Sorry your browser is not supported!

You are using an outdated browser that does not support modern web technologies, in order to use this site please update to a new browser.

Browsers supported include Chrome, FireFox, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer 10+ or Microsoft Edge.

DarkBASIC Professional Discussion / XBOX Anyone?

Author
Message
DanFX
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 14th Apr 2003
Location:
Posted: 14th Apr 2003 22:59
Link
I apologize if this has been asked before, but I have found no record of it.
SO... the XBOX from Microsoft is actually a PIII 733Mhz Intel prcoessor, with 8 Gig hard drive and 64 Meg of RAM.
It also has an nVidia 3D accelerator with 64 Meg on it.
I hear that the XBOX uses a form of DirectX for developers.
What are the chances of a future release of DarkBasic Professional being able to produce games for the XBOX?
Man would that open up the market!!
Back to top
Profile PM
SoulMan
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Nov 2002
Location: In a house somewhere on the planet earth
Posted: 14th Apr 2003 23:10
Link
Heh
It has been discussed before but here are a few problems you run into.
It is possible, but you would need something that compiles to a format called XBE which is the EXE for the X-Box. That is part of the XDK but you would need another part. It needs to be signed.
To get the game running on the HardWare, you would need it to be signed by Microsoft before it could work. This is a key that is used to tell the X-Box the game is legit.
To do all this you need a large sum of $$$$.
And as crappy as the X-Box games are(I own a X-Box and GameCube(The Cube has very few games that interest me too)) Microsoft may not want to have games coming from some garage production for the X-Box.
That's just the way it is.
Stick with the computer. It's better anyways.
SoulMan

I am my own and own my am I
Back to top
Profile PM
Shadow Robert
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Sep 2002
Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 14th Apr 2003 23:40
Link
XBox uses DirectX 8.1 w/Windows 2000 Kernel OS (5.0.0) which some new games update to DirectX 9.0

it is an Intel P3 733Mhz MMX/SSE/SSE2 Processor on nVidia's nForce Motherboard running a GeForce4 Ti 4800 with 128Mb of Shared RIMM Memory + 8Gb IBM 7,200rpm ATA 133 HDD using an 8x DvD-Rom and a builtin 10/100Mbit Ethernet Socket and Twin USB ports for altered Sidewinder Joypads.

really its a PC in a Box, just like the Dreamcast was - only reason it runs games faster is because you can compile specifically for the system speed and setup, something impossible with a PC game as there are over 2billion component combinations you can only compile for the major factors.

Tsu'va Oni Ni Jyuuko Fiori Sei Tau!
One block follows the suit ... the whole suit of blocks is the path ... what have you found?
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
lcfcfan
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 19th Feb 2003
Location: North East, UK
Posted: 15th Apr 2003 00:38
Link
you can also mod your xbox to get it to run games if it were possible to use db and the xbox is now or soon will be shipping with a 20gb hard disk cos 8gb hard disks are obsolete.

2ghz, ati radeon mobility 32mb DDR, 30gb, 256mb DDR ram, Win Xp

http://www.apollo-design.com
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Neophyte
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 23rd Feb 2003
Location: United States
Posted: 15th Apr 2003 00:38
Link
@SoulMan

"It is possible, but you would need something that compiles to a format called XBE which is the EXE for the X-Box. That is part of the XDK but you would need another part. It needs to be signed."

http://www.caustik.com/xbox/cxbe.htm

As for the the serial, that can be easily by passed with the use of a modchip. http://www.modchip.ca/products/xbox/index.php

The good news of this is that development of xbox games with DBPro might not be as far off or unrealistic as we orginally thought. The bad news is that unless your customer has a modchip that can't play your game. As for the legal issues of developing for xbox without MS approval I don't know. They may be able to sue you though I'm not sure.

"Stick with the computer. It's better anyways."



Back to top
Profile PM
Shadow Robert
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Sep 2002
Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 15th Apr 2003 01:30
Link
if there were enough interested developers with complete or almost complete games which would be worth translating then i don't see why once the technology is there that a publisher doesn't got about getting the nessary licences and software to make it legal and legitmate

Tsu'va Oni Ni Jyuuko Fiori Sei Tau!
One block follows the suit ... the whole suit of blocks is the path ... what have you found?
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Neophyte
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 23rd Feb 2003
Location: United States
Posted: 15th Apr 2003 04:03
Link
@Raven

"if there were enough interested developers with complete or almost complete games which would be worth translating then i don't see why once the technology is there that a publisher doesn't got about getting the nessary licences and software to make it legal and legitmate "

Good point. I hope you are right.

