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Forums - Microsoft Discussion - Xbox One Backwards Compatibility Discussion Thread

 

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HOLY S*IT!!!!!!!!!!!! 145 72.14%
 
NO, NO!!! ITS NOT TRUE, P... 10 4.98%
 
YES, YES!!!!!!!! 45 22.39%
 
Total:200
DakonBlackblade on 16 June 2015
walsufnir said:

What I think is that with the last gen, people more and more bought games digitally instead of discs and we know that 360 was moving a lot of software. It will be so convenient if I ever enter next-gen to have all my games on my disk at will, almost immediately. My 360 is already running out of disk space and I have a huge backlog still which is one of the big reasons I didn't enter next-gen already.

And again - whether you think this is big or not is not objectively measurable. It is totally subjective and to me quite big.

For ppl in your situation its certainly a heck of a good feature, and you are the target audience of this feature btw, ppl with 360s that havent made the transition yet. Its a smart move by MS for sure, too many players were switching 360s for PS4s, backwards compatbility gives these players a reason not to.



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HollyGamer on 16 June 2015
walsufnir said:
HollyGamer said:
walsufnir said:


We don't know exactly why you need to download them. Perhaps it's a restriction of the VM they use. Perhaps it doesn't work with discs or the drive is not good enough to stream DVD content but is more targeted at Bluray streaming. Either way, we could compare how big the games are on 360 and how big they turn out to be on Xbox One to make educated guesses if they recompile while we don't know if every game will ship with an additional binary for translation, of course.

Thats why everything it's still in specualtion and theory, even if they able to emulate that, it will be a hell of jobs there, I am not saying it's imposible but making one games work on stable frame rate is a hell of work, so i am just make some assumptions. But then again only some portion of games work for now. But nevertheless i am applause Microsoft for doing this. 

I really think it is emulation as I said before. There isn't another possibility technically. And again - we have to forget what we know about emulation from other systems. These emulators are made by hobbyists who do a great work but of course can't provide the same performance as professionals who have all the documentation.

Example? Sega was able to emulate Sega Rally Model 2 with a PS2. The system was more powerful than Model 2 but it was amazing what they achieved on PS2 with it. Or Rosetta which Apple used when they switched to x86 and left ppc behind.

Edit: btw, Rosetta is made by the same company as the company mentioned by the neogaffer I linked.

Edit 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_%28software%29

Well, given by this it's not exactly "emulation" as we know it but you can still call it though, I guess.

Even if they made by hobbiest it's still under the same principle, i will just wait for other expert to explain this and how the damn thing work , and for Roseta it's another different mater both are more simpler then games with a lot of code, and also we are discusing Xbox One spec and not just PC, and even until now no one able to play smoothly Xbox 360 games on high end  PC, i cannot imagine how this things will work on Xbox One spec. But that's already prove on how limited the games that will work on this backward compatibility. 



walsufnir on 16 June 2015
HollyGamer said:
walsufnir said:

I really think it is emulation as I said before. There isn't another possibility technically. And again - we have to forget what we know about emulation from other systems. These emulators are made by hobbyists who do a great work but of course can't provide the same performance as professionals who have all the documentation.

Example? Sega was able to emulate Sega Rally Model 2 with a PS2. The system was more powerful than Model 2 but it was amazing what they achieved on PS2 with it. Or Rosetta which Apple used when they switched to x86 and left ppc behind.

Edit: btw, Rosetta is made by the same company as the company mentioned by the neogaffer I linked.

Edit 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_%28software%29

Well, given by this it's not exactly "emulation" as we know it but you can still call it though, I guess.

Even if they made by hobbiest it's still under the same principle, i will just wait for other expert to explain this and how the damn thing work , and for Roseta it's another different mater both are more simpler then games with a lot of code, and also we are discusing Xbox One spec and not just PC, and even until now no one able to play smoothly Xbox 360 games on high end  PC, i cannot imagine how this things will work on Xbox One spec. But that's already prove on how limited the games that will work on this backward compatibility. 


See edit 3, the tech from the company they use seems way better than the traditional emulation technique we see in nowadays emulators.

Btw, you won't find another expert on this forum



HollyGamer on 16 June 2015
walsufnir said:
HollyGamer said:

Even if they made by hobbiest it's still under the same principle, i will just wait for other expert to explain this and how the damn thing work , and for Roseta it's another different mater both are more simpler then games with a lot of code, and also we are discusing Xbox One spec and not just PC, and even until now no one able to play smoothly Xbox 360 games on high end  PC, i cannot imagine how this things will work on Xbox One spec. But that's already prove on how limited the games that will work on this backward compatibility. 


See edit 3, the tech from the company they use seems way better than the traditional emulation technique we see in nowadays emulators.

