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360's Backwards Compatibility Weak?
GamesIndustry.biz is reporting that the backwards compatibility that Microsoft offered up at the Monday press conference may not be anything approaching what we're used to. Due to the massive design changes in the shift from the Xbox to the 360, Xbox titles may have to be recompiled in order to work on the next-gen console. From the article: "The news has raised more questions than it answers, however, as it suggests that gamers may need to purchase titles they already own in order to play them on an Xbox 360 - and almost certainly means that only a sub-set of Xbox games will ever be playable on the new console." Update: 05/20 15:08 GMT by Z : The article has been updated with a quote from MS specifically saying that gamers will *not* need to repurchase Xbox titles to play them on the 360.
...recompile their kernels every 3 days would be used to this idea, no?
How can this be called backwards compatibility? If this is true, then this really is a poor showing from MS.
The only way they may avoid pissing too many people off, and making such a system viable is to offer the recompiled versions available for free download for people who have already purchased that particular game.
As TFA states, though, backwards compatibility for a small class of games is idiotic.
Indeed. But you can get money from the recompiled version :)
I wouldn't really call that "backwards compatible", more like "not backwards compatible".
- the CPU instruction set is different
- the GPU instruction set is different
- there are Three different CPU's, so you really want to get as much code running in parallel as possible
In short, the differences are fairly massive. Transmeta has the ability to run code fast on one core... backwards compatibility for the XBox requires running code fast on the equivalent of 2-3 cores... not an easy job.Not so much precompiles as it's mostly going to be emulated (VirtualPC!), but of course some re-releases are inevitable.
Personally, I think it is a mistake, but obviously Microsoft couldn't afford to pull a playstation2 and put an entire PS1 on the die. This is the downside of going with off-the-shelf parts and not designing your own chips. No way were they ever going to convince Intel and whoever did their video hardware on the xbox to provide a mega-cheap shrunken version that they could cram onto the 360 motherboard.
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If the average game executable and some key files that need recompiling are 100MB, and I bet most are more like 20MB, MS could release a DVD with 100 recompiled games on it. Just put in the disc, select all the games you and your friends play, wait a minute for the files to copy to the HD, then put in the games actual DVD and play. Since the files are copied to the HD, you only have to do this once.
Better yet, make the files downloadable for those with broadband. Problem solved, and only about 2GB of hard drive space used for twenty games.
This is just a theory, but it seems reasonable that they could simply recompile and tune the binaries, and then place them on X-Box Live.
Any X-Box 360 hooked up to the network could download the new binaries (not too large) and then run them.
Wa-la, backwards compatibility and a pushing factor for online access.
well.. my GUESS at this whole thing is that they have an emulator running that 'recompiles' the stuff on the fly - BUT it doesn't work with every game.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
What I think will happen, if recompiling is needed, is that the executable (xbe) will be offered as a free/low cost download on xbox live and will require the game DVD to be inserted to play to grab all the media etc. Essentially a patch to make it work on the 360. Keep in mind that xbox live will be a free service for 360, as only the premium features cost money. Microsoft would be making a big mistake if it offered backwards compatibility for only paying subscribers.
Basically, they do not have backwards compatibility in the proper sense of the term, but as it is perceived to be such a make or break feature, they are just going to LIE about it??
A bit of speculation here, but I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft gave the recompiled versions out for free over Xbox Live, but only to people who are gold subscribers. Could be a good ploy to get people who aren't interested in Xbox Live to join up.
I was amazed they even suggested they were going to be BC and yet go with ATI and PowerPC hardware.
I was expecting another PC turned game console when the XBOX II hit the market - just beefier hardware and maybe some whizbang features like wifi that seems to be standard now.
Microsoft going with non-pc like hardware was the answer to xbox hacks and modchips, which I think just pissed them off enough to drop pc hardware. I don't think they know how the market will react to the XBOX being the only nextgen console that isn't BC.
