Xbox 360 - Backwards Compatible

[Yvan256]

Too bad 90% of Nintendo games are as compelling as Celine Dion.

Oh, if only I could get a Microsoft console that plays all Sega games.

Hey, as a Canadian, I take offense to that!

Don't insult Nintendo's games!

Zelda, Metroid... erm... well, that's enough right there to keep you busy with a few dozen games!

 

[Gizmotoy]

I cannot see how a news piece speculating like the rest of websites echoing the same, without mentioning a single specific source might make it anything official at all.

Seriously. Especially when a lead XBox developer has alread come out and said the games will be emulated, with no recompiling. Hmm, who to trust. Random websites who don't know what they're talking about or one of the people who helped design the system... tough choice, that one.

 

[aegisdesign]

oh come on.. is anyone really surprised by this. It's plainly obvious that M$ is drowning VPC for Mac.. it's a threat and they do what they always do to threats, embrace and extinguish. It's not the arcitecture, it's them being afraid of the Mac.. just like always (while, ironically, admitting that it's better.. several times, directly and indirectly).

Complaining about it, this post included, is pointless. They don't care and nothing can make them care. If Apple wants to put an x86 emulator in MAc, then M$ will crush them, but if M$ wants to use MAcs to run their widgets then you better stay out of their way. Fun.

Why would Microsoft care? They're a software company. Expanding the number of machines that Windows runs on is great for them as you've still got to buy a copy of Windows to run on VirtualPC.

If you just bought a PC with Windows on it, Microsoft would only get the OEM fee for Windows which is much, much less than the retail price.

Microsoft bought Connectix for the ability to run multiple OSs on a single PC. The Mac products were merely a byproduct of the purchase. I'm surprised they released a version of VirtualPC at all although I don't know how much autonomy the old Connectix staff have to do their own thang.

 

[AidenShaw]

Latest word is that it's not emulation... the games have to be re-compiled, so David Leblond's post sounds most likely.

What latest word? Or just the latest rumour?

For all we know, either or both of the following might be true

• Xbox 360 supports emulation of Xbox games - but at much better than "VPC" performance because graphics can be native
• Xbox 360 has a "compatibility" library so that Xbox games can be fairly easily recompiled to run at native speeds on Xbox 360 (but only getting the feature set of Xbox)

 

[AidenShaw]

how much faster

No, he got it right. VPC 6 is years faster that VPC 7 on my G5.

I find this surprising, since:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;827904

SYMPTOMS
When you try to run Microsoft Virtual PC for Mac Version 6.1 on an Apple Power Mac G5 you will receive an error message that informs you that Virtual PC does not support the CPU in your Macintosh computer.

CAUSE
Virtual PC for Mac Version 6.1 and earlier use a feature that is present in the PowerPC G3 and the PowerPC G4 named "pseudo little-endian mode". Virtual PC for Mac uses pseudo little-endian mode for increased performance when it emulates a Pentium processor. Virtual PC for Mac 6.1 must use pseudo little-endian mode to function.

The new Power Mac G5 processor does not support pseudo little-endian mode. Therefore, the current versions of the Virtual PC for Mac program do not run on the Power Mac G5.​

So - it runs faster even though it depends on instructions that aren't present in the G5? Amazing, truly amazing!

 

[Krevnik]

There will probably be a big "gotcha" that nobody understands until they've bought the damn thing. Lies, lies and more lies. Emulate x86 console games on PPC, right. Hey, I've got a bridge for sale, anyone interested?

The gotcha is that the games are being recompiled, and that you will either have to repurchase them at a discount, or download the recompiled version which uses the original disc for the data.

Hence why it is 'top-selling' games only.

 

[mcdawson]

2. VirtualPC is slow because all graphics are emulated. It's not unreasonable for Microsoft to write native PPC calls for graphics and a native, hardware-accelerated version of DirectX8. This is now NT ran 16-bit software, and how the original PowerMacs ran 680x0 software.

Virtual PC on the 970 is also slow because IBM didn't implement the little-Endian conversion (mentioned in other posts). Since the XBOX will be a custom chip, they may have had IBM add back in this support AND other custom support that would help this emulation (I can't believe that the XBox PPC's won't have at least little-Endian swap support--that was a big win for Connectix when they used it (were able to use it)). If the XBox DOES have some hw emulation support, whatever VPC changes they make wouldn't necesarily be applicable to the Mac.

 

[bbyrdhouse]

Ok so the updated rumor now says that there wont be emulation but rather a recompile. This I think would be better because then it would be easier to port them over to Mac platform. (One would think)

 

[BenRoethig]

What?! need 2 x G5 to emulate the xBox360?!
that means it may be.....4 x G5 2.7Ghz ?! omg! how much does M$ want to sell xbox?! how much does we pay for our G5?!

The CPUs weren't a factor. A single x800XT GPU couldn't do the workload.

 

[Mr.Hey]

The open source/hacker community will hack the sh*t out of it and we'll get our free Xbox 180!

 

[bit density]

Ok so the updated rumor now says that there wont be emulation but rather a recompile. This I think would be better because then it would be easier to port them over to Mac platform. (One would think)

Um... No...

The architecture is different. The API's and operating system are the same.
Hence... xbox -> xbox 360 == recompile
xbox - > mac == recode

 

[Gizmotoy]

So... remind me again why we are believing some random gaming website when the person who made the quote they used, and the Lead developer on the XBox Live service states that the games will be emulted? Nice "Update".

