Xbox Emulator for the PC!

Trigger · 02-27-02, 08:45 AM

Is a fake! There is no Xbox emulator that exists. If you download one, it is most certainly fake. Could contain a virus... Sorry to get your hopes up.

Quote:

Rumors appeared on the Internet recently that a true "emulator" for the Microsoft Xbox had been developed. The file is said to be about one Megabyte from a website which is down in the meantime, and shall currently remain nameless since it is highly suspect, and because of concerns for viruses, backdoors or other malicious content.
However, system requirements information does exist. It's been noted that a Geforce card from Nvidia is needed as well as 256 MB, a 1GHz CPU, and of course a DVD. The site did report problems with Intel's CPU, and Kyro graphics cards.
The emulator is called, "Xbox Emulator" version beta 0.35. The emulator comes with five files, plus a Readme file. The DLL File xboxkrnl32 was found to be a DLL file of a messenger-software, but had nothing to do with the Xbox or an emulator. Reportedly, some games, work fine and others have problems.
The "Settings" menu contains three different items: "Video", "DVD Drive" and "Sound". The video settings allow resolutions of up to 1152 x 864 pixel, using 32bit colors. Also, Direct 3D can be used to enhance the display. The sound configuration allows Dolby Surround 5.1, DirectSound and Dolby Digital.
Despite all that info, reports by some who downloaded and tried the software say, it doesn't work. At all. The screenshots on the website are suspected of being faked, as they're too small and look touched up by a graphics program, perhaps Photoshop.
It has also been reported elswhere that Xbox games in DVD format, cannot be read by PC DVD drives. No word on if that is really true.
More as it develops.

-PCGameReview.com

Quote:

Known Fakes
XBoX Emulator - www.linarsoftware.de.vu (site is closed)
The first known fake XBox emulator has already been sighted. The screenshots seem to indicate this fake emulates several commercial games quite well already. Lik-Sang reported that this emulator doesn't work and could even be a virus. Symantec has however now confirmed this emulator is a trojan.

http://www.emulator-zone.com/fake/xbox.html

http://securityresponse.symantec.com...an.badcon.html

Trigger · 03-02-02, 07:21 PM

^^just one more bump to make sure everyone sees it before I let it disappear. I think it's important that people know it contains a virus, cuz I wouldn't want anyone to suffer computer crashes over this. I've had a few people ask me about the emulator and my neighbor mentioned it too saying he wanted to borrow an xbox game to try it out. So spread the word if you could.

agrall · 03-02-02, 09:05 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Trigger
I've had a few people ask me about the emulator and my neighbor mentioned it too saying he wanted to borrow an xbox game to try it out.

Wow... are these the same people who go looking when you tell them the word "gullible" is not in the dictionary?

C'mon people... not going to happen... at least not for a long time...

huh? · 03-03-02, 08:38 AM

you would probably need a very powerful PC to run this puppy -if it really existed - anyway.

Josh H · 03-03-02, 04:24 PM

People are pretty dumb when it comes to believeing stuff like this.

It will probably be a couple years before anyone comes up with a working emulator for any of the next-gen consoles (PS2, X-box, GCN)

That said, I figure the X-box will be the first one to be emulated successfully, (though it will take a high end system to run it) simply because it is the most like a PC out of the three consoles.

Gallant Pig · 03-03-02, 05:28 PM

Isn't the Game Cube essentially a PowerPC with a ATI card? I think that could be emulated pretty easy too.

Josh H · 03-03-02, 08:06 PM

Yep they both could be emulated pretty easy, I just think the X-box will be first. It's slighty more similar to PC architecture, from my understanding. And given hackers hatred of MS, they'll likely work at it harder.

einTier · 03-03-02, 08:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by joshhinkle
Yep they both could be emulated pretty easy, I just think the X-box will be first. It's slighty more similar to PC architecture, from my understanding. And given hackers hatred of MS, they'll likely work at it harder.

I fully expect to see an XBox emulator in about a year or so. It'll probably require a GeForce 3 or better video card (for the bump mapping), and I'll be really, really surprised if it runs under windows rather than being it's own Operating System.

Gallant Pig · 03-03-02, 08:54 PM

I don't see Xbox emulation being a big deal. It won't be able to replicate the things that make the Xbox so attractive to a lot of people, especially Dolby Digital 5.1 running on a big screen tv in progressive scan.

