24 replies to this topic

[JamesD]

I bought a 360 at Target today. It was the PRO model which doesn't come with games but Target included one of my choice which was Madden.
It has the new CPU.

<rant>
I WAS going to spend the money towards an HDTV and even had a 47" LCD one ordered last week. But Circuit City's customer service sucked so bad when I was on the phone with them I canceled the order.

The first person couldn't understand English any better than she could speak it and kept trying to transfer me to arrange delivery. I did have her transfer me to their credit line (it was 36 months no interest) which was also useless.

After calling back I managed to get someone that could answer a few questions but service wasn't exactly spectacular and he still had no idea as to when it would arrive at the local distro center. I then tried the delivery people and they couldn't help me either. I got fed up and canceled the order, then wrote an email to complain.

A day later I get a call to verify I wanted to cancel the order. I thought... that WAS a pretty good deal and the customer service issue could have just been bad luck so I said I'd go ahead and take it as long as I got the same exact deal. So he writes up the order again and tells me the TV is $1200 instead of $1100. Sorry, no sale and I write another email complaint.

Friday rolled around and I received an email stating that my order was ready for delivery. It arrived at about the same time as the response to my second complaint. So I sent them another email for good measure.

Bottom Line... if CircuitCity doesn't want my money any more than that I won't give it to them.
</rant>

As for the 360...
Madden was a little tough to play after playing Arena football on my PS2.
I got blanked the first two games. The third one I won 46(?) to 0.
You have to be much more careful with the passing.

I'm sharing the network connection off of my media pc and Vista just doesn't work right at all.
Network connection sharing doesn't work.
Media sharing doesn't work (did a couple times but now it refuses).
But I'm having fun with the 360 anyway.

[moycon]

It may be possible you have a firewall issue. Another thing to consider is any settings on your switch/router/modem if the 360 passes through them to get to the PC. Ive messed around with my 360's getting them perfectly set up, was usually one of those things that was causing the issue.

Congrats on your purchase.

[JamesD]

The firewall between the computer and the 360 is off. Vista seems to be dropping some of the options to make it visible to the 360 and it generates an error every time I try to share the WiFi connection to the router.
Not the first time I've seen these problems... happens on XP. You think they would fix this crap sooner or later.

BTW, I'm totally addicted to Geometry Wars.

[Lord Helmet]

Welcome to the 360 party!

Once you get the network issues worked out, you'll love it.

[moycon]

JamesD, on Mon Feb 4, 2008 9:17 AM, said:

The firewall between the computer and the 360 is off. Vista seems to be dropping some of the options to make it visible to the 360 and it generates an error every time I try to share the WiFi connection to the router.
Not the first time I've seen these problems... happens on XP. You think they would fix this crap sooner or later.

BTW, I'm totally addicted to Geometry Wars.

I had some issues getting mine set up just perfect as well. Unfortunately I'm not running Vista, maybe check over at the Xbox forums, they have a forum dedicated to setting up your media center.

GW is addictive for sure. I suck at it though.

[Hyper_Eye]

moycon, on Mon Feb 4, 2008 12:53 PM, said:

Fortunately I'm not running Vista.

Fixed.

Getting the 360 to hook up to my wireless was easy with my wireless router (pretty much as easy as it was with my Wii.) I run a WRT54GL Linksys router with custom Linux firmware (DD-WRT.) Streaming content to my 360 is a little more difficult as I run a Linux desktop. But, I have music streaming working and that is good enough for me. I don't really need to stream video to it when my XBox with XBox Media Center does such a great job.

[Breakpack]

Definately try online co-op.Halo 3,Perfect Dark Zero,Kameo,Undertow and dozens more to chose from!Moycon and I have a blast each and every time we team up!!

[StormSurge]

I wish I could get addicted to GW. I suck sooooo bad. At least with Hexic I could notice growth & progress. Not so with GW.

[Hyper_Eye]

I feel that I am pretty good at GW. I haven't checked my score in a while but I believe I am pushing close to 700,000. The best players consider a game under 1mil horrid but I don't really care what they think.

[Atari5200]

I suck something fierce at GW. fun game but no matter how much I play, i never get any better.

[FastRobPlus]

Atari5200, on Tue Feb 5, 2008 3:51 PM, said:

I suck something fierce at GW. fun game but no matter how much I play, i never get any better.

I think I can help you out here.

Geometry Wars strat guide

[Zeptari1]

FastRobPlus, on Tue Feb 5, 2008 4:57 PM, said:

Atari5200, on Tue Feb 5, 2008 3:51 PM, said:

I suck something fierce at GW. fun game but no matter how much I play, i never get any better.

I think I can help you out here.

Geometry Wars strat guide

Same here! I'm the worst! I'm pretty good at Tron... But like any other XBLA game there's always a TON of people
that are WAY better then me!

Love the cartoon link! funny!

-rick

Edited by Zeptari1, Tue Feb 5, 2008 7:23 PM.

[JamesD]

To share media I had to manually set the port on the PC that goes to the 360 to 192.168.0.1 and mask of 255.255.255.0
That was it.
Now for the shared internet connection issue.

[moycon]

JamesD, on Wed Feb 6, 2008 1:38 AM, said:

To share media I had to manually set the port on the PC that goes to the 360 to 192.168.0.1 and mask of 255.255.255.0
That was it.
Now for the shared internet connection issue.

Do you have your 360 directly connected to your PC via ethernet cable?

