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[blissbeats]

1st off let me say I read the review and I think I still want to get one of these awesome chips!!

However I was left with a ?uestion:

If this OS is going to load everytime ..... is that gonna be my dashboard.  Don't get me wrong I think it's a great OS from what I've seen but what about Avalaunch and EVOX!!  I mean this really doesn't leave a lot of room to make your XBOX unique to you.  Alot of folks  mod there xbox from top to bottom.  I would somewhat like a choice of which dash I wanna run (even though there aren't that many stable ones).  I'm still new to all this so I may be asking a totally pointless ?uestion but hey ... that's what learnings about!!


PROPS TO OzXodus!!!! and the whole XBOX MOD COMMUNTIY!!

[xboxistheshiznit]

the OS on the chip is a huge turn off for me. i dont think im going to be upgrading my chameleon for this chip. personaly i love mode 4 on it, and i dont mind dip switches that much cause with mode 4 you really dont need to mess with em.

[Puckster069]

Yea I'm gonna have to agree... the whole XeniumOS is a real turn off to me too, ecspecially since you are forced to boot to it first everytime... yea I know you can set it to boot to a certain bios by pushing a controller button, but still.... let me have control of the full 2MB If I dont want the OS I shouldn't have to sacrifice half my chip for it, and if it is great... well fine then I will probably use it.  But the choice should be left to the consumer 100%, not by others.

[Corvo]

The XeniumOS can be set to wait a specified amount of seconds (let's say 3 or so) and then boot a specified BIOS.
You can probably intervene this delay by using the gamepad and select a different BIOS, or do something else (whatever the XeniumOS has to offer).

It's very much just a like a PC BIOS which starts, does a few things (delay) and then finally has prepped your PC and starts loading the OS.

That's how I see the XeniumOS works.. it's just like a BIOS Menu in a PC.
And after the XeniumOS has done it's thing, the "real OS" a.k.a. dashboard is loaded.



I think going software based, like this, is a good thing. And indeed a good reason to call it 4th generation.
And then to think a LCD can be hooked up.. *yum* (using SPI, in the future)

I do wonder what the XeniumOS looks like... I'd actually like some screenshots of it.

EDIT:
I found an image...:

Doesn't look that bad though.

[jokk]

didn't you read it was a beta XeniumOS ?
I'm almost sure they won't release it as it is now, best way would be to always load a certain bios AND if you press a combo it boots on XeniumOS. Or maybe pushing power will directly boot your bios, pushing it for 3sec will boot XeniumOS, eject will disable the mod. Imo that would be the best configuration

[Corvo]

Although I doubt they will change it...
If I could choose out of your options, I'd go for the first: Boot with a specified BIOS bank and if needed boot XeniumOS when a button combo is pressed.
That actually sounds pretty good too

[Vric]

QUOTE (xboxistheshiznit @ Jan 7 2004, 07:45 AM)

the OS on the chip is a huge turn off for me.

yea I think it's weird..

it's a nice feature, but booting everythime is a bit pain.. We don't really need a second dashboard..

but, if you can make the timeout at 1 seconds, then you probably wont see anything.

I think everything was made on modchip now, and teams don't really know what to add to release a new chips.. it's more gadget than anything.. but the selectable bank is a nice feature (but how many switch bank everytime here ?   )

[Flagg3]

Ace25,

I agree with you.  Just the other day I tried to install the last of my Chameleons that I had pre-ordered at $25 apiece when it was first anounced, and it was dead!  

I will probably still replace it with a Xenium, but I am disappointed that while there are many great upgrades, in some respects it is a step back from the Chameleon.  

I can understand the logic behind the OS, but I really, really loved using the P/E combo for boot selection,  and I wish it was still an option on the Xenium.  Unfortunately, the way the Xenium is designed, it MUST boot to the XeniumOS first.

The reason you can't set it to default to a specific BIOS and only load the XeniumOS if you hit a button combo is because the xbox can't detect the button press without the XeniumOS already loaded!  

Now, if they had included connections for the P/E wires, then you could have easily set it to boot say bank 0 when you push Power, bank 1 when you push eject, and maybe load XeniumOS when you pushed Power and Eject together.  

Of course, there are benefits to moving the BIOS selection onto the Xenium OS.  On the Chameleon, the P/E wires were being soldered directly onto resistors, not solder pads.  This means that you had to be alot more careful when soldering them on, and I'm sure that alot of people with marginal soldering skills damaged their boxes using these wires.  

Additionally, using the XeniumOS allows for many more possible boot combinations then you could have when using the P/E wires.  So in that respect, it is an upgrade as well.  So while it will add to the boot time, I'm hoping that with the minimum delay selected that it won't add more than a couple of seconds to the boot time.

I am surprised that they reserved an entire meg for the Xenium OS however.  That would lead me to believe that they plan to add ALOT of new features to it in the future.  Still it would be nice if this was user configurable as well.  

All in all, I feel that the benefits will far outweigh the negatives, and I'm hoping to get one soon so I can try it for myself.  

Flagg

[Bicster]

XeniumOS seems like a great idea to me.  Big deal, a few extra seconds of boot time.  Turn off the flubber animation and that'll help.  It's not a dashboard, it's a boot manager.  Being able to recover a hosed eeprom from this is great.  The Xecuter chips are nice, but the switches clutter up the front of the box slightly, and it's difficult to see which BIOS you've selected from a distance unless you modify the colors or something.  And there's never a need to mess with USB or route wires outside your xbox.  I tried a Chameleon chip that turned out to be one of the non-flashable "fakes," so I can't comment on that one...

[Artifex]

QUOTE (Arakon @ Jan 8 2004, 03:33 AM)

there should be an option to disable xeniumOS.. i.e. activate it only if you hold a button on boot. otherwise it'll slow things down too much.. if I want to pop a game in, I want to play, not go through a menu first.. or a game off HD, even 2 menus.

From what I understand...  You set a delay in the configuration.  Then, at bootup, it waits this period of time for you to press a button, and if the specified time passes it will boot into the default bios.

I've also heard that this delay is configurable to be anything from as high as 30 or 60 seconds, to as low as 0 seconds.  I'm guessing that this means that the concerns over a bootup delay are minimal.

[|Seraphim|]

the XeniumOS im sure has its ups and downs, but id really say it depends on your level of experience etc. For the newbie for example, the xeniumOS might be very helpful, along with the backup BIOS etc..But for the more experienced gamer it might be seen as a waste of time and an annoyance even. I guess it just depends on where you are and if you see a use for it.

[Contract_Killer]

[gOoBaLL]

QUOTE (Flagg3 @ Jan 8 2004, 06:50 PM)

If the delay could really be lowered to 0 seconds, how would you ever get back into the XeniumOS again?  Flagg

QUOTE

If the delay could really be lowered to 0 seconds, how would you ever get back into the XeniumOS again?  Flagg

One way would be to hold down e.g. X as soon as you hold turn on the xbox. If XoS detects the button it will start, otherwise it would load the default bios. Ok, technically you can't make it 0seconds, but you could make it 1ms it would be the same to the human brain.

Or, my preferred way, would be to make XeniumOS only boot if you e.g. hold the eject button for a few seconds; otherwise the default bios will load. But I guess XoS is the thing remembering the default BIOS so it all gets a bit murky... in any case, that's still a delay, just in a different spot :/.

[Xeero]

QUOTE (Ace25 @ Jan 8 2004, 05:02 PM)

they pay me $150 for my labor

 

[Puckster069]

Shit dude 150.00 for labor?