Xbox Emulator Plays Retail Game 379
Ryan M. Pamplin writes "The critically acclaimed Xbox Emulator, CXBX, has made its way into Xbox history. Caustik has announced that "Turok Evolution" is now playable at real-time speed with comparable graphics to the Xbox while utilizing nearly the same graphics hardware found within the Xbox itself. The development of CXBX will continue to advance at rapid pace. Expect many additional titles to become playable upon the release of the next binary in the near future. A DivX video, binary, and GPL'ed source is available at the website."
Oh boy.. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Oh boy.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh boy.. (Score:2)
Actually, I can see how you might want XBox Accessories, if that means buying a controller that might one day interface with the emulator. Sure beats keyboard control, at least for emulators I've played.
X-box accessories for PC (Score:2)
Re:X-box accessories for PC (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Oh boy.. (Score:5, Funny)
Piracy concerns (Score:5, Interesting)
With the games possibly (depending on how good the emulator gets..) now having a far wider audience, there'll be a far larger demand for P2P downloads. I wonder if the MS anti-piracy protection will be up to the job - it certainly seems pretty simple to run games on 'modded' xboxes - I wonder if they've been depending on the fact that the games are designed for the console only to protect them from rampant copying...
And I bet that new releases will have to pass an internal 'breaks the emulator' test before they're let out into the wild (it'll only mean the emulator has to cope with the differences, of course...)
Simon.
Re:Piracy concerns (Score:3, Insightful)
There are plenty of people who would just LOVE to play XBox games on their PCs.
If this means just sticking an XBox game in their PC and firing up a good game through an Emulator, I don't see anything at all wrong with this.
Legally, though, I'm sure Microsoft would differe in opinion, but if it were to actually increase games sales I don't know how they could really have too much to complain about.
Re:Piracy concerns (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure enough. But does this emulator magically make your DVD-ROM or, even more likely, CD-ROM able to read a retail Xbox game disc? (I don't know, I can't RTFA because visiting such a site is discouraged here at work) Cause if not, it has no use other than to play ROMs and NOT retail games. And if you don't have an Xbox you don't have a legal way to make your
Re:Piracy concerns (Score:2)
Re:Piracy concerns (Score:4, Insightful)
They sell the X-Box to control the gaming market.
If there are emulators, they can not control the market.
See?
Re:Piracy concerns (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh-uh (Score:5, Insightful)
Trying to control a market stems from the idea that one should play the capitalism game just long enough to get to the point where one doesn't have to play by capitalism's rules anymore. It's not supposed to work that way. Your reward is not getting to lock out competitors, fix prices, and coast; your reward is enough money to keep playing. You can opt to keep selling your stuff as is, if it sells well, or make it better or different, if it's not; but you don't keep working, you can't expect to keep eating your cake.
Re:Piracy concerns (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Piracy concerns (Score:5, Interesting)
Just because a way of reading a disk may violate a law that your country may have does not mean that a whole activity is illegal.
As far as the law in my jurisdiction is concerned, that disk is just a collection of copyrighted ones and zeros. I can do anything to it that doesn't involve another copy, except in such a way as is required to use the product.
Note though that the game company doesn't get to dictate the use, the courts do. Microsoft may say that the intended use it for an XBox only but the courts have struck down similar product-tying restrictions for a long time. Ford isn't allowed to require you to use Ford tires, or tie your warranty to your using Ford tires. And while Ford could encrypt the radio's output signal so only Ford radios worked with the stock speakers, they couldn't stop anyone else from reverse engineering the encryption, and producing a radio that would work with Ford's 'protected' speakers.
I'm sure this pissed off Microsoft, and Ford, but really, why should we care? We pay them a fair price (they set it, we choose to agree) to purchase a product. Why should they get control over future use of that product just because it comes on a CD instead of being a tangible product like a chair? Why is there this assumption that a piece of paper in the box that you don't get to see until a legal sale is finalized is some kind of binding contract?
Fuck man, open your eyes!
Re:Piracy concerns (Score:5, Insightful)
And Thoreau rolls in his grave.
Rob
ehm break wich rules? (Score:2)
So there are no rules being broken. As long as you buy the game legally you can run it however you see fit. If you want to put a PS1 cd into your audio player and listen to
Re:Piracy concerns (Score:3, Interesting)
If the future of video games is streaming then piracy of this sort will only be a temporary problem. When you get your games on demand things will change significantly.
In fact, you could almost still have an install disk with 99% of the game's resources on it and only stream watermarked and timestamped libraries once the game ge
Re:Piracy concerns (Score:2)
*Nothing* is invulnerable. Sony thought DNAS (Dynamic Network Authentication System that checks games prior to going online to see if they're copies and/or the system has been modded) was invulnerable, but that's been cracked.
