GENERAL Can anybody give me a 'State Of The Union' on the current modding scene?!

[peanutismint]

Hi everyone. I'm new here. I've modded several consoles in the past (Xbox, Wii, PS2, PSX - old school!), and I flashed my Xbox 360 drive back when they first came out to play a couple of backup discs. I decided to go 'legit' soon after that as apart from running backup discs there wasn't really much advantage to modding.

I'm on a different model of Xbox 360 now (a 'phat' from around 2006 - I think it's got a Falcon mobo and a Benq/Liteon drive). I wondered if anybody could give me a bit of an 'overview' of what's possible nowadays with the Xbox modding scene. In an ideal world, I'd be able to backup all of my legit game collection to an internal HDD, whilst still playing my XBLA games (not HUGELY bothered about playing online but if it's possible then bring it on!) and also maybe even running some media (like Xbox Media Center??) and also maybe some retro emulators.....

Is any of this stuff possible?

 

[jmacado]

Dude. There is TONS of information on this site for what you are wanting to do. There are not too many who are going to walk you through it step by step which is the reason they created so many links and informational threads on here. I would suggest you do more research prior to just asking someone how to do it. XBOX Phats and Slims can both be modded and there are steps for each way all throughout this site.

 

[peanutismint]

Dude. There is TONS of information on this site for what you are wanting to do. There are not too many who are going to walk you through it step by step which is the reason they created so many links and informational threads on here. I would suggest you do more research prior to just asking someone how to do it. XBOX Phats and Slims can both be modded and there are steps for each way all throughout this site.

Thanks jmacado. I don't think I was asking 'how to do it', but more what can be achieved. I'm not necessarily expecting people to 'walk me through it' and am happy to research on my own, but after a long browse all I seem to see is lots of jargon that I'm way out of touch with. If I found, for instance, that none of what I listed above was possible, or that it's not possible with my hardware or the version of the Dash that I've updated to, I'd just leave it.

I'll keep looking but in the meantime if you or anybody else can suggest some reading material I'll happily take it from there.

Thanks!

 

[jmacado]

Older Phats like the one you have you can look into JungleFlasher for how to spoof the DVD drive, if you are looking into getting more involved, I would suggest you look into the RGH and JTAG methods for help http://team-xecuter.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137209. There is a lot of soldering, trial and error, and messed up CPUs along the way. Next best thing would send it to a pro (nofeloniesyet, playingmax) or look up www.xconsoles.com and they have all the equipment. Trying to figure out what you want to do and on what is the first step.

Good Luck.

 

[peanutismint]

Thanks man, I'll look into all that stuff.

Is spoofing the DVD drive not just to do with booting copies of games etc? That doesn't really interest me that much if so.... I guess most of my confusion (from the relatively little I've read) stems from the fact that flashing the optical drive to run 'backups' is probably the last thing I actually want to achieve. For me it's more about 'ripping' my legit game collection to run from a HDD without the disc or possibly running custom OSs/media apps..... Is that possible on my sort of age of hardware? Or have I scuppered any chance of hardware mods by keeping my system software updated to the most recent version?

Thanks again for those links; I'll have a read.....

 

[ablegepu]

modding your drive is exactly what you think, play backups of you original discs. RGH however is running unsigned code and that is what you want, you can put all your games on an internal or usb hdd or run them from your computer with connectx plugin but you cannot go online with it without getting banned. unless you get a demon which is a dual nand device that will let you RGH its onboard nand and leave your xbox's nand as retail. so you can run unsigned code on the demon then hit the button and play on xbox live with your game discs.

 

[Krafter]

What dash are you on? That would give you an idea of the direction you need to go. Check out the Roadmap for n00bies.. Falcons are excellent consoles for RGH1 but anything else, not so much at least not yet. If RGH1 isn't possible then I suggest you wait for the release of the CR4 XL coming out in the next month or two.

http://team-xecuter.com/forums/showthread.php?t=145432

 

[peanutismint]

modding your drive is exactly what you think...

Thanks man, yeah I've done a bit more reading and thanks to a big guide PDF it seems like the R-JTAG is what I want, possibly with a DemoN system so I can 'dual boot' as such... I looked into the RGH thing but it doesn't look like it'd work for me (see below).

What dash are you on?

Unfortunately, having not really had any interest in modding since back in around 2006 (!!) I've just been allowing my Xbox to update all the time (not like I had much say in the matter if I wanted to keep playing new games!) so I'm currently on one of the newest dashes (2.0.16747.0), so from the little reading I've done it looks like the RGH methods aren't really for me....?? Well it seems the RGH2 method would technically work, but people seem to be discouraging it for newer dash version phats in favour of the R-JTAG...