I believe that choice came after they looked at the Gamecube and the profits Nintendo is raking in despite a lower retail price and only minimally less power. Had they added some RAM and a few more MHz to the system they'd probably have a system on par with the XBox that could be sold at a profit when sold for the XB's price.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
No, you can't. You could, if there were idiots around who'd buy these versions.
You have a better chance of getting your Linear-B titles working than your Linear-A titles thanks to Michael Ventris.
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--Mike
I'm starting to get the feeling that they actually are trying to get themselves laughed out of the console market... Is there anyone left that is really going to go out and buy an xbox 360?
I am. There's lots of titles that I'm looking forward to. Some originals, some sequals.
The key for me is Xbox Live. I own the GC, PS2, and Xbox - I enjoy each of them based on their respective strengths. The integrated and well-designed online experience of Live is well worth purchasing the console, for me.
You can downplay Live all you want, but to me that's key to Microsoft's strategy. For a measly $80 a year, you can an integrated online service that is monitored. They tweak the performance, they listen to feedback and suspend/ban accounts, and they offer some great downloadable content. The Xbox 360 may not be as powerful as the PS3, but there's a lot more to a good console than just power.
And I assure you, there are idiots around who would buy those versions. Hence, Evan's comment still stands...
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
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there's a lot more to a good console than just power.
That's a funny statement in this context. Because Microsoft pretty much told us the exact opposite until the time Live was actually launched. They played number games all because they could to the general public. The computer savvy know that a PPC CPU at 433 MHz was basically on par, if not better, than a Celeron at 733 MHz. But if you can throw that your processor is nearly twice as high as the competitor's to the general public, they'll eat it up. It was so out of hand that the president of Tecmo was claiming that the GCN could never run the original DOA... and that game wasn't very impressive looking.
It's like sex, except I'm having it!
Don't you know that "under $465" is advertiser speak for $464.99? Watch a commercial that actually advertises a price. Every single one of them says under [price figure], then shows in small print that the actually price is a penny less.
It's like sex, except I'm having it!
I absolutely agree. When Xbox launched, it was all about the power. I guess that's one of the few advantages to launching your console later than the PS2. :)
I also agree that the public eats up hardware specs. This is usually the downfall of Nintendo - they push the fact that hardware power needs to be paired with great game-making. This round of the console wars, it seems like it may be a thorn in Microsoft's side as well. They have this great online service that really can help improve the online gaming experience, but it could all be for nothing if people ignore it and look at the PS3 specs.
Yes. Processor is just 1 thing. The xbox just had stock RAM. The GCN had 24 megs of SRAM, which is very fast ram basically attached to the CPU. This gives a huge performance increase.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I'm lucky if I play through 5-10 new games a year. I'm a family guy gamer. When I want to play a game, I want the best there is. Simply because I don't get much time playing games. Why waste time on crap? FPS? I'll get the best one that is available. I won't care about playing Halo 2 on the 360 since something else will be out. Much better. It isn't just the graphics / game play / number of polygons whatever. You have to think about multiplayer. Will there be lots of players on Halo 2 a year and a half from now? Maybe, but most will have moved on I'm sure. I don't play old games, I play the latest and greatest. Call it hype if you want, I just enjoy the best that is available.
Have fun playing games on Live with a mod chip installed. If I had the cash for a 2nd Xbox, I'd totally mod the 2nd one, but I fail to see the point in modding if I take away my functionality.
"No one is more miserable than the person who wills everything and can do nothing." -Emperor Claudius 10 BC - AD 54
Additionally, Goldman Sachs believes the XBox 360 will cost more than expected. Brace yourself for two 450 dollar consoles.
On the other hand, the first estimate of the PSP price was around 450 US Dollars as well.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
They could just ship the xbox 360 with the recompiled binaries for the top x games, and just detect when one of those CD's is inserted and run the embedded version instead. There's no added piracy risk, because they're useless without the data from the CD anyway, so it's just a matter of them asking the game publisher "hey, do you want it to work or not?" and then getting it to work.
