THIS One Chip Will Change XBOX Modding FOREVER | Project Stellar

foreign [Applause] things for the Xbox modding Community are about to change up until now I personally have found modding the original Xbox to be a fairly cumbersome process and a bit convoluted unless you closely follow the scene but there is a new mod that promises to change that this is Project stellar and it's more than just a mod chip it is the end-all be-all add-on that will soon be at the center of every Xbox mod let's take a look [Music] hey everyone how's it going my name is Tito and welcome to another episode of retro renew today we'll be taking a look at a brand new mod for the original Xbox console this is Project Stellar a mod chip created by Dustin the founder of make megahertz the same company also responsible for the amazing Xbox HD Plus HDMI mod that I showcased in my 20th Anniversary Xbox video now over the past two decades there have been many Xbox mod chips released which allowed us to hack the console and do things like run custom dashboards and play games directly off the internal hard drive project Stellar however is different from all those mod chips released in the past quite a bit different the goal of project Stellar is to be the end-all BL mod chip for the Xbox and you can really tell just by looking at it that this thing means business it is one chunky Beast by comparison this is a zenium chip that I had installed on my Xbox prior to putting in stellar and honestly they are Worlds Apart I mean Stellar has an OLED display for crying out loud and an abundance of IO which opens it up to Future expansion but one of the things that really makes it stand out is the onboard RP 2040 processor this chip is basically a small computer which enables Stellar to do a bunch of different tasks without compromising the performance of onboard processes it's also got this fpga with eight megabytes of ram onboard flash memory and like I said tons of i o Dustin essentially set out for this mod chip to do everything and he did so by building it from the ground up he reverse engineered the entire Xbox operating system and made a lot of unique discoveries of which Stellar will be able to exploit the thing Stellar can and will be able to do in the future will make modding the Xbox easier for the end user at the moment modding the Xbox requires you to seek out information from different sources such as forums and websites often making the process of modding the Xbox cumbersome and oftentimes pretty confusing at least that's my experience Dustin's goal with Stellar is to have everything in one place here on Stellar OS yeah you heard me right this mod chip has its own operating system on board and the user interface is super polished from here you can access all of Stellar's features now I will say there is a laundry list of features showcased on their product page but several of them are not currently supported just yet so one of the things to keep in mind is to not expect seller to have every feature ready right off the bat but you can rest assured that Dustin and his team at make megahertz will be working to implement them moving forward along with other cool stuff that is yet to be announced the beauty of Stellar is that it's pretty much a self-contained computer with a multi attitude of I O allowing it to be updatable and accommodate physical accessories I mean all you need to do is just look at this thing and see that there is so much to unpack here so yeah while the software itself is still in the early stages it will eventually catch up and I have no doubt that we'll see some Stellar things come from stellar anyway I'm getting way ahead of myself I'll dive into all that and more later on so in this video I'm going to show you what comes with the project Stellar kit then I'll demonstrate how to install seller into your Xbox I'll go over its major features review the pros and cons and of course provide you with my overall thoughts so the first and obviously most important part of the kit is the Stellar machip itself I've already talked about this thing quite a bit so let's move right along to some of the other stuff that it comes with here we have a bag containing the LPC rebuild quick solder board for 1.6 model Xbox consoles as well as the d0 quicksolder flex for 1.1 through 1.5 models yeah so that means that project Stellar is compatible with every revision of the original Xbox additionally it includes the pin header to connect the Stellar chip to the motherboard as well as a standoff and longer screw for mounting it firmly to the Xbox console all right so that's everything that the kit comes with to install Stellar into your Xbox but Stellar pairs extremely well with the Xbox HD Plus HDMI kit also from make megahertz and this here is the newly updated version so I'll be upgrading my older HD plus kit with this one right here and it should easily just swap right in one of the things that makes the new HD plus kit different is the fact that you can connect it directly to Stellar through this port here and control it via Stellar OS which is super convenient now the Xbox I'll be using is my 1.6 revision which I showcased in my 20th anniversary ultimate Xbox build video and in that video I installed the HD plus kit so if you're interested in modding your Xbox with this HDMI kit in addition to Stellar I definitely recommend