Can the Xbox 360 Upconvert My Old Xbox Games?

I think it only upconverts Halo 1 and 2. But I could be wrong. I still play Xbox games on my xbox.

hmmmmm upconverts halo 2 eh??? ill have to lok into this.....

It upconverts every BC game except for The Thing.

Some games receive special treatment for graphics, but not all.

There are a few xbox1 games that are 720p native. Warriors, army of darkness and bloodrayne2 off the top of my head.

I'll tell you this, I played Halo 2 on original Xbox (with component) while I was waiting for my 360 to arrive and the next day when I played on Xbox 360 it looked much better.

When your first put in the game, it does some downloads via Xbox Live ("game profile" to run on 360?). The game is definitely unconverted, and it seemed like menus were done in high res backgrounds, and game graphics seemed much smoother (jaggies on Xbox 1) and runs at a higher frame rate, especially noticeable during the 'movie' sequences.

To be honest I feel playing Halo 2 on 360 has justified my purchase of the console, I will try out some other games and try to do some more comparisons also.

It was my understanding that the majority of games are upconverted to 720p and AA is added. The games i have played look a lot better.

I specifically looked for this when I tested a 360 via component on my HD1000 projector. I did NOT see any AA added to Halo2. Can anyone post screenshots of the difference to really prove it? I do not intend to ditch my Xbox 1 - I believe the emulators introduce flaws sometimes, not improvements - but I don't know for sure how it all works. I am really interested in this - BC emulators do not magically enhance the graphics right? The game engine still produces the exact same images, and the emulate corrects the "instructions" to the newer GPU in the 360. Isn't that how it works?

By the way, scaling and upconverting are the same thing right? If you have a flat panel display with at least 720 horizontal lines, then you get it "upconverted" anyway if it scales the 360 output to fill the screen (or the output of a 480P signal for that matter). You will not get a higher resolution image, it will just be scaled. That's all upconverting is, as far as I know.

I haven't posted any images yet at all of my TV, so I'll try find my camera to show the differences. It seemed to me very obvious to me from one day to next the differences. In any case, I don't think you can say that the BC is simply an emulator, I think they can optimize the games by pushing framerate/resolution/AA, especially since the architecture/design of original Xbox is 100% open to the team who works on the BC, and in the case of Halo 2 (Bungie), they also have complete access to software code, so I wouldn't rule out anything. I don't know for sure myself, so hopefully someone here can post something more definitive on how exactly it works.

Halo 2 is the only original Xbox game I played on my HDTV with the 360. My TV (info) says it's getting 1080p from Halo 2...so I suppose the 360 upconverts it.

btw it still looks like crap lol. Oh noes! I said something bad about a Halo game!

I don't believe any of the 720p games that are backwards compatible are rendered in 720p. They are probably rendered in 480p and upconverted to 720p and AA'd like all the other BC games. If you play them on the Xbox 1, you actually get a higher resolution.

How would this mesh with Soul Calibur 2? It displays 16:9 at 480p and 4:3 at 720p, just like the original Xbox. If it were setting the game to 480p then upscaling, you'd expect to get 16:9 in both cases.

From the Xbox.com Q&A with Todd Holmdahl:

Thanks for posting this Rufo (I knew I wasn't imagining things )

No problem.

I also went back and dug up the post on bungie.net that first announced BC and upsamping/AA, if anyone's interested.

The bungie.net link describes (and shows) the differences, thanks again!

And it lies too!

you forgot the best one, Ninja Gaiden.

Ninja Gaiden is 480p.

I'm playing it right now on my xbox 1 in 720p native...

You must've gotten the extra special copy. You're the first (and only) person to ever report this.

Ninja Gaiden has been 720p native from day one, I'm certainly not the only person that knows this. Set your Xbox to 720p and start the game, you'll see for yourself.

I don't have an Xbox 1 anymore, but as I remember this was not the case. I can also find no links (let alone reputable ones) anywhere that reference this. I do still have Black, but there's not much way to tell what a game is rendered in with the 360. This was one of the bigs deals when Ninja Gaiden Sigma was announced (and stated to run at 720p60). If the original game were 720p, why would the new resolution matter?

Ninja Gaiden and Ninja Gaiden Black are, and always have been, 480p. If you've got some reputable link showing otherwise, I'd really like to see it.

xbox.com reports it as 480p. I've never heard any claims that it was 720p.

i don't know how many others look as bad but Burnout 3 Takedown looks like crap on the 360

Correct... Ninja Gaiden and NGBlack are 480p on Xbox1, but on the 360 it is rendered at 480p and outputs at 720p.

There were only a small percentage of 720p games on the original Xbox -- of the biggies: Xmen Legends, the Tony Hawk Games, Freedom Fighters, Soul Caliber 2 (pillerboxed 4:3 at 720p), some sports games, and Enter the Matrix did 1080i... and a few others.

guys what does BC and AA mean?

BC = Backwards Compatible
AA = Anti-aliasing

If you don't know what those two things are, I'd hit Wikipedia.