Back to top
Profile PM
pugmartin
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 3rd Jan 2003
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 15th Apr 2003 20:48
Link
Same here. That would be bloody amazing

That picture actually is me you know...
Can anyone post me a banana?
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
OzBot
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 24th Feb 2003
Location: Sweden
Posted: 15th Apr 2003 23:41
Link
i got a file that might intrest you:
Microsoft Xbox Emulator - play games in your DVD drive - software development kit.zip

I have never tried it but if you want it, you can have it..

A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't.
A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change, and she does
Back to top
Profile PM Website
Neophyte
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 23rd Feb 2003
Location: United States
Posted: 15th Apr 2003 23:56
Link
@OzBot

OzBot, if you are reading this I would seriously suggest you delete that file right now and no matter what you do do not open it! There have been plenty of viruses floating around the internet claiming to be "xbox emulators" and there has been a few cases of trojan horses too. There are no currently working xbox emulators that i know of and I have been keeping myself up to date on the issuse on a daiily basis now. Please, delete that quickly or at the very least run a virus scanner over it. I hope you get this message in time.

Back to top
Profile PM
MattIsFunA
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 26th Mar 2003
Location:
Posted: 16th Apr 2003 01:56
Link
Raven, I thought it was some sort of NForce.

Back to top
Profile PM
MattIsFunA
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 26th Mar 2003
Location:
Posted: 16th Apr 2003 01:58
Link
From what I've heard, some guy has made a program that can change Xbox executables into EXE files. That's all though. They're far from actually working and he has to write wrappers for all the hardware. Still, Microsoft had to be expecting emulators to spring up quite fast when they made their system so PC-ish.

Back to top
Profile PM
Dr DooMer
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Dec 2002
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 16th Apr 2003 02:09
Link
Yeah, Ozbot - there are no working XBox emulators. Anything that claims to be so is a hoax or, even worse, a virus.

Although, I do believe there are some emulators under development, so it's only a matter of time...

"I am a living, thinking entity who was created in the sea of information."
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Dave J
Retired Moderator
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 11th Feb 2003
Location: Secret Military Pub, Down Under
Posted: 16th Apr 2003 03:18
Link
Quote: "@OzBot

OzBot, if you are reading this I would seriously suggest you delete that file right now and no matter what you do do not open it! There have been plenty of viruses floating around the internet claiming to be "xbox emulators" and there has been a few cases of trojan horses too. There are no currently working xbox emulators that i know of and I have been keeping myself up to date on the issuse on a daiily basis now. Please, delete that quickly or at the very least run a virus scanner over it. I hope you get this message in time.
"


Quickly OzBot, you're our only hope. The whole solar system might collapse on itself if you run that file!

"Computers are useless they can only give you answers."
Back to top
Profile PM Email
Shadow Robert
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Sep 2002
Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 16th Apr 2003 03:18
Link
I'm quite surprised its taking so long for one to appear, as i mean the technology and driver details are openly available if you're an nVidia Developer Subscriber, and the Windows2000 Kernel is also relatively open for MSDN Developers.

personally i'd be willing to finance this once the technology is in the viable state - it would be more than worth my while to be able to offer to any amature DirectX Developer the chance to publish on the XBox, get it redeveloped for the national BIOS/Disc Chips.
and i think i could actually rustle up more than enough interest in the DirectX market ... just a case of seeing how this goes, but for DarkBasic Professional added support would need to know how many people here (preferably those who will finish projects) would be wanting this service.

as i've mentioned before the Licences for XBox development start at $250,000 for single titles upto a $4million for unlimited publisher licences. So would need one or two titles to start the ball rolling that wouldn't cause bankruptcy and then go for the unlimited support.

so will be keeping my eyes on this emulator and converter's development

Tsu'va Oni Ni Jyuuko Fiori Sei Tau!
One block follows the suit ... the whole suit of blocks is the path ... what have you found?
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
HZence
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Mar 2003
Location:
Posted: 16th Apr 2003 03:40
Link
Good point Raven.

And this will also attract MANY new programmers. Those who are bias to consoles and against PCs (for whatever reason ) will soon realize "Hey, it's possible for me to make my OWN X-Box games!". It'll only be a matter of time before hundreds, possible thousands of new programmers will arise.

Back to top
Profile PM
madbilly
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Mar 2003
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 16th Apr 2003 03:53
Link
Remember the Net Yaroze Playstation? It was a special PS that shipped with a C compiler for the PS and the PS development libraries - basically a mini SDK for bedroom programmers, Sony trying to rekindle that lost spirit. I heard about it, was really excited, then it turned out that it cost about £500 and you could only play the games you wrote on another Net Yaroze machine, not a normal PS. I didn't get one, and I don't think the craze really took off either, except maybe in Asia.

