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

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

#61

Post by tedunangst »

jcranmer wrote: post #38
whalesalad wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

xbox 360 is pretty close to modern graphics hardware; in fact it debuted modern shader arch a bit before it became the PC standard.

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

#62

Post by chc4 »

kmeisthax wrote: post #43

I'm gonna be honest, I thought the story was over when they started talking about "oh hey here's this hypervisor code that loads extensions", because obviously extensions are going to be a massive increase in attack surface. But even then, the system wasn't actually broken by the extension being badly designed; the extension was just the most useful target to use the actual attack on. How the hell has this the Xbox 3…

It sounds like the hypervisor extensions are more like one-shot payloads, which probably have much less attack surface than normal kernel modules that are exposing new functionality to userspace.

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

#63

Post by NegativeLatency »

mouse_ wrote: post #13
whalesalad wrote: post #10

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.

I also find it much less drama to sit down on the couch and fire up a console, than to have to:

- startup PC

- update PC

- figure out why bluetooth controller won't pair to PC

- finally get it working, and then have a game crash on you

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

#64

Post by com2kid »

vekatimest wrote: post #59
com2kid wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 think the 360 backwards compatibility is a mix of emulation and certain parts being disassembled & recompiled for x86 with some black magic. edit: Here's an interview with platform lead Bill Stillwell that goes into a lot more detail https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2017-xbox-one-x-bac...

Oh sweet, thanks for the link. It sounds like it was harder getting things running on the XB1's tiny CPU vs running an emulator on monster dev machines, no surprise there! :-D

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

#65

Post by eddiewithzato »

whalesalad wrote: post #10
mouse_ wrote: 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

It’s also the worst era to play natively. Bad textures and horrible frames per second.

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

#66

Post by mschuster91 »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #41
mulmen wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Why not blame the EU? It is just a well known fact that non-leaded soldier has inferior properties to leaded soldier, which require careful engineering to work around, and still remain somewhat unresolved. At this point, the directive may have caused more e-waste and environmental damage from part failures than the damage the original leaded soldier would have caused.

> At this point, the directive may have caused more e-waste and environmental damage from part failures than the damage the original leaded soldier would have caused.

The problem is where the e-waste ends up - some ditch or desert in Africa. From there it ends up leeching in the environment due to corrosion or, worse, as widespread aerosols when the people there burn the waste to get to the copper.

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

#67

Post by trashface »

jcranmer wrote: post #38
whalesalad wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 b…

PS3 was wacky, but the 360 wasn't that different from a PC at the time. There were some differences in rendering API, it had a few features not available on PC hardware. And the CPU cores were actually slower than an equivalent intel, but you had 6 of them, rare for the time. If your game was relatively portable and already used a API relatively close to D3D, it wasn't too hard to bring it up on the 360. I worked on a 360 game FWIW.

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

#68

Post by 14 »

hot_gril wrote: post #4
14 wrote: post #2

Very cool to see people still working on hacking the 360. I used the RGH on my 360 years ago. Was really fun back in the day going through all the cat and mouse that went on. A soft mod would be cool as the RGH does require soldering some very tiny wires to some very tiny pads and I remember seeing posts of many people lifting pads trying to do this mod. But in the end I had a perfect install on my 360 and would boot…

Do the people who hack 360s also know how to prevent them from inevitably red-ringing? Cause that's the biggest thing discouraging me from buying another (my other 2 went red).

The rrod was pretty well know for a long time. Video games are sold to kids so it had the requirement to not use lead solder in them even though lead solder is perfectly safe and no way a child would be exposed to it, unless they eat the xbox.

Lead solder is much softer so with the countless hot cold cycles, when hot the solder expands and when cold it contracts, it will handle these cycles much much better. Without the lead the solder joints are not as soft and the hot and cold cycles eventually results in the solder joints cracking and no longer making a solid connection = rrod.

Some models were more prone to rrod but the biggest trick is to make sure you do regular cleaning and dusting to keep air flow working. Don't put the xbox in a cabinet with no air flow where it will heat up. Put a fan on the xbox if you can. It has been a long time since I followed the xbox scene but there are tons of posts online about the entire problem and best practices to avoid it.

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

#69

Post by throwaway48476 »

somat wrote: post #48
mschuster91 wrote: post #26

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…

Complicating the issue is that this was also an early generation of chiplet so there are two levels of bga. motherboard to processing unit and processing unit to chip_actual. the latter commonly are referred to as "bumps" to distinguish from "bga" which attaches the chip_structure to the mother board. A lot of the problem was in the bumps for this chiplet like sub assembly. and while reballing bga is a tricky but wel…

It's called FCBGA, flip chip ball grid array. The only other option for packaging is wire bonding but that doesn't scale well with pin count.

Technically you could recall and repackage the dies but you'd need millions of dollars in equipment.

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

#70

Post by throwaway48476 »

hot_gril wrote: post #50
mschuster91 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Did they need to have a longer transition period? Looks like it went into enforcement only 2 or 3 years after it was approved.

No, the issue didn't affect the IBM CPU in the 360 or Intel products because they did the R&D work. TSMC and their packaging partners were just lazy.
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