Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

silbeej

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 3, 2007
797
0
So i own my xbox games, i didn't download them or steal them or what not. All i'd like to do is play my few games without having to switch the disks, for they are getting scratched a lot, some already bad. Is there a way to play the games on my HD without inserting the disk, kind of like a no cd patch on the PC?
 

alansmallen

macrumors 6502a
Jun 25, 2007
859
3
So i own my xbox games, i didn't download them or steal them or what not. All i'd like to do is play my few games without having to switch the disks, for they are getting scratched a lot, some already bad. Is there a way to play the games on my HD without inserting the disk, kind of like a no cd patch on the PC?

Ya. I wanted to know the same.
 

NoSmokingBandit

macrumors 68000
Apr 13, 2008
1,579
3
If you have Syphon Filter and a usb->xbox adapter you can mod your box and copy the games right over. I have a modded box witha 200gb drive in it with movies, games, and all sort of goodies on it. Google "xbox softmod" and there will be tons of resources to help you out.
 

alansmallen

macrumors 6502a
Jun 25, 2007
859
3
If you have Syphon Filter and a usb->xbox adapter you can mod your box and copy the games right over. I have a modded box witha 200gb drive in it with movies, games, and all sort of goodies on it. Google "xbox softmod" and there will be tons of resources to help you out.

I just want to be able to a) play online and b) get tech support
 

upsguy27

macrumors 65816
Jun 25, 2007
1,209
19
Utah
If you have Syphon Filter and a usb->xbox adapter you can mod your box and copy the games right over. I have a modded box witha 200gb drive in it with movies, games, and all sort of goodies on it. Google "xbox softmod" and there will be tons of resources to help you out.

Wrong Xbox...
 

iCheese

macrumors regular
May 31, 2006
238
3
the new xbox software update allows you to run your games from the hard drive, but many games warn that doing this will lower performance to unacceptable levels, such as halo 3.
 

upsguy27

macrumors 65816
Jun 25, 2007
1,209
19
Utah
that makes no sense to me as a hard drive is loads faster than an optical drive. care to explain?

It's because the games that are out right now aren't optimized to run from the hard drive; they are meant to load directly from the disc. This causes them to run slower. When games come out that are optimized to run from the hard drive, they will load faster.
 

angelneo

macrumors 68000
Jun 13, 2004
1,541
0
afk
It's because the games that are out right now aren't optimized to run from the hard drive; they are meant to load directly from the disc. This causes them to run slower. When games come out that are optimized to run from the hard drive, they will load faster.
I can't seem to get my head around this. I don't see a difference between loading from a disc and loading from a hard disk. In all scenarios, doesn't hard disk load faster?
 

upsguy27

macrumors 65816
Jun 25, 2007
1,209
19
Utah
I can't seem to get my head around this. I don't see a difference between loading from a disc and loading from a hard disk. In all scenarios, doesn't hard disk load faster?

The disc looks for the data on the disc first, so it goes to read the disc for the data first, and when it doesn't find it there, it goes to the hard drive. The slower speeds come from it looking for the data on the disc first, instead of going directly to the hard drive.
 

dukebound85

macrumors Core
Jul 17, 2005
19,131
4,110
5045 feet above sea level
It's because the games that are out right now aren't optimized to run from the hard drive; they are meant to load directly from the disc. This causes them to run slower. When games come out that are optimized to run from the hard drive, they will load faster.

i dont undertand your reasoning tbh. what do you mean by optimized? i mean you could say the same thing about installing os's as they are meant to be installed off a dvd. however i can install it off a thumb drive and its loads faster to do. all it takes is a software fix to change this, which is what they did right?

The disc looks for the data on the disc first, so it goes to read the disc for the data first, and when it doesn't find it there, it goes to the hard drive. The slower speeds come from it looking for the data on the disc first, instead of going directly to the hard drive.

doesnt the software update from MS make that point invalid? surely they would have code in there to bypass the optical drive if you select a game off the hard drive to play

i mean, they did release a software update to give this functionality if the following quote is indeed true

you have links by chance that support what youre saying?

the new xbox software update allows you to run your games from the hard drive, but many games warn that doing this will lower performance to unacceptable levels, such as halo 3.
i just dont get the unbolded part
 

kingamar

macrumors newbie
Dec 22, 2008
0
0
well thats a load of cr@p there is no optimization involved a game will only run as fast as the source the media is read from in which case the HDD is far faster than the optical drive, its the same as the psp when people use custom firmware to play games from their memory sticks (this can have a negative affect too but thats due to games being in cso format compressed and ofcourse memory sticks with poor read and wrirte speeds) disc load times are pretty much emliminated as well as not having the hum or buzz of the disc drive...this also saves power and as mentioned somewhere before reduces wear and tear of the optical drive, all games are usually in a ISO format on most if not all consoles so the console will always read the file the same no matter what the source be it HDD or disc of course microsoft will correct any issues of the xbox looking for the optical drive first for the game with a patch file of some kind if such a problem exists.

