XQEMU
| Developer(s) | espes (Project maintainer), mborgerson, JayFoxRox, lufix, wayo |
|---|---|
| Latest version | N/A |
| Active | Yes |
| Platform(s) | Windows Linux macOS |
| Emulates | Xbox |
| Website | XQEMU.com |
| Source code | GitHub |
XQEMU is a low-level Xbox emulator based off of QEMU, a general-purpose computer emulator and hypervisor. What makes this emulator different from the other attempts at Xbox emulation is the use of low-level emulation (since QEMU itself is a low-level emulator), while previous attempts at Xbox emulation used high-level emulation. This comes with its own benefits and downsides in comparison, but it does allow for greater accuracy and greater compatibility down the road.
Downloads
2018 QEMU rebase's official builds:
Other Sources:
Wrappers (Frontends)
Using XQEMU with a wrapper that looks and acts like a frontend may be easier for users.
- XQEMU-Frontend by Voxel9 (Binary releases available)
- XQEMURun by illwieckz (No official releases available. This wrapper is more advanced than XQEMU-Frontend.)
Old wrappers:
- xqemu-jfr by JayFoxRox (XQEMU wrapped with a frontend-like GUI. Last updated in 2014. Binary releases available. Newer wrappers above are recommended.)
Overview
XQEMU is at a very early stage right now. Quite a lot of games can run on it, but it's low-level, accuracy-focused, and there hasn't been much (if any) focus on speed, so games are very slow on it currently. There is some work being done to make it use KVM, which could significantly increase speed, but it's currently not recommended and Linux only.
A contributor named 'mborgerson', who put in a few commits to espes' branch of XQEMU and in early 2018 kicked off the new Xbox emulator ÓpenXBOX, has, since March 24, 2018, begun work on bringing the XQEMU emulator up-to-date by re-basing it on the latest QEMU tag. He's had this to say below:
"This will bring many years of performance enhancements to xqemu including support for native virtualization APIs."
That re-base branch should have some 30,000 commits from QEMU that have been accumulated over the years (during the relative inactivity of the older XQEMU branch) till then! Work continues apace to bring 3D graphics rendering for Xbox games back up and working.
Running
Note: The official website of this emulator now has straightforward guides such as setting up the emulator on a chosen operating system, input devices, networking and other tips.
You'll need a MCP-X boot rom, Xbox 1.0 compatible BIOS, and a HDD image with a dashboard, all in the main XQEMU directory. Then run:
qemu-system-xbox -cpu pentium3 -machine xbox,short_animation,bootrom=mcpx_1.0.bin -m 64 -drive file=xbox_harddisk.qcow2,index=0,media=disk,locked=on -drive index=1,media=cdrom,file=game.iso -bios complex_4627debug.bin -usb -device usb-hub,bus=usb-bus.0,port=3 -device usb-xbox-gamepad,bus=usb-bus.0,port=3.2
Change mcpx_1.0.bin, complex_4627debug.bin, and game.iso to the filenames of the boot rom, BIOS, and game ISO that you're running.
References
External links
- Upcoming official XQEMU branch re-based on latest QEMU tag (3D graphics not running yet)
- Wiki for developers (Official branch)
- Wiki for developers (JayFoxRox's branch)
- Wiki for Xbox hardware documentation (JayFoxRox and one admin from CXBX-R's game issues repo, CakeLancelot are among the contributors)
- Official freenode IRC chat channel
- Official Discord chat channel (For discussions on Xbox emulation development)