These companies need to face it: you can spend all the money you want on trying to prevent people from copying games/modding their systems, but there is always, and will always be, a way around it. Alo
Re:Piracy concerns (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft takes a loss on each Xbox sold.
MS does this hoping the profit from games will overcome loss on hardware.
This emulator allows people to run Xbox games without buying an Xbox.
MS can only benefit from this. The only reason I'd see to defend against it is if Microsoft didn't want people playing them on PCs and instead on consoles. But that's kind of a dumb reason.
Re:Piracy concerns (Score:4, Insightful)
Just a few thoughts (Score:3, Insightful)
For the near term more people playing Xbox games will only lead to greater mindshare for Microsoft. Xbox 2 comes out and you have a whole other market of "Xbox gamers" who never bought the first gen console but are now hooked on Xbox games and might consider buying Xbox2 even thought they never
Re:Piracy concerns (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Piracy concerns (Score:3, Informative)
You're forgetting one important thing M$ would lose on: revenue from games because they can now be pirated and played... without a modchipped console. People can just copy them from a friend and play them on a computer that contains no piracy check.
There's another thing, too. Microsoft depends on the XBox sales numbers to be somewhat reliable, so they can use those numbers to convince software developers to commit to creating new games for the XBox. It's a tricky thing. If you have people who aren't
You're forgetting a more important thing (Score:4, Insightful)
If someone were to be able to play XBox games without owning an XBox, they are statistically less likely to actually buy said games. Because they haven't invested any money into the platform, they don't have that sense of loyalty / hazing that comes with a system purchase.
(warning, old numbers ahead) The average system sells with 5 games the first year, and 5 the second... After which it slopes off. What is likely to happen if people don't make an investment in hardware? Chances are, more people will use the opportunity to buy that one "must have" game (in my case, Ninja Gaiden), but will not pick up the other 4 per year. The "system seller" is a well-known effect, but what happens if people can satisfy that system seller desire without the system? Or what happens when people can emulate all 3 platforms consistently?
You want your players to make an investment in your hardware. It makes them better customers, more likely to come back and buy more games.
Re:Piracy concerns (Score:2)
Re:Piracy concerns and other lawsuits.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course a lot of people that use this, will be using it in order to also copy and download x-box titles without paying for them. It's that group of idiots that give the entire emulation scene a really bad name.
*sigh* (Score:3, Insightful)
Somehow, your logic is:
Game sales > Game sales + X-Box sales
Completely insane and depressing.
MS loses a lot of money on every x-box sale.
So by not buying X-Boxes, they're magically recouping the money for those X-Boxes sitting at the store?
Re:*sigh* (Score:4, Insightful)
Game sales > Game sales + X-Box sales
Please try to understand what it means to lose money. a > a + b when b is NEGATIVE. And as for X-Boxes sitting at the store, every one of those that isn't bought is one more that doesn't have to be manufactured at a loss. Just because there's a buffer doesn't mean that the sale rate and supply rate aren't related.
Completely insane and depressing.
Re:Piracy concerns and other lawsuits.... (Score:3, Informative)
The only way to use Cxbx is with a disc image that has been ripped using a modded Xbox.
And surely... (Score:5, Interesting)
Talk about misery loving company.
Re:And surely... (Score:2)
although dmca did effectively kill the warforge bnetd project, so who knows.
-fren
M$? (Score:2)
Re:And surely... (Score:2)
404
Seems we're done.
Re:And surely... (Score:2)
Re:And surely... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see how this can be construed as a mechanism to defeat copyright protection, and emulators are well established as legal; it's just the legality of actually having any ROM data to run the emulators on is occasionally questioned. (For the record, I think if you own a license to a copyrighted work you should have full rights to put it in whatever media format you like, as long as it is undistributed, but to be fair, the legal precendents are mixed at best.)
Re:And surely... (Score:5, Funny)
On the grounds that the original poster wanted some karma.
Re:And surely... (Score:2)
Re:And surely... (Score:2)
They've already been using the DMCA to kill modchip imports and websites... if the emulator lets one run pirated games the same as a modchip does, then I don't see why they wouldn't try to use it.
If the emulator developer is smart he'll make sure he's copy-protection compliant with the emulator; that is, he chec
Microsoft's gonna be mad! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Microsoft's gonna be mad! (Score:2)
Re:Microsoft's gonna be mad! (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, there would be some piracy, but I think there's still a big market for Xbox games and PC users who dont want consoles.
Re:Microsoft's gonna be mad! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Microsoft's gonna be mad! (Score:5, Interesting)
The PC owner, and
The Console owner.
Whereas at the moment, no PC owner will buy an Xbox game if he doesnt also own a console.
One development cost for two different platforms = huge savings.