Btw, you won't find another expert on this forum

and also Xbox 360 running on modified 3 Power PC CPU under 3,2 GHZ clock spead , how the hell 1,7 GHz even coup with that. It's not just simple Power PC but powerful Power PC CPU. And what i mean not just forum dweler experts i mean real experts like Tachikoma or people from Euro Gamer.  



walsufnir on 16 June 2015
HollyGamer said:
walsufnir said:


See edit 3, the tech from the company they use seems way better than the traditional emulation technique we see in nowadays emulators.

Btw, you won't find another expert on this forum

and also Xbox 360 running on modified 3 Power PC CPU under 3,2 GHZ clock spead , how the hell 1,7 GHz even coup with that. It's not just simple Power PC but powerful Power PC CPU. And what i mean not just forum dweler experts i mean real experts like Tachikoma or people from Euro Gamer.  

 

Perhaps they found a way to just "wrap" Xbox 360 api calls to x86 and "only" emulate hand-written ppc intrinsincs to x86.

And I am not a forum dweller expert, I am a computer scientist with diploma who spent several years on computing and have a more than decnet knowledge how computers work internally. Tachi is a game dev but that doesn't mean he knows anything about the tech used here. Eurogamer can, in my opinion, also only reach out to MS to ask them how they are doing it. Again, all points hint to the company and their tech I already mentioned.



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HollyGamer on 16 June 2015
walsufnir said:
HollyGamer said:
walsufnir said:


See edit 3, the tech from the company they use seems way better than the traditional emulation technique we see in nowadays emulators.

Btw, you won't find another expert on this forum

and also Xbox 360 running on modified 3 Power PC CPU under 3,2 GHZ clock spead , how the hell 1,7 GHz even coup with that. It's not just simple Power PC but powerful Power PC CPU. And what i mean not just forum dweler experts i mean real experts like Tachikoma or people from Euro Gamer.  

 

Perhaps they found a way to just "wrap" Xbox 360 api calls to x86 and "only" emulate hand-written ppc intrinsincs to x86.

And I am not a forum dweller expert, I am a computer scientist with diploma who spent several years on computing and have a more than decnet knowledge how computers work internally. Tachi is a game dev but that doesn't mean he knows anything about the tech used here. Eurogamer can, in my opinion, also only reach out to MS to ask them how they are doing it. Again, all points hint to the company and their tech I already mentioned.

I know a lot of engineer who able to design airplane but unable to fix their own car, the same thing with IT engineers, not all expert know everything, i am not downplay your expertise but , tachi is game developer and work under SCEJ for a quiet long, again i an not saying you are bad in It, it just i  need more expert to explain rather then one person, maybe it just me because with many people discuss this it will be even better .  



walsufnir on 16 June 2015
HollyGamer said:
walsufnir said:

 

Perhaps they found a way to just "wrap" Xbox 360 api calls to x86 and "only" emulate hand-written ppc intrinsincs to x86.

And I am not a forum dweller expert, I am a computer scientist with diploma who spent several years on computing and have a more than decnet knowledge how computers work internally. Tachi is a game dev but that doesn't mean he knows anything about the tech used here. Eurogamer can, in my opinion, also only reach out to MS to ask them how they are doing it. Again, all points hint to the company and their tech I already mentioned.

I know a lot of enginer who able to design airplane but unable to fix their won car, the same thing with IT enginers, not all expert know everything, i am not downplay your expertise but , tachi is game developer and work under SCEJ for a quiet long, again i an not saying you are bad in It, it just i  need more expert to explain rather then one person, maybe it just me because with many people discuss this it will be even better .  


I would gladly discuss it, really. But I don't see many here who would be able to.

Either way, I guess they are indeed doing some API wrapping as they are emulating a whole 360 vm with this. This is not just binary translation, but also.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdgedZynd_4&feature=youtu.be

You have a whole 360 as a vm in your Xbox One. This is even more amazing than I thought in the beginning it would be.



HollyGamer on 16 June 2015
walsufnir said:
HollyGamer said:

I know a lot of enginer who able to design airplane but unable to fix their won car, the same thing with IT enginers, not all expert know everything, i am not downplay your expertise but , tachi is game developer and work under SCEJ for a quiet long, again i an not saying you are bad in It, it just i  need more expert to explain rather then one person, maybe it just me because with many people discuss this it will be even better .  


I would gladly discuss it, really. But I don't see many here who would be able to.

Either way, I guess they are indeed doing some API wrapping as they are emulating a whole 360 vm with this. This is not just binary translation, but also.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdgedZynd_4&feature=youtu.be

You have a whole 360 as a vm in your Xbox One. This is even more amazing than I thought in the beginning it would be.

Yeah it's nice but still i need more info on how that thing work and explain is this will be achivable on PS4 if they want to emulate PS3, and how different The cell Power PC to the 3 core Power PC on Xbox 360. both are under power PC and also The cell is actually just one core CPU with several SPU inside. 



walsufnir on 16 June 2015
HollyGamer said:
walsufnir said:


I would gladly discuss it, really. But I don't see many here who would be able to.

