HeXEn Video Mode Selection on v1.0 Conexant/PAL/Composite

[spicemuseum]

HeXEn appears not to be able to display its menu on my v1.0 box.
At boot up it displays the Unleash X splash sceen then goes all black.
I know HeXEn is running because with the right number and combination of button presses I can get it to Reboot or Shutdown the box.

Anyone seen this?

[Heimdall]

Oooh. That's interesting. Perhaps there's something about your video settings (in the eeprom) that Frosty's hand-modified BFM BIOS disagrees with. If I get time this evening I'll dig my 1.0 TSOP box out of the garage and test it here to see if I can reproduce the symptoms.

A few questions:
- Is it PAL, or have you switched it to NTSC?
- How is it modded?
- If it's chipped / flashed, which BIOS do you have on there?
- Have you enabled HD video on the Xbox? 1080i, or 720p?
- If it is still in SD, what mode is it in (4:3, Widescreen, Letterbox etc)?

Edit: reread your title, struck through the questions you had already answered!

[spicemuseum]

Oooh. That's interesting. Perhaps there's something about your video settings (in the eeprom) that Frosty's hand-modified BFM BIOS disagrees with. If I get time this evening I'll dig my 1.0 TSOP box out of the garage and test it here to see if I can reproduce the symptoms.

A few questions:
- Is it PAL, or have you switched it to NTSC?
- How is it modded?
- If it's chipped / flashed, which BIOS do you have on there?
- Have you enabled HD video on the Xbox? 1080i, or 720p?
- If it is still in SD, what mode is it in (4:3, Widescreen, Letterbox etc)?

Edit: reread your title, struck through the questions you had already answered!

Presently softmodded, I did the TSOP points today, that's why I reached for HeXEn.
Letterbox, PAL 60.

I wonder whether there's something in the PAL 60 switch...?
...is the video output at PAL 60 configured after the Unleash X splash screen? If so, what format/config is the splash screen displayed with?

--EDIT--
BTW aitch, when I do flash the TSOP, which option should I choose - it's a v1.0 with an ST Micro TSOP.
The Evox flasher offers 256k or 512k BIOS for v1.0-v1.5 (...I understood the v1.0 has a 1M TSOP?!?).

[Heimdall]

Could you humour me, and try switching it to PAL-50?

The video output definitely changes after the splash screen, even on a normal boot. For SD it switches between 480i and 576i. Unfortunately I can't remember which way round it is, because my current TV doesn't display its resolution when it changes. With HeXEn (and Frosty's Rescue Disc) there's an extra catch, where the PBL BIOS probably does some minor changes to the video mode as it reboots.

[Heimdall]

I'd always put x2.5035 on a 1MB TSOP, which is a 512kB BIOS. If you're using Evox to flash a BIOS then it doesn't matter which size you pick, because it will resize the BIOS to fit the TSOP/chip, provided that the chip is the same size or larger than the BIOS.

[spicemuseum]

Could you humour me, and try switching it to PAL-50?

The video output definitely changes after the splash screen, even on a normal boot. For SD it switches between 480i and 576i. Unfortunately I can't remember which way round it is, because my current TV doesn't display its resolution when it changes. With HeXEn (and Frosty's Rescue Disc) there's an extra catch, where the PBL BIOS probably does some minor changes to the video mode as it reboots.

You want me to do this from the MS dash? I think that it offers only to switch PAL 60 on or off. Is it that option you want me to change?

Okay, did that. Works. I guess my Dell monitor doesn't fully support PAL 60. The splash screen video mode change is obviously upsetting it. And I've no explanation for why it would display the default dashboard without issue. Wacky.

--EDIT--
Not expecting an answer until after MOTD finishes

[spicemuseum]

I'd always put x2.5035 on a 1MB TSOP, which is a 512kB BIOS. If you're using Evox to flash a BIOS then it doesn't matter which size you pick, because it will resize the BIOS to fit the TSOP/chip, provided that the chip is the same size or larger than the BIOS.

Done, worked, ta.

[spicemuseum]

I'd always put x2.5035 on a 1MB TSOP, which is a 512kB BIOS.

I inferred from this advice that a 512K BIOS is better than a 256KB BIOS on a 1MB flash device. Assuming that implication is accurate, I'm curious about the reason you're advising that? Is it anything to do with the number of times the BIOS must be duplicated to fill the device?

(For others reading, the flash device must be entirely written to all memory locations when 'flashed'. Typically the BIOS binaries are either 256K or 512K and are therefore duplicated as necessary to match the size of the flash chip before being blown in.)

BTW, anecdotally, I find the fastest booting BIOS to be X2.4981, typically reaching XBMC splash screen within 9~12s - when paired with a native IDE hard disc. Thus recently I've been blowing that to my v1.0 and v1.1 STMicro TSOPs.
...a big part of the fast boot appears to be because it does not to a hard disc look-up for config file before booting.