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MAME Ported to (Chipped) Xbox
metallik writes: "A version of MAME for the Xbox game console has just been released. This release will only run on Xbox consoles equipped with a mod chip. MAME is the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator, one of the more successful open source projects out there. It emulates over 3800 arcade machines, from Space Invaders to Mortal Kombat III, many of them perfectly. This is probably only the first of many such PC software projects to be ported to modded Xboxes. At $199 (plus modchip), the Xbox will soon be an extremely attractive set-top box (if not for the reasons Microsoft wanted it to be...)" A while ago, we posted about getting MAME to run on a developer-kit Xbox, but since mod chips are now available, this sounds like a more practical approach. Update: 06/23 18:40 GMT by T : Note: Thanks to Santeri Saarimaa for a note that the project is now hosted here instead.
My mame box has been running linux hooked up to a TV on an old PII. The problem is, there is no good interface for people viewing it on a TV. This leads me to believe that mame for the x-box might be a practical solution. My only question is, is it compatable with the i-pac (USB keyboard interface thing)?
Tell me more
Mmmmmmm
I don't own an XBox so I can't check the EULA... but it seems to me like chipping your XBox, or running uncertified games, would be outlawed in the EULA. If so, that would mean Microsoft could sue XBox owners who chip their boxes.
Anyone with an XBox care to paste part of the eula or anything?
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
It would be rather ironic too, considering consoles are killing the arcade games industry as far as I understand. Years ago arcade machines had better games and hardware than consoles, now it is the other way round so there is less reason to play arcade games.
aus.music.scrapbook
$65
Mmmmmmm
I've got a few on my machine on my ADSL line. Take what you like ;-)
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
$69 at lik sang
the XBox had a decent controller. Sure I could say emulate Street Fighter 2 on it. But without a stick and 6 buttons, it's worthless. There is a smaller controller available, but it's not that much better.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
I dunno...I think it's the fact that almost all arcade games seem to be clones that are killing it. Like the 2600 days, in the 80s, games had limited graphics, so you had to have decent "plots" and gameplay.
Now, it's all who can remember 50 joystick/button combos to dismember the opponent. So what...big deal...seen it once, seen it all. How about some originality.
I was wondering why your site was still up 15 minutes after posting this, then I discovered that the MAME links all 404.
I read the internet for the articles.
Oh, for crying out loud. Every time an emulation topic comes up someone bemoans the loss of mame.dk. It's not and never was the end all of places dedicated to the acquisition of games. Here:
Miss Mame Roms Resources
Go there. Even if you can't manipulate the pages to find the same things that mame.dk had (which you should be able to), you can at least find the mame burners website which is completely valid.
Google is a useful tool. It will help if you just ask.
Besides, there's always newsgroups.
That sort of thing is what will destroy the arcade games industry :-(
...MAME is nice but this is not enough of an incentive for me to throw more money at Microsoft. Death to the X-Box!.
Sorry, you can't kill something that's already dead. If anything, such a move would help your local arcade by making it easy for them to put some of the classics in front of people again.
You can run MAME on a dreamcast without a chip plus the DC is only 50 bucks and not ugly.
bla
I don't know why the DC Emulation scene seemingly gets no respect or credit in the "geek" community, considering the amazingly amount of work that's been put into various types of emulation. Granted, it's considered a "dead" system, but the technology is still there and still relatively current. At present, a $50 Dreamcast can successfully emulate MAME, NES (the best console emulation i've ever seen), Master System, Gameboy, amongst others. DreamSNES is working on SNES games, and is making some serious headway (they're running at about 88% speed, now), and there are still other emulation projects on the horizon, plus a batch of decent-and-getting-better homebrew games.
I think that person would be ill-advised to acquire and Xbox for $200, spend however much on a modchip, in the process voiding their warrenty, in order that they play MAME, when a console that can be picked up for $50 and under can do the same thing. i recommend anyone visit DC Emulation if they are interested.
