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[Textbook]

Tried the method mentioned above as well as launching PBL after NKPatcher has already loaded.  There was no difference between either of them, both mehods did the same thing.  Using my Component cable hooked up to my TV (green, but I can still see) it is in fact loading the iND-BIOS VGA BFM correctly.  When hooked up to my monitor, I get "OUT OF RANGE" errors though.  I followed leeloo5's guide for making my cable, in which he jumped the switch 2 and switch 3, which makes it HD mode.  I will try following JaredC01's guide and make it jump switch 1 and 3 instead and see if that will make a difference.  BTW, thanks for the help kingroach.  No matter what it is that I'm doing on here, you always seem to come to the rescue, lol.  I appreciate that greatly and don't know where I'd be without your continuous help.

[Textbook]

Ok, this is weird.  After much testing, I'm confused.  Like I said in my previous post, I attempted using the PBL to launch the iND VGA Bios and that would be set to boot into XBMC, an app that has the most VGA compatibility.  Well, using a Component cable and composite cable with my TV, I can see that the BIOS is in fact loading, because it says loading iND Bios.  So I have no idea why this is not working.  Everytime I hook it up to my monitor it says "Out of Range".

Second round of the iND VGA Bios test.  The way it was meant to be used, with a hardmod.  I flashed my TSOP using the VGA Bios and set it to boot to XBMC.  This should be guaranteed to work, so many people have done this, and it says that it's mainly for Conexant chips.  Everybody with VGA uses this BIOS and love it.  Same exact results as if I had launched it through the PBL.  Still out of range on my monitor and still green on my TV using both component and composite.  Reading a little bit in the iND VGA Bios thread, it sounds like the BIOS *should* have A/V video cable autodetection, and switch to the correct video mode.  Using this, it would recognize that I have a composite cable hooked up and turn VGA mode off.  But this doesn't even seem to be working.  At this point, it seems more like either a BIOS problem or a problem with my VGA cable.  Both problems seem sketchy though, because MANY people have had success with the iND VGA Bios and my VGA cable is outputting signals using dr oldschool's patch (even though it's red, it's working)

Summary for anybody who cares:

QUOTE

made the vga cable by using HDTV video mode (switch 2 and 3 / pins 11+12 and 13+14).  used the lm1881 sync separator circuit, because my monitor is not sync on green.

initially tried using it with no VGA patch whatsoever.  Everything is green, but it seems to be displaying fine.

used dr oldschools's VGA patch version 6 with NKPatcher.  Corrects some colors, no more green, but dark blacks are displayed as bright reds.  Later read and discover that Conexant encoders aren't working with version 6 and dr oldschool has no idea why.

realizing the iND VGA Bios works great for Conexant, I download it from the usual places, and use PBL to load the BFM version of the Bios.  Loads up fine, but my monitor says out of range.

Still determined, I flash my TSOP to the iND VGA Bios (hardmod, should work perfectly).  I get the same result as when I launched it through PBL.  Monitor says out of range.

Tested with my CMV 19" TTF LCD and an Emachines 17" CRT.  Both are not working with the iND Bios.

Tested by switching to VGA video mode (switch 1 and 3 / pins 9+10 and 13+14) instead of the HD mode, still didn't work

For the other people in this thread with the v1.0 Conexants, try the above mentioned method of using PBL-Lite and loading the iND BFM VGA Bios.  Please tell me if this works for you.

[Textbook]

Ok, I found out it wasn't working with the iND BIOS because of my cable.  The resistance was too high.  Lowered it to 470K ohm and it is now in range.  So launching the iND 5001 VGA BFM through PBL-Lite will work.  Of course, this wasn't dr oldschools intention in the first place, as he wanted it to be integrated right into NKPatcher.  At least I have an easy method of switching to VGA mode or keeping NKPatcher/normal mode.

[fghjj]

I unpacked and disassembled both iND 5001 bioses with and without junkmonkey's VGA patch to check on the differences... they seem minimal.