Either way, I guess they are indeed doing some API wrapping as they are emulating a whole 360 vm with this. This is not just binary translation, but also.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdgedZynd_4&feature=youtu.be

You have a whole 360 as a vm in your Xbox One. This is even more amazing than I thought in the beginning it would be.

Yeah it's nice but still i need more info on how that thing work and explain is this will be achivable on PS4 if they want to emulate PS3, and how different The cell Power PC to the 3 core Power PC on Xbox 360. both are under power PC and also The cell is actually just one core CPU with several SPU inside. 

 

The cell is completely different. To simplify, 360 has 3 ppc-cores which have to be mapped to 6 available cpu-x64-cores. This sounds tough and rough but seems achievable, especially if tricks are done like I mentioned (and of course this is handy if you imagine that MS was able to build a wrapper for their api calls).

The PS3 has the PPU running at 3.2 GHz which shouldn't be a problem but there are also six SPUs which are extremely fast and efficient in many situations. They are even faster than the Jaguar cores if we can believe Ubisoft slides. And as I read the SPU code was mostly hand-written mouth-blown whispered code to the metal to get decent performance out of them and I doubt there are professional solutions to emulate SPU on *anything* because the Cell didn't really take off, not even in high performance computing. So you have more cores to emulate than you have for emulating and 6 of these cores will be a hell to emulate and get a decent performance out of them, especially if they can't be "catched" by an API wrapper as the code is completely in assembly and hand-written.



walsufnir on 16 June 2015

 

 

source: http://www.zdnet.com/article/emulation-is-key-to-microsofts-xbox-backward-compatibility-story/

Emulation is key to Microsoft's Xbox backward compatibility story

By Mary Jo Foley for All About Microsoft | June 15, 2015 -- 19:35 GMT (20:35 BST) | Topic: Microsoft

One of Microsoft's biggest announcements at the E3 show (so far) is that the company will provide the ability to run Xbox 360 games on Xbox One -- theoretically making the Xbox One console more interesting to Xbox 360 holdouts who didn't want to abandon their existing game collections.

In some ways, Microsoft's backward-compatibility strategy isn't a total surprise. Microsoft execs signaled at Build 2014 that Microsoft was investigating how to build an Xbox 360 emulator that would allow gamers to do just that. (Official later stepped back from that statement.)

It looks like that emulator work panned out. Starting today, June 15, Xbox Preview members can start testing the first wave of Xbox 360 games on their Xbox Ones. Microsoft officials said that the backward emulation capability would be available for everyone this holiday season (meaning fall 2015).

I'm not a gamer, but I am interested in anything Windows-related that powers Microsoft and third-party hardware, including gaming consoles, work.

Unfortunately, Microsoft's Xbox.com site does little to explain how the backwards compatibility works.

The site notes that digital titles users already own are part of the "Back Compat game catalog" and will automatically show up in the "Ready to Install" section of Xbox One. For disc-based games that are part of the Back Compat game catalog, gamers can insert the disc and the console "will begin downloading the game to your hard drive." (After the game downloads, users still need to keep the game disc in the drive in order to play.)

There was a bit more information on that Xbox.com site about backwards compatibility, which now seems to have been removed. In a now-absent "Trending Questions" section, Microsoft acknowledge it was a new emulator that makes this work.

From the Q&A:

What is Xbox One Backward Compatibility and how does it work?

Xbox One Backward Compatibility is an Xbox 360 emulator that runs on Xbox One and is used to play Xbox 360 games.

If it's actually emulation, why are you calling it backward compatibility?

We call it backward compatibility because gamers can play select Xbox 360 games on the Xbox One. However, referring to this functionality as an emulator is more accurate from a technology perspective since the Xbox One is not technically reading and playing the 360 game off of a disc.

When will it be available?

 The Xbox One Backward Compatibility Beta is available starting June 15 for Xbox preview members. The program will launch broadly for fall 2015.

Previously, you said back compat wasn't possible on Xbox One. How is it possible now?

We didn't know if we could do it, but we were inspired by our fans, and thanks to the dedication and determination of a group of brilliant engineers in our platform team who developed Xbox One Backward Compatibility, we made the impossible, possible.

I asked Microsoft officials for more information about the emulator and was provided with this statement by a spokesperson:

"What we did was essentially built a virtual Xbox 360 console entirely in software. So when you launch a game via Xbox One Backward Compatibility, you'll see that the game first starts up a virtual Xbox 360 console, then launches the title. The work is ongoing as each title requires individual packaging and validation work to enable that virtual console capability, but we're committed to continually rolling out new titles each month."

I've asked for more specifics about the emulator, but so far, officials aren't providing information beyond that statement.

This isn't the first time Microsoft has built an emulator to enable backward compatibility for Xbox. A decade or so ago, a team inside the company built an emulator enabling original Xbox games to work on Xbox 360.

The Xbox One operating system -- really three operating systems in one -- is based on the Windows 8 core. Microsoft plans to update the console with the Windows 10 core some time in the coming months, and possibly this year.