Chris_D · 03-03-02, 09:05 PM

In theory you don't need to emulate the xbox. You just need to get a hacked version of the xbox directx OS running on a custom PC build. In that case the min specs would be a PIII 733 with 64 meg of ram and the latest nvidia card ( ~= the current xbox configuration). Hardly demanding by todays standards.

This will probably in 1-2 years by some enterprising hackers I imagine.

Chris

Josh H · 03-03-02, 09:49 PM

Gallant Pig,

I agree, emulation isn't much of a problem. The only people that really use emulation exclusively for current machines are computer geeks that wouldn't buy the consoles anyway. Console gamers generally would rather play on a nice tv, with the systems controller, and a good stereo while sitting on a nice comfortable couch -- rather than sitting at a desk, playing the game with a PC controller, on a computer monitor and computer speakers. Sure you an hook up your pc to a tv and stereo, but again, only computer geeks have their computer in their home theater room.

Emulation isn't a threat to the industry like piracy is at any rate. Lots of gamers will burn their own games if they have the capability to do so (PSX, Dreamcast etc.), not many will just opt to emulate games. I think the only thing that gets emulated on a regular basis by the average hardcore console gamer are the older systems (NES, Genisis, SNES, Gameboy, etc) and those don't really hurt anyone but used video game stores anyway as the games aren't produced new anymore.

Gallant Pig · 03-03-02, 10:16 PM

I agree Josh, burning is much more of a threat.

belboz · 03-04-02, 01:37 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Gallant Pig
Isn't the Game Cube essentially a PowerPC with a ATI card? I think that could be emulated pretty easy too.

Ummm... no. IIRC, the GC uses a custom version of the PowerPC 750cxe chip. I don't believe the details of what modifications have been made have ever been made public though it's believed that new SIMD instructions were included. The ATi chip is custom as well with the whole architecture based around the use of low-latency, high bandwidth embedded DRAM.

While a high-end PC could match the performance level of the Gamecube with native code, running emulated code would impose so much overhead that we're not likely to see a machine capable of it for quite some time. You'd have to write an emulator for the PowerPC instruction set, plus reverse-engineer the custom instructions, plus map whatever graphics libraries the GC uses to DirectX or OpenGL. It'd take a long, long time.

The XBox, however, has more in common with a standard PC than it has differences. XBox uses an x86 CPU so no emulator needs to translate the instruction sets. The OS is a customized version of Win2K and XBox games pretty much all use DirectX. The only complications are that the XBox has a unified memory architecture whereas all high-end PC's have a discrete video buffer and MS put certain safeguards into place specifically to prevent hacking. Unfortunately, the history of such safeguards is that they inevitably fail to stop skilled and determined hackers.

For my money, I find it much more likely that we'll see an XBox emulator long before a PS2 or GC emulator for the PC.

Trigger · 03-04-02, 06:06 AM

I don't mean to burst your bubbles, but I'm pretty sure you're all wrong... it is my understanding that the xbox DVDs are encoded to be read from the outside in rather than from the inside out (which is how all DVD players and DVD Rom drives read discs), so in order for a PC to be able to run an Xbox game it must have a special kind of DVD drive. Any type of emulation would require specific drivers for specific DVDRom drives so that they can be able to read the disc that way. If you stick an Xbox game DVD into any DVD player, a video will come up telling you to put the disc in an Xbox... this video is stored on the inner part of the disc. Theoretically, DVD Rom drives can read from the outside going in, but the possibility for a piece of emulation software to be able to work with all DVD Rom drives on the market is slim to none. The emulation software would have to know what brand and type of DVDRom drive you have (new drivers will have to be installed for the drive) and be able to manipulate it to read the discs differently than it was designed for. I would imagine that such a program would have to be uninstalled and the original drivers restored in order for you to watch DVDs on the PC. Don't count on any emulation software for the Xbox any time soon if at all. As for the rest of the PC, the specs don't have to be all that high... Anything over 600mhz with 64MB ram and a GeForce2 or equivalent should run the games just fine. Another obstacle to overcome though aside from the DVD Drive is the video card. Some video cards would make these games look like crap because of the way they handle the video signal to the monitor. The video card in the xbox is specially designed to work best with the resolutions on televisions. Video cards in computers don't all work quite the same way... some cards with a TV-out look terrible hooked up to a TV. Xbox isn't a PC - they didn't just slap standard computer components in a small box... most everything in the machines are custom components designed specifically to work together in this machine. Speculate all you want about emulation though, cuz you never know. Just know that the ones out there now are fake (no matter what anybody tells you) and often contain a trojan virus. Just a friendly virus alert.

