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Chihiro Xbox Bios Dumped
Posted by XanTium | October 13 09:56 EST | News Category: Xbox

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Alex dumped the Chihiro Xbox (Arcade version of Xbox1) BIOS on his blog:

Quote

Hi Folks
As promissed, chihiro xbox bios dump

Thanks to those guys to make this dump possible

Notice that i previously dumped the rest of the Chihiro Flashes, more info on this link.

Full Story: amusements-shop.com (via eurasia.nu)

sorry the noobish, but, what da hell is this meant for?

since when was there an arcade xbox1

For the folks who are saying, "What's this?", read here: http://en.wikipedia....ro#Sega_Chihiro

more memory...this means XBMC could run 720p? or 1080p?

QUOTE(hfmls @ Oct 13 2009, 10:33 AM)

more memory...this means XBMC could run 720p? or 1080p?

720p maybe but not sure if the GPU is up to doing 1080p.

nice one im doing this 720p for the win

In order to run XBMC, wouldn't that mean the chihiro bios would need to be modified first? Or would certain aspects of this bios be implemented into others such as xecuter?

Also, would adding 512 of RAM really have that much better performance over 720P vs the 128 hack or std. 64?

IDK, I guess I don't really see the pure benefit of this. Obviously, couldn't the current xbox1 hacked bioss already add in their own support of 512 ram?

This sounds really kool. 720p on my xbox1 with XBMC would be really kool. It would make it so much better. Like a whole new console. I would def use it a lot more. I haven't been using it as much lately but i still love it. I know this would require soldering on 512 modules of RAM plus this Chihiro thing (which i have never heard of). Could someone post a tutorial or a link on how this will all work. Would be interesting to have a look. Thanks

For the noobs, the purpose of dumping this BIOS is to eventually emulate this system and games on a home PC.

I don't imagine this will happen anytime soon, as we don't even have decent Xbox emulators yet.

For those interested, here is a pic to what the hardware looks like, as well as the known games running on that hardware.

http://www.system16....ware.php?id=729

Instead of Chihiro they should have called this X-Cast, or Dreambox

QUOTE(hfmls @ Oct 13 2009, 10:33 AM)

more memory...this means XBMC could run 720p? or 1080p?

QUOTE(turbocrow @ Oct 13 2009, 12:50 PM)

nice one im doing this 720p for the win

NO!

QUOTE(sven37 @ Oct 13 2009, 02:10 PM)

Obviously, couldn't the current xbox1 hacked bioss already add in their own support of 512 ram?

Right. If the Xbox1 motherboard supported larger memory modules, someone would have done it already.

QUOTE(tomgreen99200 @ Oct 13 2009, 02:12 PM)

This sounds really kool. 720p on my xbox1 with XBMC would be really kool. It would make it so much better. Like a whole new console. I would def use it a lot more. I haven't been using it as much lately but i still love it. I know this would require soldering on 512 modules of RAM plus this Chihiro thing (which i have never heard of). Could someone post a tutorial or a link on how this will all work. Would be interesting to have a look. Thanks

For everyone's reference, this is of absolutely ZERO value to owners of original Xbox consoles. Their BIOSes have already been hacked beyond any reasonable expectation (could anyone really have predicted the features of the X3 and it's counterparts when this all started?), we're not going to magically gain any insight from this.

If you want 720p/1080p XBMC, go buy an AppleTV (720p only) or build a micro-HTPC off an nVidia ION platform motherboard to run XBMC Live on. Both cost around $250-300 and don't require continuously screwing around with eight year old hardware.

I love my OG Xbox, I still have a launch day v1.0 which runs XBMC in my bedroom, but the heyday of the Xbox is past and those of us with HDTVs should just learn to relegate it to its rightful place as a gaming platform and leave the computing/HD media to devices better suited to the task.

Properly on topic, I'm surprised it took this long (probably due to the limited availability of Chihiro hardware), but it's a very useful achievement for the MAME team. Maybe in a decade or two we'll have usable emulation of it, but given that my dual core 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo with 4GB of RAM struggles to run some games that run under 640x480, I'm not holding my breath. MAME focuses on accurate emulation rather than performance of course, so this is to be expected.

QUOTE(TerminatR @ Oct 13 2009, 01:20 PM)

For the noobs, the purpose of dumping this BIOS is to eventually emulate this system and games on a home PC.

I don't imagine this will happen anytime soon, as we don't even have decent Xbox emulators yet.

For those interested, here is a pic to what the hardware looks like, as well as the known games running on that hardware.

http://www.system16....ware.php?id=729

Instead of Chihiro they should have called this X-Cast, or Dreambox

heres even better pix of one

Assembler

is everybody forgetting that xbmc already runs in 720p/1080i on the original xbox with component cables?