Sorry, but I'm surprised none of the people here who got 3+ for their comments have read this article.
They clearly say they are going to EMULATE the top titles. Now, they say that if they manage to emulate Halo2, there's good chance that games that use a subset of funcionality will also work. Hence, they target a few games, and they get collateral compatibility from these high-end titles.
The xbox just had stock RAM. The GCN had 24 megs of SRAM, which is very fast ram basically attached to the CPU
Actually, the GameCube had 1T-SRAM, which is apparently DRAM with a really sneaky buffering mechanism. (MoSys's site has "free reg. req." to download more detailed PDFs, but some of the required information does not appear to apply to hobbyists still seeking employment.)
Still, it's kind of amusing. My first thought on reading the article summary was to wonder if most Xbox games came with source code...
My second thought is that perhaps Microsoft has gone about this the wrong way. Maybe .net should be the basis of the Xbox development platform, with JIT techniques used to recompile everything as optimally as possible. This has few downsides, and makes implementing backward compatability much, much, easier. No stupid emulators. Just a JIT compiler on the new platform that recompiles old code in such a way that the timings are as close to the originally targetted platform as possible.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
If this logic holds (ie, enough people buy it), Nintendo can stretch it a bit further by advertising their GBA/Nintendo DS system as backwards compatible with the SNES and NES.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
XBOX 360 is only supposed to have a launch library of 15 Games so it would be better to just have all the other XBOX games avaiable from the start to make it more bearable. If they don't do this the PS3 will have it easy until their launch date, only having to compete with few games.
XBOX Forever!!!
I know for a fact that if a console doesn't have backwards compatability, you have to really convince them otherwise to buy it, because they HATE wasting money on games....
:) )
But the parents won't ask "Is this backwards compatible?" just like they won't ask "Does this have the AltiVec vector instruction set for the PowerPC?" (Note that I don't know, nor care, whether it does
They'll say "Can Jimmy play the Xbox games he already has on it?" and they can't say "Yes" if this is true. They'll probably also ask "can he play these games on it?" and point to the $10 preowned Xbox section, and they'll have to say "No". They'll then ask "which ones can he play" and the people will point to the $30-$60 Xbox 360 games. And I'm assuming that rereleased Xbox games will be in the $30 range. Maybe.
That's the point with backward compatibility. It's not about playing your old games. Microsoft didn't demolish the competition in the last generation - hell, it's not even guaranteed that they'll end up in 2nd place, as Microsoft's shifting to Xbox 360, Nintendo's still got Zelda: Twilight Princess, and only 2 million consoles separate the two worldwide.
So not everyone has an Xbox. Backwards compatibility gives people cheap games to buy at launch. Cheap, as in $10 cheap. And when you're asking people to plunk down $300-400 on a console, there better be $10 cheap games. And I don't honestly think that companies could recompile an old game for the Xbox 360, bug test it thoroughly, fix any bugs (because oh, there will be bugs), rinse, repeat, then redo the box art, manufacture the game, repackage, and redistribute, and still sell the game for $10-15.
That's what backwards compatibility really means to consumers. $10-15 games at launch. If they don't have that, it just doesn't matter.
Something everyone seems to be forgetting is that that is the price after conversion. It's entirely possible that it will be that price in Japan, but debut here at $500.
I'll turn into a supernova and burn up everything. Well I'll turn into a black little hole and you'll turn into string.
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From what I understand, emulating the CPU is not a problem. However, realtime emulation of the GPU is much harder. An optimized vector processor does not automatically have an easy time emulating a weaker but differently optimized vector processor. This is why Sony just included the PS1 GPU inside the PS2. Microsoft can't do that because Nvidia hates them and they would charge them a fortune for it. Check out this article for more details about this.
