How To Mod An Original Xbox To Play Emulators
The original Xbox is one of my favorite systems. In fact, it was the system that introduced me to gaming at the young age of five! About 20 years later after its release, you can have even more fun on it then when it first came out. Hacking (AKA softmodding) your Xbox is easy! And once you've done it, there are so many things you can do with a modded original Xbox.
Note: this article may contain affiliate links, where I earn a small portion of sales made through these links. I only link to products I believe are of quality and worth buying.
Custom Dashboards & Skins
Let's start with the first thing you'll install when you softmod your console, custom dashboards! There's a whole lot more to it than changing how your Xbox interface looks. Custom dashboards are what enable most of the features shown below – and there are many great ones available for this system.
Being able to change and customize the interface sure is cool too, though. Most dashboards have support for different skins, or changing colors at the very least.
Play Media (XBMC)
For a long time this has been the crown jewel of Xbox softmodding. XBMC ("Xbox Media Center") is a well-developed, open-source program for the original Xbox, centered around playing all kinds of media, as its name suggests. It can be installed either as an application or custom dashboard on a modded console.
Some key features include:
– Playing TV shows, movies, and music from your Xbox hard drive or a CD/DVD
– Streaming TV shows, movies, and music to your Xbox over your network
– Launching games, emulators, and homebrew
Click here for a full list of features
XBMC was so successful that it eventually was ported to many other systems and became the program Kodi, which is available on most modern systems without modification – including the raspberry pi and even the Xbox one! Around 2010 the original XBMC/Kodi team stopped development for the original Xbox to focus on other platforms, but the project was forked and kept alive as XBMC4Xbox.
The homepage for XBMC4Xbox can be found at https://www.xbmc4xbox.org.uk/. At the time of writing this article, the software was last updated in 2016, which is pretty recent for a console from 2001!
Dump game discs and play from HDD
This can be done with certain tools (such as DVD2Xbox) or from custom dashboards that integrate this feature, such as UnleashX. DVD2Xbox is the recommended tool to use, as it applies patches required by certain games.
Games can either be dumped to ISO format or Redump format, which extracts the games contents so that it can be played from your hard drive.
Most custom dashboards can load games off the hard drive on a softmodded Xbox.
Upgrade your Xbox's Hard Drive
Upgrading the storage on a modded original Xbox is a good idea, and it can only be done on modified consoles. The stock hard drive in an original Xbox is only about 8GB, but it is possible to upgrade to pretty much anything larger. I've personally upgraded to a 500GB drive in mine, which is much more than plenty space for all my games.
The original Xbox uses IDE ribbon cable connectors for the hard drive and disc drive, so you'll need an adapter if you're using a drive with SATA connectors (yes, this allows you to use an SSD! Not sure how much benefit there is though). The drive I personally used was an old IDE drive I happened to have lying around from an older computer.
Swapping drives can be a challenging process, and it took me several tries to clone my old hard drive to the new one. It can be done either using a computer or the Xbox itself; I recommend using the Xbox because it is a much more reliable method. Either way it requires plugging both your new drive and old drive into an IDE cable and running a program to clone and configure it correctly.
I plan on eventually writing a guide for this. For now, check here for more information: https://www.reddit.com/r/originalxbox/wiki/hdd
Run homebrew apps, including emulators!
Custom display options: progressive scan, PAL/NTSC switching
This is one of my favorite things about having a modded original Xbox. Many custom dashboards and softmodding tools allow you to change the video mode of your Xbox. This means forcing a 480i game to run in 480p (progressive scan), or switching between PAL and NTSC video modes if your game needs it.
Oh yeah, of course you can play region-free games with a modded console!
Transfer files to and from your PC using FTP
This is another key feature of Xbox modding and custom dashboards. It's how you'll transfer files over after you mod your system – much easier than plugging a USB drive back and forth between your PC and console.
I personally use the UnleashX dashboard when I need to enable the Xbox FTP server (it also has an FTP client feature I believe, but I haven't tried that yet). From my PC, I use FileZilla to access and transfer files over FTP. I've tried doing this from Windows explorer, but that method usually doesn't work for me, whereas FileZilla functions perfectly.
Mod Xbox games
You know what else you can do with a modded original Xbox, besides hacking the Xbox itself? Modifying games!
My favorite thing about modding Xbox games is enabling widescreen patches. That plus forcing 480p signal (as mentioned above) makes games look beautiful on my 16×9 HD CRT! Not all games have widescreen patches available, but a good amount do!
Here's a list of widescreen patches: http://ps2wide.net/xbox.html
There are other mods available for games as well. The Halo games have had a large modding community, unsurprisingly. And there are even mods for one of my favorite games, Forza Motorsport. These are just a few examples; there are plenty more mods and tools out there if you look for them!
Finally, trainers are an important part of Xbox game modding! There's lots you can do with them, and there are plenty of trainers available. For more information, read here: https://www.reddit.com/r/originalxbox/wiki/trainers
Install Game DLC (since original Xbox Live is no more)
Going along with game modding, downloadable content was a huge part of the original Xbox scene. Plenty of games had DLC, but all the content can no longer be accessed since original Xbox Live was shut down in 2010. Thankfully, the original Xbox modding community has made it possible to still access this content in 2020 through custom applications that will install the DLC files on your console.
You can either download the proper installer and copy to your console, or you can use XBMC4Gamers or XBMC-Emustation (mods of XBMC4Xbox) to download and install the DLC as the files are included.
Bonus: play Original Xbox games online in 2020, no mods needed!
Though I just mentioned in the section above that Original Xbox online servers were taken down, it is still possible to play these games online, and mods aren't even needed!
The way this works is by using system-link enabled games and a LAN-tunneling program to play through system link over the internet. Three programs that can be used for this are Xlink Kai, XBSLink, and XLAN
The most popular games are, unsurprisingly, Halo 2 and Halo 1, but I know the XLink Kai community has a discord server for planning other games with players.
Thanks for reading!
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Further Reading: The Ellis Workshop's Original Xbox Hacking Guide
How To Mod An Original Xbox To Play Emulators
Source: https://ellisworkshop.com/modded-original-xbox-in-2020/
Posted by: lowewittly67.blogspot.com
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