The NXE (New Xbox Experience)

[Cloral]

Has anybody downloaded it yet? What are your impressions?

[Masamune]

I don't really like it so far. But I'll probably get used to it soon.

[Archibaldo]

Won't be able to see it until I get my Xbox fixed. But I'm excited to see it.

[Radium]

My XBox just shipped out from Mesquite, TX today. Hopefully I'll get it within the next month so I can check this out.

[Cloral]

Well I got mine downloaded. The new interface is cleaner and easier to move about which is nice. But the avatars are stupid and a waste of time. You don't have the level of customization that you do with the Miis, so all the avatars end up looking about the same. I'm not going to recognize my friends by the avatars, so again, what's the point?

[MottZilla]

I got the NXE early. I got it a week or so ago. It's alright. I suppose I'll get used to it but it's all pretty pointless other than HD Install of games.

[Yoshiman]

The main interface is different, and it'll take some time to get used to, but I don't see anything wrong with it. I do like the new Guide Button layout.

However, I don't like the Avatars. Not only are they pointless, but they're such an obvious rip-off of Miis. Even the background music when creating an Avatar has the same air. Richter Belmont > Avatars

[Cloral]

Yeah, I kept my old gamerpic too.

I think the main thing I like about the new interface is it feels a lot faster than the old interface which was slooooow. Then again, with all the new advertising bullshit, you have to navigate past a lot of crap to get to what you need. At least they keep that stuff out of the in-game popup.

[Pryme8]

I think its the dumbest update they have applied... the intro was kinda cool, I wish I was tripping or something when I saw that.

but in general what was the point? did they update any drivers or anything?

[Radium]

I just got done playing around with it last night at my cousin's house. I think it's, oh i don't know, 100 BILLION TIMES BETTER than that pile of steaming crap of an interface that they had before.

[Cloral]

Oh, and one more thing: the interface looks really nice and clean on my new HDTV. :D

[Yoshiman]

but in general what was the point? did they update any drivers or anything?
You can install games onto your hard drive now. You still need the disc for verification purposes, but installation cuts load times down and makes the 360 run quieter since the disk doesn't have to spin. I'm actually thinking about installing Mass Effect onto my system, since it sounds like my 360 is having a heart attack while trying to play it. My only concern is disk space.

But I've read that not all games are install-friendly. Apparently, Bungie advises against installing Halo 3 because it could increase load times.

[Nicholas Steel]

I'm not going to recognize my friends by the avatars, so again, what's the point?
To create something that looks kinda (but not really) like yourself to use in games? or can't you use your avatars as characters in games like Miis?

[MottZilla]

You can install games onto your hard drive now. You still need the disc for verification purposes, but installation cuts load times down and makes the 360 run quieter since the disk doesn't have to spin. I'm actually thinking about installing Mass Effect onto my system, since it sounds like my 360 is having a heart attack while trying to play it. My only concern is disk space.

But I've read that not all games are install-friendly. Apparently, Bungie advises against installing Halo 3 because it could increase load times.

Few games are like this. Halo 3's problem is that it doesn't know it's loading from the HDD. Halo 3 was designed to use a cache on the HDD to load map data onto so it would load quicke. But now instead of it writing from DVD to HDD, it's writing from HDD to HDD which is alot slower. My question is though if Halo 3 didn't require a HDD to run, they should be able to patch the game to not do their caching crap. But I don't care personally since Halo 3 isn't a game I play.

[Cloral]

The reason they couldn't tell where the game was running from is because the 360 insulates the game from the hardware specifics. When loading data, you simply say, "give me this file on the GAME device", and whether that is the disc, the hard drive, or whatever, the system handles going to the correct device and getting the data. It's great for creating demos, as you don't have to rewrite your file loading code (as opposed to the PS3 where you have to tell it specifically which device to read from). It's also the reason that this 'install to hdd' option is possible at all. I'm guessing that MS either has already, or will soon, expose a function to tell whether the data is being loaded from disc. Using this function, Bungie could then patch Halo to run better from an install. And considering that it is Halo, I'm sure MS will want them to do that.

[MottZilla]

I understand what you are saying about how 360 games run and why it does what it does, but I would imagine that Bungie would be able to fix Halo 3 if MS adds a function to see what device the game is running from as Halo 3 must load directly from the DVD if someone runs it without a HDD installed at all and that is what it should do when you play the game on the HDD rather than caching data from the HDD to the HDD. So like you said, I would think that MS would do something so Bungie could patch it.