Xbox 1 savegames on XBOX 360

Since discovered that Burnout 3 and other Xbox 1 titles are now available through XBOX Live! games on demand, I decided to do away with disc swapping and focus my attention on purchasing games for XBOX360 and Xbox Originals online through Live!

Then it dawned on me... What about all the long and painful hours I dedicated to all those Xbox 1 Originals? Do I have to play them all over again including unlocking everything and developing perfect saves etc?

The short answer (more or less from Microsoft) is: No

The Long(er) answer is: Yes, but only with specific hardware, software and some patience (as well as unsigned savegames).


Quite a bit of research later, I discovered that it is theoretically possible as the XBOX 360 has a directory on it's HDD (Partition 3/Compatibility/Xbox1/UDATA to be precise). Besides, how else would it save normally backwards compatible game data?

So after I borrowing a Datel XPort 360 HDD adapter from an awesome friend, I was able to connect the XBOX 360 HDD onto my PC, and read (and also write to) the HDD contents within minutes, all I needed was Xport 360 Software

Next up I deleted my Halo save that I created on the XBOX360 HDD and dragged the Xbox Original savegame folder (ID: 4d530004) onto the XBOX 360 HDD disconnected it and it worked!

I then repeated this with Burnout 3 and tested it, but it failed to load save and shows Unusable in the in-game load menu for the savegam(e). Apparently this is because the savegame(s) are signed with HDD key so it will probably never work for this game *sob*

I decided to proceed with copying all my Xbox Original save games (or at least he ones I care about anyway) onto the XBOX 360 HDD, so I will update this post if and when I have the Games available to test.

dmix

After many changes in my USE flags (alsa/arts) and the fact that I kept breaking my audio (NWN would have no sound, wine kept blocking other apps from accessing the audio harware and many other problematic things), I finally got a working dmixed (and arts free) audio setup *yay*.

This is how I (FINALLY) fixed it:

1. Created a working /etc/asound.conf (see bellow) and restart alsasound.


2. Removed arts altogether in favour of alsa (USE="-arts alsa") in /etc/make.conf, ran emerge -NDv world


3. while tired="true"; do; sleep 8h; done


4. Restarted X (/etc/init.d/xdm restart).

...and now I have dmix (which now works with wine!!!)!

Here is my /etc/asound.conf

pcm.dmixed {
    ipc_key 1025
    type dmix
    slave.pcm "hw:0,0"
}

#one called "dsnooped" for capturing 
pcm.dsnooped {
    ipc_key 1027
    type dsnoop
    slave.pcm "hw:0,0"
}

#and this is the real magic
pcm.asymed {
    type asym
    playback.pcm "dmixed"
    capture.pcm "dsnooped"
}

#a quick plug plugin for above device to do the converting magic
pcm.!default {
    type plug
    slave.pcm "asymed"
}

#a ctl device to keep xmms happy
ctl.pasymed {
    type hw
    card 0
}

#for aoss:
pcm.dsp0 {
    type plug
    slave.pcm "asymed"
}

ctl.mixer0 {
    type hw
    card 0
}

And as you can see in the screenshot below, you can see wine (foobar2000) using the dmix plug as it's output device :)



NOTE: Step 3 (sleeping) is optional :P

I miss my KDE...

Since I'm stuck up north on yet another shift I'm beginning to have withdrawals from some of the nifty little features that makes KDE so awesome. Stuff like temporary focus-grabbing on the Kmix dock icon (being able to adjust the volume without having to change window focus is very neat... now that I realise it's missing :P ) and virtual desktops... by default!

I forgot to mention (until now) that I managed to get sound working on the XPS M1730 although doing so confirmed my suspicions somewhat. It seems that alsa in the latest kernel has broken snd-hda-intel (stac92xx) support.

I Still haven't gotten WiFi working yet either (ran out of time last RDO due to Portal), so this beast is glued to the one (hot) spot in the house for now. Maybe this heat will force me to get wifi working so that I can enjoy some nice cool aircond offered in the lounge room?

Dead XBOX HDD???

Yesterday (last night), It seemed like my (modded) XBOX HDD had died, however after testing it in a PC with the Western Digital Data LifeGuard Diagnostic tools it seemed fine and worked happily in my XBOX again.

It isn't the first time that I have had problems with it, but all it seems to take to fix most problems is to pull it apart and put it back together again. Perhaps the HDD is about to die soon?
Either way this has re-iterated the necessity for backups and prompted me to do so.

At least I have lftp avaliable to make the job a bit easier.