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You Can Now Quadruple The Original Xbox's RAM, But We Wouldn't Advise It Just Yet | Time Extension (www.timeextension.com)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/retrogaming

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The original Xbox shipped with 64MB of RAM, which was quite a lot for its time in 2001 but seems small by modern standards. A modder called Prehis2oricman has quadrupled the amount of available RAM to 256MB using a custom RAM module that consists of two parts: a RAM chip and an interposer allowing use of all eight memory slots including those typically empty on the console's motherboard.

This modification was achieved through months of reverse engineering, hardware engineering, software hacking, and perseverance. However, there's little reason to install this mod currently as existing applications don't utilize it. The potential for new BIOS updates that unlock additional features could change the situation in the future.

Do you think modifying console hardware like the Xbox to quadruple its original RAM is worth pursuing, considering the current state of software support?

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[–] RightHandOfIkaros 12 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Hasn't 256mb of RAM been possible for a long time, but only accessible with developer builds/ custom patches of specific games?

[–] dinckelman 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

According to the person who developed this, doesn't seem like it. From quick research, it does appear that 128mb mods were somewhat common, through installing an extra chip, and modifying the software as you mentioned, but this is new

[–] yggstyle 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

To my knowledge the biggest benefit for this mod was emulation on the Xbox getting a performance boost. In most cases there are far better platforms to run those emulators on now.

I vaguely recall there being an uplift in fps on some titles - but in general it was a cool thing that had limited uses.

[–] dinckelman 2 points 4 months ago

Well, we won't know until people try this out, and make modifications to what's needed, but the creator himself says that this mod is essentially pointless, as no homebrew uses this much ram, and most definitely no games do. This is a really awesome proof of concept though

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Nah, your thinking 128, which matches what the devkit system would have had.

With that mod, you had to add additional RAM chips in the unpopulated traces and installing a new BIOS.

The new mod requires you to remove the old RAM and install new RAM chips that have an custom adapter board on them. Plus an even newer BIOS.

The problem now is that no software is built to make use of it.