Xbox 2 backwards compatible...

[E Nomini Patri]

SOURCE

Transitive Corporation, the leading provider of software that enables transportability of applications across multiple processor and operating system pairs, today launched its QuickTransit™ product line, a family of products that allows software applications compiled for one processor and operating system to run on another processor and operating system without any source code or binary changes.

The company’s breakthrough hardware virtualization technology is unique because it provides 100% functionality, transparent interactive and graphics performance, near-native computational performance, and allows virtually any processor/operating system pair to be supported.

In an interview with Wired News, Bob Wiederhold, President and CEO of Transitive Corporation said QuickTransit will allow the next-generation Xbox (which will have a POWER chip) to run first-generation Xbox software, which was written for an Intel chip.



The first products available in the QuickTransit™ product line are:
QuickTransit for Opteron: with support for MIPS, POWER/PowerPC, and mainframe binaries
QuickTransit for x86: with support for MIPS, POWER/PowerPC and mainframe binaries
QuickTransit for POWER/PowerPC: with support for MIPS, x86, and mainframe binaries
QuickTransit for Itanium: with support for MIPS, POWER/PowerPC, x86, and mainframe binaries
How QuickTransit Works

QuickTransit utilizes a unique and patented modular architecture. It runs on top of the operating system, with no end user intervention. As a translated application runs, the QuickTransit “front-end decoder” reads in blocks of binary code and translates them into an intermediate representation (IR). An “optimization kernel” then optimizes the code represented in the IR, and a “back-end code generator” encodes the optimized blocks for the target processor and caches them. QuickTransit’s high performance comes from exploiting the fact that only 10% of the code in a typical application is executed 90% of the time. So, the optimizing kernel looks for frequently executed blocks of code and aggressively optimizes them as they are identified. The QuickTransit architecture is modular, allowing front-end decoders and back-end code generators to be easily mixed and matched for the source and target environment.

QuickTransit products support applications written in any language including C, C++, Fortran, Cobol, Basic, Ada, Pascal, Modula, PL/1 and assembly language. QuickTransit products let software applications run on the target platform exactly as they run on the source platform, with 100% functionality. Graphics and interactive performance are transparent, and computational performance is 80% of what could be achieved with a native port, which is often higher performance than is available on the original platform. Today’s Itanium, Xeon™ or POWER processors, for example, offer 10 times the computational performance of mid-1990’s mainframes. Using QuickTransit software, today’s processors could run the unchanged mainframe applications 8 times faster.

The system resource overhead of the translation process is small. QuickTransit itself uses only 500 KB of memory and requires approximately 10-30 MB of additional memory for large server applications, or around 25% of program memory for smaller applications

[Diddy]

i didnt bother reading all that gibberish which i prob wouldnt understand cuz im tired and have a headache, so can we do reverse compat. with xbox games and xbox 2?

[Reclaimer]

Well, that's a good step in the right direction. I wonder if hard drive intensive Xbox games would still work on the Xbox 2, despite the emulation software and hard drive differences.

[squid413]

this is a good thing. as long as it doesn't take away some xbox 2 potential but from what i read they shouldnt' have to. I also am wondering if this will lead to something for windows that allows mac osx to be installed and run at a fairly fast speed.

[batman46st]

can someone semplify this article for me cause ummm.... its like 12am im half drunk ugh....... lol thats it

[Shadow20002]

Playing Halo 2 on Xbox 2.

[Kraft]

As much as I always preach that backwards compatibility is usually a huge pain in the ass, I'm guessing it would be pretty easy on a system that will be less of a huge renovation in technology over its predecessor and more of a physical upgrade. Xbox had Direct X, I'm betting XB2 will run on an improved version of such.

Without totally writing new graphics processes MS might have made backwards compatibily and very cheap and very feasable solution. Grats MS, nice move on that one.

[Whisper]

It better be included. Sony has it.. and this is a battle between companies, you have to remember that.

I won't be buying XBOX 2 unless I can play my original games.. all those hundreds down the drain.

[l Maximus l]

Good news for many, but, not a big deal to me...when XBox 2 comes out, I'll move on with next generation games. Unless Halo 2 still has me by the scrotum...

[Reclaimer]

Good news for many, but, not a big deal to me...when XBox 2 comes out, I'll move on with next generation games. Unless Halo 2 still has me by the scrotum...

Which it probably will. We've been hanging on to Halo for how many years now? We'll still be saying OMG Halo2 is the roxorz! probably for a few good years right up until the Xbox 2 comes out.

[GuiltySpark]

Wow, that's good news. I'm sure that first gen games will be completely compatible with the next gen software. People have said that the next xbox won't have a hard drive. What it will have is a flash drive. Flash Memory technology will be good enough to keep prices/size/heat output down while still having a decent capacity in the next couple years. So I'm sure the old games will just see the flash drive as a normal hard drive. One think M$ won't be doing is not including some sort of storage medium for gamesaves and updates. It has become the norm for so long that they would be taking a step backwards if they didn't include some sort of storage medium, not to mention opening the door for Sony....

[SoundX]

Great news, this will essentialy shift units more. Despite the fact that we'll probably only play Halo 2. Means that we can sell up our Xbox and get some extra cash for new games. I'm guessing this also means the pads will need to be almost exactly the same, don't really have a problem with the white and black becoming shoulder buttons but anything else, like the D-Pad and the Left Anolog being swapped would feel pretty unusual.

Anyway, good news.