DBPro for XBox would be better if it worked for ALL XBoxes - not just chipped ones - and it didn't cost the earth.
Back to top
Profile PM
Shadow Robert
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Sep 2002
Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 16th Apr 2003 04:07
Link
madbilly this is my point...
i used to have a Yaroze Playstation, mainly cause at the time i wanted a nice black Playstation. They didn't actually cost alot more than a regular Playstation at £300 - but the main problem was not that you couldn't play the game son other playstations, i mean you know that Vib Ribbon was developed on a Yaroze?

The fact that was there wasn't a great ammount in the way of support for developing your titles, nor was there a great amount of support when you wanted the world to know about them.
I mean within the Yaroze site, everyone knew about the creations and they loved them - outside of them and it was you were in a bubble.

Developers didn't want to know, Games Magazines shunned the developers for a very long time - and by the time a few magazines caught on about letting shareware things out, the whole effort died.
The problem was never the console, but the publicity for the machine and support after it made it out there.
It's a known fact that if developers don't support something then it goes belly up... prime examples are on the Nintendo64, N64CD, N64DD, etc... they were all fantastic upgrades which could've been put the N64 into just the best position, yet none of the developers would accept to develop on them!

What my suggestion here is that, if this does have a fully working model on the Modded XBox's and we found atleast 1 or 2 developers which have kinda "sure thing" games like a Quake3 Clone or something, then i wouldn't mind putting the cash in to have it developed to be legitmate and work on all of the XBox's
the point for me would be making sure i saw a return on my investment obviously (^_^)

but once the ball is rolling, i'm pretty good at the old PR stuff and wouldn't take long to get more than enough developer base to make it worth while

just a fact of the initial startup really

Tsu'va Oni Ni Jyuuko Fiori Sei Tau!
One block follows the suit ... the whole suit of blocks is the path ... what have you found?
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
HZence
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Mar 2003
Location:
Posted: 16th Apr 2003 05:34
Link
In any case I think it's safe to say that we're all eagerly anticipating it...

Back to top
Profile PM
OzBot
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 24th Feb 2003
Location: Sweden
Posted: 16th Apr 2003 12:37
Link
Now I gotta know if it works or if it is a virus..
Theoretically it is possible
If you don't hear from me, assume the worse, I am going in...

Wait i don't have any Xbox games..
Hotline here I come...

Old aunts used to come up to me at weddings, poking me in the ribs and cackling, telling me, "You're next." They stopped after I started
doing the same thing to them at funerals.
Back to top
Profile PM Website
OzBot
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 24th Feb 2003
Location: Sweden
Posted: 16th Apr 2003 12:55
Link
Well, I checked the file for viruses none reported.
Unzipped it, checked again for viruses still none.
It seems to be the real deal, but how to use it is another question
here is the list a files contained within:


