MAMEWorld >> EmuChat
View all threads Index   Threaded Mode Threaded  

Pages: 1

CTOJAH
MAME Addict
Reged: 07/13/10
Posts: 980
Loc: Macedonia,Veles
Send PM


Xbox emulation on PC
#366788 - 06/14/17 02:59 PM


Perhaps we can finaly (in the near future) play Bruce Lee: Quest of the Dragon, Conker: Live & Reloaded and a few more XBOX exclusives on our PCs :
http://www.pcgamer.com/phil-spencer-want...anywhere-to-pc/




Foxhack
Furry guy
Reged: 01/30/04
Posts: 2409
Loc: Spicy Canada
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: CTOJAH]
#366801 - 06/14/17 09:15 PM


> Perhaps we can finaly (in the near future) play Bruce Lee: Quest of the Dragon,
> Conker: Live & Reloaded and a few more XBOX exclusives on our PCs :
> http://www.pcgamer.com/phil-spencer-want...anywhere-to-pc/

I would pay money for an official Xbox emulator that let me play games on disc.

Too bad they'll probably make it Windows 10 exclusive, and I'm not moving to that OS for five or six years.



Haze
Reged: 09/23/03
Posts: 5242
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: Foxhack]
#366802 - 06/14/17 09:32 PM


> > Perhaps we can finaly (in the near future) play Bruce Lee: Quest of the Dragon,
> > Conker: Live & Reloaded and a few more XBOX exclusives on our PCs :
> >
> http://www.pcgamer.com/phil-spencer-want...anywhere-to-pc/
>
> I would pay money for an official Xbox emulator that let me play games on disc.
>
> Too bad they'll probably make it Windows 10 exclusive, and I'm not moving to that OS
> for five or six years.

Well, at least it sounds like it isn't going to be a video streaming / service based thing, which is progress at least.



Dullaron
Diablo III - Dunard #1884
Reged: 07/22/05
Posts: 6118
Loc: Fort Worth, Tx
Send PM


RE: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: CTOJAH]
#366803 - 06/14/17 09:47 PM


Windows 10 already supporting Xbox games. They need to re-release those games for Windows 10. This isn't no Sony.



W11 Home 64-bit + Nobara OS / AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT / AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core 3.59 GHz / RAM 64 GB



BIOS-D
MAME Fan
Reged: 08/07/06
Posts: 1686
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: CTOJAH]
#366815 - 06/15/17 04:54 AM


Correct me if I'm wrong, this isn't emulation right?

Could this be API substitution? Microsoft intercepting API calls and running a native machine equivalent? My knowledge about Win32/64 programming is almost null.

I recall that's what CXBX was doing, translating DirectX calls from certain SDK versions to native calls. But I could be wrong.



Haze
Reged: 09/23/03
Posts: 5242
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: BIOS-D]
#366825 - 06/15/17 11:41 AM


> Correct me if I'm wrong, this isn't emulation right?
>
> Could this be API substitution? Microsoft intercepting API calls and running a native
> machine equivalent? My knowledge about Win32/64 programming is almost null.
>
> I recall that's what CXBX was doing, translating DirectX calls from certain SDK
> versions to native calls. But I could be wrong.

If I had to guess I'd say it would end up being built on top of the (now retired) Windows XP mode that Windows 7 used, which in turn was built on Microsoft's Virtual PC code.

Add some kind of code analysis on top of that, looking for common code and applying common optimizations, and yeah, maybe some API call replacement and you might have some level of playable XBox assuming you have decent hardware.



Heihachi_73
I am the Table!
Reged: 10/29/03
Posts: 1074
Loc: Melbourne, Australia
Send PM


Re: RE: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: Dullaron]
#366827 - 06/15/17 02:17 PM


> Windows 10 already supporting Xbox games. They need to re-release those games for
> Windows 10. This isn't no Sony.

Original 2001-era Xbox games or Xbox 360 or Xbox One?



smf
I've been here before
Reged: 01/16/15
Posts: 130
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: Foxhack]
#366865 - 06/17/17 08:55 AM


> I would pay money for an official Xbox emulator that let me play games on disc.