It's very interesting how hard companies try to hold on to thier respective IP. When there are true hackers seeking knowledge and ways to expand technology's usage like this. I think that Microsoft should have take a different route with the indie/residential developer. If they had opened up and released a development environment like Sony with PS2 Linux, then they would be embracing this rather than feeling threatened.
To be honest, this and similar applications might be another reason for me to actually buy and X-Box and they need the sales and the press of people actually doing anything with the thing.
:-) Er yeah, I just remembered that it might be a good idea to allow directory listings on the ROMs directory!
DOH!!
Should work now...
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
The X-Box will not be popular as an inexpensive PC until it doesn't require a modification. Even then I'm unsure. It would depend on whether you could install the normal version of Windows on it like any other PC.
You are missing a step:
Is there a legal guarantee that you can do whatever you want please hardware you purchase? Or another legal recourse of equivalent purpose and weight?
If not, then there may be no reason why the EULA wouldn't have grounds for civil cases. Perhaps not criminal cases, but then again, perhaps - if your laws guarantee EULA's legal authority like the proposed American SSSCA (or it's brethren).
I ususally think of modchip.com. They've got a good selection.
xbox-scene is a great website for xbox hacking and mod chip information. It even has a comparison of all the xbox mod chips available.
kmart has the Xbox : $180 (item# 981320) can't beat that price. (10% off)
Xtender Xbox Mod Chip
:www.lik-sang.com
Usually ships within 24 hours Third Party 79.00 USD (~54.23 GBP)
Enigmah-X - Xbox Mod Chip
Usually ships within 24 hours China-Enigmah 69.00 USD (~47.37 GBP)
XBox (US version) with Enigmah pre-modified
Usually ships within 1 week Microsoft 339.00 USD (~232.72 GBP)
You can get all of these at
Cruise TT
Now think of what happens if someone MAMEs the XBox, mods it to be a cheap PC, or otherwise does something that causes the user to treat it as something other than a dedicated system for 'legal' gaming. In this case MS is just paying part of your equipment costs and not getting the return they expected. Modding the XBox to be a Linux machine just adds insult to injury in their eyes.
I think this answers some of the questions brought up in posts where people wonder why MS is fighting this kind of use. I'd expect MS to continue to fight this one tooth and nail, and with their history you know they will.
P.S. I did a (very cursory) google search to try to find the article outlining how the XBox business model works - if anyone knows where to find it and could post it in a reply it'd be cool.
I'm always sad to see that the excitement among hobbyist developers always seems to involve porting emulators for old arcade games. Yeah, I love those old games too, but I'd much rather see some kind of real grassroots game development movement emerge. The stuff posted to linuxgames.com is depressing for the most part. Here we have a powerful, free operating system and development tools, something thousands of times more powerful than what early game designers had in 1980, and yet all we can do is write emulators for those games.
Are there any issues with getting a Dreamcast to play burned CD-Rs? I went to the site you suggested and this article leads me to believe some Dreamcasts may not play CD-Rs. Is there a non-black-magic way to tell if the Dreamcast I'm gonna drop $50 on will work?
A press release from Microsoft stated that game developers were flocking to XBox. Xbox now has 3802 games.
So does Anonymous Coward have good karma?
That model has been tried before.
Actually, other game consoles have used this business model to varying degrees. However, the difference today is that the consoles are much more powerful computing platforms, and therefore much more attractive for hacking. Hence the iOpener comparison.
The problem Microsoft is going to have in fighting this, is that it will now be fighting its customers directly, rather than competitors. The downsides of squashing (or acquiring) a competitor only become apparent when the U.S. Justice Department sues you. The downsides of fighting with your own customers are much more serious and direct; and the legal footing is much weaker.
Suing individual XBox owners in court isn't likely to happen, or have much effect if it does (unless the courts happen to rule against MS). Certainly, Adobe-style DMCA tactics against companies selling mod chips and the like may be possible, within the U.S. at least, but that's unlikely to act as much of a barrier against hacking.
The bottom line is that companies need to start taking the realities of this sort of thing into account. They can't just sit in their conference rooms surrounded by lawyers and wail and gnash their teeth. Their notion of intellectual property ownership and control is simply at odds with reality, and if they don't recognize that, reality will do it for them, in the form of profits and their stock price.
