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[GerbilJammer]

It is amazing to see people whine about something that was tacked on almost last minute. Emulation itself is not an easy task. I am sure MS is plugging away. Manpower = money. I am sure they will not spend billions. Hell, Barbie Horse Adventureas is probably on there because it is Bill Gates favorite game.

[KAGE360]

the 3 games added aside there have been performance improvements on the fallowing games:

Darkwatch
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Half-Life 2
Fable
Fable: The Lost Chapters
Forza Motorsport
Ninja Gaiden
Ninja Gaiden Black
SSX 3
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Chaos Theory
kill.switch
World Series Baseball 2K3

http://www.joystiq.c...box-360-backwa/

so there we go, now we know what they did all that time.  looks good to me, again fewer higher quality emus are better then many buggy/crappy ones

[krawhitham]

I would like to see MVP Baseball 2005 since Take2 owns all the rights to MLB games (3rd party) so unless MS makes a baseball game all the 360 will have is Take2 and they have never made a good baseball game yet

[Foe-hammer]

QUOTE(dmitri @ Mar 30 2006, 11:07 AM)

Why are you guys crying so much?  It's in MS's best interest to sell NEW games.  Rally Sport 3, Burnout 360, etc..

1. At E3, MS said Xbox 360 would run the "top-selling Xbox games."
2. MS promised 200+(!!) games emulated

If you want to keep your full library, buy a PS3.  Don't expect anything more than was promised from MS.

 

Sony also said that the ps2 would be 100% compatible with the ps1, and it was not.  It will be the same with the ps3.  Your kidding yourself if you believe otherwise.  But it will be a lot better then the 360 backwards compatibility, because nothing will be emulated.

[KAGE360]

QUOTE(Foe-hammer @ Mar 30 2006, 04:59 PM)

Sony also said that the ps2 would be 100% compatible with the ps1, and it was not.  It will be the same with the ps3.  Your kidding yourself if you believe otherwise.  But it will be a lot better then the 360 backwards compatibility, because nothing will be emulated.

how is it not being emulated?  im not argueing but im confused on how they are achieving BC on the ps3.  the ps2 had ps1 parts in it to make BC work but i didnt read anything about that in the ps3.  with the nvidia GPU and cell chip isnt that entirely different then the emotion engine so emulation is a must?  

also while talking about compatibility and sony, only that company will release a revised version of their already existing console that wont even work on some ps2 games!  the newest version of the ps2 (silver verion i think) can not play even some new games like the newest tekken to be or already released.

[twistedsymphony]

QUOTE(Foe-hammer @ Mar 30 2006, 04:59 PM)

Sony also said that the ps2 would be 100% compatible with the ps1, and it was not.  It will be the same with the ps3.  Your kidding yourself if you believe otherwise.  But it will be a lot better then the 360 backwards compatibility, because nothing will be emulated.

very true, heck the newer version of the slim PS2 has compatibility problems with some older PS2 games... That's not even backwards compatibility, that's just.... compatibility  

[ximmortalxxkingx]

wow...almost 4 months in the making and they pull off 3 games.....how lame can you go.....great job m$  

[LVmOddER]

I updated my backwards compatible list today and it works great now. My forza motorsports now plays w/o frame rate issues. The only thing is that not all games have been updated yet.

[GeToChKn]

Well until the PS3 is actually out and plays ALL the PS2 and PS1 games ever made, it's not fair to compare the PS3 with the 360.  Second, with the latest versions of the PS2 (v14, v15) some PS2 games won't even play on the newest version of PS2's.  Hows that for compatibility?  You buy a PS2 and can't even play PS2 games on it.  At least the original XBox had a better record than that.

[twistedsymphony]

QUOTE(miggidy @ Mar 30 2006, 05:38 PM)

The thing that bothers me about this X360 BC "issue" (i use that term loosely),
is that Peter Moore said that they would continue emulating games on a game to game basis until they have one emulation engine that emulates every game.