I'd be happy to give the R-JTAG a go, and if I do then like you say I may well wait for this CR4 XL chip.... I'm assuming I'd need:

• The chip (like a CR4 or similar)
• a QSB to fit my BenQ/LiteOn drive
• a NAND programmer (like the JR Programmer V2, although I've read I might not need this if I also get...)
• a dual-nand kit (like DemoN)

Am I starting to get the lay of the land here??

 

[Krafter]

R-JTAG kits are becoming very hard to find. I've never R-TAGed a Falcon but I know they can be a pain in the ass to get working. Testing of the CR4 XL is looking very good on Falcons. Claims are that nearly all are instant boots. I'm sure once it is released there will be two kits sold. One with everything you need to mod your console. Including the NAND reader/writer. The other would come with the chip and QSBs only. R-JTAG kits are sold similarly but as I said they are hard to find.

 

[peanutismint]

Interesting.... thanks! I'll keep my eyes peeled for CR4 info.... I don't suppose there's a definite release date yet?

 

[gavin_darkglide]

R-Jtag works better on falcons then it did on jaspers in my oppinion(not that it worked that much better), this is kind of a moot point, as the r-jtag is getting harder to find. I would defenitly stay away from RGH2, as it can take forever to boot, and in some cases requires way to much effort to get it to boot at all(especially on Falcons). Your best bet is to get a CR4-XL and a Demon when the cr4-xl is released. Or you could send it out to one of the many modders on this site, and let them do it for you.

 

[peanutismint]

Thanks. I'm pretty adept with a solder station but just out of curiosity, what sorta price points are we looking at, both for this new chip vs whatever's on the market now and also for one of the guys on these boards to do the install for me?

 

[scott1503]

I DONT KNOW WHAT OTHERS CHARGE BUT THEY WOULD DEFINITELY WANT SHIPPING BOTH WAYS + R-JTAG DEVELOPMENT KIT IS $40 AND THE ULTIMATE KIT IS LIKE $80 I THINK IM NOT SURE BUT THEY ARE OUT OF STOCK ON http://www.xconsoles.com/categories/Developer-Tools/?sort=featured&page=1 THE DEMON IS ON SALE FOR $35. IM NOT SURE IF THEY ARE MAKING R-JTAG ANYMORE. BEST BET IS GET CR4XL WHEN IT COMES OUT AND A DEMON. (SOMEONE CORRECT ME IF IM WRONG YOU NEED A JR PROGRAMMER TO USE RATER) YOU MAY NEED ONE TO USE RATER ON THE CR4XL ALSO IM NOT SURE BUT THE JR PROGRAMMER IS A GREAT NAND FLASH DEVICE BUT IT DOESN'T STAND UP TO THE DEMONS READ/WRITE CAPABILITIES (30 SECOND NAND DUMP BOOM!!!) JUST REMEMBER WITH A DEMON YOU DON'T NEED A NAND READER/WRITER ITS BUILT RIGHT IN TO THE DEMON. YOU JUST NEED THE COOLRUNNER OF YOUR CHOICE. I SUGGEST YOU WAIT FOR CR4XL AND IN THE MEANTIME READ READ READ THEN READ SOME MORE AND DO IT YOURSELF BECAUSE IT IS SO MUCH MORE REWARDING WHEN YOU BOOT IT AND IT STARTS TO GLITCH AND BEFORE YOU KNOW IT YOU'RE LOADING UP FREESTYLE DASH 3 (MICROSOFTS DASHBOARD HAS NOTHING ON THIS)

Please look at your keyboard and turn off caps lock

 

[peanutismint]

Hahah thanks man Will definitely give it some more thought and, as you suggest, read read read!

 

[rick48235]

yes I think that CR4-XL is going to be a beast wait on that.

 

[gazcoigne]

you do realise that RGH2 is basically the same setup as RJTAG, minus the JTAG wiring? its 99% the same!!

think you need to read more and actually understand what all these things are before you go much further.

 

[peanutismint]

you do realise that RGH2 is basically the same setup as RJTAG, minus the JTAG wiring? its 99% the same!!

think you need to read more and actually understand what all these things are before you go much further.

I think you'd be surprised what I don't realise

No, as I said, I'm pretty much starting to learn this stuff again from scratch since not having modified a console since around 2006. But thanks for your advice, I will keep reading.