Original Xbox

There's a new hardmod called ModXO that's been making the rounds. Part of me wants to make a Shopify store selling handmade ModXO pre-builts, but when looking at the BOM and labor costs, the devices would be around $30 USD.

With BOM, labor, and Shopify costs, I'd need to sell 2 each month to stay afloat and while that seems low, I just don't know if that's feasible due to the age of the OG Xbox and niche market who could likely easily put it all tigether themselves.

This sublemmy is pretty small, so I think it's the perfect place to ask: is there a market for something like this?

You can read the how here. It talks about the development process, code, and how modified Xboxs can be utilized.

A link to the GitHub page can be found here. The information below is from the read me section.

Features

This mod adds the following features to the game:

• Support for 480p (proper), 720p, and 1080i (1080p) resolutions.

• Triple buffering support to increase FPS performance.

• Utilizes extra RAM if you have 128MB RAM upgrade.

• GPU overclocking for performance improvements.

• Increased HDD transfer speed for faster load times.

• Customizable field of view.

• Customizable split screen divider (horizontal or vertical).

RAM Upgrades

If your console has 128MB of RAM this patch will utilize the extra RAM available which will enable use of 720p and 1080i video modes as well as increase the size of in-memory caches for textures and geometry. The size increase for the texture and geometry caches will significantly reduce pop-in issues to the point of being almost non-existent.

GPU Overclocking

In order to maximize performance of the game when running in higher resolutions I've added support to overclock the GPU on startup. This is customizable and can be fine tuned to better suit each console's unique GPU qualities. This is highly recommended for 720p mode as it can increase FPS by as much as 10 FPS. However, overclocking the GPU comes with risks and precautions should be taken to ensure you don't cause your GPU to overheat and burn out. The risks are outlined in the wiki and should be thoroughly read and understood before attempting to enable and configure GPU overclocking. HDD Transfer Speeds

This patch can increase the speed at which the HDD transfers data to the console which will improve loading times and help reduce pop-in. This value is customizable via the config file and is explained in detail here. In order to use transfer speeds faster than UDMA 3 you will need an 80-pin IDE cable. Trying to use UDAM 4 or 5 with the stock 40-pin cable will result in read errors and the game crashing on startup.

Quality of Life Improvements

A few quality of life improvements have been added such as customizable field of view and options to control whether split screen divides the screen horizontally or vertically.

Compatibility

Due to how this patch works it is not compatible with the Xbox 360 back-compat emulator, nor will it ever be. It would require complex changes to the emulator itself and I have no plans on ever investigating it further. This patch has also not been tested on XQEMU or any other Xbox emulator for PC. It has only been tested on real hardware and I have no plans for providing additional support for any other means of running original Xbox games.

Hardware Requirements

This patch can be used on any soft or hard modded Xbox console with no additional hardware modifications. However, if you don't have the 128MB RAM mod you will only be able to play the game in 480p mode. There is NOT enough RAM to play the game in 720p or 1080i without the RAM upgrade. Additionally you will need an 80-pin IDE cable if you want to use HDD transfer speeds faster than UDMA 3. You do not need a CPU upgraded console to use this patch and having one does not provide any additional performance gains that I've been able to measure during testing.

Known Issues/Limitations

This patch currently only works with the base version of the game (1.0) and does not work with the 1.5 update. I plan to port the patch to the 1.5 update at some point in the future. In addition to that there are a couple limitations/known issues such as:

• Campaign checkpoints may not work between this patch and other versions of the game. When loading a campaign save game you may have to start the most recent level from the beginning instead of from the last checkpoint reached.

• You will not be able to take screenshots using Xbox Neighborhood or other tools based on Xbdm when running with 128MB of RAM. You will need to use a tool I wrote that can handle taking screenshots when using 128MB of RAM: XboxImageGrabber

• HUD elements will get smaller when using higher resolutions. Scaling the HUD elements is non-trivial and will most likely not be fixed.

• Bink videos (intro, attraction, credits) still play in 640x480 resolution. I may look into fixing this in a future update but will most likely result in the videos being stretched.

• Campaign loading screen, player sign-in screen, and pre-game lobbies still render in 640x480, adjusting this is non-trivial and most likely won't be fixed.

This was about 4 years ago... but it worked, and I only needed it to work once!

This was a post I made 4 years ago on the OGXbox subreddit. I miss our little community, so hopefully they'll find this place. I may as well add a little content to try and start things off. So about 4 years ago...

"It all started with me wanting an emulator and realising my old xbox was just gathering dust anyways. So it began.

Figured out my xbox version, already had splinter cell, got a usb to controller port adapter, set my well studied plan into action. It was all supposed to be relatively painless. That was 6 months ago...what a fool I was.

I soldered my points in preperation for a TSOP flash as that was my endgame mod. Ready to go, I went ahead and soft modded. Now I should haved nulled my eeprom, but at the time I didn't realize it would null the motherboard as well and not just the HDD, so I instead went to save my eeprom file safely away. It was probably lucky that I chose that route (I guess) because as I tried to solve network errors and get my eeprom file saved to my pc, it happened; my worst fear...the system froze, I restarted and nothing was working. My fucking HDD failed. So I guess lucky it didn't fail midway, trying to null the eeprom, but it failed and my eeprom file was lost. Fuck me, right?

But I'm determined now. I figure out how to make an eeprom reader...my soldering skills have now gone from never having done it before, to making hardware to read the eeprom off my motherboard. I can't lie, I really impressed myself when I actually recovered the file. So now to rebuild an HDD.

But I can't get an IDE HDD that doesn't come dead on arrival. I probably ordered and returned 5 of them before looking up a lockable SATA. So my new HDD finally writes properly, I have a SATA to IDE converter(?), new IDE cable, ready to try again. At this point, you're probably thinking, "why not just use a mod chip and be done with it?". I'll tell you why; pride. I didn't want a mod chip, I had a 1.0 version with a perfectly rewritable TSOP already, and damnit, I was gonna rewrite that bitch if it killed me.

Ready to try again, I start it up with more hope than I should've allowed myself. And what do I see on the screen now? Error 11. Now I feel defeated. Is it the new IDE cable? The converter? Am I so unlucky that my disc drive has now spontaneously failed too? I try switching cables, putting the old HDD back in just to see if I can get an error 7 again, but now it's just 11 over and over again. I give up.

Fastforward to last week, my friend gave me his old xbox to try again. It's a version 1.0 as well, but I go in with shielded hopes. I solder my points, softmod, null the eeprom this time (just in case, cause I don't have a working desktop for my eeprom reader anymore), and boot my Hexen disc. Go to flash the TSOP...and it works! Praise the gods, it works!

Now I can have more fun: -build a new HDD (that doesn't have to be locked, you piece of shit failing HDD that started all of my problems!) -Reset my friends HDD to factory with my first xbox eeprom file and try to flash that one as well or at least diagnose what has failed me -Enjoy at least one xbox that is safe from HDD/disc drive failures and start exploring all the new possibilities.

TL;DR - Lost my eeprom file while trying to mod, which set forth an adventure of despair and hoplessness, before finally succeeding.

Special thanks to the community for teaching me everything I know! Y'all are amazing"