checking that video out which I'll have Linked In the video description below now to have to say that the Stellar kit was very kindly sent to the channel by castlemania games if you want to pick up the Stellar chip for yourself along with the Xbox HD plus kit definitely give them a look and you can save 10 on your entire purchase by using the links below as well as the coupon code Tito at checkout so huge thank you to castlemania for sending this out alright so now that we're familiar with the project Stellar kit let me show you how to install it into your original Xbox all right so as usual let's get things started off by first opening up the Xbox which is just held together with six Torx screws around the bottom if you'd like to see a very detailed disassembly of the console I went ahead and linked one of my other Xbox videos in the description for your reference now one thing to note is that for my particular install I'm actually able to leave the motherboard inside the shell but if you're modding a completely stock system you will need to remove the motherboard in order to solder the header pins for the mod chip or if you plan to install the HDMI kit again I left a link to my detailed tutorial on Xbox disassembly in the description and it also details how to install the HDMI kit as well anyway once I remove the hard drive tray and the DVD drive I'm pretty much prepped and ready to install Stellar so let's set the Xbox aside for now and move our attention to the Stellar mod chip so before we do anything I was actually recommended to update the firmware of Stellar to the latest version before installing it so to do that grab the Stellar chip and locate this button near the USBC Port you'll need to press it while plugging it into the computer anyway once plugged in the computer should recognize it and open up a browser window for the Stellar mod chip now we need to grab the latest firmware open up an internet browser and navigate to the project Stellar GitHub and download it it should be noted that depending on when you purchase your Stellar kit it may already come loaded with the latest firmware so this step may or may not be necessary for you as of the making of this video 1.1.2 is the latest firmware version once it's downloaded I have it here on my desktop and all you need to do is just drag and drop it into the Stellar device now this process actually takes quite a bit of time so I sped up the footage just be patient and wait for it to complete once it's done Stellar will automatically disconnect itself and you can go ahead and unplug it from the computer next we need to do an initial setup for Stellar so go ahead and navigate to the Stellar website before proceeding go ahead and connect Stellar to the computer again but this time you don't need to press that button once connected press the connect via USB button and then select project Stellar in the menu that pops up and click connect then hit the complete setup button and a new pop-up will appear click the browse button and this will allow you to select your unmodified Xbox 5838 bios image file which I also have saved on my desktop now I can't exactly tell you where to find an unmodified Xbox 5838 bios image but you should be able to search around the internet and find a copy anyway once you've selected and opened the unmodified BIOS it will then check to make sure that the BIOS is a match so there's really no way to mess this up if it's not a match for whatever reason just search for another copy then once the setup process is complete the Stellar mod chip is ready to be installed hit the disconnect button and unplug Stellar from the computer now moving our attention back over to the Xbox I will be removing my original HD Plus HDMI board from the console this just requires unplugging the ribbon cable and desoldering a few wires [Music] all right now we can remove the old board and swap in the new one do keep in mind you actually don't need to buy a brand new HD plus kit to upgrade it so that it's compatible with Stellar make megahertz actually sells an upgrade kit that allows you to connect the Legacy HD plus kit with stellar they sell that upgrade on their website for about five dollars anyway now that the new HD Plus board is installed let's move on to installing the Stellar chip first thing we need to do is remove the old zenium chip that I had installed again one thing to note is that this is a 1.6 revision Xbox so I had to rebuild the LPC since I modded this console previously that was already completed if you'd like to see how I rebuilt the LPC definitely refer to my prior video which again is linked in the video description now Stellar comes equipped with a keyed header so I actually need to trim off pin 4 otherwise it won't fit the Stellar kit comes with an already keyed header pin array so you won't need to do this unless you're also upgrading an already modded system like I am now all you need to do is remove this screw here and place the included standoff over the screw hole then insert Stellar onto the header pins ensuring that they're all aligned correctly and then secure it with the included long screw [Music] and lastly if you also have the HD plus mod installed like me you can connect it to Stellar using the included interface cable [Music] power on the unit and ensure everything looks good the OLED lights up and