As for gamecube games on a PC, I have no idea. I'd think gamecube games would be better with a controller rather than a mouse and keyboard anyway. Xbox games like Halo that would be good with a mouse and keyboard will be out for the PC long before any legit emulation software comes around (if that ever does happen which I doubt). I could be misinformed about the Xbox DVD drive, but that's just what I've read... I could try to find one or two of the sources if you don't believe it. I think I even read it on some Microsoft site or perhaps the official Xbox magazine or else it was some promotional literature discussing the technical features of the xbox. Maybe one of those sites that dissected one of em will have the answer.

Chris_D · 03-04-02, 06:45 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Trigger
I don't mean to burst your bubbles, but I'm pretty sure you're all wrong... it is my understanding that the xbox DVDs are encoded to be read from the outside in rather than from the inside out (which is how all DVD players and DVD Rom drives read discs), so in order for a PC to be able to run an Xbox game it must have a special kind of DVD drive. Any type of emulation would require specific drivers for specific DVDRom drives so that they can be able to read the disc that way.

heh, well if that's the biggest obstacle then I wouldn't be too worried about an xbox "emulator" coming along some time in the future. Even if it involves rewriting the xbox disc on some type of DVD-R in a PC readable format (obviously not the most legal or convenient way to go about things).

Quote:

Originally posted by Trigger

computers don't all work quite the same way... some cards with a TV-out look terrible hooked up to a TV.

Well tv-out has come quite a long way in recent years. I have my pc hooked up via s-video using an external converter and snes / genesis / tg16 / playstation games have never looked so good on a tv!

Quote:

Originally posted by Trigger

Just know that the ones out there now are fake (no matter what anybody tells you) and often contain a trojan virus. Just a friendly virus alert.

Certainly I would recommend caution and to keep an eye out on traditional emulation news sites (like zophar) to stay abreast of what's happening.

Quote:

Originally posted by Trigger

As for gamecube games on a PC, I have no idea. I'd think gamecube games would be better with a controller rather than a mouse and keyboard anyway.

Well I have 2 PS1 controllers hooked up to my PC via USB adaptors (could have up to 4 if I wanted). I'd bet many emulation fans have a setup similar to this

.

Chris

belboz · 03-04-02, 06:18 PM

Trig, no worries, all the bubbles in my bubble wrap were popped years ago

. I appreciate that you started this thread to warn people from running some potentially malicious downloads. That's cool and I didn't have anything to add until you suggested that a Gamecube is just a "powerpc with an ATi card" with the implication being that it's just as easy to emulate a GC as an XBox. I believe that I've demonstrated that idea to be mistaken.

Like I mentioned before, MS has designed some safeguards into XBox to prevent it from being hacked all to pieces. How successful these safeguards are, only time can tell. The reverse spiral thing you mentioned is no big deal. As a member of a DVD forum, I'm sure you know what RSDL discs are? Since software DVD players like PowerDVD have no problems with these discs, I would assume that it's not much of an obstacle.

As for videocards, yes the video encoders used on most PC video cards suck. The ubiquitous Conexant chips are designed primarily for low cost, not great performance. The newer Philips video encoders are supposedly much better, but they're more expensive so very few video card makers use them. But this is sort of a moot point anyway. Most emulator users play on their monitor. If they must put it on a big screen, there are plenty of adapters that cost less than $100. Scan converters can do a decent job for regular big screen TVs. Newer high def TV's can either accept the RGB signal natively or can accept the RGB signal via a RGB -> progressive component adapter.

I responded to one of Jolt's threads a long time ago (title was something like "console stereotypes") and I made some similar points about all this. Basically, I find it odd that some people get really defensive when you point out that an XBox has PC innards. Yeah, the parts are custom designed, but those designs are all based on PC standards: x86 ISA CPU, GTL+ processor bus, HyperTransport bus, DDR SDRAM, 10BaseT network.

