XQEMU
Developer(s) | espes, mborgerson, JayFoxRox and XQEMU Community |
---|---|
Latest version | N/A |
Active | Yes |
Platform(s) | Windows macOS Linux |
Emulates | Xbox, Sega Chihiro (Arcade) |
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, 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.
Contents
Downloads
- Official development builds (Windows)
This build focuses on the ongoing 2.x rebase, which will bring XQEMU closer to QEMU's current release (2.12.0).
Unofficial builds are also available:
- EmuCR
- Emu-France (French language)
Frontends
XQEMU does not come with an Xbox specific GUI and needs a separate frontend for GUI features.
- XQEMU-Manager by XQEMU developers (Python script; GUI only)
- XQEMU-Frontend by Voxel9 (Builds available; GUI only)
- XQEMURun by illwieckz (Python script; Command-Line interface only)
Overview
XQEMU is at the development stage right now. Quite a lot of games can run on XQEMU, but its focus on game compatibility means there hasn't been much focus on speed, so the games that work are currently slow. A theoretical integration of KVM, HAXM, WHV or other CPU virtualization could also speed up performance. Throughout September 2018 and later, mborgerson has been working on integrating KVM for Linux-based systems and HAXM for Windows & macOS systems into XQEMU. They provide decent performance boosts to games such as Halo: Combat Evolved but still are not enough to run at full frame rate speeds.
mborgerson has, since March 24, 2018,[1] begun work on rebasing XQEMU on the latest QEMU tag, "[bringing] many years of performance enhancements to xqemu including support for native virtualization APIs."[2] The rebase branch, which was merged into Master on June 2018, incorporated over 30,000 commits from QEMU that were never merged over the years. Work continues to reinstate 3D rendering.
- New compatibility chart (1000+ games)
- Old compatibility chart (Taken from John GodGames' 2015 list)
Running
- These instructions apply to the 1.x branch of XQEMU. For 2.x instructions, visit xqemu.com.
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
- ↑ mborgerson. Add hw/xbox from xqemu. GitHub.
- ↑ README.md. GitHub.
External links
- Upcoming official XQEMU branch re-based on latest QEMU tag
- Old Wiki for developers (JayFoxRox's branch)
- Wiki for Xbox hardware documentation (Contributors from many Xbox related projects including XQEMU and Cxbx-Reloaded)
- Official freenode IRC chat channel
- Official Discord chat channel (For discussions on Xbox emulation development)
- XQEMU 1.0.65 - Install Guide and (Gameplay) Multi Test #1 (Emulators for PC. Jul 17, 2018. 7 games.)
- YT Playlist (Technical progress videos from lead programmer Matt B.)