the LED blinks green so it looks like everything checks out if all is well put the hard drive and DVD drive back in and button it all up and that's it we've installed Stellar in the Xbox honestly if you're just installing Stellar by itself it's kind of a breeze four 1.6 models you just need to rebuild the LPC and all other revisions require you connecting the point d o to ground with the small Flex ribbon that's included with the kit now as for installing the HD plus kit this is actually also made significantly easier after installing Stellar before the HDMI kit came with a Zenia mod chip requiring a lot of software prep work to get the HD plus mod working now with Stellar there is little to no software prep required at all this is certainly a welcome change especially for me since I always find the software side of things to be a bit more cumbersome than the hardware side of things of course you still need to solder the HD plus kit which does require experience using an iron but at least the software portion is pretty much eliminated anyway now that we've got Stellar installed in my Xbox let's do a quick rundown of some of its features so when turning the console on one of the things you'll notice immediately is the boot animation which looks a bit different and that's because it's rendered at 720p instead of the normal 480i that we're used to seeing here's a side-by-side comparison of the boot animation not a huge feature by any measure but a pretty neat little detail this is something that you can toggle on or off but I recommend you leave it on as it will also affect the Stellar OS display resolution but we'll get into that later on in the video Anyway by pressing start during the boot animation it will launch you into Stellar OS now there is quite a bit to unpack here so I'll briefly go over each of the menu items highlighting some of the ones that I find the most interesting looking here at the first page we are greeted with the main dashboard which gives you an overview of the system such as temperatures Ram fan speed as well as the IP address which is useful in case you wanted FTP files over to the console I think we need to just appreciate how clean the UI is and I think Dustin did a really good job of including descriptions of each of the options for noobs like myself to better understand all of the features that are offered anyway the next menu item is the system settings page which contains all the Xbox console settings these are things that you would typically see in the stock Microsoft dashboard here you can change the date and time language and the video and audio settings one cool thing however is the system region setting which can be manually toggled between the US Japan and Europe the auto setting should automatically detect the region of the game you're playing but being able to manually set it is good for games that are worldwide which have differences based on the region of the console depending on the region that you have set for those worldwide games the game itself can have small differences anyway next is the HD plus settings menu which allows you to control the HD Plus HDMI kit before this was a separate menu that you would need to access through your custom dashboard but now it's conveniently located within Stellar OS all the settings are here and what I really love again is that each item has an explanation of what that feature does for people like me who are unfamiliar with a lot of the terminology anyway moving right along next we have enhancements and all these options here do just that enhance the Xbox experience remember the intro animation rendered at 720p well that's one of the enhancements that can be enabled here additionally here's where you'll find these settings that allow you to take advantage of a CPU upgraded console under the Stellar enhanced game compatibility options this is a really cool feature for those with a 1.4 gigahertz swap Xbox console since upgrading the CPU actually made some games incompatible with the system with this setting turned on all games should work with your CPU Modded Xbox of course not many people have a CPU modded console but for those that do this is a game changer ISO loading is another really awesome feature but is unfortunately not an active function at this time this would allow you to play games natively in ISO format voice converting it to a xbe file which again would just make things simpler this is one of those features that I'm really looking forward to network devices is where you would go to set up things such as networked attached storage devices for use with retro Nas basically this would allow you to set up retro Nas so you can load games directly from your local network this again is a currently disabled feature so we can't do any of that just yet tools is another really great area which will make setting up hard drives a lot easier than it currently is you could theoretically toss in a blank hard drive and completely set it up through the Stellar OS you'll still need to FTP over a dashboard of your choosing but this really should make hard drive setup a lot easier this is a stellar feature I really wanted to test out because I remember it being such a cumbersome process to set up my current hard drive and I wanted to see how much easier this would be but I ran out of time for this video if this is