Volume in drive C is MAIN
Volume Serial Number is 44F1-F93F

Directory of C:\Data\XBOX\xbox

16/04/2003 10:43 <DIR> .
16/04/2003 10:43 <DIR> ..
21/11/2001 21:13 61,440 AmcEmulationFactory.dll
21/11/2001 21:13 143,360 amcerrorq.dll
21/11/2001 21:13 69,632 amcinfo.exe
21/11/2001 21:13 155,648 amclayoutengine.dll
21/11/2001 21:13 233,472 amcmedia.dll
21/11/2001 21:13 32,768 amcpcidrv.dll
21/11/2001 21:13 11,255 amcphilipsemulator.ini
21/11/2001 21:13 57,344 amcraptorcontroller.dll
21/11/2001 21:13 86,016 AmcRaptorFactory.dll
21/11/2001 21:13 90,112 AmcStringTable.dll
21/11/2001 21:14 11,256 amcthomsonemulator.ini
21/11/2001 21:14 11,205 amcturboemulator.ini
21/11/2001 21:14 487,424 amcudfs.dll
21/11/2001 21:14 249,856 amcxdfs.dll
21/11/2001 21:14 168,208 bundler.exe
21/11/2001 21:14 103,424 conv3ds.exe
21/11/2001 21:14 5,931 conv3ds.txt
21/11/2001 21:14 22,528 convx.exe
21/11/2001 21:14 56,832 convxof.exe
21/11/2001 21:14 95,232 dp8parse.dll
21/11/2001 21:14 110,864 dspbuilder.exe
21/11/2001 21:14 77,824 dumpfst.exe
21/11/2001 21:14 221,256 dvdctrlcmdline.exe
21/11/2001 21:15 1,204,295 dvdemuctrlgui.exe
21/11/2001 21:14 2,528 dvdemulation.cnt
21/11/2001 21:14 563,201 dvdemulation.hlp
21/11/2001 21:14 57,616 fontmaker.exe
21/11/2001 21:14 221,184 fpgaloader.exe
21/11/2001 21:14 24,848 gdfimage.exe
21/11/2001 21:14 57,616 imagebld.exe
16/04/2003 10:41 <DIR> kd
21/11/2001 21:15 246,032 makexbg.exe
21/11/2001 21:15 233,540 odemusvr.exe
21/11/2001 21:16 1,048,576 roboex32.dll
16/04/2003 10:41 <DIR> vc7
21/11/2001 21:22 65,808 wavmerge.exe
21/11/2001 21:22 24,848 xbattrib.exe
21/11/2001 21:22 20,752 xbcapture.exe
21/11/2001 21:22 28,944 xbcp.exe
21/11/2001 21:22 20,752 xbdbsmon.exe
21/11/2001 21:22 24,848 xbdel.exe
21/11/2001 21:22 28,944 xbdir.exe
21/11/2001 21:22 24,848 xbdumplog.exe
21/11/2001 21:22 77,824 xbdvdimg.com
21/11/2001 21:22 565,248 xbdvdimg.exe
21/11/2001 21:22 20,752 xbecopy.exe
21/11/2001 21:22 78,096 xbexplorer.exe
21/11/2001 21:22 139,536 xblayout.exe
21/11/2001 21:22 20,752 xbmkdir.exe
21/11/2001 21:22 49,424 xboxdbg.dll
21/11/2001 21:22 24,848 xbperfmon.exe
21/11/2001 21:22 213,264 xbpremaster.exe
21/11/2001 21:22 24,848 xbprfdll.dll
21/11/2001 21:23 28,944 xbpscapture.exe
21/11/2001 21:23 20,752 xbreboot.exe
21/11/2001 21:23 24,848 xbren.exe
21/11/2001 21:23 24,848 xbsetcfg.exe
21/11/2001 21:23 102,672 xbwatson.exe
21/11/2001 21:23 20,752 xcodescr.exe
21/11/2001 21:23 217,360 xdxtex.exe
21/11/2001 21:23 33,040 xgpimage.exe
21/11/2001 21:23 131,344 xsasm.exe
60 File(s) 8,281,219 bytes
4 Dir(s) 10,986,761,728 bytes free

Old aunts used to come up to me at weddings, poking me in the ribs and cackling, telling me, "You're next." They stopped after I started
doing the same thing to them at funerals.
Back to top
Profile PM Website
Shadow Robert
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Sep 2002
Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 16th Apr 2003 13:33
Link
arn't half those files from the XBE?

Tsu'va Oni Ni Jyuuko Fiori Sei Tau!
One block follows the suit ... the whole suit of blocks is the path ... what have you found?
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Xoid
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 8th Mar 2003
Location:
Posted: 16th Apr 2003 13:48 Edited at: 16th Apr 2003 13:49
Link
screw XBOX!!, I PREFER!!! PLAYSTATION2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DEVIL MAY CRY WOOOOHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

Do not anticipate the outcome of the engagement, let nature take it's course, and your tools will strike at the right moment - from "Tao of Jeet Kune Do" by Bruce Lee
Back to top
Profile PM Website
Dave J
Retired Moderator
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 11th Feb 2003
Location: Secret Military Pub, Down Under
Posted: 16th Apr 2003 13:50
Link
Damn, do they have enough exes?

"Computers are useless they can only give you answers."
Back to top
Profile PM Email
madbilly
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Mar 2003
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 16th Apr 2003 15:42
Link
Raven:

Are there any developers with a finished game? The only one I have really paid any attention to is StarWraith, which is pretty good no? gamesdomain have the demo on their website so its definitely attracting some attention. Trouble is it's in DBC not DBPro right?