That won't happen because you can't read xbox discs on your PC unless you have a specific drive and have installed non standard firmware on it.

> Too bad they'll probably make it Windows 10 exclusive, and I'm not moving to that OS
> for five or six years.

Why will you switch to it then?



Foxhack
Furry guy
Reged: 01/30/04
Posts: 2409
Loc: Spicy Canada
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: smf]
#366917 - 06/19/17 01:01 AM


> > I would pay money for an official Xbox emulator that let me play games on disc.
>
> That won't happen because you can't read xbox discs on your PC unless you have a
> specific drive and have installed non standard firmware on it.

Or they add something that detects your legitimate disc and lets you play it. I don't believe the readable portion in Xbox discs is the same across all discs, so I think this could be a plausible workaround. I admit I am completely ignorant about Xbox disc layout though.

> > Too bad they'll probably make it Windows 10 exclusive, and I'm not moving to that
> OS
> > for five or six years.
>
> Why will you switch to it then?

Because by then, new computer hardware, like CPUs, will not be supported by Windows 7. I have serious issues with Windows 10 forcefully applying updates or installing different drivers to your system, sometimes the latest patches or the newest drivers are not the best ones you can use, ya know?



casm
Cinematronics > *
Reged: 08/27/07
Posts: 665
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: Foxhack]
#366918 - 06/19/17 01:14 AM


> I have serious issues with Windows 10 forcefully applying updates or installing
> different drivers to your system, sometimes the latest patches or the newest drivers
> are not the best ones you can use, ya know?

Agreed. That said, there is a workaround for this, but it's not pretty or practical for most end-users.

Basically, set up a Server 2012R2 or 2016 Active Directory Domain, run WSUS, domain-join your PCs, and control update distribution through WSUS. Added bonus: Group Policy can be used to switch off some of Windows 10's more obnoxious features by default.

Like I said, though, not pretty or necessarily practical. But it is an option, and may be worth considering for the future as the next iterations of Windows (particularly on the desktop) are not likely to abandon the current update and 'collect all the usage info' strategies baked into 10.



Envisaged0ne
MAME Fan
Reged: 08/29/06
Posts: 543
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: casm]
#366923 - 06/19/17 02:58 AM


Or you can just to the Network & Internet settings in Windows 10 and enable Metered Connection



Windows 11 64 bit OS
Intel Core i7-10700
Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 6GB
32GB DDR4 RAM



Master O
Yes, Even Parodius Music
Reged: 11/20/06
Posts: 1332
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: casm]
#366925 - 06/19/17 03:42 AM


> > I have serious issues with Windows 10 forcefully applying updates or installing
> > different drivers to your system, sometimes the latest patches or the newest
> drivers
> > are not the best ones you can use, ya know?
>
> Agreed. That said, there is a workaround for this, but it's not pretty or practical
> for most end-users.
>
> Basically, set up a Server 2012R2 or 2016 Active Directory Domain, run WSUS,
> domain-join your PCs, and control update distribution through WSUS. Added bonus:
> Group Policy can be used to switch off some of Windows 10's more obnoxious features
> by default.
>
> Like I said, though, not pretty or necessarily practical. But it is an option, and
> may be worth considering for the future as the next iterations of Windows
> (particularly on the desktop) are not likely to abandon the current update and
> 'collect all the usage info' strategies baked into 10.

I could've sworn there was a more conventional way of deferring updates. Are those options you described above the only ones?



"Note to Noobs:

We are glad to help you but simply posting that something does not work is not going to lead to you getting help. The more information you can supply defining your problem, the less likely it will be that you will get smart-alec replies.

C.D.~"



MooglyGuy
Renegade MAME Dev
Reged: 09/01/05
Posts: 2257
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: Foxhack]
#366938 - 06/19/17 10:42 AM


> Because by then, new computer hardware, like CPUs, will not be supported by Windows
> 7. I have serious issues with Windows 10 forcefully applying updates or installing
> different drivers to your system, sometimes the latest patches or the newest drivers
> are not the best ones you can use, ya know?

