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OG Xbox Forums => Software Forums => Development => Topic started by: dkoikadabra on November 14, 2002, 07:40:00 PM

Title: This Will Sound Newb As Fuck
Post by: dkoikadabra on November 14, 2002, 07:40:00 PM

Could anyone give me a rough guideline as to what to do first/second/last when it comes to porting an emulator? I want to give a shot at porting Project64 (better support than Daedalus), and as far as I can tell, I'm going to need to write a menu, a controller 'plugin' (so it works with the XBox controller), a 'video card' plugin, and a audio plugin.
I'm also pretty sure that it is much, much more detailed than that, and that's probably only a very rough estimate. I'm not a master coder, but I do know a bit of C/C++.
I know that I'm going to get a well-deserved response like 'if you could do it, you wouldn't ask how', but does anyone got any tips?

Title: This Will Sound Newb As Fuck
Post by: krawhitham on November 14, 2002, 07:46:00 PM

give the new EXE -> XBE tool a shot

Title: This Will Sound Newb As Fuck
Post by: BenJeremy on November 14, 2002, 08:00:00 PM

The tool isn't as simple as that.


It converts an EXE to XBE, but that alone won't make a program run on the Xbox.

Xbox programs require a specific interface (API) linked in to access things on the system, all the way down to simple file access. 90% of the standard Win32 APIs are missing on an "bare" Xbox, and what little of the missing 90% that is available in the XDK, it's all provided via LINKED IN CODE.

What the tool *does* allow you to do is take a program where all the required stuff is linked in (replacement XDK libs, for example) and convert the file generated by standard non-XDK'd VisualStudio into the final XBE image file.

Work remains to provide useful libraries that can be used to replace all the functionality provided by the XDK libraries. Some is easy... there is a tight groups of functions built into the BIOS itself, and can be linked directly in... but there is quite a bit that is not, including a heavy amount of DirectX API stuff.

Porting an emulator isn't a trivial task on any system, and downright challenging on the Xbox without a lot of familiarity with DirectX.

Good luck.

Title: This Will Sound Newb As Fuck
Post by: dkoikadabra on November 14, 2002, 08:24:00 PM

And all I wanted to do was play Conker and Perfect Dark.... WITH sound, thank you =-)

Title: This Will Sound Newb As Fuck
Post by: dkoikadabra on November 15, 2002, 12:49:00 AM

Yeah, that's what I'm gonna do, as soon as I get the extra sidecash. That, or mod a Saturn.

Title: This Will Sound Newb As Fuck
Post by: laggerific on November 15, 2002, 11:14:00 AM

I just want to play Zelda and Conker's at higher resolutions...it kinda makes me sick at the lower res's that the N64 uses.