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Hacking the Xbox 360 Hypervisor Part 2: The Bad Update Exploit

icode4.coffee

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Re: Hacking the Xbox 360 Hypervisor Part 2: The Bad Update Exploit

#31
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

at this point is there any reason to use xb360 hardware? emulation on modern hardware has gotta be substantially better

Xbox 360 emulation is still really bad for most games, despite what some YouTubers would have you believe. But let's say in a few years it does become substantially better. There's still: • Nostalgia • Authenticity • Compatibility • Preservation • Cost of entry Even if 360 emulation does become practical, a 360 will still be cheaper than any gaming PC capable of playing those games.

Just this week a PC port of the 360 version of Sonic Unleashed was released that was accomplished via static recompilation techniques. It plays flawlessly and is really quite an impressive release. If this is possible now then emulation of these consoles might not be the only avenue to preserving their history.

Re: Hacking the Xbox 360 Hypervisor Part 2: The Bad Update Exploit

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Xbox 360 and PS3 emulators are still borderline unusable on my new-ish PC. They're slow, glitchy, and/or hard to set up. Related to what the other commenter said, anyone who says these are good must have a lot of time to deal with it, whereas I just want the equivalent of sticking the disc into the console. GameCube is the newest thing I've had a decent experience emulating, and even that isn't 100% unless it's Melee…

If you want to emulate a current console, try emulating the switch. I haven't looked into it much, but apparently it works better on modern hardware than on the switch itself. Not surprising given the switch aging hardware and power limit.

Now that you mention it, I tried that once and gave up. The amount of confusion like this makes me not want to try again (Reddit post from 4mo ago): https://www.reddit.com/r/yuzu/comments/1gkdr5x/whats_the_mos...

Seems like these projects keep getting into legal trouble, shut down, then forked.

Re: Hacking the Xbox 360 Hypervisor Part 2: The Bad Update Exploit

#33
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Xbox 360 emulation is still really bad for most games, despite what some YouTubers would have you believe. But let's say in a few years it does become substantially better. There's still: • Nostalgia • Authenticity • Compatibility • Preservation • Cost of entry Even if 360 emulation does become practical, a 360 will still be cheaper than any gaming PC capable of playing those games.

Just this week a PC port of the 360 version of Sonic Unleashed was released that was accomplished via static recompilation techniques. It plays flawlessly and is really quite an impressive release. If this is possible now then emulation of these consoles might not be the only avenue to preserving their history.

Yes, but the graphics system for the game was completely reworked by people familiar with Sega's proprietary Hedgehog Engine. A straight recompile would have been unplayable.

Re: Hacking the Xbox 360 Hypervisor Part 2: The Bad Update Exploit

#34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The red ring is caused by underfill that is too soft that let's the solder bumps break. It's a BGA packaging problem and there's no fix.

Sure you're not thinking of the PS3 or did both of them actually suffer the same issue?

It was an industry wide problem.

Re: Hacking the Xbox 360 Hypervisor Part 2: The Bad Update Exploit

#36
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Xbox 360 and PS3 emulators are still borderline unusable on my new-ish PC. They're slow, glitchy, and/or hard to set up. Related to what the other commenter said, anyone who says these are good must have a lot of time to deal with it, whereas I just want the equivalent of sticking the disc into the console. GameCube is the newest thing I've had a decent experience emulating, and even that isn't 100% unless it's Melee…

> Xbox 360 and PS3 emulators are still borderline unusable on my new-ish PC. This is unfortunate as a decade ago Microsoft had an internal emulator for Xbox 360 that ran at near native speed. I am curious if that emulator is what it used to play Xbox360 games on newer x64 based Xbox models, or if they are using a different code base. Either way, technically it is possible for the experience to be good!

I wonder about that too. New console supports only a subset of 360 games somehow, and with different enhancements.

The 360 could also play original Xbox games without much exception, but it was noticeably slower than the original. Halo 2 on 360 has a shorter render distance.

Re: Hacking the Xbox 360 Hypervisor Part 2: The Bad Update Exploit

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure you're not thinking of the PS3 or did both of them actually suffer the same issue?

It was an industry wide problem.

Somehow out of everyone I know with one or both consoles, 100% of 360s got red ring, 0% of PS3s got yellow light.

Re: Hacking the Xbox 360 Hypervisor Part 2: The Bad Update Exploit

#38
post #9

I wish there was somewhere I could toss cash into a softmod bounty.

at this point is there any reason to use xb360 hardware? emulation on modern hardware has gotta be substantially better

The Xbox 360/PS3 era of video game consoles is probably the hardest era to emulate. Subsequent generations of consoles are essentially the same hardware as regular computers, just with a custom OS (and known hardware profile, certainly a benefit over regular consumer PCs). But that era of video game consoles is the last gasp of the custom hardware design of earlier consoles, which is substantially harder to emulate because the hardware just doesn't look like what modern hardware looks like.

Furthermore, said era is also right after Denard scaling came to an end, which means that current hardware doesn't have that much better specs, at least in easy-to-use form, than the hardware of the time. If any game tried to take the hardware to its limits, it would be a real struggle to emulate it with regular computers.

Re: Hacking the Xbox 360 Hypervisor Part 2: The Bad Update Exploit

#40
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same issue that was behind NVDAs "soldergate" fuck-up that ended up permanently souring the relationship between them and Apple. The core is EU's regulation on lead free solder, which led to a number of people finding out that thermal cycling on the solder led to thermal stresses. Workarounds were identified and any solder formulations since then don't suffer from that issue, so the fix is a complete re-ball…

Sounds like a R&D problem. Why the dig at the EU?

I'm European, I actually support RoHS - it was just the original cause because everyone up to it getting in force was accustomed to classic, decades-proven leaded solder.
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