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Xbox Development Kit (XDK)
Xbox Debug Kit console
Developer	Microsoft
Operating system	Microsoft Windows
Platform	Xbox
Type	Software development kit
Website	docs.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/xbox-live/get-started/setup-ide/managed-partners/vstudio-xbox/live-where-to-get-xdk

TheXbox Development Kit (XDK) is asoftware development kit created byMicrosoft used to write software for the 2001Xbox gaming system. The XDK includeslibraries, acompiler, and various tools used to create software for theXbox. The XDK has the option tointegrate itself intoMicrosoft Visual Studio2002 or2003. This is needed if one wants to develop applications or games for theXbox. The XDK also includes a tool to record in-game footage, which has been widely used to create high-quality screenshots and trailers.

The XDK allows software creators to create, run and distribute applications on the Xbox platform. Xbox 360 XDKs were based on all three generations of the Xbox 360 Design ("Phat", "Slim" and "E"). There were XNA Kits, which were used at some expos and given to game studios, Stress Kits, which were used to test the power of the Xbox 360 and various conditions such as undervolting and overvolting and issued to Microsoft developers only, and Demo kits, which were used to demo games. Some but not all XDKs include a sidecar which was used to emulate theDVD drive and act as a hard drive and on older XDKs with older recoveries, used for PIX Debugging. Bundled with XDKs is the Xbox 360 SDK used to connect to the console, enable memory editing, file management, and integrate toVisual Studio 2010 forXbox 360 game development.

The XboxBIOS is based on theNT 5.0 kernel, but does not have all of the resources or capabilities of theWindows 2000 operating system, (for example: neitherDirectShow,registry, orDLL are natively supported on the Xbox). Because of the constraints on the hardware and environment of the Xbox, all software development for the Xbox (and all video game consoles systems in general) are focused on reserving the limited resources that exist, the main limitation of which is the amount of availableRAM.^[1]

• The Xbox does not have an operating system per se, instead it only has a simple BIOS.^[2]
  • Everything else must go into the main executable and its (XDK and own-made)libraries.
• Only a singleprocess (executableprogram) can run at a time on the Xbox.
• Xbox hard drive file system (FATX) has many limitations, among them a maximum file name length of 42characters.
• The Xbox has four non-standardUSB ports but the Xbox SDK does not contain a full USBstack, thus to add support for USB hardware devices, the developer would have to code the entire USB stack from scratch.

This is a list of XDK, Xbox hardware, and Xbox operating system specific limitations.

• UDF (Universal Disk Format) file system limitation: The Xbox only supports UDF version 1.02 (designed forDVD-Video), which has a maximum file size of 1 GB (Gigabyte) (a DVD in a newer UDF version with a video that is larger than 1GB will not play), with the same applying to UDF/ISO hybrid formats (a.k.a. UDF Bridge format). A workaround is to burn discs in theISO 9660 format. The ISO 9660 format has a 2 GB maximum file size, which cannot be bypassed.^[1]
• The Xbox hard disk is formatted inFATX (File Allocation Table for Xbox) which has a 4 GB (4096Megabyte) maximum file size, and only supports file/folder names up to 42 characters, a maximum of 255 character full path, and a maximum number of 4096 files/folders in a single folder, plus in the root of each partition, the maximum number of files/folders is 256. FATX also does not support all standardASCII characters in file/folder names (for example < > = ? : ; " * +, / \|¤ &).^[1][3]
• TheUSB flash drive reader/writerclass used by the Xbox operating system has a few limitations as well. It is limited to USB flash drives andhard disks compatible withUSB Mass Storage Device Class following the USB 1.1 standard, with a maximum size of 4 GB. It can read and write to FATX formatted flash drives, but can only read FAT12, FAT16 (including VFAT), and FAT32.NTFS formatted drives are not supported yet.^[3]
• With its 733 MHzIntel Pentium III-likeCPU and 64 MBshared memory, the Xbox has neither a fast enough CPU nor sufficientRAM to playHDTV videos encoded in native 720p/1080i resolution. However, the Xbox can upscale allstandard definition movies and output them at 720p or 1080i.^[1][3]

• XNA Game Studio for Windows and Xbox 360

• Microsoft development tools
• Xbox development
• Software development kits

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