Xbox FAQ

 
Frequently Asked Questions
  • DVD/ VCD Playback Questions
  • Emulators for Xbox & PC
  • How can I Unlock the Parental Control
  • How do i open up my Xbox ?
  • Hard Drive Questions
  • Is the Xbox territory locked
  • Is there going to be an Xbox 2 ?
  • What are the specifications of the Xbox ?
  • What is XDK / SDK
  • Xbox Dashboard
  • Xbox Launch Dates
  • Xbox Music Ripping Questions
  • Xbox Operating System (OS) ?
  • Xbox Web browser/ surfing the net ?
    DVD/ VCD Playback Questions
    Can I play DVDs without the DVD Movie Playback kit ? Writen March 14th 2002 At present no, the xbox does not play DVD's straight out of the box. You need to buy the kit, at some point there maybe homebrew software made to overcome this. But for now dont hold your breath, just buy the kit. Update: Writen July 28th 2002 You can now play DVD Films without the need of the DVD Movie Playback Kit, thanks to the X-ecuter team who released "DVD-X", DVD-X is a software application that can be used on the xbox to play dvd films. You will need a modded xbox to run this application, you can purchase a modchip here What does the DVD Movie Playback kit include ? Writen March 14th 2002 A remote control, and an infared receiver. The receiver is plugged into one of the Xbox controller ports.. Is the Xbox DVD Movie Playback Kit multiregional ? Writen March 14th 2002 Not exactly - when you buy a UK DVD Movie Playback Kit & put the infared receaver into the UK Xbox controller port, the UK Xbox will ONLY ever play Region 2 titles as it places a Region 2 code onto the hard-drive... To my knowledge when you first ever use/ install a DVD Move Playback Kit the Region code is perminently locked onto the HD & cannot be taken off or altered by using another infared receaver ( ie a receaver from US ) However - & i dont see why you would do this, you can buy a US DVD Movie Playback Kit & use that on a UK Xbox, this will allow you to run Region 1 DVD's. As i have said above to my knowledge you cannot swap the infared receavers from other country's to play different Region DVD's. Alternative solution - for those of you familar with the Region X (on the Playstation 2) there is a similar programme coming out for the Xbox sometime in the near future. Can the Xbox play VCD's, SVCD's or DivX ? Writen March 14th 2002 In short no - the xbox does not run the media formats that VCD or SVCD's are recorded in, but you can get software that will convert VCD or SVCD's into DVD format & write a movie onto a normal CD that a DVD player can read. Good luck with that one :-) Update: Writen June 4th 2002 You can now play lots of media formats on xbox using a software application called XBMP "Xbox Media Player", this application that has been coded by Runtime & d7o3g4q allows you to play a wide variety of media formats ( inc VCD/SVCD MPG 1 & 2 ), DivX & MP3's the list goes on. Like most homebrew software for xbox this application requires a modded xbox to run, you can purchase a modchip from here Does the DVD player output a RGB signal with DVD movies ? Writen March 14th 2002 Yes - when using an RGB Scart lead - the Xbox does output an RGB signal with DVD Movies.
    Emulators for Xbox & PC
    Will there be emulators for Xbox ? Writen March 14th 2002 Well i would not have made this website if i did not think so & bare in mind that there are emu's for DC & PS2. Update: Writen June 23rd 2002 The day has finaly come, the first emulator to get released for retail xbox's is Mame-X. Lots of emulators since June 23rd have come out, a splurge of them in july mainly. You can now enjoy playing Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Mega Drive, Amiga, Atari, Commodore 64, Spectrum & many more console games on your xbox. You will require a modded xbox to play these emulators, you can purchase one here I heard MAME was ported to Xbox ? Writen March 14th 2002 Not quit - it was ported for an XDK ( Xbox development kit ), & runs at a rock solid 60 FPS on all the old 80's ROMs including the NEOGEO ROMs too. Unfortunatly Microsoft would let legally allow the author to distribute this software, only registered XBox developers can legitimately obtain this software. That & the fact that you need an Xbox Development Kit to run it. More info can be found here at the authors site. Update: Writen June 23rd 2002 Another coder called Opcode made an emulator called Mame-X that works on retail ( ie normal xbox'x ) the first beta got released on June 23rd & was the first emulator to come out for xbox. Opcode stopped working on Mame-X after beta 4 & the project is currently being continued by SuperFro who has already released several other beta's. Is there any fake Xbox emulators for the PC ? Writen March 14th 2002 Yes there have already been several fake Xbox emulators for PC. One is Simply called ( X-Box Emulator ) i think there have been 2 versions, ver 0.34 & ver 0.35 that came out around Feb 2002. My best advice should you come accross an Xbox emu for PC is to ignore it & to definatly not download it, there is a good chance it may contain a virus. Update: Writen August 20th 2002 Durring August time a project was started called CXBX, CXBX is a software application aimed at getting xbe files to run on pc. ( in short an xbox emulator ). At present it does not run any games.
