Current-gen Xbox games to be "recompiled" for Xbox

[inefficient]

That doesn't sound to me like on the fly backwards compatibility. If it is, why are only a select number of games going to work with it? Also the statement ends with 'and will most likely use emulator software for those limited titles'. Is that MS talking, or IGN?

Still seems rather inconclusive either way to my reckoning. :? I't be nice to hear from Allard or Bach how BC actually works.

My guess is that they are using a combination of approaches if they are not just recompiling the games. They have the API on the new machine which theoretically is backwards compable with the old API, so once you have windows API calls they should theoretically work. (This is basically what happens in wine under linux). The other problem they have to solve is converting the x86 code into PPC. This is the tricky part. Do they do CPU emulation and try to make a virtual celeron core run on one of the PPC units, or do they try to make some kind of C++ dynamic recompiler? Emulating the entire core would probably take a lot of work, and it'd probably take a lot of time to get it bug free. Doing dynamic C++ recompilation may be easier, but what do you do about any asm code that was written?

Nite_Hawk

Dynamic C++ recompilation? As if the c++ source code was distributed with games...

And regarding wine. Go try play some win32 game on a non x86 linux box and come back to rethink your theories.

 

[Nite_Hawk]

That doesn't sound to me like on the fly backwards compatibility. If it is, why are only a select number of games going to work with it? Also the statement ends with 'and will most likely use emulator software for those limited titles'. Is that MS talking, or IGN?

Still seems rather inconclusive either way to my reckoning. :? I't be nice to hear from Allard or Bach how BC actually works.

My guess is that they are using a combination of approaches if they are not just recompiling the games. They have the API on the new machine which theoretically is backwards compable with the old API, so once you have windows API calls they should theoretically work. (This is basically what happens in wine under linux). The other problem they have to solve is converting the x86 code into PPC. This is the tricky part. Do they do CPU emulation and try to make a virtual celeron core run on one of the PPC units, or do they try to make some kind of C++ dynamic recompiler? Emulating the entire core would probably take a lot of work, and it'd probably take a lot of time to get it bug free. Doing dynamic C++ recompilation may be easier, but what do you do about any asm code that was written?

Nite_Hawk

Dynamic C++ recompilation? As if the c++ source code was distributed with games...

And regarding wine. Go try play some win32 game on a non x86 linux box and come back to rethink your theories.

Naw, something more along the lines of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_recompilation

With regards to wine, it can't do everything because the spec hasn't been entirely implemented and it doesn't always do everything the way windows does. Read up on wine. It's not an emulator, it's an impementation of the win32 api. Of course a non-x86 linux box won't be able to play x86 games, even with wine. That's why you need something like dynamic recompilation or x86 core emulation. Take a look at NT4 port on the alpha though. I'm proposing that they might do something similar to how they were able to run X86 win32 binaries on top of the alpha architecture.

Nite_Hawk

 

[passby]

If people stuck to the API spec for the graphics

That's exactly what ERP has mentioned for countless times. Most don't do that.

 

[Nite_Hawk]

If people stuck to the API spec for the graphics

That's exactly what ERP has mentioned for countless times. Most don't do that.

With all the posting that's been going on lately it's tough to follow everything. If that's true, it's going to make things a massive pain if people were coding to the metal.

Nite_Hawk

 

[Magnum PI]

Xbox 360 officially will be backward compatible with the prior system's top-selling games, said Microsoft's Vice President Peter Moore. Microsoft will pick and choose only the most popular Xbox titles from its huge backlist of games and will most likely use emulator software for those limited titles

if this is backward compability so you could say the gamecube was backward compatible with the nintendo 64 and the gameboy with the NES ?

either this quote is false or MS is lying when they say xbox360 is backward compatible with the xbox.

 

[clem64]

one way to accomplish this would be to insert an Xbox game disc, to have x360 verify that you do indeed own the game, and then play with the recompiled version streamed through Xbox live. It would be slower but it would work.

 

[Phil]

That sounds quite feasable, except for the fact that not everyone (casuals at the very least) have very high bandwidth broadband to use.

I think backwards compatibility is merely for convinience - and the above solution by Microsoft is anything but that. In fact, as a Xbox user with 20 games, I don't think I'd make use of it, except for maybe 1 or 2 games if I have to stream them or download them.

How big would those files be that would need to be recompiled? Are we talking in 10s or hundreds of megabytes? If it's the former, it's I guess not that bad after all...

