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old cxbx update

apexad

New member
I swear that I knew about this update, and wanted to post about it on april 7th, but the problems with the site prevented this, so before a new version is released, I must tell you of Caustik's small update on CXBX:
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Things are going good. Kingofc has been contributing source code to Cxbx, including some preliminary support for OpenXDK applications. He has also gotten some 3d vertex rendering working. I am also recieving some much appreciated help from "anonymous" with some kernel emulation, which is going to help the project progress much more quickly.</font>
 
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apexad

New member
Well, to start it needs Windows 2000 or better as well as a Geforce3 (if not better). Considering you'd be emulating 64MB of ram, you'd probably want at least double that if not a whole hell of alot more. Plus a 700Mhz processor, they say 10x as fast processor is needed. Because of the unique case of xbox, even if it is half that, 5x as fast, you'd still be at 3500Mhz. Lastly, Commerical XBOX Games use 3 Hard drive partititions the size of CD's, so that would mean you would need 2250MB(about 2GB) of space.

So to sum up my predictions:

Windows 2000/XP
Geforce3 (or better)
3.5Ghz Processor
128MB+ Ram
2GB of Free Space
Plus a DVD Drive or even more space for an ISO
 

Hacktarux

Emulator Developer
Moderator
I don't think you need 3.5 GHz to execute cpu code. If you try wine, you'll see that applications aren't very slow... they are even faster than on the real os sometimes. And it's basically what cxbx is, it try to run an exe on another OS. Also, you have to remember how cxbx is supposed to work, afaik, all directx8 functions will be hle as well as many windows functions : the emulator detect the windows equivalent function and call it... It also means the emulated cpu will have less instructions to execute than the real one. You're still right about the OS and the memory requirement i think.

IMO if the emu is carefully written some games can run full speed on a 1.5Ghz pc... maybe less but i'm not sure.

And no linker it wasn't sarcasm, i'm sure if it happens, Microsoft will be far worse than Nintendo at Ultrahle time...
 
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apexad

New member
I am assuming Nintendo made money from N64, whereas Microsoft is losing money on XBox. While an emulator will add to the problem, it would not be the cause and if they decided to do anything it would pretty much be pointing fingers only.

Lastly, Caustik the main coder of CXBX, was an intern for Microsoft, so I think he's most likely going to be smart about releasing a software version of xbox. even if this means that he locks out any controller besides XCtrl, allows you to only run official xbox game discs, or other things.

And the fact of the matter is, Xbox is modchipped and you can download games to a hard drive. (I of course use my extra space for my 80GB tic-tac-toe homebrewn game, I am talking about other people) So downloading an emulator would be like getting a pre-modded xbox for free under the best circumstances.

Anyway, this is just random thoughts, so I will stop now.
 

ector

Emulator Developer
I think it's pretty safe to say that CXBX' CPU requirements will be in the 1-1.5 ghz range, due to some overhead for converting between xbox and pc texture formats and things like that.

and yes, you are going to need quite some HD space, but you'd only need one of these swap partitions, so say 750megs + some extra for save game data (and of course space for the games, if you're not gonna be running from DVD-R ;) ). Not too bad.

The real issue is compatibility, and emulating the entire XBox DirectX API (which has quite a few major differences from normal Windows DirectX), as well as the xbox specific XAPI.
Judging from caustik's current rate of progress we will see the first signs of life from a few commercial games this summer.. if any of them are going to be anywhere near playability is anyone's guess, but i'm optimistic :)
 

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