Re:Microsoft's gonna be mad! (Score:3, Informative)
So I guess you missed the news on XNA?
http://www.arstechnica.com/news/posts/108023853
In fact... (Score:2, Informative)
Actually they are taking a loss on the Xboxes. It is the packaged games that they are counting on to make their money back. This emulation technology, if abused, could (and probably will) encourage people to trade/download/serve illegal copies of the games so they don't have to pay for anything.
The author makes it quite clear that this i
Maybe Later (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Maybe Later (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm... something seems weird about that. Oh well!
Re:Maybe Later (Score:3, Funny)
You really need to see if your XBox emulator, running on a Linux machine, will run Linux.
Then you could run the Xbox emulator on that....
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It would be cool if it did (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It would be cool if it did (Score:2)
The closest useful thing I can think of to what you describe is the GB/GBC emulators for GBA, which give you functionality not found in the GBA's backwards compatibility, like state saving, cheats, screen shots, et cetera.
MEANWHILE, AT MICROSOFT... (Score:5, Funny)
Bill Gates: Alright, let me hear it.
Underling: The bad news is, someone has created an XBox emulator capable of playing a commercial game, and the public has become aware of it.
Bill Gates: Oh no! That's horrible! This could undermine H&E's entire business model! What's the good news?
Underling: The game is Turok Evolution.
Bill Gates: *Whew*
Re:MEANWHILE, AT MICROSOFT... (Score:3, Funny)
Good work but not quite Mame (Score:5, Informative)
Aggressive Inline
Battle Engine Aquila
EggMania
Kelly SLater's Pro Surfer
Rayman Arena
Sega GT 2002
Shadow of memories
Re:Good work but not quite Mame (Score:5, Informative)
also, maybe it will be slightly since xbox is based on x86 architecture and nvidia graphics, but it took a while for ultrahle, for example, to be truly playable (the o/c'ed celeron 450s didn't exactly cut it back then -- or it would play fine 90% of the time but glitch annoyingly the other 10%.. or buttons would have no text, etc.). so the requisite hardware might be a year or two off before it's truly playable (not to mention the incredible amount of effort to fully reverse engineer the xbox architecture enough to emulate it in software such that it plays indistinguishably from a real xbox)
-fren
XBox Architecture? (Score:2, Interesting)
It's actually running (as you stated) X86 architecture hardware, so reverse engineering a compatability layer for the hardware is, erm, not really an issue. Unless you're using a Power5 chip, I suppose.
Halo (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Halo (Score:2)
Look, I even did the Google [google.com] for you.
Re:Halo (Score:3, Interesting)
because the fuckers left coop out of the pc version.
Xeon (Score:5, Informative)
Great! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Great! (Score:5, Funny)
Woah, the Xbox emulates the N64? Hot damn!
And somehow this emulation of one of the N64's best games (goldeneye) allows you to install Linux? I am so confused!
So close... (Score:2, Insightful)
Patents are bad for Emulation! (Score:5, Informative)
See:
Microsoft and Patents
http://swpat.ffii.org/players/microsoft/
Bruxelles event
http://dot.kde.org/1081152462/
Web strike and demo
http://demo.ffii.org
Modchips (Score:4, Funny)
Unlikely (Score:5, Funny)
What I expect is the Microsoft legal team serving them with papers before the next binary release.
The Cycle is complete! MWAHAHAHA! (Score:5, Funny)
Lemme get this straight. (Score:4, Insightful)
I think I'll stick with the real thing.
Re:Lemme get this straight. (Score:2)
Why that price? I think the emulator assumes you already own a powerful enough computer. The combined street value of used parts that will work should be less than that of an XBox.
A system with a PIII chip, motherboard, 10 GB drive, ethernet card, GeForce 4 card has to be about $100 or so.
Re:Lemme get this straight. (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because the Xbox contains the specs (kinda) you listed above, you can't do a straight conversion onto emulation performance. When you emulate something, there is an overhead - likely to be small in the case of an Xbox due to the similar architecture but still... - so you always need more power than the original system you are trying to emulate. The Playstation has a 32 bit processor runnning at 33.87mhz and 2MB onboard RAM. Let's see you emulate the Playstat
Google Cache (Score:4, Informative)
Er. (Score:2, Funny)
Re: Piracy concerns (Score:3, Insightful)
I am sure this is the exact reason. There are multiple layers of copy protection on the XBOX now, DVD Format unreadable, MS Signed executables, etc.
If M$ could have that kind of protection on standard PC hardware they would have released their own emu and sell games to PC and XBOX owners at a huge cost savings.
I just don't get it... (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless...
