ram upgrade, on a modded xbox, worthwhile for homebrew?

gchamish · Post by **gchamish** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 12:28 am

hey, I was thinking of maybe upgradeing my xbox ram for homebrew. I mostly just watch media tho, and play a bit of emulators. How much will it help in media playing, and emulators?

Matt · Post by **Matt** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 4:23 am

Not much unless the apps are utilised to use the extra ram. Don't bother its ver hard to install too

Skynet · Post by **Skynet** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 9:07 am

would it help media at all?

I mean, I run 700mb+ mpegs just fine. Dvds work just fine. Where's the need for the for more ram for media? Unless I'm missing something.

I suppose if the emulator supported it, it could make MAME, N64 and PSX emulation better?

kungpow12345 · Post by **kungpow12345** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 9:08 am

well, from what i heard, if you got the ram upgrade mameox would thank you for it. Especially when you can play Mortal Kombat 1-3 at full speed with no hiccups, and also other massive roms that crash thanks to the limited memory. Plus, in surreal 64, roms will actually run much better and look better too thanks to the ram upgrade.

Strapping Scherzo · Post by **Strapping Scherzo** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 9:11 am

The only thing I can think of that could benefit from a RAM upgrade is MAME. There are some games that I enjoy that can't be loaded due to insufficient memory.

bizzle · Post by **bizzle** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 9:29 am

I thought most of the MAME stuff supported virtual memory now..

kungpow12345 · Post by **kungpow12345** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 11:21 am

most of it is yes but there's still roms like the Samurai Showdown series (we're talking like 4 or 5) and the Street Fighter EX series that bottleneck the virtual memory. ...it can only take so much, hence the slowdown. If you had ram to back it up, you wouldn't even need virtual memory and that also frees up the xbox for more ram sensitive apps for the smartx xbox they advertise on xbox-scene.com. They have that puppy doing so much stuff it would almost double as a pc: dvd ripping, viewing the weather, web surfing, running xkai, and your emus at full speed, even with surreal and mame.

I would throw out my pc at that point...but then again no

but it's a strong second!

Alexvrb · Post by **Alexvrb** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 10:18 pm

Wow lets spend lots of time effort and money making an Xbox almost as good as an outdated junky computer. Impressive. OK, OK, so it is cool what they can do with it. But for gchamish, is any of that really practical enough to be worth it?

Ex-Cyber · Post by **Ex-Cyber** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 10:58 pm

An HD upgrade for Xbox is reasonable because you can do it yourself and it integrates more or less cleanly into the system. Virtually every other HW upgrade is done first and foremost for hack value and/or bragging rights, not because it really helps apps run better.

gchamish · Post by **gchamish** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 11:11 pm

what is xkai?

MKE · Post by **MKE** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 12:41 am

xkai/xlink kai.......it's pretty much a free xbox live....

but as for ram, ill tell ya in a little while. ive got a few spare mobos here so im thinkin im gonna do it.

ive heard the n64 and mame emulation is a lot better, linux runs better, and xbmc runs divx/xvid better...

if all you do is play xbox games/backups, it is a pointless upgrade, but if you have a broken xbox mobo and the time/skill to do the upgrade i cant see it as pointless....

i mean for less then 100$, you can have a 733mhz linux system with 128mb of ram, 10/100 ethernet card, gforce 3 gfx card, 1280 x 720 res (with vga hack or 720p), 5.1 surround, 4 onboard usb ports, pc quality emulators, play xbox games.....that's pretty damn good....

Alexvrb · Post by **Alexvrb** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 8:38 pm

Ex-Cyber wrote:An HD upgrade for Xbox is reasonable because you can do it yourself and it integrates more or less cleanly into the system. Virtually every other HW upgrade is done first and foremost for hack value and/or bragging rights, not because it really helps apps run better.

But if all you do is stream media over the network, you don't even need that. I mean, it could be argued that replacing the processor is of better aid for the purposes of more demanding emulators or perhaps decoding HD Divx (which sucks up a good bit of cycles).

MKE wrote:i mean for less then 100$, you can have a 733mhz linux system with 128mb of ram, 10/100 ethernet card, gforce 3 gfx card, 1280 x 720 res (with vga hack or 720p), 5.1 surround, 4 onboard usb ports, pc quality emulators, play xbox games.....that's pretty damn good....

Not that I think there's anything wrong with that, but let me just play devil's advocate for a second here: You can buy a used 'puter for that kind of money that will be more powerful and versatile. Xbox is getting old in its old age, we'll be h4x0rz0ring Xbox 360s in no time.