To be perfectly honest, I resisted Windows 10 tooth-and-nail. But back in December I finally put it on my laptop because I had to in order to do development on this one contracting gig, my complaints about it since then are pretty much nonexistent.

There are a few minor gripes that I have, but it would be disingenuous for me to say that they're "complaints", because none of them rise to that level. Minor things like "My Computer" being renamed to "This PC".

Heck, in terms of backwards compatibility, I've had fewer issues when going from Windows 7 to Windows 10, because my previous jump was from Windows XP to Windows 7, and that introduced quite a few compatibility problems with legacy Windows applications and games. No such trouble with Windows 10 on my end.

I will admit that the update installation can be a pain when you wake up in the morning and your machine has rebooted, but I feel like people are overstating how onerous that is for some reason. If you're actively using your machine, you can tell Windows to remind you later.

I'm frankly glad that they've made it that you can't perpetually wave-off the updates, though. I don't know if you've really kept tabs on what's been going on, security-wise, over the past decade and a half, but the sheer number of people getting hit with ransomware and other ugly forms of malware should stand as pretty stark testimony that people cannot be trusted to consistently install security updates so that their computers don't become part of a botnet without their knowledge. It's unfortunate that it's come to this, but I don't think it's at all wrong for Microsoft to use their position as a dominant player in the OS market to effectively force people to stay up-to-date with security. It's not people like you or me who are the problem, it's the self-styled and cheeto-dusted basement-dwellers who think that they know better and magically don't get viruses because they're "responsible", never mind the fact that it's been shown time and time again that machines can be compromised without ever even going to a website.

As for the whole "spyware" thing, it's dramatically overstated by tech professionals who aren't that great at reading legal texts and EULAs, and assume the worst. Personally, I understand why Microsoft have to say that anything you type into the Start menu gets sent up to their servers: There's actually a really great feature that allows you to do a one-click install of applications you don't currently have, if they're available on the Windows Store. The problem is that it's essentially impossible to know a priori whether the person is typing in the name of a document, a URL to a website, or even erroneously typing their own password into the Start Menu. How would Windows know in advance that the "Bazzl3Fr0zz" that the user is typing into the Start Menu is a password, as opposed to, say, just a URL? So, Microsoft have to cover their asses and simply state that everything you type into the Start Menu is sent up to their servers.

Another bit of "spyware"? Microsoft transmitting information back to their servers whenever I click the "I like this!" or the "I don't like this." buttons on my lock screen when it happens to come up with a background image that I either like or don't. Oh no, Microsoft tailoring the user experience to my preferences, heaven forbid!

Anyway, as someone who has made the jump to Windows 10, I would suggest installing it on a secondary machine first, if you have one, and see how it grabs you once you're actually using it. I'm still using Windows 7 on my main PC, but you can bet that once upgrade-time rolls around, I'll be punting upwards to 10.



Dullaron
Diablo III - Dunard #1884
Reged: 07/22/05
Posts: 6118
Loc: Fort Worth, Tx
Send PM


Re: RE: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: Heihachi_73]
#366945 - 06/19/17 01:45 PM


> > Windows 10 already supporting Xbox games. They need to re-release those games for
> > Windows 10. This isn't no Sony.
>
> Original 2001-era Xbox games or Xbox 360 or Xbox One?

Any of those.



W11 Home 64-bit + Nobara OS / AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT / AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core 3.59 GHz / RAM 64 GB



smf
I've been here before
Reged: 01/16/15
Posts: 130
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: Foxhack]
#366947 - 06/19/17 02:25 PM


> Or they add something that detects your legitimate disc and lets you play it. I don't
> believe the readable portion in Xbox discs is the same across all discs, so I think
> this could be a plausible workaround.

They may be able to use them as key discs. However it would be trivial to fake that. Then they are not only letting you have the game for free, but they are paying for bandwidth and hosting.

