Porting games from XBox to PC?

[chang8317]

Hey, since Anandtech decided to do an article on the Xbox, might as well post something here.

How difficult would it be to write an emulator to play Xbox games on the PC? i mean, the Xbox is practically a small PC and games use directx right? So why buy an Xbox when soon i'll be able to play Halo on my PC?

 

[coolred]

Isn't Halo supposed to be coming out for the PC anyway? Or am I wrong, and isn't this illegal? If not I appologize, but I was under the impression that does that was wrong.

 

[splice]

the problem isn't in the similarity of the XBox and the PC, the problem is the disc's are unreadable by normal DVD ROM drives. Anyways, there really wont be a need for an emulator since all the game developer has to do is switch a couple compiler flags to make it work with the PC's directX. I believe this is what microsoft has in mind to do. They not only get a huge PC market, but also a large console market.

 

[geek167]

I think you two are extremely wrong. Its gonna take a little more than a few compiler switches to port it to pc. and emulators aren't illegal but downloading the roms without owning the game. but with the Xbox you'll need the DVD anyway because of its large size. And its all a matter of time before they crack the cds.....

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

<< but with the Xbox you'll need the DVD anyway because of its large size >>

well groups can rip 4 cds down to 200 megs...

 

[yourharddrive]

<<

<< but with the Xbox you'll need the DVD anyway because of its large size >>

well groups can rip 4 cds down to 200 megs... >>



How do u rip 4CD's to 200mb....PM me

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

i dont, but it's common knowledge those groups can do that stuff. i find it fascinating. they downsample movies and sound and covert the audio to different formats (mp3). i have no idea how it's done but that's a reason why piracy is such a problem :|. the xbox will be no different, those 8 gig dvds are great, but those games certainly dont take up 8gigs. closer to several hundred meg i would think.

 

[splice]

<< Its gonna take a little more than a few compiler switches to port it to pc. >>



What's your reasoning for this statement? The sole purpose of DirectX is to be an abstraction layer (HAL) so programmers don't have to care about what hardware is being used. Sure the DX dev kit for the Xbox is different, but it's going to share most of the same characteristics as the one for the PC.

 

[smp]

If Halo is supposed to be out for PC anyways, we don't really need to worry about an emulator. I am a fan of emulators though and I certainly wouldn't mind an Xbox emulator, with a Xbox gamepad to USB dongle or something.
/me remincses (sp?) about the good times playing Playstation games with a playstation gamepad on my PC

 

[Damascus]

<< Its gonna take a little more than a few compiler switches to port it to pc. >>



Why not? It runs x86 code with a Windows kernel... and uses the DirectX
HAL. And like splice said, the HAL is supposed to abstract the code from the
hardware.

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

<< with a Xbox gamepad to USB dongle or something. >>

the guys over at icrontic have already hooked up a gamepad to a pc. detected as a usb hub right now.

 

[TunaBoo]

It is very possible they can make a boot CD, that will boot the X box version of windows, and allow you to use your PC as an X Box.

 

[chang8317]

The future of Halo on PC is uncertain.. i don't think microsoft has decided whether they will port the game to PC.. but i wouldn't be too surprised if the emulators start showing up soon. if it does, it'll probably take a big chunk out of Xbox sales..

 

[aswedc]

I want DOA3 on PC! . I think Halo is supposed to be a definate for PC...

 

[Nintari]

I would love to get DOA3 on the PC too!!!!!! I really wish that more console games would come over to the PC. PC Gamers get shafted a lot of the time. Ok so console gamers do too, but hey to heck with them, or is it the eck with pc users? Ok whos a marketing and development guru here.......

j/k
I really would like to see more companies develop their games for the PC. I mean the PC has really moved along great for gameing. And console games have the majority of the time stuck to the consoles. But now we have pc games that were never ment for consoles like q3a and UT moving to the consoles. Granted we get a few fairly decent console ports like THPS2 and Spiderman but all they do is port it they dont advance it or make it better kinda ticks me off.... ok sory was going off course ther gain lol

Any who...........
BRING DOA3 TO THE PC!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

<< The future of Halo on PC is uncertain.. i don't think microsoft has decided whether they will port the game to PC.. but i wouldn't be too surprised if the emulators start showing up soon. if it does, it'll probably take a big chunk out of Xbox sales.. >>

they are working on the pc version we speak. on the bungie forums in big ass letters says still coming to pc/mac.

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

would the pc be able to handle those intense graphics of DOA 3 or HALO? I thought the xbox was supposed to be pretty far ahead of the pc in terms of video rendering and 3d gaming power.

 

[Yoshi]

XBox is behind the PC. And no matter what Gates wants you to thing XBox IS just a crippled PC.

Probably, an emulator will show up sooner or later.

With the exception of popular FPS games, consoles are the way to go for gaming. No driver or OS hassels, just put it in and play.

 

[kyle1745]

Consoles will never compare to PC's, hell even a xbox is only 733mhz.
My Athlon 1600 XP would eat it for breakfast and take names.


Kyle

 

[Leon]

<< XBox is behind the PC. >>



Until NV-25 shows up, XBox is ahead of PC's in terms of graphics power. CPU speed is irrelevent, as it mostly used for lightning and AI, everything else is handled by GPU.

 

[BenSkywalker]

"XBox is behind the PC."

XBox is far ahead of the PC. Besides the point that Leon brought up(the NV2A whips the GF3 or R8500) the XBox also has a UMA architecture which eliminates the serious problem of the AGP bus on PCs. Yes, you can quickly point out to the incredibly lame @ss graphics on PC games with their pathetic poly counts and overall complete lack of any detail as evidence that AGP doesn't matter much and for that you are right.

DOA3 crushes the strain of any PC game to date, by a wide margin. The polys per frame are more then what most PC games push per second, and for that the limitations of the AGP bus are going to be a very real limitation. Forget XBox emulators for some time, they are not reasonable given current hardware. Sure you don't have the limitations of emulating a different CPU and graphics card, but that is comparitively easy to "emulating" a ~500% boost in bandwith for some key areas.

 

[Damascus]

<< "XBox is behind the PC."that is comparitively easy to "emulating" a ~500% boost in bandwith for some key areas. >>



500%? I thought the Xbox used 200Mhz DDR and HyperTransport bus. Which
key areas are you talking about?

 

[aniki]

Im not too impressed with XBOX graphics so far. The PC will soon top it

 

[zippy]

Heh, if xbox games are hacked and able to be played on the PC someday, I just hope the hackers remember to set an FPS limit in their code. Otherwise you might end up playing in hyperspeed.

 

[Chad]

Xbox a crippled PC? Funny your poor choice of words. No, the Xbox is a dedicated gaming platform... it does not even try to be a PC.

The Sony PLayStation 2 *Computer* Entertainment Center on the other hand.... well, it's desperately trying to be your new PC.