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Backward compatability


Atarifever

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Now that I have a HDD, is my 360 backwards compatable? I sold my original Xbox and games awhile ago, and really regret it (especially at current game prices). Do I need to download anything? Anyone have an updated BC list?

 

Sorry to ask so many questions lately, but with a 360 HDD, I now finally feel like I have a "real" 360 for the first time.

Edited by Atarifever
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Check it out:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Xbox_games_compatible_with_Xbox_360

 

My Xbox 360 is connected to the Internet and I put in The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction and if I remember correctly, I didn't have to do anything. I just started playing. The game did freeze up on me, though (something it doesn't do on my real Xbox).

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yes and no! the 360 will play most games, but not all. keep doing updates from time to time. I sure microsoft is working on it!

 

According to Xbox.com, Microsoft hasn't updated the 360's Xbox compatibility since 2007. Here's the official list:

 

http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/backwardcompatibilitygameslist.htm

 

I find it appalling that crap like The Guy Game, Futurama, Barbie Horse Adventures and Family Guy get backwards compatibility, yet great games like TimeSplitters 2 and TimeSplitters: Future Perfect do not... :x :x :x

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I just noticed that House of the Dead 3 has backwards compatibility...

 

WTF?!?! I don't think you can even get light guns on 360. Or better yet, WHY would you find them on 360? It's designed to work with HDTVs which are at this point incompatible with old fashioned light guns which HotD 3 needs in order to work properly.

 

... I am just baffled...

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Yeah, Microsoft really half assed the BC on the 360. It's only about half there, you can bet that if you buy a game (without the compatibility list in hand) that it's got a good chance of not working. To bad too, some of my favorite games are Xbox games, so till the drive completely craps out on me, I'll be playing the original Xbox far more than the 360.

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Another problem is that even though they may be compatible, they don't necessarily 'feel' right. Outrun comes to mind - there is some slowdown in various parts of the game where a lot of action is going that doesn't exist when played on a real Xbox. On most games it's probably not a big deal but when you get a game going on that's related to speed it can be a bit annoying.

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I find it appalling that crap like The Guy Game, Futurama, Barbie Horse Adventures and Family Guy get backwards compatibility, yet great games like TimeSplitters 2 and TimeSplitters: Future Perfect do not... :x :x :x

 

The answer is obvious if you put some thought into it.

 

The work to make a emulation profile for something like Project Gotham Racing 2 or the Halo releases might make 10 or 15 different games that had similarities in how they were programmed operable in the emulator.

 

Something like Barbie Horse Adventures is a freebie that became operable due to the work to get something like a Halo release working. I highly doubt any significant time or financial resources were expended in getting titles working that no one cares about.

 

The House of the Dead III is on there because it doesn't need a light gun to be played. It plays surprisingly well with a standard controller. And the Xbox 360 works just fine with a SDTV. The only drawback associated with that game being BC is that you can't physically hook up a 3rd party Xbox lightgun to the 360 due to original Xbox controllers not being compatible.

Edited by Atariboy
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There are no Xbox games you would want?

 

So no...

 

Halo

Halo 2

Unreal Championship 2

Morrowind

Silent Hill 2

Fatal Frame

Fatal Frame 2

Return to Castle Wolfenstein

Star Wars KOTOR

Star Wars KOTOR II

Max Payne

Max Payne 2

Half-Life 2

Black

Counter-Strike

 

 

That's just the first 15 games that popped in my head... all of them on the BC list. I have another 30 games and while some of them aren't on the BC list most of them are. And most of them are good games because I never bought junk for the Xbox. There are a ton of top notch titles on there.

 

There are a couple of titles that really should be on that list but aren't. The ones that come to my mind most immediately are The Chronicles of Riddick (although this isn't as big a deal now that there is a remake for the 360) and Mech Assault. I would have though they would have at least had 100% of the Microsoft titles working. They have access to the game code in the case of those games. There is really no excuse. I think most people who know the Xbox really well would say that having Psychonauts on there makes up for most of what is not. Nobody actually bought the game but every top 3, 5, or 10 Xbox games lists I have seen contains this game.

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Two reasons why "The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay" was not BC: First, because of how they did the graphics and the strong possibility that it couldn't be BC and, second and already mentioned, was the remake included in the sequel "The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena". And the remake is better in just about every way anyhow so no BC for EFBB is no problem.

 

Originally, the Xbox version of "Hitman: Blood Money" was BC but was taken off the list when the Xbox 360 version of it came out.

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I find it appalling that crap like The Guy Game, Futurama, Barbie Horse Adventures and Family Guy get backwards compatibility, yet great games like TimeSplitters 2 and TimeSplitters: Future Perfect do not... :x :x :x

They didn't spend any effort on 'The Guy Game' etc... they just happened to run.

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I mentioned before that The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction froze up. Well, I put in Fable yesterday and it froze up too. That's two games tried, two freeze-ups. I'm not wasting any more time trying to play old Xbox games on my Xbox 360. Reminds me of a famous mangled saying:

 

"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKgPY1adc0A&rel=0&fmt=18&showinfo=0

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  • 2 years later...

Bit of a necro bump here, but does anyone here on the boards have real-world experience playing Psychonauts and/or Panzer Dragoon Orta via BC? How was it? What if any ill effects did the game experience that weren't present on the original Xbox?

 

I looked through the notes on the Wiki page but wanted to get some forum-goers first hand accounts.

