Modding Xbox with PCI-E, im guess its a dream but must ask!

Discussion about Modding the XBOX, including hardware and software hacks.
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maraxion
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Modding Xbox with PCI-E, im guess its a dream but must ask!

Post by maraxion »

Hello.
Im just putting this out there to all you guys with great tecnical know how. Im guessing its impossible, but why not ask.

The xbox is from a time in the past, but still its one of the most styrdy and used consoles ever made. If it hadent been for the lack of HD compability, im convinced it would still be the center part of many many livingrooms still 13 years after it was first release.

But now Xbmc and other solutions have manged to come and get older laptops to life. Im offcource talking about the Mini PCI-express cards out there, most known is the Broadcom Crystal HD that alone can decode HD lik H.264 http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Br ... Crystal_HD

Now the Old xbox isent even from this time, its from the time of PCI and AGP, but still with the experience in this forum and the interest for the xbox I need to ask: Is there anyway to get a PCI-E adapter or any new videocard into the Xbox??? The Crystal HD is cheap, and so would an adapter be.

Solutions like soldering to the mainboard or even using the USB hack to get an USB-PCI-e(at low speed) http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTIwMFgxNjAw/ ... 880000500F

I understand this most likely is a lost cause, but still I wanted to check. Who knows, maybe someone out there gets a lightbulb and we all get lucky! :)
xboxprince
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Re: Modding Xbox with PCI-E, im guess its a dream but must a

Post by xboxprince »

This is a very good idea and just recently the Xbox has gotten hdmi support by hard wiring a component to hdmi adapter I think it's possible being that the Xbox does have HD support but I'm no wiz kid so don't take my word for, it but I'll look into it though my biggest question would be the audio decoding being that blueray uses true HD digital 7.1 which can only be achieved through an HDMI line, bluerays do have Dolby digital 5.1 support but it's all about how that decoder thing module does it. See if you can get like thread going to make some new software for this or something abd again great idea, it's crazy how after all these years the Xbox stills finds it's way in the spotlight of relevance in technology it was easily the most technically advanced gaming console of that era.
project media center "part one" (working progress): 6tb trusty 1.4ghz + 128mb v1.4 Xbox water cooled pc case with xenium ice, LCD, HDMI out and optical out.
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blighty
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Re: Modding Xbox with PCI-E, im guess its a dream but must a

Post by blighty »

besides the nightmare of installing it, who is going to code the drivers for it? we cant even get the right software for the GPU that is already in the xbox!

Never going to happen inho
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Re: Modding Xbox with PCI-E, im guess its a dream but must a

Post by xboxprince »

Well like I said I'm no expert but I do think it's possible because of the fact that it'll run in any version of Windows and Windows 2000 can run on the xbox. Also this thing is made specifically for older tech and it would be cool to have.
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Re: Modding Xbox with PCI-E, im guess its a dream but must a

Post by professor_jonny »

the only suitable bus to do that would be to tap the transport stream bus and add in a pci bridge but again it is not going to happen.


the xbox is not windows there is no registry or dll engine to implement windows drivers.

the better idea would be to get a pc motherboard and port the xbox bios and sys calls to it and use inbios translation and emulation of the xbox hardware.

then you could have a modern pc with the ability to do all that is xbox.
maraxion
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Re: Modding Xbox with PCI-E, im guess its a dream but must a

Post by maraxion »

I Understand this is a fire torch and thats why I lit it. As professor_jonny says the easy way would maybe be to get a mini atx card, maybe even fit it to the xbox case itself. As for the drivers and coding thats outside my know how, but I do know that the Broadcom card already is suported in both Frodo and Openelec, and I would guess since it is some of the work is already done.
I do hope someone might have a genious ide to do this, but Il wait and see :)
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Re: Modding Xbox with PCI-E, im guess its a dream but must a

Post by BuZz »

even if it was possible (which it isn't for reasons stated already).. WHY ? go and get a raspberry pi or something.
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Re: Modding Xbox with PCI-E, im guess its a dream but must a

Post by professor_jonny »

broadcom and intel are two different chipsets and are not in any way compatable with each other.

porting the xbox os to a pc is the only way to do it and then the only benifit is that you could play xbox games every thing else can be done on a pc without modification.

just keep an xbox for gaming if that is your plan and buy said laptop with a pcie card :-).

If you are really cleaver you could make an fcpga based xbox much like the minimig amiga a cool piece of kit i must add.
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