 

[clem64]

I should add that I don't feel this would be an acceptable way to bring BC to X360. I think I'll keep my old Xbox for Xbox games, with the load times intact and all.

I think this is a sort of damage control move on the part of MS. With the original Xbox no longer being manufactured beginning of next year, they know this is gonna piss a lot of people off, and rightfully so IMO. So they're trying to find the best compromise between encouraging people to buy into the next gen, while still supporting the original Xbox.

 

[mckmas8808]

Actually clem64 I read that they will stop producing Xboxes at the end of this summer. I has something to do with the Nvidia chip license. And if I'm a Xbox owner and knew the truth about this fake BC issue I would just keep my original Xbox.
________
Og Kush Seeds

 

[silhouette]

Xbox 360 officially will be backward compatible with the prior system's top-selling games, said Microsoft's Vice President Peter Moore. Microsoft will pick and choose only the most popular Xbox titles from its huge backlist of games and will most likely use emulator software for those limited titles

This might be just a matter of testing and validating the emulator so that it would work correctly with the top-selling games. Emulating a system is not an easy task, and it takes them tons of time to test it with every game on the market currently. So, I believe they test and perfect the initial implementation for the top-selling games, and maybe release some subsequent patches that guarantees that more xbox games would work correctly in the future (this would also depend on demand of course. If nobody cares about old xbox games, than why bother).

 

[kyleb]

That sounds quite feasable, except for the fact that not everyone (casuals at the very least) have very high bandwidth broadband to use.

It's not like they would need to send all the textures, sounds, maps and models geomentry or any of that as it is already on the disk, just the code would need to be updated over the net. Code doesn't take much bandwidth.

 

[Acert93]

If they are small DLs and if they improve features (frame rate, filtering, AA, 720p, etc) I think this is a better option in some ways. Obviously right out of the box compatibility is best for the basic user, but if there is incentive to go with a download I would do it, especially if Live automatically found the title, DLed the recompiled data, and 2 minutes later you were playing a new and improved version.

 

[Phil]

That sounds quite feasable, except for the fact that not everyone (casuals at the very least) have very high bandwidth broadband to use.

It's not like they would need to send all the textures, sounds, maps and models geomentry or any of that as it is already on the disk, just the code would need to be updated over the net. Code doesn't take much bandwidth.

Doesn't that depend on how accessible that data is on the disk? Remember, it's up to each and every developer to code the game as they wish - which includes storing data as they like. Maybe that's why only a few games will work and will require a patch?

 

[kyleb]

Well obviously, but if MS can't read it of the disk they wouldn't be able to send it over the net either.

 

[therealskywolf]

This is just a rumour folks.....

My bet is that its something like Bleem, that comes with the HDD, and the proper "things" to make the games work.....at least some of them as MS as said.

 

[pegisys]

you know microsoft owns virtual pc now, the x360 might be fast enough to pull it off, if they tune it to emulate the xbox hardware I can see it working

 

[NRP]

What do people mean by "fake backwards compatibility"? For christ's sake, the XB360's physical hardware is almost a polar opposite of the XBox's physical hardware. If MS can provide at least some level of BC through emulation software or some other solution, then that ought to be good enough.

Although BC is a highly emotional issue for some (especially at launch), in the end I don't think BC is that big of a deal, and I just can't see how this issue could be a deal breaker for those considering whether or not to make an investment in the next gen. Besides, by the looks of the next gen games, who is really going to want to play previous gen games? I guess it would be cool the play Halo or Halo 2 on the XB360, at least until Halo 3 comes out that is.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Backwards compatibility be it's name implies you can take your old games and play them on the new system. MS should really have said 'we will emulate some games' rather than 'we offer backwards compatibility' if they don't provide this functionality. Whether it's important or not...consoles got by without it fine until Sony came along. But now XB production is stopping this year according to reports, current developers of XB software might even see their tarket market shrinking as XB owners upgrade to 360.

I'd love to hear some developer comments on how they take this news, though I guess they'd all be under NDA. Maybe MS will assure emulation of titles currently in development?

 

[Jare]

I'd love to hear some developer comments on how they take this news, though I guess they'd all be under NDA. Maybe MS will assure emulation of titles currently in development?

Someone else summed this up perfectly:

"There are no links, references, sources or quotes in that article. Don't waste your time, people"

 

[Dave Baumann]

http://www.majornelson.com/2005/05/19/no-you-do-not-need-to-recompile-your-xbox-games/