Well, just an idea to get the ball rolling....maybe! What about some of the other showcase titles on the DB website?
Back to top
Profile PM
Shadow Robert
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Sep 2002
Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 16th Apr 2003 18:43
Link
well right now there are quite a few games which are getting more and more complete which i'm keeping my eye on, but none of which have be publically shown yet.

to be honest we have a good while before CxBx is close enough to complete to be worth investing in, so there's time for things to be developed - i mean as i've said i'd want to put my money into a sure fire hit, which i'm sure most around her could guess what that is.

i mean we have SW new offering Riftspace as i'm sure Alex wouldn't mind earning a little more this time than just a coupla bob
plus there is Dead Glory's 'Pea Man' games, they're progressign quite fast and the set would probably sit quite nicely with console controls.
(^_^) i mean i can think of alot of titles which COULD be worth while.

remember also DBS have hinted about working on an FPS ... which would be a fantastic PR Oppertunity

Tsu'va Oni Ni Jyuuko Fiori Sei Tau!
One block follows the suit ... the whole suit of blocks is the path ... what have you found?
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
TRS80Model1
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 2nd Feb 2003
Location: - Please Select -
Posted: 16th Apr 2003 20:15
Link
You can't read the xbox DVD correctly with normal dvd drive anyways. Although I was able to get the hitachi rom code from the xbox drive I was still unable to get a full disk read via computer, nor was I able to figure the real toc encryption scheme. This is where my 20 yrs of programming came into play, as I have been a hardware low level programmer and design engineer, with some on the side utilities for pc, for friends. But was able to reprogram the bios to read all types of media, But Microsoft never answered my emails. So I never released the new bios, for microsoft may have had my rear.

They have made it such a pain, and having the law on their side by using a dvd format, makes me not want to mess with it anymore.

I have done nothing on it since 05-2002.

Us being noname developers will prob never get to see our works on a unmodified box, which makes it not worth developing for, unless you are a bigname with something good and are sure their would be a profit.
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
UberTuba
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 5th Oct 2002
Location: Brittania
Posted: 16th Apr 2003 21:40
Link
The cube's waaaayyyy better. Plus its got the sequel to the best game in the world(the wind waker)

Life is a terminal disease.
You never survive it.
Back to top
Profile PM Email
HZence
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 9th Mar 2003
Location:
Posted: 17th Apr 2003 02:20
Link
...

I like them all equally...but we all know PS2 has the most games...then again GameCube has good games too...and until Enter the Matrix comes out in May then I have no reason to use XBox...

Why have a friggin' console war, leave that up to XBox Magazine/Nintendo Power/PlayStation Magazine

Back to top
Profile PM
Shadow Robert
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Sep 2002
Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 17th Apr 2003 03:53
Link
because we all know the Cube is the best console
but thats beside the point...

the MS XBox Full XDK comes with a Driver for windows that allows any DvD Driver to read/write XBox DvD's - but the kit is only given to those who foot the bill.
Personally i'm not gonna spend the better half of $1,000,000 just to put the whole thing on Kazaa or something and have Microsoft sue my ass if they found out... personally i prefer the GameCubes way of doing things - you buy a special developers version which you use to read/write to using the USB

Tsu'va Oni Ni Jyuuko Fiori Sei Tau!
One block follows the suit ... the whole suit of blocks is the path ... what have you found?
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Dr DooMer
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Dec 2002
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 17th Apr 2003 04:02
Link
Nah - Dreamcast all the way! Hurrah!

After the Dreamcast, I lost all interest in the console scene - I probably couldn't even name five PS2-exclusive games. The only games I've really kept an eye on are XBox games, and then they're either not very good (DoA2>DoA3) or get a PC release as well (Splinter Cell). Of course, there is a certain volleyball game that I wouldn't mind a go at...

Anyway, I'd rather see DB for the Dreamcast, but that's probably just me. Sherman 2 would have worked so well on a console...

"I am a living, thinking entity who was created in the sea of information."
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
TRS80Model1
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 2nd Feb 2003
Location: - Please Select -
Posted: 17th Apr 2003 05:07
Link
Ah yes, the mystery driver, which can write a Xbox disk(But it only works on the Mystery Development box), There are not any drives that can burn the type of pulse coding(Sercurity Sectors) that are pressed in differently for each game disk, supervised by Microsoft, on the commercial dvd. Nor can that driver read a commercial disk. That would just waste the money they put into protecting the commercial media to start with. They already knew the xdk would leak. Plus the development box will not run commercial disk, nor will civiallian box run development disks.

