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[Xbox-Scene]

EurAsia interview with the xKey developer Posted by XanTium | July 1 22:37 EST | News Category: Xbox360

From eurasia.nu: While waiting anxiously for this truly unique product to release I got the opportunity to interview the xKey (aka x360Key) main developer. Here's a brief recap for our new visitors; this product will let you play all your Xbox 360 games from any USB drive! * What products have the xKey Team developed in the past? * XKey, Wode, Wiikey, Drivekey, d2pro, xenoGC, Qoob, Crystal Chip, Aladdin XT/XenoFX series mod chips for Xbox 1. * Will xKey work with all Xbox 360 consoles, including Slim? * Yes and as new drive versions appear we will add support for them too. * How do you install xKey, is it easy? * Very easy, it's Plug 'n' Play, if you can dump the firmware from your drive then you can install the Xkey. * Does the Xbox 360 DVD drive need any custom firmware flashed to work with Xkey? * No, quite the opposite in fact. You need a dump of the original drive firmware to configure Xkey. The good news is that's all you need to configure Xkey. * How safe is xKey on Xbox Live compared to iXtreme? * While we take every care to accurately emulate the XBox's drive we do not recommend using Xkey with XBL at launch. Shortly after launch we will release updates that address this. Also, plenty of people have been banned while using CFW and there are still issues even with the latest iXtreme. For example, in order to pass the new Slim FW checks a lot of data has to be swapped around (C4E's so called 'rootkit'). This takes time and the checks take a lot longer to perform than they would on a stock drive. In the worst case it takes CFW takes 5 times longer to perform the check (15 seconds instead of 2-3). If MS have noticed this then it is quite possible that every Slim owner using CFW has already been marked for a ban. [See timing graph for details.] By comparison Xkey features a powerful ARM9 CPU that can perform the FW checks *faster* than the real drive running stock FW. We have the horsepower & the storage capacity to handle anything the future brings. * How will the new XGD3 disc format (eg. Halo Reach) be handled by xKey, any special backup considerations? * We do not anticipate any problems with XGD3, game ISOs are stored on HDD and are not limited by the capacity of a DL DVDR. Xkey supports any number of HDDs upto 2 TB in size. Full Interview: eurasia.nu

[OzModChips]

I guess M$ could just add a line of code to check the timing of such checks and either block FW mods on slims or have to get things optimised. Will be interesting to see how he responds to this.

[chinmi]

so this gonna be the ultimate safe on xbox live solution then... wow....

damn i want one  

[tomgreen99200]

Interesting stuff. Cant wait to hear more.

[hollowtip]

I'm curious to see c4eva's response in regards to the alleged timing issues that have been outlined with his firmware.

[rwcottrell]

so if your already running say lt 1.9 you would have to flash back to stock to get this to work?

[LightningStruckMyXbox]

Was the 1.9 fw in those tests for the 9504 drive? I guess it makes sense that they would get a testing firmware from c4, but if they didnt that might explain the difference between whatever drive they used for LT+ 1.9 and the stock 9504. Im hoping the LT+ 1.9 tests were dont on the 9504 though, for sake of consistency. Otherwise you really couldn't trust the timings. Maybe different models take different amounts of time to respond.

I am interested in what c4 has to say and maybe what he can do about it. Glad to see some questions answered at least.

[bobasp1]

Wasn't the first 360 ban wave based on response timings from the 360 drive? If i remember it was optimized and ran quicker than the stock fw. So they banned em that way.

[Murc]

Thanks for the extra info.
I just pre-ordered mine.  

[ca102455]

So if timings really are that bad in LT+ wouldn't M$ have banned everyone by now?

[CelerionQ]

QUOTE(ca102455 @ Jul 2 2011, 01:36 PM)

So if timings really are that bad in LT+ wouldn't M$ have banned everyone by now?

It's only a problem for slims - and as you should know MS doesn't ban right away. You get flagged first and than banned in a big wave.

[pv3nomq]

"* How safe is xKey on Xbox Live compared to iXtreme?
 * While we take every care to accurately emulate the XBox's drive we do not recommend using Xkey with XBL at launch. Shortly after launch we will release updates that address this."


Impressive, BUT.... show me LIVE safe, and I'll show my money. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sleep.gif)

This post has been edited by pv3nomq: Jul 2 2011, 01:28 PM

[Jagosix]

Hello Fellow Gamers . If timing is an issue, why not just install the game to the hardrive and run it from there? I mean the X360 currently has that ability without the xkey? Wouldn't that also change the timing response? It cuts the load time way down.

[CelerionQ]

QUOTE(Jagosix @ Jul 2 2011, 02:33 PM)

Hello Fellow Gamers (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif). If timing is an issue, why not just install the game to the hardrive and run it from there? I mean the X360 currently has that ability without the xkey? Wouldn't that also change the timing response? It cuts the load time way down.

The checks will always be performed against the drive, it makes no difference if you install the game to the harddisk.

[juggahax0r]

Obviously c4 and Team-x are not going to be very happy about this. However they are not the first ones to point this out. C4eva didn't have anything to say about the first time it was brought up , I wouldn't expect it now.