Tinker Mods Blog | Original Xbox
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The complete beginners guide to original Xbox modding
Still hard to beat
I know the original Xbox is pretty aged at this point. I started playing video games at a time when you could still buy freshly released titles for the super nintendo. But when the original Xbox came out, people realized this console was much different than anything we have seen before. The original Xbox single handedly inspired what direction next gen consoles would go and to this day is still a highly sought after gem. But... why is that? The ps2 was far more popular and far outsold the original Xbox in every possible way. The Xbox still lives today because it was cracked wide open and still has yet to be mimicked in many aspects. If fact, the dated hardware actually makes for fun and challenging mods you just wouldn't see on modern consoles. So let's dig right in.Soft or Hard?
The first step for any original xbox modding beginner, is soft and hard modding. Soft and hard mods are the stepping stone that allow you to open up the possibilities of the console. Many have argued and still continue to argue about which is better, some people prefer hard mods and some prefer soft mods. However soft modding is certainly the most friendly for beginners. All you really need is a quick tutorial and an Original Xbox soft mod kit like this to get it done. The hardest thing about soft modding in this day and age is finding the right files and the right USB drives to do it, so a ready made soft mod kit is highly recommended for a beginner who is just learning and getting into the original Xbox modding scene. As far as a tutorial on how to softmod, I highly recommend This video on how to softmod your original Xbox with a USB drive.What have YOU DONE!?!!?!
Sooooo now you are soft modded, but what was the point of that? What did you just do to your console? Now you can do just about anything. In fact, You've basically turned your original Xbox into a linux PC that can play anything from Super nintendo games to even being able to play Neo Geo CDs right from your original Xbox disc drive. So what do you need to do next?Your new Dashboard can make it or ruin it
Not many people go into this, especially for beginners, and I wanted to make this an important point. There are tons of dashboards or "Operating systems" if you will that are installed when you softmod. The most famous of them are the UnleashX and EvoX dashboards. They are the two most commonly used and talked about but are in NO WAY the best. In fact I absolutely refuse to use either of them at this point. They do have a few positives over the others but they are still too limiting. You would miss out on a ton of features. There are many different dashboards but my personal favorite is XBMC or xbmc4xbox.Using XBMC
Xbmc is just flat out more refined and runs much better than UnleashX or EvoX. Especially when you have a massive hard drive that is filled to the max with videos, games, and movies. The big, difference about XBMC are the skins. The skins for XBMC are completely open ended. As an example, the skins for UnleashX really just change the background pictures, color schemes and move menu buttons around. For the most part that is all an unleashX skin can do. With XBMC though? You can completely alter and change your experience with XBMC skins. In fact check out This insanely ambitious XBMC skin, XBMC Origins. No, those aren't pictures of an Xbox One console. That is an XBMC skin! Though XBMC Origins is not a skin for beginners it is a great example of what an XBMC skin can do and a perfect example of why XBMC should be your choice over the other more common dashboards. In addition to that XBMC has huge video and music playback abilities. Even to this day, you can connect your original Xbox online and XBMC will pull movie info, TV series info like episode descriptions, rare and exclusive cast photos and box arts. In some ways the info it pulls can be more detailed and interesting than Netflix!Get your stuff on your console
So now you're getting a picture of what you can do, but how do you do it? How can you get your TV shows on your original Xbox? How do you play SNES games on an original Xbox? FTP is the answer. Unfortunately this is an area most people get lost. In fact, unless you've owned or managed a website, you probably won't even know what FTP is. FTP means file transfer protocol, FTP programs open connections to web and IP addresses and can then upload and/or transfer files over to that address. Explaining how FTP works and how to use it is a full tutorial in itself, so I won't get into that here. However, Here is a great beginner friendly tutorial on how to use FTP on your original Xbox!.Games and Emulation
I don't want to get too deep into how games and emulation work because some of these topics can get a little weird. The big controversy with emulation and xbox games is that many people use Piracy to get them. Just keep in mind that I have seen many instances where people promote using piracy as a way to obtain software for your original Xbox modding project. Almost as though it isn't piracy at all, just keep in mind that this is false. As a beginner to the original Xbox modding world, keep in mind that the games and software you install or transfer on your hard drive need to be software you actually own. If you download Original Xbox games and transfer to them to the hard drive via FTP, that is piracy and is illegal. So just be careful out there in what you find as you don't want to find yourself breaking the law. You should never use piracy as a method for obtaining software and games.More cool mods for the beginner
Soft modding is known best but I would like to share some really cool mods and kits for your original Xbox that are totally beginner friendly. What we will talk about now are UPGRADES! Some of these upgrades enhance the console while some help you bypass some of the outdated hardware to have a more modern experience. Some of them even help you prolong your new consoles life span. With all you are going to do to your console, prolonging the life of it can be really important. You've put alot of time and money into this, you might as well make sure it lasts right?Temperature monitoring
After all this work you've done, now you're faced with a problem that not many beginners know how to handle. You're dealing with a gaming console that is 15+ years old. It would reallllllyyyy suck to do all this work just to have a motherboard over heat and go bad. So how can you combat this? Softmods have a cool feature where they can show you temp read outs of your CPU and GPU computer chips. The problem is that you can't see any of that info while playing a game or watching a movie. Playing games and watching media are the things that make your console run the hardest and therefore, the hottest. So what do you do then?The answer is a temperature monitor with LCD screen. This idea is both accurate and even (console) Life-saving. Installing a temperature monitor with an LCD screen in your console's faceplate means you can get a temperature read out at all times. having this gives you some choices. Are your temperatures getting too high? Maybe you turn the console off for a while so it doesn't get so hot that it can start causing damage. Does it seem like your temps are really hot all the time? That could be a sign of a cooling issue or maybe that you need to open your console and clean the dust out. That would not be possible without a temp monitor. So... Where to get one?
For the beginner, installing one from scratch can be a little frightening. However, there's this tutorial on How to install an LCD screen in an original Xbox console. You can also find a really cool kit. A good kit will have the LCD screen installed for you. All you need to do is pop on the new faceplate, plug everything in, and that's it! Here's a really great original Xbox LCD mod kit for only 25 bucks!