-- You can make the games play better
-- Do things you can't normally do with an XBox that are interesting and fun
-- Improve the development of XBox titles
-- Port other cool games to XBox more easily
Re:I just don't get it... (Score:2)
Wrong crowd ..... (Score:2)
"Linux is only free if you don't value your time"
Re:I just don't get it... (Score:2)
I'm not a developer, but I respect their ability and it must be a tremendous goodwill moment when the executable you hand-crafted runs properly for the first time.
Would you deny the authors that satisfaction just because their choices are economically unsound?
Also - why shouldn't someone who already owns the expensive PC want to try an XboX game without spending the price of a console?
Re:I just don't get it... (Score:5, Funny)
From: Central Bureaucracy
To: Unit #926568257191
Re: X-Box Emulator
Thank you for bringing to our attention this serious misallocation of resources. These units will be re-programmed to begin production on work more suited to fulfilling this year's 5-year plan. Unit #000000000001 is pleased to know all comrades are looking out for the good of the Party.
Sincerely,
Central Bureaucracy
Not a huge impact (Score:2)
XBOX Live? (Score:5, Funny)
Why do this? Cant be cheaper (Score:2)
I thought the X-boxes were sold at a loss, and that is in relation to the fact that MS already gets the hardware cheaper than we can due to their immense purchasing power. Can you really build a comparable box for $150 or even close to that? Seems to me that is better to take an x-box and mod it to a fully functioning computer (like linux) rather than take a fully functioning computer and mod it to an x-box
I wonder. (Score:2)
It would be quite funny to see the XBox games running on a Linux box, faster even than with Windows.
Hopefully not a hoax (Score:2)
Taking bets... (Score:2)
So what... (Score:2)
This is *not* good for Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
In the pre-XBox days, Microsoft had a software games divison. They were already producing software. By that logic, they'd have no reason to make a console, because people always lose money on console hardware. Why didn't htey just stick with games for PCs?
They did it for "living room presence." Right now, or at least moreso 3 years ago, people thought of computers as a workstation. Microsoft's wants to push computers to all areas of the home, and the XBox in the living room is their foot in the door. By establishing a foothold in the console division, they'll be able to have future hardware generations integrate better with with normal PCs to give "ubiquituous computing" or some such.
Microsoft *could* make an XBox emulator on the PC, but they just don't want to.
Latest version (Score:4, Informative)
Can it run Linux? (Score:3, Funny)
It doesn't work on my game :( (Score:3, Redundant)
"Nearly the same" graphics hardware? (Score:3, Informative)
And then the real article says it was a 2.8GHz P4 with a GeForce FX5600.
The Xbox is hardly a 2.8GHz P4, guys.
Re:CXBX Is Good for MS (Score:3, Insightful)
So you're claiming that someone who is avoiding paying $149 for the console is suddenly going to pony up $49 a game to play on this emulator? I think not. The FIRST thing someone is going to do after downloading the emulator is to download some games.
Re:CXBX Is Good for MS (Score:2)
Re:CXBX Is Good for MS (Score:2)
Re:CXBX Is Good for MS (Score:2)
No, not really. PCs cannot read Xbox Discs (Score:5, Informative)
PCs only see an 11MB video that basically says "look, dumbass, this is an Xbox game so go stick it in your Xbox". (Maybe not in quite that harsh of language - I'm paraphrasing here)
You can't hook an Xbox Drive up to a PC, either... because the system won't recognize it as a valid DVD-ROM drive. Again, this is an issue with firmware (oddly enough, some standard DVD-ROM drives can be used on modded Xboxes to read backup discs).
This is why you have to use a modded Xbox to back up an Xbox game - the game material has to be read from the Xbox itself, then transferred to a PC.
This was intentional. It was meant to stymie hackers from simply reading the disc in a PC, or slapping an Xbox DVD-ROM drive into a PC and using that to read from.
The Xbox can handle games loaded from a DVD-R in UDF format, or even it's special Xbox DVD FAT format (burned as a "normal" disc image) - once it's modded. Why? Because it makes things easier for development. Developmnet Xboxes can be thought of as "half-modded" - developers can sign aps with a developer's key FOR THEIR XDK CONSOLES ONLY. Thus, they can test their releases with burned media (saving the expense of mastering a secure DVD and generating a signature).
So legitimate games cannot be used on a PC. Microsoft has locked themselves out of that market (albeit in the interest of copy protecting their software).
Re:Mirrors please (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a
Are there any recommended tracker sites for files such as this? (non-copyright, one-off dl's)
Re:Why didn't Microsoft do this themselves (Score:2)
Re:Goodbye Microsoft (Score:2)
in order to make this run under *nix, you need directx9 running under *nix, whic
No it's not great.... (Score:3, Insightful)
'Pirating the hardware' goes hand in hand with pirating the software. An Xbox emulator won't be