Well, yes!
"The weapon of the enemy is a gift, let us use it against him!"
This looks interesting. Doesn't look like an XBox adapter exists yet though...
It's located at xbox.mame.net now. We can handle the slashdot effect. Bring it on.
There will be a new version and source code release shortly.
Oh sure, there are a couple of unique titles on the market but many arcades don't carry them and it's nothing like the options you had starting in the early '80's and ending in the early '90's.
I'll stick with my PS2, where at least I have some diversity.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
So i think we played into Bill's hands. He is getting all the air time here. I am actually thinking about buying one and so are you.
yeah but if you dont buy any games for it then you will be hurting them. this is based on the assumption that they are loosing money on the console and expecting to make it back on the games.
if i purchased one it would be to play dvd's and the mame stuff since i have no interest in newer console games. while i might be in the minority with respect to console games, those who like the newer games might not be purchasing them either*. if you read about the mod chip you would see that it allows you to play copies of games.
so now i can buy this console+modchip for $270 and do everything with it someone without the mod chip can do and alot more. not to mention that with the mod chip i can play bootlegged cd's*.
is this a real threat? heck i dont know. what can microsoft do? i think online services to encourage people to purchase the software might work. similar to what id did with quake 3 arena.
im sure you can see how this _could_ work out bad for microsoft.
*A Xbox Mod Chip would not only make it possible to play Backups and Imports, but would also open a complete new era in videogame console development.
-- john
if you get the xbox and dont purchase any games you are costing microsoft money. if you can serve some of your own needs at the same time (dvd player, playing mame games, playing burned xbox games, etc.) then i would think people with distain for microsoft would be all for it.
-- john
"It's very interesting how hard companies try to hold on to thier respective IP."
Slashdotting the info on mod-chips and emulators will certainly expedite us finding out how extreme they'll get.
"Derp de derp."
I'm mostly just curious here, but what does the mod-chip enable that the X-Box disables? If you have a DVD-R burner and the file, what does the X-Box detect (or NOT detect) on your burned disc that commercial discs don't contain?
If someone had the XDK, what's stopping them from putting it all together and putting it out? Any links to articles discussing the issue would also be most appreciated!
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
The DC has a 200Mhz processor and 16mb ram, no hdd
;-)
XBox has a 733MHz PIII, 64MB RAM, and an 8 - 10GB HDD
So your DC can only really handle the older/slower/smaller games while the XBox can churn out NeoGeo and Capcom CPS1/CPS2 hardware.
I love Dreamcast but I would hate to see someone rush out and buy one as a MAME box and then be stuck playing, say, Xevious and Gauntlet only
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
There is a list of seven FTP servers on that burner web site which all work. Mix cron and wget (they're not *always* available) and you'll have everything in a day or two. If you're looking for some pretty looking point-and-click-and-give-me-roms site, then yes. They're more or less dead. I know I sure wouldn't be able to afford that massive bandwidth drain, so I understand why no else does either. You didn't expect it to be spoon fed to everyone forever, did you? I mean, this *is* something that video game companies really don't care for. But you really can't do much better than working ftp sites with full sets directly linked off of a website (which is indeed findable with google - the Miss Mame site is 9th down the list when you search for mame roms. It also has the FTP links). Come on, did you even go to the sites I linked?
By the way, I believe that a couple folks from the Kaillera forums are working on a P2P system just for emulation. That should make life easy.
I really didn't want to get into a rom file discussion in this thread.
Well let's see.. It's been around for over 5 years, has dozens (hundreds?) of developers, has been ported to nearly every device capable of running it (PC, mac, camera, dreamcast, xbox, amiga, etc), it emulates nearly every CPU and boardset used in arcades for the past 25 years... (the technical info gleaned from the source alone is amazing)..
Yep, I'd say successful is a good term.
One thing that could save the arcade industry is if DDR really catches on in the arcade. Sure, if you do walk into the arcade, most of the games now are crap that isn't really any better than the stuff on the home systems. But there is no way to get a true DDR experience at home (becuase all the home pads are alright at best.) If anything, that is the only thing that keeps me going back to the arcades...just so much fun to play with friends.