They only do it on games consoles to tempt people from buying into PlayStation. The only reason I could see them doing it for PC would be to get you into paying for a subscription service. Where the cost will end up being higher than if you buy the xbox and games second hand.

Edited by John Doe (06/19/17 02:25 PM)



anikom15
Instigator/Local CRT Guru
Reged: 04/11/16
Posts: 287
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: MooglyGuy]
#366967 - 06/19/17 08:34 PM


Windows 10 Pro has the group policy editor which allows you to control updates. It's a lifesaver.



casm
Cinematronics > *
Reged: 08/27/07
Posts: 665
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: Master O]
#366968 - 06/19/17 08:48 PM


> I could've sworn there was a more conventional way of deferring updates. Are those
> options you described above the only ones?

You may be thinking of the option to defer upgrades. However, there are two considerations with that:

- It only applies to Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, or Education

- Security (and, presumably, other) updates will still be pushed down

Based on what I'm seeing in terms of the evolution of the Windows 10 platform as well as Microsoft's differing approaches to it in consumer and enterprise settings, expect that editions below Pro will be treated more and more like appliances in terms of updates and upgrades.

Even with Pro or above, unless you have AD-based control over the client in question, by default it's going to behave similarly to consumer-oriented editions in a lot of ways until that level of control is established.

It'll be interesting to see how their approach pans out in the long term, but expect that fine-grained control over updates and upgrades (including drivers) is going to become something that end users have progressively fewer and fewer options for as time goes on.



casm
Cinematronics > *
Reged: 08/27/07
Posts: 665
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: Envisaged0ne]
#366969 - 06/19/17 08:50 PM


> Or you can just to the Network & Internet settings in Windows 10 and enable Metered
> Connection

True, but that doesn't stop updates and upgrades from being needed by Windows, or prevent the device in question from potentially having a herpes-basket full of vulnerabilities.

Besides, the next time the setting gets turned off, you're back to square one because there isn't any real control over what can and can't be applied outside of a WSUS-managed update environment. Windows Update will just grab everything it sees that it needs and go to town - which will take longer than if it had just been updated inline as needed, and also increases the risk of toppling the system under the patch dependency load.



BIOS-D
MAME Fan
Reged: 08/07/06
Posts: 1686
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: casm]
#366970 - 06/19/17 08:59 PM


> True, but that doesn't stop updates and upgrades from being needed by Windows, or
> prevent the device in question from potentially having a herpes-basket full of
> vulnerabilities.
>
> Besides, the next time the setting gets turned off, you're back to square one because
> there isn't any real control over what can and can't be applied outside of a
> WSUS-managed update environment. Windows Update will just grab everything it sees
> that it needs and go to town - which will take longer than if it had just been
> updated inline as needed, and also increases the risk of toppling the system under
> the patch dependency load.

Are you telling there's no way to install third party software then block Microsoft update domains? It's not like you have to download hundreds of patches anymore, it's only one per month.



casm
Cinematronics > *
Reged: 08/27/07
Posts: 665
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: BIOS-D]
#366980 - 06/19/17 10:51 PM


> Are you telling there's no way to install third party software then block Microsoft
> update domains?

Of course not. It also doesn't prevent someone from editing the hosts file, returning invalid DNS results, or any other number of workarounds or methods of breaking delivery.

However, if you want granularity of the updates that are delivered and installed, AD + GPO + WSUS are increasingly the only options that will give you that level of management, and even then they're dependent on the edition of the OS in use.

> It's not like you have to download hundreds of patches anymore, it's
> only one per month.

I (and my clients) beg to differ, particularly if a machine has been outside of the patch cycle for some time. It's even more fun if it hasn't received the Creators update yet, then suddenly realises that it's supposed to receive it.

Oh, and that 'one' patch? Yeah, that's effectively an update rollup. Everything might be in one package, but that package might update dozens of system components, just like all of the other 'single' updates do.



