The best Original Xbox Box Mini device would actually just be a Xbox One S (or X)

[Mr Puggsly]

Pemalite said:

Mr Puggsly said:

I get your logic of the CPU architecture, if what you're suggesting was the case the X1 would get perfect performance in all OG Xbox BC games. But that's not the case, uncapped games still struggle to stay at 60 fps. So the emulation process is still very CPU intensive on the vastly superior CPU of X1 or even X1X. The X1X does get better performance and that's very likely from the extra CPU power.

To be fair, Xbox 360 emulation is better than OG Xbox emulation on the Xbox One, Microsoft simply has invested more time and effort into their Xbox 360 emulator.

OG Xbox emulation is also very lightly threaded... It's the same issue with the Playstation 2 vs Playstation 3 emulation on PC, the Playstation 3 doesn't need 50x more CPU time than the Playstation 2 emulator because it will simply throw more threads at the problem... And because of PS3's emphasis on more threads, there is less issue in keeping tick rates/sync perfect across the board as heavily threaded games tend to be less reliant on those.

Mr Puggsly said:

You don't need an expensive CPU to emulate PS2, Gamecube, or Wii, but it does need to be a powerful or modern CPU to run all games well, especially if you want to improve visuals.

It doesn't need to be a powerful CPU. It just needs to be a CPU with the appropriate instructions, Intel for example (Haswell and newer) have a TSX instruction which can boost performance by 30% or more in some emulators.

When it comes to boosting visuals, that can fall entirely on the GPU for the most part... And let's face it. Even today's cheapest of the cheapest GPU's is superior to the Geforce 3/4 hybrid in the Original Xbox.

Mr Puggsly said:

Hypothetically, they could just use the same Xbox One APU, maybe a couple GB of memory and 32-64GB of storage for the games. Adding wifi would only be for downloading games, adding a DVD drive is possible but would make it more expensive. I think in the end though you still get a device that will be at least $99 so little profit, vastly inferior overall, and wouldn't have online Halo. That's why I don't want to cater to the masses only willing to spend $99, it would be junk compared to a X1. Go get a SNES or PS1 mini if that's all you have to spend.

They could cut off the ESRAM as well, which accounts for a large proportion of the SoC's transistor budget.

Mr Puggsly said:

Fuck price, $199 isn't that bad and you get a much more capable product. If you just wanna play old Xbox games it does that and very well, but if you consider playing 7th gen and 8th gen content (maybe finish the fight with Halo 3), it does that too. That's the great thing about the X1, its kinda like the best of all Xbox consoles in one machine. That becomes more true as the BC list grows.

Price is a big factor in these nostalgia fueled boxes... Microsoft could theoretically sell the OG Micro consoles at a loss... And profit from extra digital game sales.

I hear ya, optimization matters. Either way the current OG Xbox emulator MS has works well and does so on existing Xbox One specs.

You keep comparing specs like OG Xbox's GPU, earlier you were talking architecture. But the emulation process is much more resource intensive.

Again, maybe a final revision of the base Xbox One could make a lot of tweaks that also bring the price down.

I don't think there would be a big profit selling games on a device dedicated solely to playing OG Xbox games. If anything, sell the Xbox One at a lost and hope for profits there. More potential there from subscription services and vastly superior library.