[Nintendo Maniac]

I was just thinking about how handy it is to be able to run PS1 games directly from their disc while you have to rip GCN/Wii games. So in theoretical terms, would it be possible at all for Cxbx to play directly from the Xbox game DVD?

 

[@ruantec]

If they do proper emulation then maybe.. atm the job is done by loading the .xbe in memory and converting it to .exe(so you can get an idea) maybe am wrong but as far as i know its how its being done since long time and therefore the small progress... i wouldn´t use such a method myself but who cares as long as they work in something any progress is appreciated eitherway with the current tricks and technique i pretty much doubt its going to be done one day... if that answer your question.

 

[ElijahTW]

A regular PC DVD drive can't read a Xbox disc, with the exception of a few drives with custom firmwares.

 

[Nokiaman]

I think It would be better to load ISO so you don't have to extract it.

 

[blueshogun96]

I doubt it, but who knows. It would be nice though (might reduce piracy rates), but then again who knows how Microsoft would react to that. Just in case you don't know why a normal DVD drive can't read an Xbox disc is because the Xbox DVD format is designed to be read backwards (from the outside in). Even if you do have a custom firmware to read Xbox discs, you still might be required to use other tools to extract your files. I have a modified LG 8164b DVD drive that lets me read my Xbox Discs using MagicISO so I don't have to depend on my debug Xbox (which has a dysfunctional DVD drive now). It's not the perfect way to do it (for instance, I can't dump Blood Wake using this method, but maybe I should try creating an ISO instead), but it works for 98% of games. Sometimes dumps take a long time, but you can always go make a sandwich while you're waiting

@ruantic: The .xbe -> .exe conversion is just a means to avoid having to emulate the x86 architecture, therefore gives us less overhead. Then Cxbx searches for the OOVPA signatures. If found, Cxbx replaces the call with it's emulated version (similar to how you'd call a function within a code block for a dynamic binary translator). I'd rather emulate it the old fashioned way myself though, but this method Caustik used was rather ingenious.

 

[@ruantec]

@ruantic: The .xbe -> .exe conversion is just a means to avoid having to emulate the x86 architecture, therefore gives us less overhead. Then Cxbx searches for the OOVPA signatures. If found, Cxbx replaces the call with it's emulated version (similar to how you'd call a function within a code block for a dynamic binary translator). I'd rather emulate it the old fashioned way myself though, but this method Caustik used was rather ingenious.

BTW my nick is @ruantec(many people write my nick wrong hehehe)

i pretty much understand that part of the process and avoiding the need to emulate the x86 architecture sounds great but the question is... is it worth??? i don´t want you guys to misunderstand me as am by any means attacking you nor trying to say anything wrong about the efforts you guys put already on that project but the reason why i say that its because at the long run you will end working more and having less results as if you were emulating the x86 architechture from day 1.. the reason for that is because you will end having to change big parts of your code or just work on each different one to get something working and to me that´s just a waste of time... anyways i do respect your point of views and work. so keep it up whatever your tricks/methods may be :thumb:

 

[Nintendo Maniac]

For one, not having to emulate the CPU can give a huge speed-up. Have you seen the crazy PCs needed to run some Wii games? It just seems silly to emulate something that's already in your PC.

If this ends up not working for whatever reason, you can still possibly do virtualization of the CPU which should still be somewhat faster, especially with newer Intel and AMD CPU's having built-in x86 virtualization support.

 

[shadow_tj]

in theory its possible.

the Xbox hdd and probably also the Dvd discs has fatx filesystem.
However, the dvd / cd-rom drives read the normal formats.. something with blue and red or something.. there are color markings on cd`s dvd`s.

I forget how these things are called... but yes it is possible when your cd-rom drive has support for this disc format.

However, you can insert a normal dvd drive into a xbox, put the molux connecter to a normal pc power supply and connect the Ida cable from the xbox mainboard to the normal cd player.
This way you can read discs...

for more information... about the xbox fileformat you need to take a look at the fatx filesystem.
Differences between Xbox FATX and MS-DOS FAT - Xbox-Linux

However, to read the discs, you need .... what i think, a fatx driver or something.. and how manny people are trying this.. i have not seen a working copy.