Advise/Help With Modding Original Xbox for Emulation

[Vbruno305]

Hey..I have 4 Original Xbox Consoles that I acquired from a yard sale. They all power up and play games nicely. I could care less about Xbox games, I want to make these in to Emulation/Media Boxes. I read dozens of posts and instructions and it all seems fairly straight forward for the softmod with the exception that I do not have a memory card and in October of 2016 you can find a usb stick (off the shelf) that can be read in the console or formatted FATx. So before I spend more money and run into road blocks I had a few questions:

 

1. Softmod or Mod Chip, do the both do the same thing? Again I don't care Xbox games/backups/Imports, just emulation and a larger hd

2. Which Softmod technique

3. Which Mod Chip

 

Thanks for reading...I always get the best answers here..

[Agamemnon2]

Softmod worked great for me to get arcade emulators working (installed via the Splinter Cell exploit), though I've not yet gone for a larger hard drive. I bought the USB-dongle adapter from ebay (along with a component video cable) and went through a pile of old 4 gig and smaller USB drives until I found one that worked with the exploit. If you can find a compatible flash drive, it's probably the fastest way to go about it and cheaper and easier than a mod chip (which I don't think would give you much in the way of additional value in your suggested scenario).

 

I'd ask around to see if you can easily score some old flash drives, like promotional items given away at trade shows and the like, the kind of stuff people might have lying around. Trying to find a specific drive with which to perform the operation seems like it'd be a huge headache (i'm not sure if there's even a list of known working ones).

[Nebulon]

I've used the Xecutor chip mod (version 2.6). It's pretty fantastic and quite easy to install. There's also the Xecutor 3 which I believe has the advantage of being able to turn the XBOX into a file server.

 

http://www.yoxbox.com/tut/xecuter2-6v1-6/

 

https://www.gocybershopping.com/product.php?productid=1276

 

I've never done a soft mod, but I've used one extensively. The odd thing is that the soft-modded XBOX fan is super noisy and spins way too fast. Even the slowest setting is still ridiculous.

 

If anyone knows a good soft-modding tutorial, feel free to post it here.

[Welshworrier]

Soft mod is incredibly easy to do as long as you've got the memory card/stick. You just copy the save file to the card, run the game (splinter cell is usually the easiest to get hold of). Just Google for "aid Xbox" for the auto installer files you need. I believe version 4.6 was the last release and if you search for that release it will have the guide for how to add ROM sets to the DVD image as well as the latest emulator releases.

Edited October 30, 2016 by Welshworrier

[Nebulon]

Soft mod is incredibly easy to do as long as you've got the memory card/stick. You just copy the save file to the card, run the game (splinter cell is usually the easiest to get hold of). Just Google for "aid Xbox" for the auto installer files you need. I believe version 4.6 was the last release and if you search for that release it will have the guide for how to add ROM sets to the DVD image as well as the latest emulator releases.

Thanks. When you say memory card, do you mean the actual XBOX one that plugs into the back of the controller?

[Vbruno305]

I was able to do the softmod..found an old digital camera which worked for the splinter cell exploit. Now my question is with the modchip how do you load new dashboards software etc..is it built in on chip.

[Nebulon]

I was able to do the softmod..found an old digital camera which worked for the splinter cell exploit. Now my question is with the modchip how do you load new dashboards software etc..is it built in on chip.

You can load the dash of your choice. So she o/s is independent of the mod chip. Might I recommend Avalaunch?

 

the executable file for the dash is installed using any FTP program. The equivalent of a .exe file on an XBOX is a .xbe file.

 

http://team-xecuter.com/forums/threads/5043-xecuter-3-dashboard-help

[Vbruno305]

Another question...will a softmod xbox play original media with a non xbox dvd rom. Since it can play backups should this work?

[Mark Wolfe]

As long as it isn't a v1.6 you can do a simple TSOP flash that is far easier than installing a mod chip

 

I've even found a way to do it without soldering

 

I also sell upgrades hard drives with all the emulators and full libraries including the latest coinops 8 r8

 

See my threads in the AtariAge Marketplace forum

 

There had been a lot of advancement in the original Xbox scene, new apps and new procedures that are less than 2 years old

 

Mod chips are almost obsolete unless it is a v1.6 and you want to run a custom bios eeprom, soft mods still work on 1.6

 

Cheers!