Which mod chip to get? Anyone have any experience intalling them? Anyone care to do (or point to) a comparison?
c-hack.com |
I wonder how long it will be before an unscrupulous arcade operator puts a JAMMA connector on a chipped X-BOX and runs it in his arcade
How would this differ from an unscrupulous arcade operator putting a computer into a cabinet and running regular MAME on it?
I've never seen one personally but I have seen many reports of the word "MAME" showing up on supposedly-genuine arcade machines in various bars and so on.
Many people use MAME in a stand-up arcade box for their own personal amusement (check here and here for information on how to build them and many examples of completed and in-progress projects. It's when folks put them into their businesses to collect quarters that things become a bit dodgy, in my opinion, but that has been going on long before the xbox was even thought of.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
you can at least find the mame burners [tombstones.org.uk] website which is completely valid.
Make that WAS completely valid.
Tombstones has suspended the cd burning program within the past couple of days due to certain problems. It was brought to a head by someone attemption to sell the URL for the tombstones site, believe it or not. "I don't sell you the actual CD's but I do sell you the information on where you can get the CD's from absolutely free. So send $30 by PayPal for the information."
Therefore, the burning program has been suspended, either teomporarily or permanently; that decision is still under discussion.
However, MAME roms are still posted regularly in alt.binaries.emulators.misc and alt.binaries.emulators.mame so there's really no insurmountable barrier to obtaining the roms either way.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
You know, one day we'll wake up in a world where suppliers have remembered that you make money by supplying the demand that's out there, not by trying to control it. It didn't work for the Soviet Union, and it sure isn't going to work in the USA.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Even if it's true that M$ loses $150 on every xbox sold, they won't care much. They've calculated losses of a few billion over the first four or so years of xbox business, so they're definitely in it for the long run.
/.'ers run out and buy one?
Now, what helps you most in the long run? Market share. What will hacking the xbox so that mame runs on it do? Hm, how about raise it's market share because a couple thousand
M$ lost money on windos piracy, too. They didn't give a damn until they had the monopoly, then they started cracking down on people with the BSA squad.
They won't attack the mod chips or the mame porters. Not just now and not for a while. Once there's an xbox in every house, then the gloves will come off.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
And then there's still getting programming data (which I suppose you could scrape from an online television guide site), writing all the software, and having to worry about having your Xbox on (and not playing games) when you want to record a show.
ok.. the Tivo is only a 50Mhz PPC processor system running linux with a 4800rpm drive (30 gig) so the xbox hardware is more than capable of performing the task (tivo quality). There also seems to be an audio/video input at the back of the xbox (although I've read that it might not accept video input) and if you look on the motherboard there seems to be a chip (similar to the t1 4600) which seems capable of video capture. There are also rumours of a tool called xbmovie in the Dev kit which allows for video capture. The modchips allow for running of customised code so it is possible someone could write the software needed if all the above is true.
// The fastest Alt-Tab in the West
www.modshack.co.uk have details of how to make your own modchip, even using a mobo or network adaptor to do the programming.
The Danish copyright law only prohibits certain types of reverse engineering of software, and it explicitly allows you to reverse engineer code to obtain interoperability, except when the information needed for interoperability has been easily and quickly/readily available to the licensee.
And the law also states that this right cannot be "abdicated" by license.
In which case, I would say this to Microsoft:
Sue me!
Not that I own an X-Box
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
...note that MS loses even *more* money when you *dont* by a unit!
I just wish I could afford to not buy 1,000 Xboxes...
Baz
Yeah...plot was a bad choice of words. Hadn't had my caffine yet :)
I guess you could substitute originality, differing goals, levels, moods, etc. YEAH - plot should have been left out.
While some of the old games were the same thing with different sprites or just faster, at least in Donkey Kong you had 4 different screens. All the games I see it seems that you are two fighters standing on a floor and the only thing that changes from match to match is difficulty and the backdrop.