So knowing that, "what's the hold up?" is the question that comes to my mind....
You figured if these cats can come up with specific game emulators, then they have the know-how needed to develope one Xbox emulator for most of their games. They've had more than enough time to do it....
The Xbox is still bringing in profit on the software end. And contrary to popular belief, M$ came out earlier this week and said that they have no plans of discontinuing Xbox production.
All this leads me to believe that M$ is afraid of releasing one common emulator.
Perhaps they fear that someone will pull that emulator and code it for use on PC's.
Such act would kill most of M$'s software sales and it would probably anger their 3rd party associates who still count on the regular Xbox for most of their revenue.
So game specific emulators makes perfect sense to M$ right now.
Maybe in a year or two, M$ will finally give us the ultimate Xbox emulator download.
I predict this will happen as early as the PS3 launch, or no later than next year.
Why this time frame? The release of both Sony's and Nintendo's next gen consoles will be the official end of the current console generation. Both consumers and software developers/publishers will focus on the next generation.

My 2 cents

...Except for the fact that they do have 1 common emulator and those things that you're downloading are nothing more then "profiles" that is to say it just a file with a bunch of settings in it that tell the ONE emulator how to set itself up for a particular game.

QUOTE(ximmortalxxkingx @ Mar 30 2006, 06:00 PM)

wow...almost 4 months in the making and they pull off 3 games.....how lame can you go.....great job m$  

For my money the 13 games that were on the list before and are now being emulated near flawlessly as opposed to barely playable is worth a whole lot more then 3 new games... IMO that means they added closer to 16.

[AbRASiON]

MS have shot themselves in the damned foot.
They have this strange initiative to make all the games run in 720p that are backwards compatible.  (so I hear)

ARGH, so some of these B/C games are going to look REALLY good because the Xbox really isn't that bad graphically, despite it's age.

So MS are kinda stuck, do they release something like jade empire which looks really quite nice at 4:3 480p so that it does 720p (pillarboxed, I would guess?) ?
Cause it's going to look GOOD - so good infact hell I might just play that rather than whatever else they've released.

I think it's nice of them, but stupid - for goodness sakes some of these B/C games have frame rate issues,... guess what fella's - you could solve some of that by just supporting 480p, like the Xbox 1 always did ,... then you're not wasting cpu / gpu cycles AND some of our games might work!
Don't promise what you can't keep, it's just pissed a lot of us off.

I know 720p is better than 480p but hell we originally played these games in 480p fine - I'd prefer 480p working myself  - 720p stuttering or  un-certified is useless to me.

[Jimmni]

It boggles the mind how little understanding there is about why the Xbox 360 isn't backwards compatible, but requires emulation. It's really pretty simple:

x86 vs PowerPC

The original Xbox used x86 CPU chips, such as those made by Intel and AMD. Pretty much all PCs contain x86 chips. It was natural for MS to use them, since they're what they have experience using and programming for.

The Xbox 360 has shifted over to PowerPC CPU chips. These are the same family of chips that have powered Apple Macintosh computers for, well, years. The Xbox 360, PS3 and Revolution will all use PowerPC chips.

There's a fundamental difference between PowerPC and x86 in how they deal with numbers. Anyone who wants to get into more technical detail should Google it.

The reason the Xbox 360 must resort to emulation is that the two chip types just aren't directly compatible. Every single instruction sent to the chip needs to be changed. Apple are facing the exact same problem going in the opposite direction - they're having to emulate many of the OS X apps that were programmed for PowerPC chips when they are run on the new Intel (x86) Macs. Unless MS stuck a whole Xbox in the 360's box, they have no choice but to emulate.

Sony and Nintendo don't have the same problem. It isn't as simple as just popping a GameCube disc in the drive of the Revolution, obviously, but since both the PS2 and GameCube used PowerPC chips, and since both the PS3 and Revolution use PowerPC chips (Cell comes under the PowerPC family) they don't have to do the same low-level translation that MS would need to do. They still have to do a lot of technical stuff that I certainly don't understand, but they aren't faced with the same massive obstacle that MS are.

Now, the emulator on the Xbox 360 would be totally useless on the PC. There is no way anyone would ever rip it off and twiddle it to work under Windows. Why? Because they'd have to emulate an emulator, and that's just plain silly. It would be like running PearPC on your Intel PC to emulate a PowerPC Mac and then running Virtual PC on that to emulate a Intel PC. There's a much better chance of getting PowerMac G5s running the Xbox emulator than a Windows PC.

