COO-589

There is this StarTech adaptor that I believe has been used successfully in the XBOX: https://www.startech.com/en-au/hdd/pata2sata3 (This adapter can be plugged into the motherboard and a SATA data cable run to the drive) It uses a SunplusIT SPIF223A chip and only supports up to SATA I at 1.5Gbps (which is obviously far in excess of what the XBOX is capable of and it's unlikely that a modern SATA III drive wouldn't be backwards-compatible with SATA I) and up to 133Mbps for PATA (which is UDMA-6). Potentially also saves the hassle of an 80-wire IDE cable upgrade, but not sure how this adapter actually goes with UDMA-5 or UDMA-6 in the XBOX.

Would love to see how it flowed with a smoke machine, which would definitely provide proof-of-concept for the sceptics... Personally; I'd even accept a DVD bezel replacement that had slits or holes in it to allow air entry directly from out the front of the console as well (rather than predominately through the sides where air could already be warmer in a cabinet or unit, etc) - a smoke machine test with and without the DVD bezel fitted would help test that idea as well.

I'm definitely not requesting that the thread be closed, just suggesting that it could maybe use another tidy-up again now.

I'm back, was pretty out of action for a while due to work commitments and new dad life. Got some catching up to do in here, seems like a lot of great new stuff happening! Just came across this video, thanks to one of the Facebook groups I'm in. Although it was always only a matter of time, this is great news for NeM and his product! NeM's HDMI solution and this thread have been discussed, as well as a link to this thread posted in the video's comments. There's already quite a few pages to this thread with obviously plenty more to come, reckon it's time a moderator cleared out a bunch of the bickering etc posts in here again now?

Yeah, agree it's hard to tell but it does look like the MM appears to have a spacing of maybe even 2x track width. Sounds great, keen to see the results! The 6mil does appear small but maybe only after looking at 10mil and 8mil first... Definitely keen to see what you think when you've got them and would be nice to have side-by-side real world comparisons with the 10mil and the MM. For sure, totally makes sense.

Good stuff, mate! Keen to see if there's any difference between those with the 45deg and curves to see if that plays any part. If they don't work out, maybe there is something in the trace widths and spacings... How does the MM flex cable fit in with those recommendations? I'm not an engineer or anything so don't know how strictly all of that needs to apply or exactly what signals we're dealing with but it might just be a tipping point for it... It's not my money to spend on prototypes but I'm damn curious as to whether or not just changing the trace widths and spacing would have any impact, it would be very interesting to see how significant that is (could do nothing either way if the issue is completely unrelated though of course). I would've had the same approach of using the existing spacings as minimums regardless of those guidelines anyway so I reckon you've made a good call on that so far! I honestly have no idea, unfortunately. I haven't even seen a HDMI mod or its components first-hand so am not really familiar with the flex cable or any of these requirements for the mod... I have a feeling that it's not related to grounding or ground-loops, so I also don't want to lead you down any rabbit holes or anything like that either. Sorry I just dumped all of those thoughts up here in such a rush earlier! I definitely understand not wanting to just jump on that shielding option for cost, and it may only be a band-aid solution (if it would even have any effect on the issue) rather than figuring out the root cause and addressing that... Yeah, I agree and also wouldn't worry too much about adding any extra copper or shielding to prototypes until it's a last resort if you've tried everything else. Loving your work, Nem. Thanks for all that you're investing to make this happen! Also thanks to everyone else that's contributing as well! Cheers!

No worries! There might be info out there about flex cables specifically but knew searching for PCBs would definitely bring info up... Impedance matching is very important as well (solid solder connections especially). Proximity of signal lines to ground lines can also induce capacitance which affects impedance, so something else to look out for as well. If you're confident you're meeting all of those guidelines, then grounding and shielding could be considered too... Maybe terminating ground lines only at one end of the cable (preferably the end that has a cleaner and higher capacity ground path) could prevent any potential ground loops that might be playing a part. A last resort could be a trial of that shielding on the bottom of the cable that came up in the thread if there does happen to be any interference from something on the board that the cable sits above... Sorry for the rush replies! Has been a bloody long time now since I've done all of my training but some of this stuff has stuck in the back of my head

Hey Nem, I'm a bit pressed for time right now but wanted to chime-in. Please excuse if you're all over this stuff already (I don't have the time at the moment to go back and review the thread properly right now)... Doesn't look like you've got any 90deg bends which is important but there are still some principles to consider with 45drg bends, spacings between lines and ground planes with high frequency signals. I'm not sure what kind of frequencies the flex cable will be carrying though so unsure of the relevance... Have a quick google search for something along the lines of "PCB traces for high frequency signals" and have a look at some of the pages. The one titled Sierra Circuits seemed informative from a quick skim... Hope that helps, and sorry again if you're all over this stuff already anyway!