I wouln't be surprised if this really was their plan. That's maybe why they say they'll only support the "most popular" games, to avoid having to cram the hard drive full of stuff.
I can imagine this working pretty well, that is, being pretty much seamless to the the normal Joe User. For the obscure games, they may program the 360 to pop up a window when the disk is inserted asking you if you want to download a "compatibility patch" from Microsoft. The Xbox1 disks pressed more recently might include this compatibility patch on them. Yeah, not exactly optimal, but not catastrophic either.
The bonus is that the recompiled games might be set to run explicitly in 720p and with all sorts of anti-aliasing and other fancy graphics stuff that the first xbox can't do. This may encourage people to buy the 360 just to see their favorite games looking better. (I wonder if the PS3 will offer something similar for PS2 games...)
Recompiles on the fly? Huh? Look, there's currently two ways to get incompatible software to run efficiently.
1: Total recompile. Problem with that is, if it is closed source code, you have to re-release that, which is what the article implies.
2: Emulation. Meaning, you have an application that takes the instructions and "on the fly" converts them into useable instructions.
Now, what the heck is "recompiling on the fly"? If I understand correctly, you mean it re-interprets the source code as you go along. But the old games are in binary, so all you have is the instructions. Oh, wait that's emulation. Besides, if you tried compiling then running an executable before it is done compiling, you're going to run out of program to run before it is done compiling.
Anyway, all this talk of emulating the Xbox is a bit of hooey. You need a LOT more machine than you want to emulate in order to properly do it, without stutter. A lot more than the difference between the Xbox 360 and the Xbox.
Nintendo does this with the GBA and old NES and SNES games, but at least they have the balls to admit that they're just using it to try to make more money with a new system and old properties instead of claiming it is 'backwards compatibility' between the GBA and SNES.
As long as MS and XBox developers allow owners of the original XBox games to download these updates to the old games for free, it should be acceptable. But otherwise, this is a scam. And in no way can this be called 'backwards compatibility'.
If the games will run through recompilation, here is what I think they could do.
They will probably have it limited to those who buy the more expensive version of the 360 with the hard drive and combined with XBox Live, download the recompiled executable to run off the hard drive while reading the data from the CD/DVD.
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
I wonder if the cost of emulating the old Xbox on new hardware would be significantly reduced if MS pursued a hardware solution. That is, if they followed Sony's PS compatiblity method in the PS2 through inclusion of miniturized integrated PS circuitry.
By including certain hardware elements from the old Xbox, such as the Nvidia graphics chip, they could avoid legal entanglements and guarantee compatibility. On the other hand, I don't think MS considers backwards compatiblity to be high on their priority list and, at least at this stage, it appears MS is making a weak effort.
I totally agree. I bet this is what they will do. What's more, since they now have the luxury of shipping new game "guts" they can tweak them for 720p and allow the new GPU to process the hell out of the graphics, so that the same game will look substantially better on the 360 (since it doesn't have to be exactly the same game).
By 'recompiling on the fly', the grandparent poster is probably refering to a process where library or hardware interfaces are emulated, and the code itself is translated as needed, with the results being cached somewhere (like the hard disk.)
The most famous example of this sort of thing would have to be Digital's FX!32 for the Alpha, which according to reports, would run x86 Windows code under NT for Alpha at approximately 40% the speed of natively compiled code. Not too shabby!
Back in the day, there was a copy called Bleem that essentially sold emulators for the Sega Dreamcast that allowed it to play selected Playstation games, such as Gran Turismo 2, etc.. You would have to buy the appropriate "Bleem Pack" to play a given set of games. Perhaps Xbox 360 backwards compatibility will take this approach. The Xbox would download the appropriate patches and settings to play a given previous generation game. If they can support say the 50 most popular Xbox games, then they may be able to get away with it. Heck, the PS2 does not play 100 percent of the first generation Playstation games either.
