Digital Foundry: How Does Xbox 360 Backwards Compatibility on Xbox One Actually Work?

[drkohler]

Chrizum said:

drkohler said:

Backward compatibility is neither a porting nor an emulation operation.

Anyone with enough knowledge about microprocesors roughly knows how it is done, and it has been explained already, long before DF figured out that they should write an article about it (an article which doesn't really tell us anything not already known).

And don't ask me to write an article about it,  I'm way too lazy around these times.

This is a bad post, and you should feel bad.

Maybe it is, and I don't feel bad. But the information is available for everyone to look after, if really interested.

For those who want a starting point, google "Static binary translation". From that point on, it gets more difficult because of multicore architecture, but it also gets easier as self-modifying code is forbidden in consoles - a major obstacle in PC code. It also helps that MS owns all the OS and library sources which makes it possible to write and constantly refine a crossassembler that probably does 99% of the work.