And don't forget - it was Apple's PowerMac G5s that MS sent to developers of the Xbox 360, not Dell PCs. It's all in the chips.

[twistedsymphony]

QUOTE(AbRASiON @ Mar 31 2006, 05:08 AM)

MS have shot themselves in the damned foot.
They have this strange initiative to make all the games run in 720p that are backwards compatible.  (so I hear)

ARGH, so some of these B/C games are going to look REALLY good because the Xbox really isn't that bad graphically, despite it's age.

So MS are kinda stuck, do they release something like jade empire which looks really quite nice at 4:3 480p so that it does 720p (pillarboxed, I would guess?) ?
Cause it's going to look GOOD - so good infact hell I might just play that rather than whatever else they've released.

I think it's nice of them, but stupid - for goodness sakes some of these B/C games have frame rate issues,... guess what fella's - you could solve some of that by just supporting 480p, like the Xbox 1 always did ,... then you're not wasting cpu / gpu cycles AND some of our games might work!
Don't promise what you can't keep, it's just pissed a lot of us off.

I know 720p is better than 480p but hell we originally played these games in 480p fine - I'd prefer 480p working myself  - 720p stuttering or  un-certified is useless to me.

Well the 360 doesn't actually render the games at a higher resolution it simply scales them, the scaler chip is external to the CPU and GPU so scaling something to 720p doesn't cost them anything... Basically you'd probably see the same frame rate issues at 480p that you see at 720p.

4xMSAA costs a little more but not so much that it would eliminate your frame rate issues if they removed it, and without it games would probably look worse then on an Xbox 1 after being scalled

[KAGE360]

QUOTE(Jimmni @ Mar 31 2006, 11:17 AM)

Sony and Nintendo don't have the same problem. It isn't as simple as just popping a GameCube disc in the drive of the Revolution, obviously, but since both the PS2 and GameCube used PowerPC chips, and since both the PS3 and Revolution use PowerPC chips (Cell comes under the PowerPC family) they don't have to do the same low-level translation that MS would need to do. They still have to do a lot of technical stuff that I certainly don't understand, but they aren't faced with the same massive obstacle that MS are.

since when has the ps2 used a powerPC chip?  i thought the emotion engine was developed by toshiba.  also the problem mainly comes from the different GPUs not CPUs.  converting/emulating code from one CPU to another is far easier then to emulate code specifically made for a GPU.  the technology and methods used in both Nvidia and ATI cards are different and through the emulation, the code must make the ATI card act like an Nvidia card.  

QUOTE(twistedsymphony @ Mar 31 2006, 12:09 PM)

Well the 360 doesn't actually render the games at a higher resolution it simply scales them, the scaler chip is external to the CPU and GPU so scaling something to 720p doesn't cost them anything... Basically you'd probably see the same frame rate issues at 480p that you see at 720p.

4xMSAA costs a little more but not so much that it would eliminate your frame rate issues if they removed it, and without it games would probably look worse then on an Xbox 1 after being scalled

exactly what i was going to tell the guy.  also i find it stupid for anyone to say any company is shooting themselves in the foot by giving us more then what we expected.  

while were talking about BC and 720p there is something that is confusing me.  i thought 720p was widescreen only, but some games (halo for ex.) does not display in full widescreen format, so does that mean that it isnt being properly scaled to 720p?

and to all those who still choose to complain and bitch, like twisted and i have said, not only have they added 3 games but have also improved on 13 existing games.  i have already read reports that once buggy games like forza work fine now, which is great news to those of us who love the game to this day.  

[twistedsymphony]

QUOTE(KAGE360 @ Mar 31 2006, 01:13 PM)

...exactly what i was going to tell the guy.  also i find it stupid for anyone to say any company is shooting themselves in the foot by giving us more then what we expected. ...

Meh most of our posts just go unread, Someone gets the idea in their head that "M$ SuX" and no matter what the news is the glass is always half empty...

IMO anyone who's responding with "Only three games!" probably doesn't care about the emulator is just looking for something to complain about. Anyone who really cared would be more excited about the improved capability of existing games. Or at least complain about the particular games they want that still arn't compatible.