Things You Must Know About The Xbox:, Starting a list.... Options

[BenJeremy]

The first thing you should do, after modding an Xbox, is BACK UP THE HARD DRIVE!!!

The next thing you should do is BACK UP THE EEPROM!!!

There never has been, nor will there be, a PS2 or Gamecube emulator for the Xbox. Likewise, there is no Dreamcast emulator, either, and probably won't be one. Anybody who claims this is lying to you.

There is support for a keyboard in only one commercial game - Phantasy Star Online. M$ offers USB adapters, free, except for shipping and handling. Games that do not have this support cannot be 'patched' for this, though.

Evolution-X is really two different things: a Modchip BIOS, and a replacement dashboard. Technically, Evolution-X is the dashboard, and Evo-X refers to the BIOS, or not. It's like Soda Pop or Pop or Coke... you just have to figure it out for yourself.

Evo-X BIOSes usually come numbers, as in: 2.4, 2.5, 2.6 and now D.6 (The "D" stands for "Dual" and boots in all versions of Xbox)

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Evo-X and X2 BIOSes (the most current available) are "hacked" BIOSes. They are derived from the original Micro$oft BIOS, patched to eliminate critical checks in the system's copy protection system, allowing a consumer to run backups of their software and homebrew applicaitons on their Xbox. While it is illegal to distribute the hacked BIOS, there is a fuzzy legal question regarding "fair use" and the fact that the owner of an Xbox actually "owns" the BIOS and the right to derive a new work from it. As this is the only way to provide a means of backing up games and using those backups on an Xbox, the rights of the consumer end up conflicting with the latest laws (DMCA). The government appears unwilling to test these laws when it comes to consumers themselves, instead targeting vendors and distributors of 'illegal' files.

Cromwell and the related "FlashBIOSes" do not boot backups or even 'original' Xbox games. They cannot boot dashboards or XDK/OpenXDK written homebrew apps.

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Cromwell was designed as a "clean, legal" BIOS for booting Linux and Linux-based apps (using a special bootloader) on the Xbox. A FlashBIOS is a derivative of the Cromwell BIOS with a Linux-based FlashROM programming application built into it, allowing you to burn your own choice of BIOS into the modchip you've installed or TSOP (after proper modifications ot the board).

The Xbox hard drive is divided into partitions, each representing a logical drive... "C:" and "E:" are the two primary 'drives' on your original Xbox drive. "F:" is a third primary partition which can be created when instlaling a larger hard drive. "X:", "Y:", and "Z:" are TEMPORARY drives, and mostly unimportant, so don't sweat it if you do not see these when using FTP to transfer files to and from the Xbox. "D:" is typically the DVD drive.

Avalaunch, Media X Menu, NeXgen are other replacement dashboards, and far more interesting than Evolution-X

Nothing prevents you from keeping all dashboards handy on youyr system. You may use a program like X-Select to choose which one to boot.

About the game you burned, it's very possible you simply have bad media. You are not the first person this has happened to.

In fact, chances are, no problem you encounter on the Xbox is likely to be a new problem. In every case, this has happened to MANY people before you.

Oh, and no, that bad disc you burned does not incorporate some new modchip detection.

Xbox Live does not work with a modchip enabled; if you do this, you will get banned by M$ from Live.

There is no magical 'boot disc' for the Xbox.

There will never be a commercial Cheat Code Ssytem like the old "GameShark" or "Action Replay" for the Xbox. The new "Gameshark/Action Replay" is merely a save game tool, nothing more.

Most Xboxes will not read CD-R discs, but some will.

Most Xboxes will read DVD-R, DVD-Rw, CD-RW, DVD,R and DVD+Rw, but some won't read DVD+R/RW.

Only Xbox controllers will work as Xbox controllers. PC steering wheels will not work as Xbox steering wheels.

This post has been edited by BenJeremy: Sep 24 2003, 11:27 PM

[BadAngel]

very informative post

thanks.


if u dont mind i'll be ripping off the points in a text file and using them as random quotes on my site just like in mediaxmenu.com