BIOS-D
MAME Fan
Reged: 08/07/06
Posts: 1686
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: casm]
#366983 - 06/20/17 02:00 AM


> I (and my clients) beg to differ, particularly if a machine has been outside of the
> patch cycle for some time. It's even more fun if it hasn't received the Creators
> update yet, then suddenly realises that it's supposed to receive it.
>
> Oh, and that 'one' patch? Yeah, that's effectively an update rollup. Everything might
> be in one package, but that package might update dozens of system components, just
> like all of the other 'single' updates do.

Fortunately Microsoft lets you now download any edition updated ISO editions with all current patches included, or so I've heard. Updating is a bit painless compared to how Windows XP and 7 were updated. My full collection of Security Release January 2006 - August 2016 ISO are proof of that (tough I would prefer it that way).

Still, that sucks. My experience with Linux has been pretty bad across the years with OpenSUSE being the most bearable. I think I'll have not choice left but to run Windows virtualized and expect a Linux distro (probably Ubuntu) to become my main OS.



smf
I've been here before
Reged: 01/16/15
Posts: 130
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: casm]
#366985 - 06/20/17 02:19 AM


> there isn't any real control over what can and can't be applied outside of a
> WSUS-managed update environment.

If you use WSUS to control what gets applied then you are putting yourself at risk. Using it to control when things are applied is bad enough.



Haze
Reged: 09/23/03
Posts: 5242
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: smf]
#366989 - 06/20/17 02:55 AM


> > there isn't any real control over what can and can't be applied outside of a
> > WSUS-managed update environment.
>
> If you use WSUS to control what gets applied then you are putting yourself at risk.
> Using it to control when things are applied is bad enough.

the current model is driving a fair number of people back to Windows 7 tho, which is worse than all of those things.



casm
Cinematronics > *
Reged: 08/27/07
Posts: 665
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: smf]
#367001 - 06/20/17 05:17 AM


> > there isn't any real control over what can and can't be applied outside of a
> > WSUS-managed update environment.
>
> If you use WSUS to control what gets applied then you are putting yourself at risk.
> Using it to control when things are applied is bad enough.

That depends on the risk that you're willing to shoulder. In an enterprise environment, WSUS is pretty much a necessity - the risk of business stoppage due to an update or upgrade breaking clients may (note the conditional) be worse than the risk of potential vulnerability during a test period to evaluate the suitability of updates for the environment in which they are being applied.

In any event, that's neither here nor there. My point was that if you want the granularity previously offered in past Windows OSes as relates to updates, you're going to need to implement the AD + GPO + WSUS triad. Do not expect Windows 10 to roll back to an XP or even Windows 7 level of update selectivity any time soon, if ever.



casm
Cinematronics > *
Reged: 08/27/07
Posts: 665
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: Haze]
#367002 - 06/20/17 05:20 AM


> > > there isn't any real control over what can and can't be applied outside of a
> > > WSUS-managed update environment.
> >
> > If you use WSUS to control what gets applied then you are putting yourself at risk.
> > Using it to control when things are applied is bad enough.
>
> the current model is driving a fair number of people back to Windows 7 tho, which is
> worse than all of those things.

Exactly. By pushing an all-or-nothing update model on Windows 10 end users, all that Microsoft has really accomplished is to take a segment of their userbase and turn them into the vulnerability management problem that they were trying to eliminate in the first place.

There is no good answer to this problem, at least not in the framework that's currently being deployed for handling the issues at hand.



casm
Cinematronics > *
Reged: 08/27/07
Posts: 665
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: BIOS-D]
#367003 - 06/20/17 05:26 AM


> Fortunately Microsoft lets you now download any edition updated ISO editions with all
> current patches included, or so I've heard.

Correct. If you're creating external installation media from a newly-downloaded Windows 10 ISO, the ISO will contain all current updates and upgrades as of the time of download.

However, that doesn't necessarily fix the issue of the machine that hasn't been patched in months. It might be possible to use that media to patch it to current, but I don't know if that's even possible - and, if it is, I doubt that it would let you pick & choose the updates to apply.