The fact that an XBox is a highly specialized PC is not really anything to be ashamed of. It's actually sort of cool. It's great that MS didn't go with a proprietary network port. That's what enabled things like the Halo internet-multiplayer bridge software to work.

03-02-02, 07:21 PM	#2
Trigger DVD Talk Legend Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Arizona, USA Posts: 23,459	^^just one more bump to make sure everyone sees it before I let it disappear. I think it's important that people know it contains a virus, cuz I wouldn't want anyone to suffer computer crashes over this. I've had a few people ask me about the emulator and my neighbor mentioned it too saying he wanted to borrow an xbox game to try it out. So spread the word if you could. __________________ theomnom.com Before you speak, ask yourself, is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve on the silence? Sai Baba

03-03-02, 09:05 PM	#10
Chris_D DVD Talk Gold Edition Join Date: Nov 1999 Location: Osaka, Japan Posts: 2,493	You don't need to emulate the XBox... In theory you don't need to emulate the xbox. You just need to get a hacked version of the xbox directx OS running on a custom PC build. In that case the min specs would be a PIII 733 with 64 meg of ram and the latest nvidia card ( ~= the current xbox configuration). Hardly demanding by todays standards. This will probably in 1-2 years by some enterprising hackers I imagine. Chris __________________ The Pulse of the Japanese Gamer \| Twitter \| YouTube \| XBL: Mr GT Chris \| PSN: Mr_GT_Chris \| My Backlog

03-04-02, 06:06 AM	#14
Trigger DVD Talk Legend Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Arizona, USA Posts: 23,459	I don't mean to burst your bubbles, but I'm pretty sure you're all wrong... it is my understanding that the xbox DVDs are encoded to be read from the outside in rather than from the inside out (which is how all DVD players and DVD Rom drives read discs), so in order for a PC to be able to run an Xbox game it must have a special kind of DVD drive. Any type of emulation would require specific drivers for specific DVDRom drives so that they can be able to read the disc that way. If you stick an Xbox game DVD into any DVD player, a video will come up telling you to put the disc in an Xbox... this video is stored on the inner part of the disc. Theoretically, DVD Rom drives can read from the outside going in, but the possibility for a piece of emulation software to be able to work with all DVD Rom drives on the market is slim to none. The emulation software would have to know what brand and type of DVDRom drive you have (new drivers will have to be installed for the drive) and be able to manipulate it to read the discs differently than it was designed for. I would imagine that such a program would have to be uninstalled and the original drivers restored in order for you to watch DVDs on the PC. Don't count on any emulation software for the Xbox any time soon if at all. As for the rest of the PC, the specs don't have to be all that high... Anything over 600mhz with 64MB ram and a GeForce2 or equivalent should run the games just fine. Another obstacle to overcome though aside from the DVD Drive is the video card. Some video cards would make these games look like crap because of the way they handle the video signal to the monitor. The video card in the xbox is specially designed to work best with the resolutions on televisions. Video cards in computers don't all work quite the same way... some cards with a TV-out look terrible hooked up to a TV. Xbox isn't a PC - they didn't just slap standard computer components in a small box... most everything in the machines are custom components designed specifically to work together in this machine. Speculate all you want about emulation though, cuz you never know. Just know that the ones out there now are fake (no matter what anybody tells you) and often contain a trojan virus. Just a friendly virus alert. As for gamecube games on a PC, I have no idea. I'd think gamecube games would be better with a controller rather than a mouse and keyboard anyway. Xbox games like Halo that would be good with a mouse and keyboard will be out for the PC long before any legit emulation software comes around (if that ever does happen which I doubt). I could be misinformed about the Xbox DVD drive, but that's just what I've read... I could try to find one or two of the sources if you don't believe it. I think I even read it on some Microsoft site or perhaps the official Xbox magazine or else it was some promotional literature discussing the technical features of the xbox. Maybe one of those sites that dissected one of em will have the answer. __________________ theomnom.com Before you speak, ask yourself, is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve on the silence? Sai Baba

03-03-02, 08:38 AM	#4
huh? DVD Talk Limited Edition Join Date: Apr 2000 Location: Beverly, MA Posts: 5,502	you would probably need a very powerful PC to run this puppy -if it really existed - anyway.

