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[hockey]

just thought i'd share this with all of you.

What IS "Wave 4"?
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A regular, retail Xbox 360 disk is split into several sections or "partitions". One of these partitions is known as the "video partition". Before March 2009, this partition simply contained a video that would play if you inserted the disk into a regular DVD player; the video would tell you that you were an idiot and need to put it into an Xbox 360 to play it.

One of the ways Microsoft can detect you being a dirty, filthy pirate is to scan this video to make sure it matches with what is supposed to be on the disk, so to protect you, the firmware itself does a quick checksum of it and if it does not match with known video data, it will not boot. Every now and then, this video changed, with each change being called a "wave".

Normally, system updates (dashboard updates) are stored on a different part of the disk, taking up about 8Mb of space; however, in November 2008 Microsoft launched the "NXE", a completely new Dashboard for the system. Along with the new dash came Avatars, making the whole update substantially larger (somewhere in the region of 130MB). This meant the update would not fit on the disk in the same partition that previous updates were located and so instead the update was placed within the video partition. This was known as "wave 3" and hit around March 2009.

As Microsoft now distributes new Dashboard updates in the same partition, each time the 360 gets a software update, we will see a new "wave" a few months later. There was a Dashboard update in August 2009 and that is now being distributed with the latest games. This is known as Wave4. It is identical to Wave3, except the video partition now contains the August 09 Dash update. The first known game to have this was Cars Race-o-Rama.

Now, it is important to remember that iXtreme was designed to PROTECT you and part of that protection is the "video partition" check. When this video partition changes, the firmware does not know if it is just a new "wave" or if it is a bad rip and thus opts to not boot it.

When wave 3 hit, iXtreme 1.51 was quickly released to tackle the problem. This was a temporary fix only, the firmware simply does not do the video partition check and thus was supposed to boot ANY wave, up to wave 4 and beyond.

However, this in itself is "unsafe". If the disk is fine, then you will be fine, but if the video partition is in any way corrupt, iXtreme 1.51 will still boot it and thus you could be detected by Microsoft and banned. This also is not helped by the fact that some impatient, idiotic people decided to "patch" Wave3 games with Wave2 data in order to get iXtreme 1.5 or below to boot it. This is a great way to get yourself banned and thus iXtreme 1.6 was created.

IXtreme 1.6 will only boot games that have the CORRECT video partition, up to and including wave 3. This means that if you have a Wave 3 game that was patched with a Wave 2 video partition (aka a great big bull’s-eye for Microsoft to target), iXtreme 1.6 will not boot it but ix1.51 will.

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Will I need a new firmware inside my Xbox 360 to play Wave 4 games?
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If you are on iXtreme 1.5 or below, Wave3 games will not boot for you and thus Wave4 games will not either. In this case, YES you need to update your firmware!

If you are on iXtreme 1.51 (Hitachi), then ANY wave will boot fine, including Wave4 however you must be EXTRA careful as you are not protected against corrupt or incorrect video partitions. This is one of the many reasons to always use your own Kreon Drive or abgx360 on downloaded games.

If a game is fully verified, playing it on iXtreme 1.51 is just as safe as playing it on iXtreme 1.6 - this includes Wave4 games.

If you are on iXtreme 1.51 (BenQ/LiteOn/Samsung), then YES you need to update your firmware!

I have no way to know what Firmware is loaded in your 360, You will need to contact the person that work on your 360 last.


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New Updated list of Wave 4 Games
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Lego Rock Band
Tekken 6
Fairytale Fights
Bakugan Battle Brawlers
Lips Hits number 1
Cars Race-o-Rama
GTA Tales from Liberty City
Band Hero
Planet 51???
Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2
Divinity 2
Dragon Ace Origins
Jurassic the hunted
Are you smarter than a 5th Grader
CSi Deadly Intent
Madagascar Kartz




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