This is going to come off as overly cynical - it's a very cool project. But are you really pushing the original Xbox to the limit when you replace and overclock the CPU, increase RAM, add solid state storage, and overclock the GPU?
Whether it's an Xbox is arguable, but for the purposes of the topic and the post, you're mostly arguing semantics.
If one were to "push a Honda Civic to the limits" with an array of engine and suspension modifications, for purposes of discussion you're going to sound like you're just splitting hairs by asking "Is it really still a Civic, tho??", even if you could be technically correct.
The author has the right to title their content as they desire and you can just rewrite it as "Modding the OG Xbox to within an inch of its life" in your head...
> But are you really pushing the original Xbox to the limit
This is in the context of XBox modding, where “original Xbox” should be interpreted to mean “not an XBox 360”. Halo 2 can run at higher resolutions on a 360, so clarifying that this was a modding project on the original Xbox is helpful.
You have to read it in context. It’s not literally about an unmodded Xbox, it’s a modding project and the target for the mods was an original Xbox.
>You do not need a CPU upgraded console to use this patch and having one does not provide any additional performance gains that I've been able to measure during testing.
And this:
>This provided a 10% increase in transfer speeds for consoles running the stock IDE cable and up to a 300% increase (theoretically, the actual transfer speeds depend greatly on the size of data being transferred) for consoles with an upgraded IDE cable.
And this (again from the GitHub repo):
>If your console has 128MB of RAM this patch will utilize the extra RAM available which will enable use of 720p and 1080i video modes as well as increase the size of in-memory caches for textures and geometry. The size increase for the texture and geometry caches will significantly reduce pop-in issues to the point of being almost non-existent.
For just 480p you can overclock the GPU on a stock console and use a different IDE cable. I think the remark about the SSD was unintentionally misleading -- perhaps he did mean the combo of 80pin + SSD though.
It does not require an overclocked CPU (he states that the CPU was not the bottleneck), and the increased RAM is only required if you want resolutions of 720p or higher.
I relayed the feedback though, he might update the blog post to make these points more explicit.
Getting the most out of existing hardware is a pursuit in itself. See the retro computer scene. Car "nodding" is similar to that. Some want a factory perfect Corvette. Some want a model A with a engine 50 years newer. Taking something known and familiar and twisting it to your will is awesome.
What's wrong with overclocking the CPU and GPU? People overclock the CPU and GPU of their nintendo switch and it doesn't become another console. I have CFW to overclock the 3DS.
Yeah, that was my thought as well. They aren't "pushing the original Xbox to the limit", they are pushing custom hardware to the limit. The title is super misleading.
Even worse, it's a commodity desktop CPU! They aren't running "Halo 2" on an "Xbox" in HD, they are running a heavily modified build of Halo 2 on a somewhat custom PC.
We had that already, it's called "Halo 2 for Windows Vista!", and now we have MCC.
Granted, Halo 2 on Vista had way higher hardware requirements to run at 30fps in 720p I think, though most of that was just Vista overhead.
Actually it's worse again, they modified the Xbox kernel too!
This is really impressive work but it's also way more niche than the title wants you to believe.
It's not really an Xbox at that point.