    Unlocking the Parental Control
    How can i unlock the parental lockdown ? Writen March 14th 2002 Turn on your Xbox without a disc in the drive to access the Xbox dashboard, goto settings & highlight the Parental Control. When the screen pops up that says Enter Pass Code press: X, Y, Left Trigger, X. You'll be taken to the parental controls screen where you can disable the passcode previously entered.
    Opening the Xbox
    How do i open up my Xbox ? Writen March 14th 2002 Check underneith the xbox you will see 4 rubber feet, take them off to reveal 4 screws. There are also another 2 screw's underneith the two middle stickers. You will need a Torx 20 & 10 screw driver, the torx 10 is for inside the xbox. ***** IMPORTANT DOING THIS WILL VOID YOUR WARRANTY*****
    Hard Drive Questions
    How big is the Xbox Hard Drive ? Writen March 14th 2002 The Xbox v1.0 contains an 8 GB Western Digital Hard Drive or 10 GB Seagate Hard Drive. UPDATE: Writen January 5th 2003 The Xbox v1.1 Pal contains a 20 GB Seagate Hard Drive. It looks like the newer Xbox's with larger drives started getting shipped around the biggining of december 2002 & was in stores about 1-2 weeks later. UPDATE: Writen March 19th 2004 The 20 GB Seagate Hard Drives would appear to only be in a few Pal v1.1 Xbox's, most likely due to a shortage of 10 GB Hard Drives. To this day v1.0 - v1.6 Xbox's still have 8 GB Western Digital or 10 GB Seagate Hard Drives. Can the Hard Drive be upgraded to a larger/ faster Hard Drive ? Written March 14th 2002 Not at present & if you could upgrade the internal Hard Drive it would void warranty. UPDATE: Written July 5th 2002 With thanks to Team Evolution-X as of the 5th of July 2002 you can now use normal IDE PC Hard Drives of upto 137 Gigabytes, it can be either 5400 or 7200RPM. They have released a new Dashboard an alternative to the Xbox Microsoft Dashboard, Evolution-X beta Build 1.8.458 has various features including the ability to install & format a new hard drive. You can use any size hard drive but when formated it will be limited to 137 GB due to a LBA28 Software Limit. UPDATE: Written September 2nd 2003 You can now use hard drives upto 2000 Gigabytes i.e. 2 Terabytes. An application called XBtool 1.0.8b6 by NghtShd allows you to patch bios's with LBA48. LBA48 support was implemented by Paul Bartholomew (oz_paulb). Enabling this option breaks the 137GB limit on hard drive space.. It was believed the limitation of LBA28 was being caused by a chip called MPCX 3, however Bob Mckenzie found otherwise. Thanks to his comments oz_paulb started work on LBA48, LBA48 support was implemented into XBtool that would patch bios's. Soon newer bios's will automatically have LBA48 support & will not need patching. What this means is if using a new bios plus a new 300 gigabyte ide hard drive then format it using Evolution-X Dashboard you will have approximately 290 gigabytes left on the F: partition to play with. How many blocks does the Hard Drive have ? Written March 14th 2002 Over 300,000 <--- Based on 8 Gigabyte Hard Drive. Will I have to defragment the Xbox hard drive ? Written March 14th 2002 No. The Xbox hard drive has separate partitions for cache, music etc and there is no need to defragment the drive. Will the hard drive slow down when full ? Written March 14th 2002 No there is no slowdown or loss of performance when the drive is full. Can programs be run/ executed from the Hard Drive Written March 14th 2002 Yes. Microsoft stressed the idea of running downloaded game demos from the Hard Drive, so you should be able to run other executable programs.