Trust me.
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
APEXnow
Retired Moderator
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Apr 2003
Location: On a park bench
Posted: 17th Apr 2003 05:35
Link
It's funny, several years ago, I used to own an Amstrad CPC, one of the products I owned was 'Graphical Text Adventure Creator'. This product also came with a small corrigated plastic lens which was carefully manufactured to bend light along small strips. The idea was that you looked through the lens against the monitor and saw a two digit code. Typing in the code unlocked the product. Crappy thing was, you lost the lens, you lost the product . Anywayz, with CD technology, using all this piracy protection algorithms is just going to cost us, the consumer, more money. Jeez, how much does it cost to purchase an XBox or PS/2 game compared to a PC game. PC games are expandable, modifiable, and if you're brave enough, completely overhaulable. Take Half-Life for example! Billy gates of hell is rich enough as it is, how much more dosh does he want??? <sob>

There are 10 types of people, there are people who understand binary, and there are those who don't
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Shadow Robert
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Sep 2002
Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 17th Apr 2003 05:43
Link
depends what you mean by commercial DvD ... i mean all the BIOS setup on the discs are an encyption note in NTFS form.
Tell the bios the country its from, what format bios its looking for, etc...
ya know this is kinda what i like so much about Mircosoft, they do something and make it out to be so illaborate that everyone does all these fancy things to figure out what they've done and howto read and write everything.
when at the end of the day the actual format of the DvD's used is a header Encyption on an NTFS format which just tells the DvD Drive what to do using the WindowsNT kernel.

you can run XBox DvD's fine, read, write, etc... on a standard DvD Drive - you just require an OS capable of using the NTFS format (Windows2000 or WindowsXP)
i mean your going into this thinking that whats been done to the Discs is something quite complex, and you think that the media they've setup to use isn't a standard format.
It's set by the Philips Standards, just like the GameCubes are set by Panasonics Standard ... the only real difference is the low level format of the Disc.

i mean a good example is the Playstation CD's - you can't run them normally on a Windows OS, you can see the data there (just as you can with the XBox discs) but you can't run or read any of the data... because the ISO format is not a standard format.
However the data is setup in such a way that the tables are readable.
you remember how long it took the amature market how the heck the formats actually worked and that they weren't specially pressed like Sony had mentioned.
the only thing about the Discs which was specially pressed was the layer on which the data was stored to make it easier for the data to be read even through scratchs.
Nothing particularly remarkable about the format itself

Microsoft thrive on making people believe they've setup the most unbeatables systems giving some lines which programmers will take to be gold and use them as a starting point and wonder why it seems impossible - they play on the fact that pirateer's are, well guilible

Tsu'va Oni Ni Jyuuko Fiori Sei Tau!
One block follows the suit ... the whole suit of blocks is the path ... what have you found?
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
TRS80Model1
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 2nd Feb 2003
Location: - Please Select -
Posted: 17th Apr 2003 05:55
Link
Lol, If that was true we wouldn't need to mod the box, get some better information cause I was one of the people who helped reverse engineer the box.
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
TRS80Model1
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 2nd Feb 2003
Location: - Please Select -
Posted: 17th Apr 2003 05:56
Link
By the way, what is on sector 4556789 according to the real toc on the DEAD or Alive 3 ver 1.19.
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
APEXnow
Retired Moderator
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Apr 2003
Location: On a park bench
Posted: 17th Apr 2003 06:05
Link
Ouch!! It wasn't meant as an offensive remark, if it sounded like one, I apologise. My point was that I've never been interested in purchasing consoles since the MegaDrive because most games on the PC these days are accessible and modifiable to some extent which basically increases it's longevity rather than forking out another £40 for the next episode. As to your second question, I don't actually own a copy of DEAD or Alive 3... <Physical dimensions decreasing rapidly>

Cool thoughts

There are 10 types of people, there are people who understand binary, and there are those who don't
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
TRS80Model1
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 2nd Feb 2003
Location: - Please Select -
Posted: 17th Apr 2003 06:18
Link
And I suppose sega paid yamaha all that money just to change some bytes around with the gdrom too.
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
APEXnow
Retired Moderator
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Apr 2003
Location: On a park bench
Posted: 17th Apr 2003 06:35
Link
Lol, good point <wink> By the way, how is the Saturn these days? ;o)

There are 10 types of people, there are people who understand binary, and there are those who don't
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
OzBot
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 24th Feb 2003
Location: Sweden
Posted: 17th Apr 2003 11:36
Link
Dr DooMer, yep I liked the dreamcast, still got it, did you know it has more video memory than the PS2..
I still do like my Dreamcast, as far as consoles go, but i reckon in the future the best console will be a PC. With SVideo out, surround sound, Faster Processors, better grpahic cards, something like a Compaq Deskpro SFF (Small Form Factor) and put in your TV/Hifi Rack..
Looks well smart...

Old aunts used to come up to me at weddings, poking me in the ribs and cackling, telling me, "You're next." They stopped after I started
doing the same thing to them at funerals.
Back to top
Profile PM Website
UberTuba
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 5th Oct 2002
Location: Brittania
Posted: 17th Apr 2003 16:12
Link
the reason we still have consoles is because of pc compatibility isuez, really.