[DracIsBack]

I'm leaning towards a 360 too, but am still nervous about the quality issues. I know three more people who had theirs die in the last month. Great library and I still have some regular XBox games but that one issue is making me hold back.

[JamesD]

moycon, on Wed Feb 6, 2008 7:11 PM, said:

JamesD, on Wed Feb 6, 2008 1:38 AM, said:

To share media I had to manually set the port on the PC that goes to the 360 to 192.168.0.1 and mask of 255.255.255.0
That was it.
Now for the shared internet connection issue.

Do you have your 360 directly connected to your PC via ethernet cable?

I have it directly connected with a crossover Ethernet cable.

[JamesD]

DracIsBack, on Wed Feb 6, 2008 8:24 PM, said:

I'm leaning towards a 360 too, but am still nervous about the quality issues. I know three more people who had theirs die in the last month. Great library and I still have some regular XBox games but that one issue is making me hold back.

Well, all the new ones *should* have the lower power CPUs.

I'm not sure how reliable they will be until a lower power GPU gets used. Supposedly the death rate drops from 30% on the original design to 10% or less. They probably won't be as reliable as they should be until the CPU & GPU are combined on one chip and a small die process.

[moycon]

JamesD, on Thu Feb 7, 2008 12:45 AM, said:

Now for the shared internet connection issue.

I had mine hooked up that way for a time. What issues with the internet connection are you having?

[JamesD]

moycon, on Wed Feb 6, 2008 11:01 PM, said:

JamesD, on Thu Feb 7, 2008 12:45 AM, said:

Now for the shared internet connection issue.

I had mine hooked up that way for a time. What issues with the internet connection are you having?

Vista errors out part way through enabling internet connection sharing.
I've done this on many machines before and had it work or error out the same way.
The only way around it is to setup Vista again or manually setup the registry settings.
<edit>
BTW, sharing worked first try on my other machine, I just want to use the machine that's in the entertainment center with the 360.

Edited by JamesD, Thu Feb 7, 2008 9:08 PM.

[moycon]

JamesD, on Fri Feb 8, 2008 12:01 AM, said:

The only way around it is to setup Vista again or manually setup the registry settings.
<edit>
BTW, sharing worked first try on my other machine, I just want to use the machine that's in the entertainment center with the 360.

Man I'm glad I'm not running Vista. WTF? Doesn't Microsoft make both the 360 AND Vista?? You'd think the capatibility would be a little forgiving.

[JamesD]

moycon, on Fri Feb 8, 2008 11:52 AM, said:

JamesD, on Fri Feb 8, 2008 12:01 AM, said:

The only way around it is to setup Vista again or manually setup the registry settings.
<edit>
BTW, sharing worked first try on my other machine, I just want to use the machine that's in the entertainment center with the 360.

Man I'm glad I'm not running Vista. WTF? Doesn't Microsoft make both the 360 AND Vista?? You'd think the capatibility would be a little forgiving.

Sorry, it's not just Vista. I've had this happen in XP several times and they have never fixed it.

[NE146]

Why even bother with wonky OS-based internet "connection sharing" anyway? Buy yourself a cheap $50 home router and call it a day.

Edited by NE146, Sat Feb 9, 2008 10:57 AM.

[moycon]

JamesD, on Sat Feb 9, 2008 1:16 PM, said:

Sorry, it's not just Vista. I've had this happen in XP several times and they have never fixed it.

Hmmm I guess I'm not sure what you're refering to then. XP worked fine for me. Internet connection sharing? I just bridged the two network ports and the 360 could connect to the internet fine. Media sharing?? I got to work with XP no problem, just had to tweek the firewall settings, enable sharing in Windows Media Player and set up the extender for Media Center. I didn't have to mess with the registry or re-load XP.

I do think a router/switch/modem is the way to go though. But mainly because I have a Wii and a PS3 as well that I have connected to it. I never really had too hard of a time just getting the 360 to work directly connected. The Live forums at Xbox.com have forums devoted to helping people get their media sharing working, so you might try over there if you are still having issues.

[JamesD]

NE146, on Sat Feb 9, 2008 9:57 AM, said:

Why even bother with wonky OS-based internet "connection sharing" anyway? Buy yourself a cheap $50 home router and call it a day.

(groan)
You mean like my Wireless Pre-N router at the other end of the house that I'm connecting to with the PC I'm sharing the connection off of?

No way I'm spending $100 for Microsoft's non-N adapter and I'm not wiring someone else's house for ethernet.
Once I have my own house I'd happily wire it for gigabit ethernet but until then I'm stuck.

Edited by JamesD, Sat Feb 9, 2008 10:14 PM.

[JamesD]

moycon, on Sat Feb 9, 2008 12:22 PM, said:

Hmmm I guess I'm not sure what you're refering to then. XP worked fine for me. Internet connection sharing? I just bridged the two network ports and the 360 could connect to the internet fine. Media sharing?? I got to work with XP no problem, just had to tweek the firewall settings, enable sharing in Windows Media Player and set up the extender for Media Center. I didn't have to mess with the registry or re-load XP.

I do think a router/switch/modem is the way to go though. But mainly because I have a Wii and a PS3 as well that I have connected to it. I never really had too hard of a time just getting the 360 to work directly connected. The Live forums at Xbox.com have forums devoted to helping people get their media sharing working, so you might try over there if you are still having issues.

I've set connection sharing many times for different people. Some registry setting gets messed up and the wizard fails after that. I wish I knew what the setting was.