    Territory Locked
    Is the Xbox territory locked ( ie can i play US games on UK Xbox or vice-versa ? ) Written March 14th 2002 The Xbox does support territory locking, but it is upto developers to use it. Microsoft is infact keen for developers to not use territory locking, however there has been no mention of any game developers not using it yet.
    Xbox 2
    Is there going to be an Xbox 2 ? Written March 14th 2002 This will depend on how well the Xbox sells over the next few years, microsoft have already been looking into designing the CPU & GFX chips themselfs in order to cut costs & there has been some talk with nVIDIA. It is just talk & getting something on the table though, aswell as trying to find the best & cheapest means. UPDATE: Written January 5th 2003 For some time rumours have been going around that Microsoft intends to release an xbox 2 around 2005, this is because Sony intends to release the Playstation 3 in 2005. So Microsoft just wants to beat them & have their new bad boy product out first. UPDATE: Writen November 22nd 2005 It's out & it's called "Xbox 360".
    Xbox Specifications
    What are the specifications of the Xbox ? Written March 14th 2002 Click here to is a comparison betweeen Xbox, PS2 & Game Cube.
    XDK / SDK
    What is XDK / SDK Written March 14th 2002 Simple XDK stands for ( Xbox Development Kit ) & SDK stands for ( Software Development Kit ). These are what developers use to make your Xbox games.
    Xbox Dashboard
    What is the Xbox Dashboard Written March 14th 2002 The Dashboard appears when you turn on you Xbox without a disk in the disk tray & give you access to various options. Some of the options are ( clock time, laungage, audio & video ). Also allows you to rip your music CD's onto the hard drive, play CD's and DVD's, and manage your saved games.
    Xbox Launch Dates
    When where the Xbox launch dates. Written March 14th 2002 Official United States Launch: November 15th 2001 12:00 Midnight. Official Japanese Launch: February 22nd 2002 12:00 Midnight. Official European Launch: March 14th 2002 12:00 Midnight.
    Xbox Music Ripping Questions
    Can rip mp3's to the Xbox ? Written March 14th 2002 At present no - the xbox does not read mp3's & will not allow you to rip them to the Xbox Hard Drive. However you can burn your music in audio-format on a cdr or cdrw and bring over your music this way. What format is ripped media stored in on the Xbox ? Written March 14th 2002 128 kbps, 16-bit stereo WMA.over 73 hours How many hours of music can the Xbox Hard Drive hold ? Written March 14th 2002 Over 73 hours. <--- This will depend on hard drive size. I burned music in audio format onto cdr/ cdrw but the Xbox doesn't recognize it ? Written March 14th 2002 The Xbox's DVD-ROM laser doesn't read all types of media, a list of compatable cdr & cdrw will be added soon. Does the Xbox play WMA's recorded at 128 kbps 16-bit stereo ? Written March 14th 2002 No. The Xbox does not directly support playback of WMA files from CD, it only rips them to WMA format to run of the Hard Drive.
    Xbox Operating System (OS)
    What Operating System does the Xbox use ? Written March 14th 2002 It uses a cut down version of the Windows 2000 kernel, which is approximately 500kb in size. Does using a Windows based (OS) slow loading times down ? Written March 14th 2002 No. Infact the loading times are less than 2 seconds for booting the Xbox Dashboard & around 15-20 seconds for Games.
    Surfing the net & E-mail
    Can i surf the internet & check my e-mail ? Written March 14th 2002 Unfortunatly not, at present Microsoft have said that the Xbox is a gaming machine only and there will be no internet web browser released. It will however have a broswer style setup for online gaming sites. Also you never know, if homebrew apps & software ever really takes off then maybe we want have to depend on Microsoft to give us a web broswer.
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