/., MS is evil! But they _do_ have a lot of talented and passionate people working on this. So I think they'll pull it off.
In any case, if the end user has to go out and buy a title again, then backwards compatibility is a lie and I sincerely hope that Sony and Nintendo pummels them mercilessly! Seriously though, I think Microsoft will pull it off somehow. They have more than enough resources and talent to do the job. Yeah, I know, this is
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
exactly something like that. ..and if it's really going to be as powerful as their pr says it is, then the biggest problem will be odd-job compatibility.
plus, there's a reason why I put the '' marks around recompile...
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
*With a custom --xbox flag, of course, to prevent piracy.
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
As I've been modded a troll for saying exactly this, maybe now people will realize that there is no way to make the Xbox backwards compatible. The Xbox was a cobbled together console based on PC hardware with no way to provide backwards compatibility on a PPC CPU... this is Slashdot you'd think more people could have figured this out from the initial announcement, but alas the hype has gotten the better of a lot of fanboys.
I hate to tell you too that the shared memory of the Xbox 360 is going to be a downfall, as bandwidth is going to be a big issue. Developers are already grumbling about this. That 22Gb/s bandwith is going to be eaten up pretty quickly with all of the bandwidth hungry components fighting for their share. Do some simple math on the numbers involved with HD resolutions, AA, system processing, memory, and other overhead and the XBOX 360's shiny hype-filled exterior begins to dull a bit... it is most definitely NOT 15 times more powerful than the Xbox. Sony is actually pretty on target with the Xbox 1.5 comments. (I'm no longer a Sony guy either, so this is not said with any bias or loyalty.)
The Revolution has this game in the bag by playing the backfield right now. Let the two "Big Guns" slug it out and sling all the mud they want at each other while no one even targets them... then once the fervor is over release the full details and have no easy open media forum for rebuttal. They spring a few new titles, release the innovations of their controller, their low price-point, and the reality that their processing power is right in line with the competition, and bingo you've got a winner.
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You do know that Live is no longer a unique feature, right? And hell, it seems very likely that Nintendo's first party games will be free to play. Free is less than $80.
Here's the thing - I used to play a LOT of PC titles online. It was great, mostly because it was free. Then people start to cheat. They start to greif. Then they start acting like assholes, spewing insults, racist comments, etc.
What I like is the fact that I leave feedback on them, and the Live team will review this feed back each week. Those offending accounts are either suspended, banned, or have their voice-capablities removed.
Until Nintendo or Sony unveils a similar service (free OR pad, because I'll gladly pay for this) I still feel that Live is unique. Especially since it is a COMMON platform across all games. If a guy gets banned from Halo 2, he can't go on Ghost Recon 2 and do the same shit. If he's banned from Live, he's banned from it all.
This will work essentially like a xbox live game update has before. Microsoft will send you a recompiled default.xbe, it will stay on your harddrive and is automatically loaded instead of the one on the cd. All the other data is still valid. Now, they may have totally different instruction sets, but programming for the xbox is a high enough level language that the API's could be identical, or have backwards compatibility in mind (this is Microsoft we're talking about). Therefore, it may just be as simple as firing up the project, running it through the new libraries set to compile for the xbox360
ok.. so heads you lose tails I win. right?
To me backwards compatibility is not "Can I get games on the cheap?" It's "Can I play the stuff I own, and will I be able to play the good games I missed?" If I haven't played Final Fantasy XII by the time the PS3 comes out, I'm going to be angry if I can't play it on my new system, regardless of how much the game itself cost. Now that I think about it, there aren't really a lot of games on the X-Box that I'd miss. Nothing I can think of is anything I'd care about playing ever again, especially after the sequals to them have been released for the 360. Not like anything on the X-Box except maybe Morrowind and KOTOR had any kind of storyline that I'd be missing out on.
GamesIndustry.biz is full of speculation on this one, and I am perfectly capable of matching them on their bullshit blow-by-blow if this is what they call news.