Life is a terminal disease.
You never survive it.
Back to top
Profile PM Email
CloseToPerfect
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Dec 2002
Location: United States
Posted: 18th Apr 2003 00:18
Link
consols are aimed at a different type of user, pc are sold more to loners playing be there self, and console are more group oriented. I have seen any good multi player games to play on a pc(not online or network, just 2 -4 player setting there togeter) but most consol games have this option and thats alot of fun sitting on the sofa with 3 other people yelling screaming at each other, total chaos most of the time, plus playing on a large tv is just so much easier on the eyes the a 19in monitor.

There are several pc games I just love and there are no comparsion for any consols, but we have a n64, ps2, and xbox and we buy alot more games for them then the pc and more for the xbox then anything anymore.

Back to top
Profile PM Email
Dr DooMer
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Dec 2002
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 18th Apr 2003 05:29 Edited at: 18th Apr 2003 05:31
Link
Oh yeah, Ozbot - I know that alright! I get great kicks out of telling it to PS2 zealots! Along with the fact that my console has a built-in modem, nifty memory units, four game ports, plays MP3s and DivX and looks so much more cooler as well!

Yeah, I agree - consoles are for groups of people. PCs aren't very practical for multiplayer gaming; the games normally can't be played on a single machine and, even if they are, you've got to gather everyone around the keyboard and hope that Windows isn't in a crashy mood.

I'm kinda stuck between the two - my Dreamcast always sits on top of my PC and is plugged in with a VGA adaptor. Best of both worlds!

"I am a living, thinking entity who was created in the sea of information."
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Shadow Robert
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Sep 2002
Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 18th Apr 2003 06:42
Link
i don't agree with PC's being for just the single player guys...
anyone who's ever been over a mates house with a laptop playing Quake3 or ChuChu Rocket, it can be just as fun as on a console.
Sometimes more so becuase you can't see what you're doing - i mean technically you could say the GBA Console is a Single Player Console, but if you did you've never played Doom or Mario Kart multiplayer

Tsu'va Oni Ni Jyuuko Fiori Sei Tau!
One block follows the suit ... the whole suit of blocks is the path ... what have you found?
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
iac249
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 26th Mar 2003
Location: USA
Posted: 18th Apr 2003 06:48
Link
Quote: "anyone who's ever been over a mates house with a laptop playing Quake3 or ChuChu Rocket, it can be just as fun as on a console"


Yeah, LAN parties can be *a lot* of fun!
Back to top
Profile PM Email
APEXnow
Retired Moderator
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 15th Apr 2003
Location: On a park bench
Posted: 18th Apr 2003 14:36
Link
When I worked for a small software firm a few years back, we also killed time by playing network Quake over the LAN. Also adding our own mods to Quake made it all more fun.

There are 10 types of people. Those who understand binary and those who don't
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
Shadow
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 17th Oct 2002
Location: In the shadows
Posted: 18th Apr 2003 18:04
Link
"screw XBOX!!, I PREFER!!! PLAYSTATION2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

XBOX is technical better than PS2, but I'd rather have PS2 on principle (i.e. it's not microsoft). I have a GameCube. Nintendo have been making games as long as microsoft have been making bugs. As quality goes, you cannot beat a Nintendo game. On the subject of PC vs console, I'd say: console is cheaper and easy to set up - no configurations, or hardware and software configurations. PC: it has a keyboard, mouse and lots of hard disk space.

Some games like mario, zelda, etc. a console wins easily, but for things like strategy, or FPS, it's easiest when you have a mouse (and hi-res) at hand.
Back to top
Profile PM
Shadow Robert
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 22nd Sep 2002
Location: Hertfordshire, England
Posted: 18th Apr 2003 18:49
Link
There is no comparing a console really to a PC at the end of the day they're different breeds of fish ... i mean its like saying which is better a Cat or a Dog.

personally i don't like alot of dogs and i prefer a cat, but thats not to say i'll never have a dog... but they are still different animals and you can't really compare the two, two different mindsets as your cats are more independant - don't require attention unless they want something, dogs on the other hand give you unwaving love and adoration for no reason at all ... treat them badly and they'll cower away from you, and refuse to play.

and for those who don't get it i'm not changing the subject i'm just giving you some frame of reference so don't start on about which you prefer cause i couldn't care less.

but what gets me are all of these people against microsoft, quite frankly i don't see what the hell they've ever done to you personally to piss any of you off. You say that Windows is more buggy than any other OS? please, anyone who's been using computers for even 5years and have used several OS's knows that this just isn't true...
you think its a bad thing that they're software is so damn'd compatible with each other and they have the largest range of software around from Word Processors to Programming languages, and you think because they're so widely used is BECAUSE they have a corner on the market?
thats also complete bollocks, they're so widely used because they are not only the best advertised, but the most easily useable software around... and whether you want to admit it or not the only reason so many more bugs are found and crushed is BECAUSE they're so widely used.