When I finish my stuff next week, I will check back, and maybe some assembly geek (or better dr_oldschool ) can help me out and we can see what exactly it is doing and update NKpatcher.

Offcourse if Textbook is willing to do some more testing

[Textbook]

Of course I would be willing to test it out!  Although it would kind of have to be a full release (xbe) or somebody else would have to show me how to patch using the diff.  I don't know how, so that may be a problem.  Either way, I'm willing to test it out.

[Textbook]

Ok, did a little bit more testing.  After fixing my VGA cable, I decided to test out dr oldschool's patch again.  On my LCD, I'm still getting the bright red on dark blacks.  On my CRT, it's the exact opposite.  I get dark blacks on reds.  Very weird.  Also, sometimes the screen will "flash" on random things, and only during random views.  Like, for instance, Avalaunch would flash almost all the time.  XBMC hardly ever flashes.  Within  XBMC, I tried playing a couple videos.  Video one plays fine, no flashing.  Video 2 is flashing.  Video 3 plays fine, no flashing.  Go back to video 2 and it plays fine, no flashing.  Very weird that it was flashing before and not the second time, didn't restart or do anything actually, just played a different video. It appears this is happening globally, because it would decide if it wanted to flash or not even in games or in XBMC itself (one time).  Not sure what the problem is with the flashing, but it's obvious the reds and blacks are messed up.

[dr_oldschool]

Just a thought regarding Conexant issue.
Do 1.0 and 1.1 xboxes work with newer retail bioses, like 5530, 5713 or 5838?

If yes, then it would be interesting to try nkpatcher vga on 1.0 or 1.1 box with these bios versions.

[Textbook]

I'm all for the cause, and I have a modchip, so I may just do some testing later on tonight or tomorrow.  I'll report back on these retail BIOSes.

[Textbook]

Ok, I told you I would do anything I could to see that this is successful, and that's what I'm doing.  I installed my chip in my 1.0 NTSC and programmed it with Retail 5530.  FRAG.  Chip and install both tested to see if all was good, so I know it was the BIOS.  Take out chip, program to Retail 5713.  FRAG.  Take out the chip, program to Retail 5838. FRAG.  Just for another test, I take out the chip, program to Retail 4034, and it works (no surprise there, it's the same thing I have on my TSOP).  Well, to answer your question, v1.0 will not work with the newer BIOSes, so look for another option.

@fghjj, still waiting on any progress you might have made.  Perhaps you and dr oldschool could get together on IRC or through email or PMs here and work together, discussing ideas and possible problems/solutions.  Glad to see dr oldschool hasn't left this project dead.  I'm still hoping you can get this working, so give me a couple more tests.

[veeper]

Are you able to use high resolutions like 720p with vga-mode?

[jjm]

Thanks very much.
The Vga7 does worked perfect in my 1.0 XBOX.
vga6 is red.
My XBOX is 4034, I try to use 5838 , can not boot.
by the way how to use retail bfm bios? I use PBL 1.4 doesn't work.

[Textbook]

QUOTE(jjm @ May 9 2006, 10:13 PM)

Thanks very much.
The Vga7 does worked perfect in my 1.0 XBOX.
vga6 is red.
My XBOX is 4034, I try to use 5838 , can not boot.
by the way how to use retail bfm bios? I use PBL 1.4 doesn't work.

I was hesitant to try the Vga7 patch for a while, because so many people said it caused a black screen on boot up.  I just assumed that there was something wrong with the diff patch.  Dr Oldschool said the code looked good, so he couldn't understand why it was crashing on people.  Then, jjm says it works fine.  So now we got a few people saying it crashes, but one person is saying it works great.  Because of jjm, I decide to test it out.  Great job Dr Oldschool!  It works on my v1.0 NTSC Xbox!  With v6 of the patch, I was getting the reds and blacks just like jjm and others.  With v7, all the colors are fixed.  I did find one problem though.  For some reason it seems the screen is slightly offset.  To me, it was too far to the left and a little high.  I had to adjust the horizontal and vertical levels on my monitor.  Default is 50/50.  + moves to the right/up, - moves to the left/down.  By just eyeballing it, it seemed like Horizontal 57 and Vertical 45 centers the screen up the best.  Were you getting that too jjm?  Any ideas why Dr Oldschool?