 

[daveL]

What latest word? Or just the latest rumour?

For all we know, either or both of the following might be true

• Xbox 360 supports emulation of Xbox games - but at much better than "VPC" performance because graphics can be native
• Xbox 360 has a "compatibility" library so that Xbox games can be fairly easily recompiled to run at native speeds on Xbox 360 (but only getting the feature set of Xbox)

The recompile isn't a rumor, AS.

 

[dancefreak]

From Gamespot today...

RUMOR #2: The Xbox 360 won't be backwards compatible after all.

Source: British industry news siteGamesindustry.biz.

The official story: See below.

What we heard: When Microsoft carefully parsed its words about the Xbox 360's backwards compatibility--saying it will be "backward-compatible with top-selling Xbox games." So when Gamesindustry.biz published an article that the console's radically different hardware couldn't support current-gen Xbox games, accusation perfidy in Remond began to fly. "The solution Microsoft has reached is apparently to recompile current-gen Xbox games so that they can be played on the 360," says G'biz. "First on the list, it says, are the best-selling Halo titles." However, Xbox owners we're the only ones freaking out. The usually recalcitrant Microsoft bypassed its external public relations company, telling GameSpot directly that "Our goal is to have every Xbox game work on Xbox 360. You will NOT need to purchase a new 'version'--your original games will work on Xbox 360."

Bogus or not bogus?: Bogus.

 

[Bonte]

From Gamespot today...

"Our goal is to have every Xbox game work on Xbox 360. You will NOT need to purchase a new 'version'--your original games will work on Xbox 360."

Then how do we get the newly recompiled games, put them all on a HD and unlock them with the original CD?

 

[canadianmacguy]

The recompile isn't a rumor, AS.

According to Major Nelson, it is false (no recompile needed):

Major Nelson says no recompile

 

[GFLPraxis]

You're kidding, right? I knew it could play GameCube games, and DVDs with an attachment, but that's it, right? How will they do the rest?

I think it's still pure speculation. There were rumors that there may be an attachment or that you would be able to download the top 100 games for previous systems. I would love to see it totally backwards compatible.

Nintendo ANNOUNCED ONSTAGE you could DOWNLOAD every single NES, SNES, and N64 games.

The caps are just for clarification. It's no speculation or rumor.

 

[GFLPraxis]

According to Major Nelson, it is false (no recompile needed):

Major Nelson says no recompile

All he says there is that you won't need to re-purchase games. What prevents a downloadable patch that contains a PowerPC binary, but you still play off your original disk?

 

[jared_kipe]

Nintendo ANNOUNCED ONSTAGE you could DOWNLOAD every single NES, SNES, and N64 games.

The caps are just for clarification. It's no speculation or rumor.

Did they announce what ungodly amounts of money they will be taking to download these ****** 20 year old games?

 

[Bonte]

All he says there is that you won't need to re-purchase games. What prevents a downloadable patch that contains a PowerPC binary, but you still play off your original disk?

So i need a HD based 360 and internet connection to play old games, that sucks. It will hurt the sales for sure but with the shortage in the beginning its maybe not that bad for M$. I'l wait a few years unless they find a fine way to run Linux or osX on it.

 

[milzay]

So if they are using G5s to run these games why are the games on current G5s running so ****.
Also if these games are working on a Mac how hard would it be to code the game from XBox 360 format - G5 format. Doesnt this just mean that we get rid of a lot of crap porting which slows down games with bloated code. Therefore games can be ported from 360 format to G5 rather than from X86 PC to G5.
Something like that.

 

[dancefreak]

So i need a HD based 360 and internet connection to play old games, that sucks. It will hurt the sales for sure but with the shortage in the beginning its maybe not that bad for M$. I'l wait a few years unless they find a fine way to run Linux or osX on it.

Every 360 will have a 20 gig hard drive. They are removable and can be upgraded in the future, but there won't be a version w/ no drive. As for online, xbox live silver is going to be free. So you won't need to pay for any sort of membership to download things like patches. So if anything needs to be downloaded to play an old game, the 360 should be ready to do that out of the box and no additional cost.

 

[BWhaler]

So, the whole backwards compatibility thing is basically I lie.

A lie from Microsoft? I am as shocked as you are.

Having to recompile software and re-burn the disk does not make the playing hardware backwards compatible.

How exactly is this going work? How would I get re-compiled games? Would I have to pay?

Yup, they are using semantics to justify their lies.

 

[GFLPraxis]

The gotcha is that the games are being recompiled, and that you will either have to repurchase them at a discount, or download the recompiled version which uses the original disc for the data.

Hence why it is 'top-selling' games only.

Precisely as I predicted last week in this thread!
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/127320/

Wow, I was actually right

 

[GFLPraxis]

So, the whole backwards compatibility thing is basically I lie.

A lie from Microsoft? I am as shocked as you are.

Having to recompile software and re-burn the disk does not make the playing hardware backwards compatible.

How exactly is this going work? How would I get re-compiled games? Would I have to pay?

Yup, they are using semantics to justify their lies.

I suspect you download a 'patch' that is actually a recompiled binary.

Only top selling games will have these patches available.

The patch, basicly, the binary, runs off the hard drive and uses the game data from the disk.