It is just as possible that Microsoft may include updates to 'classic' titles as part of their basic/free Live service.
There are no links, references, sources or quotes in that article. Don't waste your time, people.
The XBox runs a modified w2k kernel and DirectX. One of the big selling points to developers was that you could port your Windows games to it with little effort. Now unless the program goes right to the hardware This should make running under Virtual PC pretty simple. You have a very well defined hardware target and a limited software library to support. A group of Microsoft developers could tweaking VirtualPC to handle all the current games. The reason for the comment about limited support for old XBox games could be.
.net odds are pretty good that VirtualPC already uses a jit compiler. I have a sneaking feeling that you will see a move to .net for XB360 development. It has so much freaking hardware that it might be fast enough to use .net for games. It would free Microsoft from being tied to the X86 which right now really is being kept alive by AMD with a large chunk of IBM tech like SOI.
1. They still do not have the hardware done so they do not know if it will be fast enough.
2. Some big seller like Halo2 breaks rules and goes right to the hardware.
3. They do not want it. They will make more money if you buy all new games.
4. It really will not matter. People with old Xbox games already own the XBox.
As to using
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I'm excited that the PS3 is going to be backwards compatible, because I have a ps2 now and I still play Tony Hawk 2 and FFVII which are both ps1 games. I always wanted an Xbox, pretty much only for Halo, but being in college didn't have cash to throw away for both, so I chose ps2 so I could play my ps1 games still. So why now that I have a job would I even bother buying anything xbox knowing that the games that are backwards compatable are limited and I would need to re-buy games I loved or keep my old xbox around. I certainly don't have my ps1 anymore.
Who here is really surprised that xbox 360 isn't completely backwards compatible? If people will dish out $400 for a system, they WILL rebuy games so they can play them on their new system, ergo MS makes more money. Coincidence? No young padawan, the dark side it is. Why would MS make it cheaper for you? That certainly doesn't benefit them.
Last I heard there might be a system in place to download games with the xbox 360 right? I might be wrong, but lets say there is. You pay $50 for xbox live right? Wouldn't you pay $100 if you got to play or download re-released games? Or say $5 per game you download? Not that those numbers are accurate or anything, it is the idea that is important. MS knows that if you have something expensive, you'll shell out $$ to get more use of it.
i don't care
HEY!!!, I paid for 2 of those games. Of course one of those was Mechwarrior for the express purpose of installing linux and then later installing EvolutionX.
I'm guessing I'll pick up a Revolution in about a year. I'm REALLY hoping this NES/SNES emulation stuff carries over to the DS.
If it has to be recompiled, it will probably end up just being a download of a new .exe over Live. They would not need to download the graphics, because those could probably still be pulled from the disk.
END COMMUNICATION
Having multiple cores isn't a problem. Even one of those cores is much faster than the xbox's processor. The objective isn't to make the old xbox games run faster. The problem remains the instruction sets. The GPU instructions are probably harder to emulate properly than the CPU instructions.
A recompile would almost certainly resolve issues with the CPU instruction sets, but I bet most games use special NVIDIA instructions that do not exist on ATI hardware. That could cause lots of graphical anomolies.
Why do I get the feeling that the person they were talking to was referring to how they plan on emulating the x86 processor by using JIT compilation to translate x86 instructions to PPC instructions?
JIT
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
Actually, he's right. There is no estimated price for $465. There was an estimate that it was going to cost under x amount of yen. Someone converted that to US currency and that amount was about $465. Obviously, the price of the system will not be $464.99. That is such a stupid number and I don't know why people are so daft to jump all over it. If it will be priced in that range even, it would be $499.99, $449.99, or $399.99. I imagine it will largely depend on how much the other systems cost and the prices will drop a bit fairly quickly if they start out at that price point.
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I think enough people have seen and touched the cell to confirm that it exists. There was a IBM demo at E3, too.