I personally think its not good to do this if people still only have 20Gb hard drives, but ofcourse the bigger HDD's microsoft offer come with a big price tag, I personally would like to see microsoft allowing people to use usb hard drives to save their games onto because even 120Gb can seem small to a hardcore gamer with a huge game library.
 

NoSmokingBandit

macrumors 68000
Apr 13, 2008
1,579
3
The new 360 update will still require you to put the original disc in the drive so you cant go all willy nilly copying your friends games.
 

upsguy27

macrumors 65816
Jun 25, 2007
1,209
19
Utah
i dont undertand your reasoning tbh. what do you mean by optimized? i mean you could say the same thing about installing os's as they are meant to be installed off a dvd. however i can install it off a thumb drive and its loads faster to do. all it takes is a software fix to change this, which is what they did right?



doesnt the software update from MS make that point invalid? surely they would have code in there to bypass the optical drive if you select a game off the hard drive to play

i mean, they did release a software update to give this functionality if the following quote is indeed true

you have links by chance that support what youre saying?


i just dont get the unbolded part

I'll let this link explain everything.
 

zameen

macrumors newbie
Sep 10, 2009
0
0
If you have Syphon Filter and a usb->xbox adapter you can mod your box and copy the games right over. I have a modded box witha 200gb drive in it with movies, games, and all sort of goodies on it. Google "xbox softmod" and there will be tons of resources to help you out.

hey can u pls tell me how to flash the CD drive & and to mod 360
 

0098386

Suspended
Jan 18, 2005
21,574
2,908
that makes no sense to me as a hard drive is loads faster than an optical drive. care to explain?

No its true, and it's caused by data streaming. It's all about data placement and streaming. If you want to check it out try Halo 3 or (best of all) GTA IV. I used to run it from the HDD and had to put up with loading issues all the friggin time - you can't drive fast without severe popup. A friend told me to run it from DVD and it worked perfectly.
The initial load times are longer from DVD but its better in-game.

kingamar said:
well thats a load of cr@p
No, it's not.

But OP there's no legal way to do this. You can buy Xbox 360 games for download though, through Xbox Live. If you didn't want to damage disks (you'd avoid them completely) then go down that route.
 

NoSmokingBandit

macrumors 68000
Apr 13, 2008
1,579
3
hey can u pls tell me how to flash the CD drive & and to mod 360

I have no idea. I was going to do my friend's but it requires a specific sata chipset or something on your computer and it just seemed like too much of a mess. Imo, its not worth losing the warranty, especially on something as unreliable as the 360. If its already out of warranty i would just go for it, but you may need to buy a pci sata card. Theres tons of guides on about it, just google it.
 

Sdashiki

macrumors 68040
Aug 11, 2005
3,529
11
Behind the lens
I have no idea. I was going to do my friend's but it requires a specific sata chipset or something on your computer and it just seemed like too much of a mess. Imo, its not worth losing the warranty, especially on something as unreliable as the 360. If its already out of warranty i would just go for it, but you may need to buy a pci sata card. Theres tons of guides on about it, just google it.

better yet, craigslist search for your friendly local flasher...theyre out there.
 

NoSmokingBandit

macrumors 68000
Apr 13, 2008
1,579
3
Im always the guy who gets paid to hack, not the other way around, lol. I dont advertise though. My friends bring me their friends psps and xboxs for me to mod and throw me a few dollars even though i dont ask for it.
I like to learn it myself so if something goes wrong i know better how to fix it. I've always been a hands-on kinda guy.
 

kobachi

macrumors newbie
Aug 11, 2008
3
0
No its true, and it's caused by data streaming. It's all about data placement and streaming.

I can't believe everyone's ridiculous theories on this. Here's the truth: Halo 3, and presumably other games, already cache the current level, etc. to the HD. This was in the game from the beginning, and is why the optical drive doesn't go crazy with random seeks while you're in-game. The problem is that the code that caches to the HD was written before the time that the install-to-HD feature was developed. So if you install the game to the HD, it will still cache to the HD. This is a huge performance hit, because the game is double-caching to the same drive. Reading and writing to the same hard drive is much slower than reading from one source (in this case, the DVD) and writing to another. You can see this manifested, for example, in the difference between the time it takes to copy a file from one physical hard drive to another vs. the time it takes to copy a file from one partition to another on the same hard drive.

The real problem is that Bungie is too lazy/money-grubbing to develop the relatively simple patch that would say "am I already running on the HD? Ok, then I don't need to cache the game data again." But they have already moved on to ODST and beyond and aren't interested in improving Halo 3 anymore.
 

zlanich

macrumors newbie
Jan 9, 2010
0
0
So I have another theory...

Does it make any sense at all to say the game caches to the HDD at all considering you can play any game without the HDD even attached at all? I'm thinking it caches to the ram only minus game saves which clearly can't take place w/o a HDD?:confused:
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.