> Still, that sucks. My experience with Linux has been pretty bad across the years with
> OpenSUSE being the most bearable. I think I'll have not choice left but to run
> Windows virtualized and expect a Linux distro (probably Ubuntu) to become my main OS.

*Shrug* Linux has its own set of patch management problems, and that can be heavily-dependent on the distro in use. There's no real escaping it one way or the other - and that Windows VM will still need to be patched.



BIOS-D
MAME Fan
Reged: 08/07/06
Posts: 1686
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: casm]
#367007 - 06/20/17 06:16 AM


> *Shrug* Linux has its own set of patch management problems, and that can be
> heavily-dependent on the distro in use. There's no real escaping it one way or the
> other - and that Windows VM will still need to be patched.

At this point is more a matter of privacy rather than updating issues. I'll have a Win 10 PC exclusively for gaming, but being honest with myself I'm at fault for trusting my personal files to any computer connected through Internet it doesn't matter the OS it has. Yet if I have to sell my soul to someone it definitely won't be Apple and neither Microsoft now.



R. Belmont
Cuckoo for IGAvania
Reged: 09/21/03
Posts: 9711
Loc: ECV-197 The Orville
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: Foxhack]
#367028 - 06/20/17 03:05 PM


> Or they add something that detects your legitimate disc and lets you play it. I don't
> believe the readable portion in Xbox discs is the same across all discs, so I think
> this could be a plausible workaround. I admit I am completely ignorant about Xbox
> disc layout though.

The readable portion was a stock file applied by the custom disc mastering software, which means at best it might be different between SDK versions. It definitely can't be used to identify specific discs.



R. Belmont
Cuckoo for IGAvania
Reged: 09/21/03
Posts: 9711
Loc: ECV-197 The Orville
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: casm]
#367030 - 06/20/17 04:48 PM


> However, that doesn't necessarily fix the issue of the machine that hasn't been
> patched in months. It might be possible to use that media to patch it to current, but
> I don't know if that's even possible - and, if it is, I doubt that it would let you
> pick & choose the updates to apply.

It is possible. I recently resurrected my 2011 ASUS 17" battlestation/laptop - it had last been used with gold master Win 10 and it got put in a closet because 5400 RPM drives + Windows 10 = pain. I swapped the boot drive for an SSD and added an 802.11ac USB dongle and then updated it to latest with the install media (if you download it on a Win10 system it gives you an option to just use it directly to update the machine without writing it to media).

You can't choose which updates you get, but you're fully up to date after doing it, as advertised.

What kind of surprised me is that that machine plays games OK - it's got a 1080P display and an Nvidia 460M GPU but it can play GTA V at better than console quality and better than console framerates even though on first launch it warned that the CPU was too weak (quad-core Sandy Bridge i7). For MAME it gets embarrassed by my Haswell-powered MacBook Air though.



Foxhack
Furry guy
Reged: 01/30/04
Posts: 2409
Loc: Spicy Canada
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: R. Belmont]
#367037 - 06/20/17 08:27 PM


> > Or they add something that detects your legitimate disc and lets you play it. I
> don't
> > believe the readable portion in Xbox discs is the same across all discs, so I think
> > this could be a plausible workaround. I admit I am completely ignorant about Xbox
> > disc layout though.
>
> The readable portion was a stock file applied by the custom disc mastering software,
> which means at best it might be different between SDK versions. It definitely can't
> be used to identify specific discs.

Aww, that sucks. I was hoping it would be like Dreamcast games, which had a readable CD portion where devs usually added bonus goodies or some identifiers (like ABSTRACT.txt, BIBLIOGR.txt, and COPYRIGH.txt). That data is specific enough that they could function as a key disc.

Thanks for clearing that up.



R. Belmont
Cuckoo for IGAvania
Reged: 09/21/03
Posts: 9711
Loc: ECV-197 The Orville
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: Foxhack]
#367039 - 06/20/17 10:33 PM


> Aww, that sucks. I was hoping it would be like Dreamcast games, which had a readable
> CD portion where devs usually added bonus goodies or some identifiers (like
> ABSTRACT.txt, BIBLIOGR.txt, and COPYRIGH.txt). That data is specific enough that they
> could function as a key disc.