"A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
Who here is really surprised that xbox 360 isn't completely backwards compatible? If people will dish out $400 for a system, they WILL rebuy games so they can play them on their new system, ergo MS makes more money.
If you go into a store saying "I'm willing to buy an Xbox 360" then it doesn't matter.
But undecided people don't buy systems on hardware. They buy systems on games. I'm not talking about people who know intimate hardware details and hacking potential each box has. I'm talking about most consumers. I'm not talking about people who have an Xbox already and enough disposable income to buy another one. I'm talking about the average person.
Backwards compatibility provides a system with a huge pool of cheap games. It suddenly makes that $300 system with $10 games look less expensive than the $200 system with $50 games, and certainly less expensive than the other $300 system with $50 games.
Keep in mind that the Xbox completely flopped versus the PS2 in the last generation, regardless of what geeks think - at best, they stole 10% market share from Sony. If they want to try the same strategy as last time - that is, just cater to the geeks, have a blast - but they sure as heck didn't make money with that strategy before.
If Microsoft is targeting the people who have $500 + disposable income for games, I don't think they'll make much inroads in the market.
I find that hard to believe. Normally the hardware and actual games will be priced higher in Japan and lower in America. We'll have to see what happens in about a year though.
As a previous post said, Jimmy's Mom is going to ask "Will it be able to play his XBox games?". "Yes" or "No" are really about as technical as you need to get (though it is important if "Yes" is contingent upon an XBox live subscription).
My guess is that "Compatibility" could be implemented in a couple ofways:
Few people remember that PS2 compatibility was also limited (though probably not to the degree that XBox will be). If developers stuck to the API you were okay, but if your PS1 games tried to go against the metal or leveraged undocumented features that presumed a particular chipset... you were toast. My guess is that the same will hold true for PS3.
Recompiles on the fly?
The term I see most oftenly used to describe this is dynamic recompilation. Dynamic recompilation differs from basic emulation in that it attempts to perform block optimizations across instruction windows (basic blocks) and caches the results for repeated execution. Contrast to basic emulation, which is interpretive in nature.I'm just curious if anybody has an idea on the size of the NES games? I'm somewhat interested in the individual games, but I mean if you took the ENTIRE library of NES games, would they even add up to 1 CD's worth? SNES I'm sure would be more than that (they had many games at least a few megs large I'm sure), but NES? Maybe not...
30 minutes on 2 CDs? I can't lose!
Zoidberg's on his way to becoming a crafty consumer!
Hello, Operator? I'll take 8!
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Sony included the PS1 CPU inside the PS2, including the GTE (Geometry Transform Engine, a type of math co-processors for doing the obvious), but *NOT* the GPU.
The GPU of the PS1 is emulated in software on the main PS2 CPU, the Emotion Engine. This is extremely well documented in fact, and not just in the patents for the PS2.
As I said before, Microsoft's "limited backward compatabilty" stance has singled handedly devalued all of the games you currently own and has stifled the current games market with fears of incompatbilty. Good work.
I'm done with Bill's shinanigans. eBaying right now...
Political correctness is the newest form of slavery.
The CPU is only the tip of the iceberg. Yeah, it's not a problem for Microsoft since they already have an excellent x86 emulation core from VPC. But the CPU is only a small part of the original XBox hardware. The rest of the hardware was provided by nVidia, which Microsoft made an enemy by going ATI for their new hardware, so you can count on it that nVidia won't allow Microsoft to emulate their hardware.
They can run it thru an emulator just like PS2 does for the PS1 games.
It's full of stars
Why couldn't MS recompile the game engine only and offer it as a download on Live for owner of the original game? People wouldn't be expecting better graphics/sounds on a old game, so why change them or force anyone to buy a new cd. Don't give me the "because its MS" reply. Its quite possible to do it that way and would fit with their "Backward compatible for most popular title" statement.