something you'd like to see in a future video let me know Down Below in the comments also another neat feature is the assisted setup to get you up and running with the Insignia service insignia for those who don't know is basically Xbox Live which has been long discontinued for the original Xbox also here is the ability to back up your system keys from the eprom which is a good thing to do in the catastrophic event that something happens to your console and you need to restore it this is such a great feature for peace of mind next is the inputs menu which as you can see is also disabled at the moment but this is where you'll be able to manage different controllers for the console such as an Xbox One controller which should be supported in the near future checking for updates is also now super easy since it can be done completely over the Internet which is awesome here you can see me checking for an update but if you remember I already updated the system prior to the install okay so that was a lot to unpack but I really do think this shows the potential that Stellar has unfortunately there's still quite a bit of functionality that isn't there but as time goes on this will undoubtedly change anyway now that we've discussed what Stellar can do let's get into the pros and cons starting with the pros I think one of the most compelling things about Stellar is the actual Hardware itself this thing is built to be future proof with all the i o options as well as the onboard processing power in the RP 2040 and fpga Chip I think it's safe to say that this is indeed future proof the approach that Dustin took with Stellar really opens it up to host an array of new capabilities for the Xbox platform to include accessories all controlled through the Stellar OS I really can't wait to see what sort of add-ons Dustin brings to the platform a front panel with an LCD like the executor would be really awesome to see additionally Stellar makes installing XBox HD Plus quite a bit easier since you no longer need to mess around with software settings it's definitely a more straightforward process and in my opinion I think that is really great also I like how Dustin is attempting to make Stellar OS a very user-friendly platform I love how each of the menu options have little explanations that go over what each function does for someone who is not fully engaged in the Xbox modding scene such as myself this is a very welcome approach project Stellar is attempting to take all the great offerings of the Xbox modding community and integrate them into a single place I think Stellar is going to be a very integral piece to the future of Xbox modding and has a lot of potential alright so those are the pros but now let's get into the cons probably the biggest con at least for the moment are its current set of features hear me out Stellar OS is going to be capable of a lot of things it's just that a lot of those things aren't here now yes this currently does what you would expect from an Xbox mod chip you can boot into a custom dashboard you can play games from your hard drive Etc but there are a lot and I mean a lot of features that this thing will be capable of doing it's just that it can't do a lot of them quite yet but the way I look at it no matter when you get Stellar there is the promise of a lot of great things to come and I am certain they will eventually be here right now this really hasn't changed how I use my Xbox the main feature that I find myself using currently are the settings for the HD Plus HDMI kit which I do adjust on occasion it's really convenient that it's right there on Stellar OS but other than that I'm hoping to see more features come soon I think the tools menu will be something that a lot of newcomers will really like especially when it comes to hard drive setup as this is something that I would have loved to have used when I initially set up my system also features like being able to use retro Nas and other controllers just scratches the surface of what this will be able to do now I know that it sounds like I'm bashing the mod but I'm not we're still in the early days of stellar and I think there will be a lot more to come and I am here for it Xbox modding has never looked so exciting well there you have it project Stellar for the original Xbox an incredible mod chip with an incredible amount of potential and the perfect companion to the make megahertz HD Plus HDMI kit now if you're interested in Stellar the HD Plus HDMI mod or both and are worried about installing it yourself definitely reach out to my friend red herring32 who professionally installs these types of kits I'll leave a link to where you can find them down below in the comments anyways if you enjoyed this video I really think you'll like this one here so check it out and as always thank you so much for watching and I'll see you again next Thursday [Music]

Channel: Macho Nacho Productions

Views: 573,803

Keywords: macho nacho productions, macho nacho, macho nacho tito, tito macho nacho, project stellar, stellar xbox, project stellar modchip, project stellar xbox, project stellar review, makemhz, makemhz project stellar, project stellar makemhz, project stellar xbox mod, xbox mods, project stellar install, original xbox, xbox series x

Id: QFEIG-ANGrg

Length: 21min 13sec (1273 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 08 2023