This post has been edited by Grim187: Oct 13 2009, 10:23 PM

QUOTE(Grim187 @ Oct 13 2009, 10:22 PM)

is everybody forgetting that xbmc already runs in 720p/1080i on the original xbox with component cables?

+1

I was thinking the same thing myself, Grim. If you've got a PAL Xbox, just change the EEPROM to NTSC and connect Component Cables. Voilá! 720p goodness. If memory serves, quite a large number of games ran in 720p/1080i too.

QUOTE(Grim187 @ Oct 13 2009, 05:22 PM)

is everybody forgetting that xbmc already runs in 720p/1080i on the original xbox with component cables?

I think the people here are referencing PLAYING back 720/1080 videos...which the xbox1 never has and never will play due to hardware restrictions. Hence why people need to start modding their 360's and wait patiently for someone to port XBMC to the 360.

QUOTE(a_running_pir8 @ Oct 13 2009, 09:28 PM)

I think the people here are referencing PLAYING back 720/1080 videos...which the xbox1 never has and never will play due to hardware restrictions.

720p Xvids say hello!

QUOTE(Martinchris23 @ Oct 13 2009, 11:16 PM)

+1

I was thinking the same thing myself, Grim. If you've got a PAL Xbox, just change the EEPROM to NTSC and connect Component Cables. Voilá! 720p goodness. If memory serves, quite a large number of games ran in 720p/1080i too.

IIRC, most xbox games are 480(i?). There's a handful which support 720p, tho.

QUOTE(HotKnife420 @ Oct 14 2009, 04:45 AM)

IIRC, most xbox games are 480(i?). There's a handful which support 720p, tho.

There a quite a few. I still have MX Unleashed which plays in 1080i and FIFA 2006 which plays really nicely in 720p. More recently, 'The Warriors' was also HD compatible.

I was trying to find the website which I used to check for compatible games but the site is now down. Google has a cached copy here. At the time of the snapshot, there were 361 games which were at least 720p compatible.

720P MKV's and DIVX will not play back smoother on a system like this - the restriction really is not the RAM it is more the GPU. I have a DreamX 1480 Xbox and while I was able to watch MKV at 720p on it when MKV first came on the scene, the bitrates on 720p has gotten bigger and the newer 720p content still studder and drop frames. I was able to watch season 5 in mkv format of the show 24 when the TV cappers were releasing that season. I started collecting mkv after that thinking HEY AWESOME 720p content on XBMC. Other SHows worked too, but the bitrate that was getting used changed quickly and I found that I was back to droppped frames and studders (un watchable). SO even if you ran XBMC on this Arcade Xbox - it is not powerful enough to run 720p content on XBMC - as the GPU restriction is the same as retail box. The ram does make a little bit of difference, but my Dream X already had 128MB of ram and a 1480mhz processor and that still don't work.

MY recommendation is POPCORN HOUR.

I had a job working on arcade machines for a couple of years and so can imagine how much one of these could cost! Im sure it wasn't easy getting their hands on one to mess about with so well done.

For media I say XBMC360 FTW!

So, how would you identify one of these machines say in a video game arcade shop?

- 2 Bunny

QUOTE(sektor1062 @ Oct 13 2009, 04:28 PM)

since when was there an arcade xbox1

http://system16.com/hardware.php?id=729

http://forums.xbox-s...howtopic=271236

"A Huge Breakthru!, CHihiro games run on xbox!!!!!!!!!" 2004

"Not entirely surprising considering Chihiro is the arcade version of Xbox. They're just using a GD-ROM because it is cheaper than a ROM board. The thing is, most arcade units with GD-ROMs only use the GD-ROM at power up to load the game into inexpensive RAM (once per day, essentially).

If this *does* run on a standard Xbox, that means they're using either a HD or the GD-ROM for streaming data as needed. Sega has never used the GD-ROM like that before, because an optical drive will just burn itself out after a while of constant use. HDs are better, but they still don't have the longevity you usually want in an arcade unit. So I don't know what to make of this without more info."

http://www.dcemu.co....read.php?t=2560

Makes sense.

As far as I remember, it was never really proved that the chihiro games are running on the xbox.
As Crazy Taxi exists as console game for the xbox, the video might as well be showing that.

We have chihiro hardware in our Arcade park. Besides the fact that the disks are GDROM instead of CDROM or DVDROM, they also come together with a small encryption chip that acts as a protection dongle. The purpose of that device is to protect the game against copiing. The author who told that he could run Crazy Taxi on the xbox never mentionned a word about that protection chip. This is at least a little strange.

I suppose you could rip a GDROM with a dreamcast console, but I doubt a lot of people still have the knowledge to do this.

It's hard to know why Sega is using a GDROM. (Besides being difficult to copy.) Harddisk have proven to be unreliable in arcade machines. (Sometimes a 200KG machine is moved without shutting down the disk first....),
but the optical drives aren't much better.

