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Author Topic: Instant Boot Bios?  (Read 146 times)

edwardar

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Instant Boot Bios?
« on: April 30, 2010, 12:50:00 PM »
I'm interested in the same thing. I currently use 2 (switchable) bioses on my xbox:

X2 5035 - I need this for forcing 480p in games. Unfortunately it loads the "x2config.ini" file from the hard drive before starting up. This adds a short delay to the boot time.

X2 4891 - this is the fastest bios I know of. You can use xbtool to remove all startup animations and logos, and there's not blue screen.

Of course, neither is open source though!

I think boot time is a massively overlooked aspect of the xbox. It's what makes the xbox so easy and convenient to use compared to a PC. Also, it's great for xbox-based MAME arcade machines - you can have the xbox boot direct to Coinops in a matter of seconds, with nothing displayed on screen during boot.

I hope to try a SSD drive in my xbox when the prices comes down enough (probably a few years away yet!) - that should effectively eliminate seek time, which should help even more.
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kronflux

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Instant Boot Bios?
« Reply #1 on: April 30, 2010, 01:26:00 PM »
I couldn't agree more. it's the major reason I use an xbox as opposed to a pc. because it's smaller, and more convenient in many ways. I eventually plan to upgrade the ram and possibly processor in my machine. I also use a switch to go between two bios, one of which is stock bios, and the other is ind-bios.
I'll look into X2 4891, but any other suggestions from anyone are greatly appreciated. and as I said before, open source would be nice too, because then I -know- whats going into my bios, and I can possibly get the best boot time out of it.
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xboxmods2977

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Instant Boot Bios?
« Reply #2 on: May 02, 2010, 01:02:00 AM »
Ya know? As old as the xbox is now, I am surprised no one has written an open-source bios for the box.
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ldotsfan

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Instant Boot Bios?
« Reply #3 on: May 02, 2010, 09:14:00 AM »
QUOTE(xboxmods2977 @ May 2 2010, 03:02 PM) View Post

Ya know? As old as the xbox is now, I am surprised no one has written an open-source bios for the box.

Cromwell Bios.
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ldotsfan

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Instant Boot Bios?
« Reply #4 on: May 02, 2010, 09:35:00 AM »
QUOTE(kronflux @ May 2 2010, 11:20 PM) View Post

does it boot regular XBE's? I seem to remember one of the bios images out there stictly being used to boot linux, and cromwell sounds familiar.
how fast is it to begin with?

No, only Linux XBE's. I have an idea, to modify http://xbox-linux.cv...amp;view=markup to use HalReturnToFirmware to boot regular XBE. http://forums.xbox-s...&...t&p=4637159. But my x86 assembly language is not up to par to attempt the task.

EDIT: Ignore the suggestion, Cromwell doesn't implement HalReturnToFirmware since that is M$ code.
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xboxmods2977

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Instant Boot Bios?
« Reply #5 on: May 02, 2010, 12:40:00 PM »
QUOTE(ldotsfan @ May 2 2010, 05:14 PM) View Post

Cromwell Bios.

DUH.

I meant open source bios that would not lock the user to linux, and what I'm sure the O.P. also meant.
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