First attempt with the single XDDA archive file was an error that I couldn't resume at 60-something%, so scrapped it and had another go... Just got it complete without any stoppages but WinRAR and 7-Zip both say it's damaged so can't open or extract it. I'll keep that one aside for now anyway and give it one more go fresh again (third time lucky!?) and see what happens... For the torrent, I've had it sitting in my download manager since my previous post (and I saw a jump in peers of over 100 since my post!) but haven't had any seeders with any so it's still sitting with nothing downloaded... Another reason I dislike torrents; I also found an "XEMU Ready Software Collection" on the Internet Archive to check out. The individual files listed for this appear very much incomplete, so I thought I'd try the torrents to see what I got... Part 3 came in completed pretty quick. Parts 1 & 2 have been sitting at 99.9% and apparently still downloading for days but won't completely finish (unlike Part 3 which had seeders, neither Parts 1 or 2 currently have any seeders so I assume that there's a bit of data missing that none of the peers have either - although I don't understand why there's still constant download bandwidth for them!?)... I've actually now uploaded more for these than their totals, so is a bit frustrating to be sharing something I can't even access or use myself yet... How are you coming along with your package, @nikeymikey? I'm pretty keen to have some sort of informally-official and reliable go-to base set that we can share and maintain as a community! I'm going to leave the "Xbox Disk Data Archive (XDDA)" and "XEMU-Ready Software Collection" torrents in my download manager for a while just to see how they are and leave reviews accordingly, but I am definitely more than happy to seed a torrent for your set as well. My NAS is online 24/7 and I'm on 1000/50 FTTP with unlimited data... There are business plans with 250/100 or 500/200 or 1000/400 that my home connection can use but these are literally hundreds of dollars monthly so I won't do that freely. @eliaslear, I'm happy to seed it if a majority of the community is happy to support it as a go-to set - I just don't want to seed a bunch of everyone's individual sets that are only going to be leeched...

I've just come across this - https://archive.org/details/xdda_20230127 - "An archive of every US Xbox game ever made plus every PAL/JP region exclusive title in CCI (Cerbios Compressed Image) format. In total about 1.9TB." (the torrent total download size with all included files selected comes in at 1.79TB, and the .tar.gz archive file is 309GB) Anyone familiar with "XDDA"/"Cas731", their work or their reputation? Just added both the .tar.gz and the torrent to my NAS' download manager. The archive is coming in alright, and there are currently 42 peers for the torrent but zero seeds so it hasn't started at all... The torrent file list shows the .CCI files plus resources such as artwork etc for each game... I'll compare the .tar.gz archive once it's fully downloaded. Not trying to say that your work is redundant of course! Maybe we can get your torrent up with some seeders from here!

Any idea what has and hasn't been done with the XISOs on Vimm's Lair (supposedly originally Redump ISOs) - ie: is it worthwhile downloading XISOs from there for a hell of a lot less to download compared to the original Redump ISOs (eg: Blinx 2 = 2.01GB XISO - 5.34GB ISO / Halo 2 = 2.58GB XISO - 4.61GB ISO / Morrowind = 516MB XISO - 6.13GB ISO), and can the XISOs be used to build CCIs or do CCIs need to be built from original Redump ISOs?

I'm so grateful someone is doing this! I appreciate your work, thanks heaps. I definitely agree that it should go up on Archive.org for sure for long-term safe-keeping... I personally also tend to avoid torrents initially but will use them as a last resort. For the sake of this, I'm more than happy to have the torrents on my NAS and share from there (it has the software and is online 24/7 so don't need to run a computer 24/7 just for the sake of torrents). I have FTTP on a 1000/50 plan (typically getting 93X.XX Mbps DL & 48.XX Mbps UL with a 1.2X ms ping) so have decent bandwidth to help get it out there - especially initially.

I've dealt with Nem a few times over the last few years through eBay and a few e-mails (G'day, mate!) - Absolute legend and well more than happy to support. I have hardcore OCPD as well, mate, so I totally understand and empathise with that, and is probably also another factor of why I appreciate your work! I've actually got a couple of e-mails to reply to from you (been stuck in the new Dad bubble for the last few months) and haven't done anything with the new stuff I recently got from you yet. Also about to go on course with work so will probably still be pretty quiet for the next couple of months, then will get all caught up (if not before anyway). Definitely happy to help with Aussie-based testing, etc. in future as well of course...

