I must have modded hundreds of xboxes back in the day, usually the TSOP method.

I'd love to try the 1440mhz mod but I'm very nervous about potentially destroying a Tualatin in the process...

Modding the Xbox with TSOP (rev 1.0-1.5) doesn't really require any cables or adapters. You basically just edit/modify a bios image to your liking (or find a premodded one), bridge a few soldering pads on the mobo, launch a BIOS flasher (some custom dashboards has it built in) using an exploit of your choice as entry point, and flash the modded image. You can of course also softmod the Xbox first to remove the signature checks too, last time I checked there seemed to be some new quite easy to use tools for that iirc. Never tried them myself though.

If you're lucky enough to have a rev 1.0 or 1.1 Xbox, you got the larger 1 MB TSOP, which you can "split" and flash several different images which you can choose between.

Rev 1.0 - 1.4 boxes can be flashed with a VGA BIOS. You'll also have to build a AV port to VGA adapter. It's well worth the hassle though, VGA output really looks fantastic 😀

For the non TSOP one (rev 1.6 or 1.6b) you'll need a modchip if you're not happy with only softmodding it. Personally I far prefer hardmods, much more robust. If you somehow screw up the system when tinkering, you simply just reinstall it. Basically impossible to brick.

On the games note, try the Knights of the Old Republic games. Personally I like the Xbox versions far better than the PC ones for some strange reason 😀

You always need at least 1 cable-adapter if you want to attach a keyboard, thumb drive, maybe a usb cd-rom.

My unit that doesn't have a tsop is from 2005. Don't know which rev it is. Not even sure where it is!

Not in a long time. We'd softmod using MechWarrior hack. Sometimes replacing the disk with a bigger one and upload or rip games to it. iirc its essentially a p3 733 in a small form factor but i never tried running a more feature rich OS.

I think I used the splinter cell save exploit to softmod an xbox once ,
via a specialty formatted usb stick connected to a female usb port spliced and soldered to half an xbox controller cable.

It would be cool to try and replicate a xbox one using computer hardware. Upgraded of course..

Tualitin 1.4 512k

Quadro dcc/ geforce ti500

128 mb ram

Big ole ide ssd hdd

What mobo?

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-09-05, 04:36:

It would be cool to try and replicate a xbox one using computer hardware. Upgraded of course.. […]
Show full quote

It would be cool to try and replicate a xbox one using computer hardware. Upgraded of course..

Tualitin 1.4 512k

Quadro dcc/ geforce ti500

128 mb ram

Big ole ide ssd hdd

What mobo?

I'm working on exactly this! These are some of the original Xbox specs:

• Custom motherboard, 133 MHz FSB
• 733 MHz Coppermine-based CPU, 128K L2
• 64MB DDR SDRAM at 200MHz
• Custom Geforce 3 233 MHz, but with some components of the Geforce 4, so kind of like a Geforce 3.5

My tentative specs:

• 440BX chipset, likely 100 MHz FSB unless I get lucky overclocking to 133
• 1400 MHz Tualeron, 256K L2 (or at the very least, 1100MHz Coppermine)
• 512MB SDRAM at 100MHz
• Geforce 3 or Geforce 4 Ti (currently stuck with an MX440)
• Fast IDE disk or an SSD via an adapter

Although the original Xbox has much faster RAM and FSB, I'm curious if the Tualeron, more memory, faster GPU, and faster disk will make it a realistic competitor to the Xbox.

My twist on the build is that it will be AT form factor.

Only chipping/flashing and HDD replacement. Nothing radical for me.

Only additional mod I'm thinking about is RAM upgrade to 128 MB. Games are designed for original CPU so not much reason to upgrade CPU except for upgrade sake. While there are games that require it (Sega arcade games that were based on XBox hardware), plus "normal" games can be patched to remove 64 MB limit which improves things (I think tool is called "delimit").

CPU upgrade would mostly be for media purposes (and maybe some emulators) and nowadays for media playback we have cheaper and better solutions than XBox' 😀.

Cosmic wrote on 2022-09-05, 05:07:

I'm working on exactly this! These are some of the original Xbox specs: […]
Show full quote

Sphere478 wrote on 2022-09-05, 04:36:

It would be cool to try and replicate a xbox one using computer hardware. Upgraded of course.. […]
Show full quote

It would be cool to try and replicate a xbox one using computer hardware. Upgraded of course..

Tualitin 1.4 512k

Quadro dcc/ geforce ti500

128 mb ram

Big ole ide ssd hdd

What mobo?

I'm working on exactly this! These are some of the original Xbox specs:

• Custom motherboard, 133 MHz FSB
• 733 MHz Coppermine-based CPU, 128K L2
• 64MB DDR SDRAM at 200MHz
• Custom Geforce 3 233 MHz, but with some components of the Geforce 4, so kind of like a Geforce 3.5

My tentative specs:

• 440BX chipset, likely 100 MHz FSB unless I get lucky overclocking to 133
• 1400 MHz Tualeron, 256K L2 (or at the very least, 1100MHz Coppermine)
• 512MB SDRAM at 100MHz
• Geforce 3 or Geforce 4 Ti (currently stuck with an MX440)
• Fast IDE disk or an SSD via an adapter

Although the original Xbox has much faster RAM and FSB, I'm curious if the Tualeron, more memory, faster GPU, and faster disk will make it a realistic competitor to the Xbox.

My twist on the build is that it will be AT form factor.