03-03-02, 04:24 PM	#5
Josh H Retired Join Date: May 1999 Posts: 27,389	People are pretty dumb when it comes to believeing stuff like this. It will probably be a couple years before anyone comes up with a working emulator for any of the next-gen consoles (PS2, X-box, GCN) That said, I figure the X-box will be the first one to be emulated successfully, (though it will take a high end system to run it) simply because it is the most like a PC out of the three consoles.

03-03-02, 05:28 PM	#6
Gallant Pig Mod Emeritus Join Date: Aug 1999 Posts: 15,325	Isn't the Game Cube essentially a PowerPC with a ATI card? I think that could be emulated pretty easy too.

03-03-02, 08:06 PM	#7
Josh H Retired Join Date: May 1999 Posts: 27,389	Yep they both could be emulated pretty easy, I just think the X-box will be first. It's slighty more similar to PC architecture, from my understanding. And given hackers hatred of MS, they'll likely work at it harder.

03-03-02, 08:54 PM	#9
Gallant Pig Mod Emeritus Join Date: Aug 1999 Posts: 15,325	I don't see Xbox emulation being a big deal. It won't be able to replicate the things that make the Xbox so attractive to a lot of people, especially Dolby Digital 5.1 running on a big screen tv in progressive scan.

03-03-02, 09:49 PM	#11
Josh H Retired Join Date: May 1999 Posts: 27,389	Gallant Pig, I agree, emulation isn't much of a problem. The only people that really use emulation exclusively for current machines are computer geeks that wouldn't buy the consoles anyway. Console gamers generally would rather play on a nice tv, with the systems controller, and a good stereo while sitting on a nice comfortable couch -- rather than sitting at a desk, playing the game with a PC controller, on a computer monitor and computer speakers. Sure you an hook up your pc to a tv and stereo, but again, only computer geeks have their computer in their home theater room. Emulation isn't a threat to the industry like piracy is at any rate. Lots of gamers will burn their own games if they have the capability to do so (PSX, Dreamcast etc.), not many will just opt to emulate games. I think the only thing that gets emulated on a regular basis by the average hardcore console gamer are the older systems (NES, Genisis, SNES, Gameboy, etc) and those don't really hurt anyone but used video game stores anyway as the games aren't produced new anymore.

03-03-02, 10:16 PM	#12
Gallant Pig Mod Emeritus Join Date: Aug 1999 Posts: 15,325	I agree Josh, burning is much more of a threat.

03-04-02, 06:18 PM	#16
belboz DVD Talk Gold Edition Join Date: Feb 1999 Location: HB, CA Posts: 2,592	Trig, no worries, all the bubbles in my bubble wrap were popped years ago . I appreciate that you started this thread to warn people from running some potentially malicious downloads. That's cool and I didn't have anything to add until you suggested that a Gamecube is just a "powerpc with an ATi card" with the implication being that it's just as easy to emulate a GC as an XBox. I believe that I've demonstrated that idea to be mistaken. Like I mentioned before, MS has designed some safeguards into XBox to prevent it from being hacked all to pieces. How successful these safeguards are, only time can tell. The reverse spiral thing you mentioned is no big deal. As a member of a DVD forum, I'm sure you know what RSDL discs are? Since software DVD players like PowerDVD have no problems with these discs, I would assume that it's not much of an obstacle. As for videocards, yes the video encoders used on most PC video cards suck. The ubiquitous Conexant chips are designed primarily for low cost, not great performance. The newer Philips video encoders are supposedly much better, but they're more expensive so very few video card makers use them. But this is sort of a moot point anyway. Most emulator users play on their monitor. If they must put it on a big screen, there are plenty of adapters that cost less than $100. Scan converters can do a decent job for regular big screen TVs. Newer high def TV's can either accept the RGB signal natively or can accept the RGB signal via a RGB -> progressive component adapter. I responded to one of Jolt's threads a long time ago (title was something like "console stereotypes") and I made some similar points about all this. Basically, I find it odd that some people get really defensive when you point out that an XBox has PC innards. Yeah, the parts are custom designed, but those designs are all based on PC standards: x86 ISA CPU, GTL+ processor bus, HyperTransport bus, DDR SDRAM, 10BaseT network. The fact that an XBox is a highly specialized PC is not really anything to be ashamed of. It's actually sort of cool. It's great that MS didn't go with a proprietary network port. That's what enabled things like the Halo internet-multiplayer bridge software to work.