[Textbook]

For people with Conexant Xboxes:

Downloads

1.  Download NKPatcher 10: HERE

2.  Download Dr Oldschool's Vga7 diff patch: HERE (RIGHT-CLICK, SAVE AS)

3.  Download Cygwin: HERE

4.  Download Patch application: HERE

5.  Download NASM (Netwide Assembler): HERE

6.  Download xbedump: HERE

Install/Prep

1.  Install Cygwin to the root of your C: drive (default installation)

2.  Move patch.exe to C:\cygwin\bin\.

4.  Open nkpatcher10.zip and extract the nkpatcher10 folder.  Move this folder to the root of your C: drive.

5.  Move xbedump.exe to C:\nkpatcher10\src\.

6.  Move nasm.exe to C:\nkpatcher10\src\.

7.  Move nkpatcher10-vga7.diff.gz to the root of your C: drive.

Patching NKPatcher

1.  Run Cygwin from your Start Menu, All Programs, Cygwin

2.  Type the following:

CODE

cd C:\nkpatcher10
zcat ../nkpatcher10-vga7.diff.gz | patch -p1

If it is successful, it should return...

QUOTE

patching file 'readme.txt'
patching file 'src/config.inc'
patching file 'src/nkpatcher.asm'

3.  Close out of Cygwin.

4.  Navigate to C:\nkpatcher10\src and open up the config.inc in notepad.

Change this:

CODE

;;; Dashboard path

%define DASHBOARD_PATH '\Device\Harddisk0\Partition2\evoxdash.xbe'

Edit it to point to your default dashboard location.  For most softmods, it will be one of two things:

if your default dash is located in E:\Dash\default.xbe

CODE

;;; Dashboard path

%define DASHBOARD_PATH '\Device\Harddisk0\Partition1\Dash\default.xbe'

if your default dash is located in E:\Dashboard\default.xbe

CODE

;;; Dashboard path

%define DASHBOARD_PATH '\Device\Harddisk0\Partition1\Dashboard\default.xbe'

Also, you will probably want to enable FORCE RGB and FORCE 480P.

Change this:

CODE

; %define VIDEO_FORCE_RGB
; %define VIDEO_FORCE_PROGRESSIVE

to:

CODE

%define VIDEO_FORCE_RGB
%define VIDEO_FORCE_PROGRESSIVE

Remember to Save your Config.inc file.

5.  Go to Start, Run, type cmd to bring up the command prompt.  Type the following:

CODE

cd C:\nkpatcher10\src
nasm -o default.xbe xboxapp.asm
xbedump default.xbe -habibi

6.  Navigate to C:\nkpatcher10\src\ and find the file named out.xbe.  FTP this to your Xbox.

[veeper]

Wow, that last post is what I will need when I get my vga-cable ready, although I'm unshure about switching from chip to softmod...
The RGB and Force480p should be more compatible than any VGA-BIOS, right? Wondering wether it will a) fix the 'dirty disc/ wrong region' issue and B) if it will work with VGA-mode set?

[veeper]

Another question here... no idea why the edit button disappeared, though.

Would it be possible to make HDTV and VGA work simultaniously:
If the cable uses HDTV-mode, enabling 480p will force anything progressive, but not enabling will output interlaced while color is YUV.
If the cable uses VGA-mode, 480p is always forced, regardless of the dashboard-options, since it targets non-interlaced monitors, and color is RGB. Ideally this would work with 720p as well.