IIRC the 1.4 modded Xboxes were definitely Tualatins (not Tualeron, but full fledged 1.4GHz Tualatins) on a 370-495 adapter (custom made, unfortunately). Same goes for the Trusty models, from what I remember... unless he took the time to actually transplant a BGA495 1GHz chip (though that would be absolutely tough as nails to track down I think, let alone getting it soldered on the Xbox mainboard)

My guess is this is what it should look like:

-440BX AT mainboard (this would match the first two Xbox revisions - the 1.0 and the 1.1.)
-1.1GHz Coppermine (or Tualatin, your choice.)
-I'd limit to around 256MB of RAM, as most of the games that were released on the Xbox would probably not need more than 256MB anyways (even Ford Racing 2 and 3 work fine with that amount, and I have a slightly lower spec'd machine than the OG Xbox which manages to run FR2 and 3 rather flawlessly.)
-Geforce 4 Ti should be enough. I'm not fully sure but I think the NV3A chipset, while derived from the GF3 (not sure if Ti but I guess that's a possibility), is closer in performance to at least the lowest GF4 Ti in the series (what was it, the 4200?) or a higher end GF4 MX (440 w/ fast RAM or even a 460.)
-SSD would be a commodity thing though for safety of mind and not having to deal with no TRIM whatsoever, I'd choose a quick 7200RPM IDE drive - if the mobo allows HDDs up to 137GB, a fast 40GB or 80GB HDD should suffice.

Anyways, to answer the topic - I have about three Xboxes. A black 1.1 that's chipped (Xecuter 2 Lite I think, it's far more advanced than the average Aladdin chip I can give you that much.) which came with a 120GB HDD already, as well as a Samsung DVD drive (which I might have to re-belt, assuming I can find one that's just as good as the one I used to refurbish my ABIT build's MSI DVD-RW drive), a TSOP'd 1.4 (EvoX M8) which is half blue half black, has a 160GB Seagate (that I might replace since it takes too much to initialize - it's a DVR drive and has a stupidly long seek process that makes the Xbox time-out - it really does that from the factory) and a Samsung DVD drive as well (which also needs a new belt) and finally, a crystal 1.4 which is also TSOP'd (iND-BIOS 5004.67), has a 250GB WD Caviar Blue WD2500AAJB and a rather nice and smooth Philips DVD-ROM (which as opposed to what people said, it's actually as reliable as Samsung and Hitachi drives!). The two 1.4s run XBMC as their dash, while the 1.1 retains the original EvoX that was installed in there.

Also, all of them sport ASUS 80pin IDE cables. Royal PITA to get them in but goodness gracious the speeds are absolutely insane. I'm not even kidding - it makes XDSL+98Lite run actually acceptable on a stock 64MB'd Xbox.

I actually have a few Tualatin interpolator boards and I have a CPU ready to go. Additionally I have a modchip, new in packaging. All I'm missing is an OG XBox!

I'd also like to do the RAM mod. I plan to use it for XBox gaming but also coinops or whatever the modern equivalent is. In fact I do have a couple spare Tualatin interpolator boards if anyone is in need. I think I have three or four spares.

PcBytes wrote on 2022-09-05, 09:14:

-440BX AT mainboard (this would match the first two Xbox revisions - the 1.0 and the 1.1.)

How? The Xbox uses an nvidia chipset...

Oetker wrote on 2022-09-05, 09:31:

PcBytes wrote on 2022-09-05, 09:14:

-440BX AT mainboard (this would match the first two Xbox revisions - the 1.0 and the 1.1.)

How? The Xbox uses an nvidia chipset...

The 440BX would be the closest to get a stable machine. I wouldn't really trust a 815 or 820 mainboard (as that's what some of the Alpha dev machines were, if I remember correctly) to be as good as a 440BX, which can do most of the stuff 815 and 820 can.

Also, the 1.0 and 1.1 used AT-styled (though not AT compatible) power connectors. Only by rev 1.2 onwards they started using ATX plugs (though you still have to do some tweaking to get a standard PC ATX PSU to work with them)

It will be difficult replicating if you are going with a 440BX, but don't forget about the Xbox's awesome SoundStorm audio. Nvidia later put this into their chipsets at the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoundStorm

440BX can be safely overclocked if anything - just look at most of the enthusiast mainboard manufacturers like ABIT, MSI and Gigabyte. ABIT wouldn't have advertised the BX133-RAID (which is more or less a souped-up BE6-II rev2 w/ socket 370 instead of Slot1) as being 133 compliant if it wouldn't run stable, would they?

VIA's chipsets are either troublesome or slow, and i815 has a 512MB limitation, as well as no ISA compatibility. 440BX would fit as it's both fast and offers native ISA, which is a plus in order to achieve a quality as high as Soundstorm (which I suppose a good Sound Blaster or Yamaha card could manage) and also offer MIDI support as a plus.

SScorpio wrote on 2022-09-05, 12:52:

It will be difficult replicating if you are going with a 440BX, but don't forget about the Xbox's awesome SoundStorm audio. Nvidia later put this into their chipsets at the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoundStorm

It almost sounds like this attempt should be athlon based…. Nforce chipset. Soubdstorm audio.

Most programs don’t care what cpu it is as long as it is fast enough. But which chipset and sound card… that it may care about..

I'm fairly sure they don't care about soundcard or chipset.

I mean if I can pull Ford Racing 2 and 3 on a 440BX mobo, it's just a matter of matching the parts that the OG Xbox had, more or less.

Keep in mind, most of the games in the Xbox library have already received PC ports for the most part. Yes, this includes Munch's Oddysee and Stranger's Wrath.

The only issue I'd see here is that if for whatever reason, someone would want to do an nForce based machine - it has to be at least a nF4 SLi or 680i as a minimum. This is because at least Munch and Stranger's ports are both made in 2010, and I am not sure these would run on anything older than at least a Core 2 Duo + Geforce 7 (or 8 series) GPU as a minimum.

That, and nForce 2 would be immediately out of question in the case above - most of the newer ports (2007 onwards) very likely require SSE2, which as far as I know, wasn't implemented until the Athlon 64 series.