At the end of the day, ya'll are using a not only an Operating System which is Windows Based to run DarkBasic, but also the APi that DarkBasic uses is DirectX another Microsoft product (which they make NO money on! if they were AS money hungry as you think then they'd charge you for that too) ... oh not to mention that you're most probably veiwing this site through Internet Explorer or something which has IE based technology within in it (i only know of 2 Broswer which can boast that, and i doubt many here will know of them let alone use them)

quite frankly at the end of the day it seems stupid to be dead set against a company who has a machine which for all intense purposes is one of THE most powerful on the mark with some of the best games around on it, simply because you dislike the company that develops it - which is quite stupid because the section of the company which made the XBox is just as against Microsoft's business strategies as most of you add to this fact that the person ya'll hate was against the bloody thing in the first place (and STILL IS!) ... also the fact that such a money hungry company, released the console at a level price with Sony and they cut £100/$100 from the initial release price, refunding it or exchanging this with user for 2 games which cost them a good few million...
Oh and you know to date they haven't made a single dime profit from the actual XBox itself!
nVidia have, they made $250billion, Mircosoft has actually made a loss of $50billion so far on the console - which does continue to go down daily, but is still a HUGE loss.

At the end of the day though they're not trying to convince the moronic PC user nation who are against Mircosoft for what they represent rather than the products they sell, but they're selling to the Armchair gamers - which of this the narrow minded PC users are a very small percentage.

way i see it the PS2 was a pure waste of development time, and was past it before the XBox or Gamecube were ever even released. As was said before it was simply put on the market to put Sega to bed once and for all (which is ironic as Sony & Nintendo co-own Sega now)
its all just very sad ... if you buy your console on principals rather than on thier own merits there is something VERY wrong with you.
I hope you don't buy Niké or Néstle products, because unlike Microsoft - Niké have sweatshops across the world and Néstle sell baby formula to thridworld countries in exachange for Coca beans knowing full well that their forumla won't give the babies as much strength to endure the deseases rampant there as well as mothers breatmilk, yet still push thier products for this exchange.

however somehow i doubt that your principals care about that when you have that first cuppa coffee in the morning or need to go out for a jog, eh!

Tsu'va Oni Ni Jyuuko Fiori Sei Tau!
One block follows the suit ... the whole suit of blocks is the path ... what have you found?
Back to top
Profile PM Email Website
madbilly
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Mar 2003
Location: United Kingdom
Posted: 19th Apr 2003 20:25
Link
Totally with you Raven.

Which other operating system is easy to use, has a massive knowledge base of fixes for all kinds of problems at your fingertips, supports pretty much everything you can think of, and isn't in a permanent state of beta testing?!!!

There aren't any.

I loved Sega, they had the best advertising slogan of ANY console company - anybody else remember it?

TO GET THIS GOOD TAKES AGES/SEGA

Nestle are filthy dirty evil doers who should be kicked out of this country. Half the time you don't even realise you're buying their products, for instance, Gales Honey, Shredded Wheat (thank god they haven't sunk their claws into Marmite or Weetabix yet!).

To get back on topic, MS could do a lot worse than make it easier to program for the XBox, because, as has already been pointed out, the PS2 has more and a greater variety of games. I only hope that Nintendo don't go the same way as Sega and Atari.
Back to top
Profile PM
CloseToPerfect
22
Years of Service
User Offline
Joined: 20th Dec 2002
Location: United States
Posted: 19th Apr 2003 20:56
Link
I can see a time in the future where nintendo could call it quits in the hardware area like sega and just develope games. The gamecube is doing the worst of all the systems, but then again they have that uber successfull GBA. They could drop the consols and still do very well, they're much more deverse then sega was. Sega was my favorite as well, it wasn't marketed right here in the states and even though the master system was better then the nes the nes was marketed better and there for more sucessful.

Of couse I remember sega getting the jump on the 16bit market and owning it. If MS get xbox2 out before ps3 could this happen for them as well?

Back to top
Profile PM Email
Back to top

Login to post a reply

Server time is: 2025-06-12 11:03:22
Your offset time is: 2025-06-12 11:03:22