Yup, Sega required those files on Saturn discs too. I remember them well



casm
Cinematronics > *
Reged: 08/27/07
Posts: 665
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: R. Belmont]
#367049 - 06/21/17 01:10 AM


> > However, that doesn't necessarily fix the issue of the machine that hasn't been
> > patched in months. It might be possible to use that media to patch it to current,
> but
> > I don't know if that's even possible - and, if it is, I doubt that it would let you
> > pick & choose the updates to apply.
>
> It is possible. I recently resurrected my 2011 ASUS 17" battlestation/laptop - it had
> last been used with gold master Win 10 and it got put in a closet because 5400 RPM
> drives + Windows 10 = pain. I swapped the boot drive for an SSD and added an 802.11ac
> USB dongle and then updated it to latest with the install media (if you download it
> on a Win10 system it gives you an option to just use it directly to update the
> machine without writing it to media).
>
> You can't choose which updates you get, but you're fully up to date after doing it,
> as advertised.

That's good to know - and I was kinda surprised to realise that I didn't know the answer to it since it's just not something I've ever had to do. Every Win10 install I've done directly (with the exception of the gaming PC, which is the last physical Windows box we have remaining) has been in a VM, so they've all been clean installs from the start.

> What kind of surprised me is that that machine plays games OK - it's got a 1080P
> display and an Nvidia 460M GPU but it can play GTA V at better than console quality
> and better than console framerates even though on first launch it warned that the CPU
> was too weak (quad-core Sandy Bridge i7). For MAME it gets embarrassed by my
> Haswell-powered MacBook Air though.

I do have to give Win10 some credit for its performance: it does seem to - by and large - run surprisingly well even on not-terribly-new or -powerful hardware.

BTW: still working off of the (late 2011) Sandy Bridge i7 MBP here. Sierra runs OK on it, but this is definitely the year of replacement. The cracks have been showing for a while, and are becoming more and more egregious as time goes on.



Haze
Reged: 09/23/03
Posts: 5242
Send PM


Re: Xbox emulation on PC new [Re: Foxhack]
#367068 - 06/21/17 11:10 AM


> > > Or they add something that detects your legitimate disc and lets you play it. I
> > don't
> > > believe the readable portion in Xbox discs is the same across all discs, so I
> think
> > > this could be a plausible workaround. I admit I am completely ignorant about Xbox
> > > disc layout though.
> >
> > The readable portion was a stock file applied by the custom disc mastering
> software,
> > which means at best it might be different between SDK versions. It definitely can't
> > be used to identify specific discs.
>
> Aww, that sucks. I was hoping it would be like Dreamcast games, which had a readable
> CD portion where devs usually added bonus goodies or some identifiers (like
> ABSTRACT.txt, BIBLIOGR.txt, and COPYRIGH.txt). That data is specific enough that they
> could function as a key disc.
>
> Thanks for clearing that up.

you'd still need a way for the PC to know it was an original disc, not just a copy tho, and if the copy-protection related parts can't be read by a PC drive in a way that would distinguish them from a burned disc, there's no way of doing that.

and disc based protections, even for regular PC games are ugly, I notice as optical drives get cheaper and cheaper more of them become incapable of reading anything other than basic data, rendering a lot of copy protection schemes unusable even if pair with older hardware / operating systems that should be compatible.

real media compatibility makes a lot of sense on consoles, where you're always using known drives etc. and I do hope we see more of that, but for a PC based emulator I can't see it flying for any kind of commercial offering.


Pages: 1

MAMEWorld >> EmuChat
View all threads Index   Threaded Mode Threaded  

Extra information Permissions
Moderator:  Robbbert, Tafoid 
0 registered and 22 anonymous users are browsing this forum.
You cannot start new topics
You cannot reply to topics
HTML is enabled
UBBCode is enabled
Thread views: 2845