The chihiro copies the game from the GDROM to a huge ramdisk with a battery backup.
The GDROM drive is connected to the unit with an interface connector that looks like a SCSI. It has an embedded blower to keep it cool, so it collects a lot of dust. Due to that, after a couple of years, you get read errors as well on those units. Usually cleaning the disc and blowing out the dust solves the issue for another period.
Upon a reboot, the chihiro hardware checks the game in the ramdisk and boots it if the information still appears to be fine. If the crc check or hash (wathever they use) fails, the game is loaded again from the GDROM.

One question we could ask is about the 512MB memory. Does that refer to the ramdisk or does it refer to the internal memory of the chihiro? For a ramdisk, it would be rather small as a GDROM can contain approx. 1Gig of data.
Another question is the protection dongle. Does it decrypt the data that comes from the GDROM, or does it decrypt the data that goes from the ramdisk to the chihiro itself. Some people even say that the ram is actually the system ram of the system that is upgradable.

If I look at the house of the dead console game and compare it to the arcade version, I can hardly see a difference. The credit notes are even still on the screen. So, if they can make pretty much the same game running in 64MB, why would they need 512MB?

A lot of the things I write here are just speculations about things. But I can ensure you that the protection dongle is not a speculation.

Another issue is the fact that Sega brings out pretty much all their arcade games for the home consoles a couple of months after they released the arcade. Because of that, the income of the arcades are seriously reduced, so that they hardly pay off. Because of that, arcade owners simply don't buy new amusement machines anymore. Sega is pretty much killing their own (arcade) market working that way. It's not much related to the topic, but still worth thinking about.

regards.

QUOTE(obcd @ Oct 16 2009, 05:07 AM)

As far as I remember, it was never really proved that the chihiro games are running on the xbox.
As Crazy Taxi exists as console game for the xbox, the video might as well be showing that.

We have chihiro hardware in our Arcade park. Besides the fact that the disks are GDROM instead of CDROM or DVDROM, they also come together with a small encryption chip that acts as a protection dongle. The purpose of that device is to protect the game against copiing. The author who told that he could run Crazy Taxi on the xbox never mentionned a word about that protection chip. This is at least a little strange.

I suppose you could rip a GDROM with a dreamcast console, but I doubt a lot of people still have the knowledge to do this.

It's hard to know why Sega is using a GDROM. (Besides being difficult to copy.) Harddisk have proven to be unreliable in arcade machines. (Sometimes a 200KG machine is moved without shutting down the disk first....),
but the optical drives aren't much better.

The chihiro copies the game from the GDROM to a huge ramdisk with a battery backup.
The GDROM drive is connected to the unit with an interface connector that looks like a SCSI. It has an embedded blower to keep it cool, so it collects a lot of dust. Due to that, after a couple of years, you get read errors as well on those units. Usually cleaning the disc and blowing out the dust solves the issue for another period.
Upon a reboot, the chihiro hardware checks the game in the ramdisk and boots it if the information still appears to be fine. If the crc check or hash (wathever they use) fails, the game is loaded again from the GDROM.

One question we could ask is about the 512MB memory. Does that refer to the ramdisk or does it refer to the internal memory of the chihiro? For a ramdisk, it would be rather small as a GDROM can contain approx. 1Gig of data.
Another question is the protection dongle. Does it decrypt the data that comes from the GDROM, or does it decrypt the data that goes from the ramdisk to the chihiro itself. Some people even say that the ram is actually the system ram of the system that is upgradable.

If I look at the house of the dead console game and compare it to the arcade version, I can hardly see a difference. The credit notes are even still on the screen. So, if they can make pretty much the same game running in 64MB, why would they need 512MB?

A lot of the things I write here are just speculations about things. But I can ensure you that the protection dongle is not a speculation.

Another issue is the fact that Sega brings out pretty much all their arcade games for the home consoles a couple of months after they released the arcade. Because of that, the income of the arcades are seriously reduced, so that they hardly pay off. Because of that, arcade owners simply don't buy new amusement machines anymore. Sega is pretty much killing their own (arcade) market working that way. It's not much related to the topic, but still worth thinking about.

regards.

Well, that is really interesting. I never thought about it that way.

- 2 Bunny

So Chihiro uses GD-ROM, which Dreamcast also uses. . . [Which makes sense because both are made by Sega. Being hard to copy would be a big perk.] So these GD-ROM disks are regular old optical disks similar to CDs correct? I can't imagine the GD-ROM drive produces much heat to dissipate so how does the drive get dusty if it is enclosed in the arcade unit? Are GD-ROM disks interchangeable between arcade units?

Also, GD-ROMs are 1.2gb in capacity. Did they manufacture each game-specific Chihiro with added ram if a game took up more than 512mb?

xboxscene.org forums

OG Xbox Forums => Software Forums => Xbox Bioses => Topic started by: Xbox-Scene on October 13, 2009, 07:56:00 AM