Slashdot Mirror
Will Xbox2 Be Backward Compatible?
An anonymous reader submits "In an interview on Wired News, Bob Wiederhold, President and CEO of Transitive Corporation said QuickTransit will allow the Xbox Next (aka Xbox2, which will have a PowerPC CPU) to run first-generation Xbox games which were written for an x86 Intel chip.
Transitive is a provider of software that enables transportability of applications across multiple processor and operating system pairs.
This could mean Microsoft will after all make their next generation consoles backward compatible, unlike what was announced in June." I can't quite tell how hypothetically he's speaking; the no-performance-hit OS switching the article talks about sounds pretty hard to believe.
..that we already had this exact story on the front page a couple days ago, i believe this whole thing is bullshit, i mean, c'mon, their demo was for the 'linux' version of Quake 3 on the Mac -- could they not choose a game which was already on the Mac?
i d= 4429
and also, i think GamesIndustry.biz said it best:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?a
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The Xbox 2 rumour mill has turned over once again, after a Silicon Valley start-up boasted that a new piece of software emulation technology would allow the next-generation console to play original Xbox games.
QuickTransit, a piece of software originally developed by a computer science professor at Manchester University in the UK, allows the "transparent" emulation of software across different hardware platforms, its makers claim.
Revealing the software to the world, Transitive Corp demonstrated the system running Linux software (presumably compiled on different processor architecture) on Windows PCs and Apple Macintosh systems at performance which, the company says, is indistinguishable from native platform performance.
The comment that has sparked interest in the games industry, however, is a statement from Transitive CEO Bob Wiederhold, who said that the QuickTransit software will allow the next-generation Xbox to run software designed for the current console.
It's not clear whether this is meant to mean that Transitive is actually working with Microsoft on Xenon emulation technology, but a number of factors make this seem like an unlikely scenario.
For a start, the Wired article in which Wiederhold's claim appeared went on to say that Transitive has six customers, all of whom are as yet unnamed and all of whom are PC manufacturers, with no mention of any Microsoft relationship.
Besides, what works for a PC or server environment in terms of emulation isn't necessarily the same thing that will work for a console - which has limited memory, a key constraint on the QuickTransit system, which interprets recognised blocks of code by replacing them with functionally identical blocks for the native processor.
Regardless of how fast QuickTransit's code is, it will also still face major issues in translating the graphics functions of existing Xbox titles, which are written for an NVIDIA chip, into functions on Xbox 2, which will use an ATI chip - not just technical issues, but potentially legal issues as well.
Sources close to NVIDIA have previously hinted that they do not believe that Xbox 2 can play Xbox games without violating NVIDIA intellectual property rights, and that they may take legal action if the Xbox 2 does boast this functionality.
In face of this, it would appear much more likely that Wiederhold simply chose the Xbox and Xbox 2 scenario as an example of one problem which would be made easier to solve using the technology being marketed by his company.
However, the games industry at large is likely to keep a close eye on developments at Transitive in future - as any technology which allows new hardware to cheaply emulate older consoles and platforms would be welcomed by many companies in the market.
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C'mon guys, how many times have we heard of this exact claim from some unknown company, and its turned out bullshit every time!
Newsie, Moderator, www.tauniverse.com
Backward compatibility is the way to go. Nintendo's Game Boy line has benefitted quite a bit by allowing newer machines to play older games. I don't see why it wouldn't also apply to console systems.
... but thats not the point!
... quite the contrary, apart from a few un-completed ps1 games the majority of my gaming fun on PS2 has been with PS2 flavor games.
This is an interesting twist on a previous slashdot discussion.
However lets put the facts on the table. One of the nice things about Sony's console is the backward compatibility. I am a PS2 person and for me its backward compatibility with PS1 was a definite bonus for me when I bought my next console. Upgrading from PS1 to PS2 for me was a no-brainer, it meant that my old console games would still work on the new box! In retrospect though, it did not neccesarily mean that i still play ps1 games on my ps2,
However I remember thinking and discussing with freinds that if Sony were to make PS2 backward compatible with PS1 they could corner the market... Of course that was before M$ got on the scene. Im not a M$ fan and it will take some huge changes before i feel otherwise, however, from a "make it work" perspective M$ have to make XBOX II backward compatible, even if it is purely from a psychological perspective. People like to beleive that their back-catalogue of game purchases are still viable. Having said that Sony are a generation ahead, PS3 will play all games and beyond. They made some good decisions in the past and it seems that M$ would be silly not to follow suit.
It seems that transitive have an interesting technology, but what is more eye-opening is that microsoft are building on a platform that isnt x86 and that "has" to be a good thing - no matter how much I hate the swines.
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
You need to recompile an app when you move it from x86 Linux to PPC Linux. I don't think the source code to XBox games was included on the DVD last time I checked.
Guess who purchased the company who made Virtual PC?
They already have solid x86-on-PPC emulation code.
If this is true, then MS would probably be forced to include a hard drive in the new system in some form, whether it's built in or a removeable one. Some games use it for caching, and most companies don't bother to optimize Xbox save files for size since size is no object on an Xbox.
Emulating the NVIDIA chipset on ATI hardware won't be that easy.
AFAIK the DirectX libs & drivers are statically linked into the
games, so "use DirectX" is no way out in this case.