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Bit of a necro bump here, but does anyone here on the boards have real-world experience playing Psychonauts and/or Panzer Dragoon Orta via BC? How was it? What if any ill effects did the game experience that weren't present on the original Xbox?

 

It's been a while, but I can offer this about Orta: The game played fine, but the cutscene visuals stuttered, like a flipbook missing random pages every so often. That's the only problem I recall.

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I don't believe I own a hard copy of Psychonauts, but I picked up the Xbox Originals download from the 360's marketplace years ago and played through it just fine. There were no obvious issues noticeable to me.

 

First off, thanks to both you Gabriel and Atariboy for the quick response!

 

That's true Atariboy, isn't it: if a game is available via Games on Demand (or the old Xbox Originals download section) then one would expect the game to run pretty darn well, right? I mean after all it should be the same exact game (?).

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Seems like a reasonable expectation that they wouldn't release an Xbox Original if it wasn't one of the better performing Xbox titles with their emulator. I've purchased several on sale and they've all seemed perfect to me. That includes Black, Halo, Pirates (Someone earlier in the thread spoke of a few minor problems, but I never noticed anything), Dreamfall, Psychonauts, and Indigo Prophecy. And I've played all of those through to completion as well.

 

And I also own several of those on disc (I know I have disc versions for at least Halo, Black, Indigo Prophecy, and Pirates) so I've experienced them on original hardware as well. And your saved games are compatible with either the download or disc which lends credence to it just being an ISO image running under the exact emulator that a retail game is running on with the 360.

 

And I've played several others available for download via original disc and they always seem to perform well, where as with titles not available for download, it's real hit or miss (And usually a miss). If a game is available as an Xbox Original, I'll usually play it on my 360 with a wireless controller on my HDTV.

 

If it's not, I usually stick with the original Xbox hooked up to my Trinitron since I find so many issues with the bulk of my Xbox games that are compatible with the 360 (And many don't make the leap to a HDTV well; PGR2 is full of jaggies for instance where as on my original Xbox connected via component to my Trinitron, it's a beauty and the jaggies aren't evident). Only exceptions off hand not in the Xbox Originals lineup that I play on my 360 instead of my Xbox are Ninja Gaiden, Halo 2, and Atari Anthology (Runs perfect and it's natively HD so it doesn't even need to be upscaled).

 

And I've stuck with the original Xbox for the GTA games despite several being included with the Xbox Originals lineup since the custom soundtrack feature in Xbox software doesn't work with the 360's emulator (There's a workaround to have your mp3's playing in the background for any original Xbox game on the 360, but using it means your music will constantly be playing where as on the original Xbox, your music only plays when in a vehicle in the three GTA's).

Edited by Atariboy
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backwards compatibility is very hit and miss, even going off the compatibility list.

 

if you've never played it on the original Xbox, you may never know the difference. but if you have, you can totally tell with many games on the compatibility list. like for Outrun and Outrun 2006. if you check the compatibility list, they list only a few minor mistakes. emulation problems at menus, cutscenes, etc., I can handle. but gameplay? that's where I'm critical.

 

those outrun games appear to run fine without problems on the 360 in the actual gameplay. However, it's night and day difference running those games on a true original Xbox. It's silky smooth and fast at 60 fps on the original Xbox. I find it hard to believe it's running at the framerate on the 360 as it feels a lot slower and more clumsy.

 

It's the reason why I kept the original Xbox. In fact, I have way too many of them (the hoarder in me). I think I have 4 systems still, each with HDD's ranging from 320GB to 80GB, packed with games (and even more on an external 1TB HDD). Doesn't help that you can easily get a system off Craigslist for like $20-30 with controllers and games. Unfortunately, lack of time means I barely play any of the old games anymore. Heck, I don't have enough time to play the ones I have on the 360.

 

some of the games are truly nice on the 360 versus the original Xbox. Like the Halo games. They really put a lot of work in the emulator profiles for those.

 

Here's how nice Halo 2 can run on the 360:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00bkLna8A88

 

That said, lots of graphical and emulation glitches every once in awhile that you don't see on the original Xbox.

Edited by onlysublime
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You can tell the Outrun games probably aren't right even if you've never played them on original hardware. Frequent and sometimes very severe frame rate drops (Single digits in busy corners on occasion), one of them has incredibly slow load-times when played on the 360, some graphics are corrupted (I remember it specifically with the unlockable version of Outrun in OR2, but there are issues with the main games as well), the custom soundtrack feature doesn't work in Coast 2 Coast, etc. I also recall some oddness with the edge of the highway on both sides about 20' in front of you where it looked very lowres which I never noticed on real hardware.

 

For the occasional game though, 360's BC is a very nice feature. The two Ninja Gaidens almost looked like Xbox 360 games 6-7 years ago for instance when played upscaled on the 360 hooked up to a nice HDTV (I imagine they're looking their age these days, but back then they compared well with the first generation of 360 software).

 

One Xbox game I never played on my 360 that I intended to was Doom 3. Was a Xbox Original so I intended to give it a play through someday again on my HDTV in 16:9 (And on a much bigger screen than the CRT I originally played it on). I never will now with the HD remake, but did anyone ever give it a go on the 360? How did it stand up compared to the original hardware?

 

I recall Half-Life 2 also performing well on the 360 even though I never played it completely to completion outside of the original Xbox (I think it had a few issues when it was first made compatible that were massaged later on with a emulation profile update). But with The Orange Box being available on the 360, I guess that's also not of much use to anyone these days.

Edited by Atariboy
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