.
3) The 360 memory is encrypted meaning some of the more exotic techniques are unavailable for use by developers which should help make the job of the reverse engineer a bit easier.

Engines- coding an engine is a right pain but buying one in that already does shooting, vehicles and such and maybe poking it around a bit is somewhat easier. Such practices have been going on for years and years and occasionally the older games get really nice dev tools released or even the entire source ( http://www.iddevnet.com/doom3/ and http://www.3drealms.com/downloads.html being two examples) allowing people to take the engines and rework them to support the assets of other games that use the same engine or a tweak thereof. Should say the unreal3 engine get a source release or enough of an SDK to infer lots about how it works then it could be used to do some stuff on console exclusives. Granted there probably is a feeling that unlike the likes of doom and duke3d the modern engines are too complicated but if I had to place money on what technique the first "emulated" 360 game will use it would be heavily weighted towards this.

As a nice example of a combination of the two above see the likes of WINE, 3dfx emulation and such.


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## Zalda (Jan 10, 2012)

well guess it's off to buy a cheap 360 in a few years thehn..... tnx all


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## muckers (Jan 10, 2012)

Given that an awful lot of the major 360 releases get released on the PC, you might as well just play them on PC. You'll need a hell of a lot less powerful set up to play them than you'd need to emulate 360 games properly.


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## Satangel (Jan 10, 2012)

Zalda said:


> okay so i'll probably get disappointed but if you see the state the ps2 emulation currently is in, it gives me hope. ps2 was released in 2000, and pcsx2 started shortly after that, and about 6 years later, it was possible to run just about all games (ff x for example) at 60FPS on a decent pc. now after 10 years (aprox.) in development any game can be emulated, perfectly, faster than 60fps, upscaled, whatever
> 
> so the 360 is now over 6 years old, how long until it gets emulated properly? i haven't heard of any 360 emulators, so that isn't promising..... by this time in the ps2 emulation (and probably NGC too), some games could be emulated perfectly already.
> 
> *so how long before i can give RDR a try :yay360:*


He only wants to play RDR, which sadly isn't on the PC. I don't think Rockstar will release it on PC, ever. What a shame.....


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## Zalda (Jan 12, 2012)

i know, what a shame, Rockstar should just release the game already on the pc, wtf are they thinking


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## Satangel (Jan 19, 2012)

So, if I was to buy a new gaming PC now, I wouldn't have to invest in a really top-notch CPU because in the next 5 years (the time the PC will get used, not much longer), no other platform will be emulated properly?
Basically the only platforms I can see getting emulated from now on are the 3DS and the PSP, all the other platforms aren't possible yet.
If I buy a decent CPU like an i7, I'm set for everything emulated for the next 5 years.


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## DinohScene (Jan 19, 2012)

No you wont be.

Just get a 360 and hack it.
Far cheaper then a new PC.
Besides XBLive isn't even emulated for the Original Xbox.
You're stuck with XLink Kai *IF* it even gets emulated.

Besides Jasper and Kronos consoles don't RRoD, they can be found in pretty much any 360 made in the last half year of 2009 and in 2010.
Trinity boards have DVD drives that can be hacked. (Trinity is the 360 Slim)

You can RGH it. (equivalent of a jTAG) or DVD hack it (requires DVD's to load games)
RGH = No XBLive.
DVD = XBlive.

edit:
PSP is already in stages of good emulation.
3DS will be a different story but my best guess is that it requires the same as Dolphin.


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## Satangel (Jan 21, 2012)

DinohScene said:


> No you wont be.
> 
> Just get a 360 and hack it.
> Far cheaper then a new PC.
> ...


Thanks. 3DS won't be as hard as Dolphin I think, but it's not really a problem, my PC will just laugh at it :yaypc: 
Will keep this in mind when I build a new PC, CPU doesn't have to be top-notch because all the possible consoles have been emulated already.


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## DinohScene (Jan 21, 2012)

I think that a quad or hexacore would be more then enough to emulate a 3DS.
3DS has a dualcore ARM CPU iirc.

Just get a PC that meets the requirements for running Dolphin in 1080p and you'll be set for the next couple of years.


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## Majorami (Jan 25, 2012)

"They" "used" to say that "emulation" requires a computer/system thats 7x more powerful than the platform they're trying to emulate.

Its hard to argue with seeing that to play PS2 games near-perfectly with all the bells and whistles and such, you need a computer thats worth close to or at $1000. I've seen recordings of FF12 on i7 Quad processor machines that have FF12's backgrounds suddenly dissapearing and reappearing. So its not like its been perfected to 99-100% yet.

That said, I can't really imagine how much money would have to go into a PC that does 360 emulation perfectly...

All I know is by the time we know that answer.... the 360 itself will be in the $100-$150 range, $75 used. Even now, and even in the next 5, yes 5, years, its more practical to just buy a 360, and hack it.

For me, I can either spend $750-$1000 on a new laptop that can run PS2 games near-perfect, or spend less than $120 to hack a PS2 and run perfect games.


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