Hacking Alt. Servers for Xbox Live

[boscocraftXD]

Okay. My question is just a theoretical one... and one that could lead to some cool ideas...
As we all know, XBL on the 360 wont last forever. As it is, games that I never got the joy of playing online are permanently offline... But something that the Sega Dreamcast community did got me thinking....


The dreamcast had a very short lived online program. It was almost the precursor to Xbox Live. However, Dedicated fans figured out how to create their own P2P servers using a Raspberry Pi. Could we create a sort of Alt.Live service where we could play the abandoned games of yesteryears online for the 360?

 

[FAST6191]

I could go long but it would be mostly the same as what I wrote for this reply
https://gbatemp.net/threads/private-servers-for-online-gaming.511311/#post-8144717
The main problem will likely come in that MS actually knows something about computer security and it is not Dreamcast era any more so to probe the services and figure out how they work will take a fair bit of effort, far more than the dreamcast or DS and Wii took. You could come the other way and pull apart games to figure out what they need but that is even more annoying a lot of the time.

I will note though that the 360 has a fair few LAN play games and with JTAG/RGH (which you are pretty much going to need to do anything good here) you can play those over VPN, bonus there being you can probably get away with just the host being JTAG.
Start of such a list
https://www.co-optimus.com/games.php?system=1&lan=true&playerCount=2&countDirection=at least
For some there can be some fairly start differences between LAN and online, or LAN and splitscreen but hey.

 

[boscocraftXD]

I could go long but it would be mostly the same as what I wrote for this reply
https://gbatemp.net/threads/private-servers-for-online-gaming.511311/#post-8144717
The main problem will likely come in that MS actually knows something about computer security and it is not Dreamcast era any more so to probe the services and figure out how they work will take a fair bit of effort, far more than the dreamcast or DS and Wii took. You could come the other way and pull apart games to figure out what they need but that is even more annoying a lot of the time.

I will note though that the 360 has a fair few LAN play games and with JTAG/RGH (which you are pretty much going to need to do anything good here) you can play those over VPN, bonus there being you can probably get away with just the host being JTAG.
Start of such a list
https://www.co-optimus.com/games.php?system=1&lan=true&playerCount=2&countDirection=at least
For some there can be some fairly start differences between LAN and online, or LAN and splitscreen but hey.

Ah. So I'm taking it that we cannot use a DreamPi-esq program to play some of the old Xbox LAN games like Burnout 3, or some of the other fan favorites over a network... That sucks...

 

[FAST6191]

Ah. So I'm taking it that we cannot use a DreamPi-esq program to play some of the old Xbox LAN games like Burnout 3, or some of the other fan favorites over a network... That sucks...

Yeah Microsoft implemented a ping limit in the games. Said limit is way above what any normal LAN will see, however unless your neighbour is on the same cabinet and exchange you will probably go over the ping limit. Said limit can be removed in software but the ability to do that requires hardware mods. No option for something like the original xbox where you could stuff a stock unit over a VPN (be it normal VPN or managed service with matchmaking like xlink kai).

 

[boscocraftXD]

Yeah Microsoft implemented a ping limit in the games. Said limit is way above what any normal LAN will see, however unless your neighbour is on the same cabinet and exchange you will probably go over the ping limit. Said limit can be removed in software but the ability to do that requires hardware mods. No option for something like the original xbox where you could stuff a stock unit over a VPN (be it normal VPN or managed service with matchmaking like xlink kai).

Well... It is nice to dream... Maybe one day someone will figure it out...

 

[DinohScene]

FSD's LiNK is a sorta "alt. server".
If I'm not mistaken, Aurora's Phoenix? is going to replace it.

It broadcasts syslink games as joinable multiplayer maps over the internet.

They both require JTAG/RGH boxes tho.