I saw the other post as well about the two options - one with a cut-out to be made next to the original ethernet port (which will be replaced by the HDMI port) that you solder the ethernet port back onto the board and set up jumpers to retain wired instead of going WiFi, and I'm loving that it will be an option even if it's not as clean as I'd like by replacing the analogue video output with a no-cut mod and just leaving the ethernet port untouched - although I suppose the analogue port could still be removed and then a no-cut mod made-up for the analogue port with an ethernet port there instead that's just got a bit of cable run to the new PixelFX board instead... I don't actually know enough about these mods yet, but I'm wondering about BIOS and patching requirements for it (especially for v1.6) although I'm sure time will tell. I'm much more excited about this than Project Stellar and much happier to support Dan/PixelFX than Dustin/MakeMhz

Oh wow, that's a different approach! Compromise again, though. It hurts my OCPD not being able to have everything I want without having to forego something... I'm 100% a wired over wireless where possible person, and especially in cases where you don't want any additional latency such as for online gaming (or the stable connection for FTP without additional potential for losses). WiFi technology is great these days and all (wonder if it's Wireless- N or AC or AX / WiFi "5"/"6"/"7"), but I'd rather ditch the analogue video output for the digital video option as I wouldn't be going back to analogue (adding WiFi as a separate product would make more sense than having to choose between a wired or wireless network connection and video output options)... Thanks heaps for the heads up though and I'll definitely be keeping an eye on it!

I'd just love either a competitor for the HDMI kit, or a patch for CERBIOS for the old HDMI kit, then I'd be happy enough without Stellar. I'm in absolutely no rush at all to cave and get a Steller kit and hope I can live without one once it's "out of Beta".

And haven't CERBIOS also just cracked UDMA6? Whereas Stellar is (and others are) up to UDMA5. I'd hardly say CERBIOS is useless at all! Sure, Dustin might bring UDMA6 to Stellar, but CERBIOS is well-and-truly still pioneering! Can't imagine what Dustin is going to do with his proprietary compressed ISO format that will be any better than CERBIOS' (if really even any different)... roflmao at CERBIOS being "useless"

I've been lurking Project Stellar discussions on various forums, etc. but haven't seen anything definitive about this yet... Has anyone seen or heard if there's any way we're going to be able to have their HDMI kit (either old or new) and use a BIOS other than StellarOS, even if it's potentially one on a microSD card on the Stellar board? There seems to be speculation/doubt as to the advertised feature of loading other BIOS on the microSD card actually being something that will be supported/released (and they definitely seem against CERBIOS especially)... If it does come through that we can run another BIOS from a microSD card on the Stellar board (CERBIOS or otherwise), the consensus is that it will be expected that most or all of Project Stellar's additional features will not be available. Surely if the ability to run another BIOS is a feature that gets added to Project Stellar, then there would also have to be some form of support on the Stellar board to still allow you to use their HDMI board (even if only the new one) as well, right?? I'm definitely now sceptical that support for other BIOS will be added (or apparently at least not for CERBIOS), or that we'd even be able to use their HDMI kit with another BIOS on Stellar, and pretty disappointed if this will be the case. StellarOS will have to meet or exceed what CERBIOS has to offer if they're going to run with such a proprietary product range...

From what I've read, I can't help but believe that supporting other BIOSes on a microSD card is nothing more than a gimmick at the moment. There hasn't been much effort in supporting anything else previously with MakeMHz... And if it does go ahead, I can't imagine it'll be a priority at all or that any competitive/preferable modern BIOSes or patches will even be supported anyway. I've been interested in the native ATA TRIM support for SSDs as well, but it's not something that I've really seen discussed since its announcement... Sure, it's not actually all that big of a deal, but I'm keen to see it play out if it's actually a thing. All of the kernel-level patching on-the-fly is the most attractive thing about it all to me at the moment, and also the integrated modern controller support that I haven't seen or heard anything about yet either... There's a lot of promises and undelivered features, but also a lot of drama and refusals to support desired features that are provided elsewhere. I think I'll be on the fence about Project Stellar for a while, patiently seeing how it all plays out and what it has to offer in the long-run... I think that a bit of competition for an internal HDMI output mod (not analogue-digital external converters) could be a good thing for the project overall - I recently saw some mention of PixelFX developing one? In the meantime, an OpenXenium with freedom for my own choice of BIOSes/patches will be good enough for me, at least until something "Stellar" finally happens with this...

Assuming these will still need v1.6 compatibility patches though? (just for 480p?) Looking forward to the tool being available, or a new archive being made available with ROMs built (and patched if any are necessary) in that configuration...