This isn't gonna happen for 4 reasons:
:)
1. Emulating an nVidia gpu that is only a few years old. There just won't be adequate processing power for this... Look at console emulation as it is right now. The best example of modern console emulation is with the original Playstation being emulated pretty well, but still not full speed with all games. The Playstation is more than 10 years old.
2. Emulation of an nVidia chip would cause some legal problems I believe.
3. Lack of Hard drive in XBOX 2. This has come straight from M$. How are the old games that use the hard drive going to deal with that?
4. No White and Black buttons on the XBOX 2 controllers. According to M$, the XBOX 2 controller is going to use all the same buttons and joysticks as the current one, except they are getting rid of the black and white buttons. How are the old games that use those two buttons gonna handle that?? No more Flashlight in Halo I guess
1- they changed CPU architectures.
2- They changed GPU's and the previous GPU is hevaily heavily copyrighted.
3- they have only 5-10 games worth playing on Xbox
4- Emu of 3d graphics w/o glitches is a dream. Even ps2 had glitches and it included the god damn hardware.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
I'm no Sherlock Holmes, but I'd bet dollars to donuts you aren't married.
-truth
I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...
Let's not forget that Connectix wrote Virtual Game Station (VGS), a PlayStation emulator for Mac and PC. So they certainly have experience writing game console emulators.
So yes, they certainly have plenty of in-house experience if all of those Connectix folks are still around.
-Geoff
Check out the RedAssedBaboon article which includes a link to a 2003 Wired article where they matter of factly state that the Xbox 2 will use Virtual PC technology to allow it to be backwards compatible with the Xbox.
Why do people need to do all this guesswork. Wait until an official release of the specs, then decide if you want to buy it. How does knowing if it's backwards compatable effect you now? I mean you have a 50/50 shot of being right or wrong, so you don't even get bragging rights for predicting whether it has it ahead of time.
Well whatever, speculate on.
I was going to be nice, but I see the lusers have been out modding you up and now I just want to start slapping people for their unutterable cluelessness.
*INSERT CLUE TO CONTINUE*
1- they changed CPU architectures.
Okay I am trying hard not to laugh here...
Even as I type I am running Intel x86 Linux *and* Microsoft Windows (at the same time, but different instances) on my PowerPC PowerBook.
Not only has this been done many many times (Connectix's Virtual Game Station that allows you to play Playstation games on the PC or Mac for a start, and there are plenty of other emulators that emulate other chips specifically to allow you to play titles for consoles like the N64 on other platforms), but Microsoft *just purchased* the leading software product which emulates x86 on PPC.
2- They changed GPU's and the previous GPU is hevaily heavily copyrighted.
Are you actually suggesting that would make it impossible or illegal? You'd of course be very wrong on both counts. So what's your point?
Someone already released a wrapper to allow you to run the leading Nvidia demo on an ATI system (as would be the case here), not only that but it performed faster on the fastest ATI card at the time compared to the fastest Nvidia card at that time.
As another example I'd again point to Connectix's excellent Playstation emulator for PC and Macintosh (which was tested in the courts, Sony's law suit failed, twice, in the end Sony just bought the technology from them it was that good).
Just to be clear - Connectix where also the makers of the said x86 to PPC emulator that Microsoft just bought.
3- they have only 5-10 games worth playing on Xbox
Not only do I disgreee with you on that given my own game collection, but I think I've established that I don't think your opinon isn't all that informed.
4- Emu of 3d graphics w/o glitches is a dream. Even ps2 had glitches and it included the god damn hardware.
You only have to be good enough, not pixel perfect in every single title. Virtual PC, Virtual Gamestation (released 1999) and a large number of other emulators pull (e.g. UltraHLE, Project64) it off just fine - certainly well enough it would seem to have been proven. Apparently you have been in a cave for the last 5 years.
Microsoft are the origional developers of both products here and they have huge reasources, talented staff and of course an intimate knowledge of both platforms, as well as a full x86 to PowerPC processor emulator (where as teams like Connectix and the UltraHLE developers had to reverse engineer the systems on their own with much smaller teams and reasources and no inside knowledge and they *still* managed to do a great job). In comparison to what teams like that have already done, for Microsoft doing this would be a cakewalk.
The PS2 used the same memory card inputs for PS1 games, so you could easily transfer your game information from one machine to another. I'm going to guess that the PS3 will have a similar memory card slot. Heck, Sony made a good business decision to require the additional purchase of a memory card to save any of their games.
So we can only hope the following will happen:
- the X2 will have a hard drive
- the X2 will allow the transfer of information from the X1 to the X2 (think of all those custom soundtracks you have loaded up!)
While I can understand that Sony/Microsoft want to head towards online/networked/distributed gaming consoles, there still will be a need for some sort of local data storage. (I'll guess that the PS3 will have a slot for a Memory Stick, allowing you to do digital picture slideshows).
Last time I checked, neither the Xbox, or the Xbox 2 are/were running Unix-like operating systems...
-phixxr
ungggghhhh
Many people who cry about this are very obviously PlayStation fans who have no real honest interest in the Xbox/2 to begin with.
Backwards compatability is always nice, sure. But it's just a bonus. Anyone posing as someone as someone with hundreds of dollars in their wallet that they can blow on an Xbox 2, but haven't bought a dirt-cheap Xbox to play all those games they seem to want to play and play them between NOW and late 2005/early 2006, well, they're just bullshitting.