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[Medusa]

I posted this thread on the noob forum but did not get any reaction, thats why I am posting this for the second and last time on this forum.

Hi all,

A few weeks ago I received an Xbox to preview the latest games in development. As a total Xbox nOOb I tried to get to know the system but didn't knew what it was. Only after a few days things started to clear up... The xbox is marked as an 'Xbox debug kit' and is only able to play unfinished games. It has the xdk launcher on it with 3 progs in it... XB Dashboard, some Audio tool and a Dolphin clasic thing (I deleted by accident The dolphin thing... so thats lost 4ever!). I wanted to try some full games on the thing but seems that that does not work, eager for knowledge I wanted to find out if there was a way to get these games to work anyways, at that moment my Quest began. Seems like everyone wants to get a retail box into a debug and chips the thing. I am looking for a 'non chip' way (because I have to give the thing back when I am tired of previewing games (preferebly not broken;)).
So I figured out the following:

I could get these games to work if I can get a full copy of the game on the xbox's HD. (It should show up in the XDK launcher if I place it in Xe:)
To get it there, I need to get connected to the box and run some sort of FTP program. This would be possible if I install Visual Studio.net 2003 and SDK build 5558 on my pc. Through xboxneighbourhood in sdk the ftp would be possible.

Before I start to look for the progs mentioned above it would be nice if you gave me your professional opinion on This. Could this work or is it just not possible?

thx for your help,

Medusa

[delphaeus]

Unfortunately, no, this still won't work.  A true debug kit won't be able to run retail games without them being modified to have debug entry points and kernel thunk tables (i.e the xbepatch utility, in reverse) and removing their signatures.

Most people who have converted their retail Xboxen to debug use a copy of the Team Assembly TATX Debug BIOS, which has been hacked to run both debug and retail software using the debug routines.  (It comes in handy for taking screenshots of commercial games for building MXM and Avalaunch skins.)

You do have an option -- if I remember correctly, a true Debug Xbox has the ability to load a custom BIOS into its upper 64MB of RAM and boot off it; if you can find more info on this, you could use that to load the TATX BIOS.  That, or you can just use the Phoenix BIOS Loader program for the Xbox to do the same thing from the XDK Launcher.

This post has been edited by delphaeus: Sep 29 2003, 11:02 AM

[Medusa]

Is the debug Kit so different from a XDK then? The reason why I ask is because there is a mini-tutorial on the xbox-scene website on how to play retail games on the XDK. I just thought the debug kit would be simular to that one... . Anyways I also want to thank u for the reply and the other possible solutions to my problem. I'll start looking that way.

Thx again,
M.

[old engineer]

Hi

Delphaeus, I'm very interested in what u say about the possibility of loading a custom BIOS in the upper part of the RAM.

...Can u remember where u originally saw this info, or where there might be more help about it?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

 

[delphaeus]

QUOTE (Medusa @ Sep 29 2003, 10:11 AM)

Darn, that was a dumper on my hard research Is the debug Kit so different from a XDK then? The reason why I ask is because there is a mini-tutorial on the xbox-scene website on how to play retail games on the XDK. I just thought the debug kit would be simular to that one... . Anyways I also want to thank u for the reply and the other possible solutions to my problem. I'll start looking that way. Thx again, M.

There's a bit of confusion here, obviously.

A full Xbox Development Kit has two parts to it: the Debug Xbox, and the Xbox SDK for Visual Studio (often shortened to XDK).

A Debug Xbox is most definitely different than a retail -- besides different software on the hard drive (namely the XDK Launcher) and a different BIOS, it has 128MB of RAM instead of 64MB.  The main reason for this is that you can allocate memory from it via debug-specific code, and thus have debugging tools, profilers, and other extra stuff up there without messing with the 64MB used by the title on normal consoles.

Anyways, as I said, you have an option: use the Phoenix BIOS Loader (an app for the Xbox) to load a TATX BIOS on the fly.  The TATX BIOS is a Debug BIOS that's been hacked to run both debug and retail software.

to oldengineer: From the XDK 5558 docs for the Security Tool (xbmanage):

QUOTE

The following permissions may be combined in any order and are used with the -prompt and -host options above to administer access permissions. Using "+" grants a permission and "-" revokes the permission. Permissions Description [+ | -]all Grants/revokes all permissions. [+ | -]read Grants/revokes file and directory read permission. [+ | -]write Grants/revokes file write permission. [+ | -]configure Grants/revokes permission to do ROM flashes and run remote configurations using XbSetCfg. [+ | -]manage Grants/revokes permission for remote permission management. [+ | -]control Grants permission to do those actions not covered by the other permisions. Actions include debugging, screen captures, reboots, etc. If the XbManage tool is used without any options, it will list the name of the Xbox target system, its security status, and the current permissions.

I haven't bothered to find out HOW exactly you do it, namely because I'm using a converted retail Xbox and don't have that upper 64MB of RAM.

[old engineer]

Cheers m8, I thought I had read nearly all the doc's but I definately missed that one!!!!

...I will go off and give it a go, much appreciated.