blueshogun96
The Old Kid
Now, I don't mean this as an insult nor do I want to come off as smug or anything like that, but of all the emulation forums I've joined, this one seems to be the least informed on the Xbox front! Now, I don't mean to get your guys' hopes up too high just yet, but since everybody is unaware of what's been going on, I think it's about time I started sharing this stuff with you guys because there are some of you under the impression that Xbox emu authors are extinct.
1. Cxbx
Yeah, yeah, yeah. This one has been around for almost 10 years, still has a compat list of less than 80 games and STILL doesn't have proper x86-64 support, but inspite of that, it's not dead. Me and a few occasional contributors still work on it from time to time because it's so easy to add quick fixes to it. While it doesn't get the attention it deserves, it does get updated a handful of times or two every year. On my blog (http://shogun3d-cxbx.blogspot.com/), I've been posting the progress I've been making as it surfaces. In fact, I just updated it on Christmas day (albeit with a mediocre progress). Before that, I finally managed to prove that Cxbx is capable of playing games that use the Blitz engine (i.e. Zapper, Taz: Wanted, etc.) and even Outrun 2 (which keeps crashing due to an issue with Direct3D's runtime).
Now tbh, there were a few times where I did forget to update the blog and certain progress ends up going unnoticed, like the update involving Crazy Taxi, Castlevania: Curse of Darkness and a few others I forgot about. But the biggest update I had made in a while, one that actually shocked quite a few people that didn't believe it was possible, is the fact that Cxbx can now run the Xbox Dashboard! And just in case you don't believe me:
Keep in mind that Cxbx only runs the 3944 dashboard, or at least that's the only one that's been confirmed to work. Majority of it's functionality appears to be there, although you can't view the system information section.
Also, before I forget I wanted to mention that since this emu uses HLE and user mode WinNT level functions directly, it becomes highly sensitive to the OS it's running on, which is a major drawback. So far, as much as I R-E-A-L-L-Y hate to admit to this, Cxbx works best on Windows Vista. A prime example of this is Panzer Dragoon ORTA, as I, and many others haven't been able to get it running in any other OS. There is one exception to this. A friend of mine did a handful of fixes to Cxbx and managed to get it working on XP and others, but his work never made it to the SVN. I need to get in touch with him and ask him again about his work.
So please, don't count out Cxbx just yet. And if you haven't already, please take a look at the compatibility list on the blog to see what really works and how well it works. I upload my progress to the Cxbx SVN, so it can be compiled and built by anyone who wants to use it.
2. Xenoborg
This is my LLE Xbox emu I started ages ago. So far, it only runs OpenXDK stuff because there's not enough hardware emulated for commercial games to run yet. The goal was to have hardware level emulation and gfx via OpenGL instead of Direct3D. It supports mostly framebuffer drawing, basic ISO support, mid-level kernel emulation with thread support (running in time slices, not parallel) and does have some preliminary but untested sound support. I ended up removing the static-rec stuff in favour of a more reputable interpreter that's easier to debug. The tradeoff was speed, and the gain was portability.
Haven't touched it in a few months. Should pick it back up once I'm not as busy.
3. XQEMU
Now THIS is where things get interesting! There's a guy in Australia somewhere, known as espes, who's been working on the QEMU source and managed to successfully boot both the Xbox Linux and the retail BIOS with a modified build of QEMU, and it's also the first Xbox emu to support MacOSX (which is a bonus for me since I'm a big fan of MacOSX). Considering that QEMU has emulation support for some devices and a few rare chipsets that are on the Xbox mobo (Conexant video encoder for 1.1 boxes, USB, AC'97, VGA, PCI, AGP, a few interrupt controllers, etc.), the development process was speeded up a bit. It's not as easy as making a few changes to the source code as Xbox1 is a far more complex machine than that since there's much more hardware that needs to be emulated.
We've both learned alot from this and each other, so I'm looking forward to seeing more progress on this endeavour.
Link: https://github.com/espes/xqemu
Even though I said that XQEMU boots the retail BIOS, keep these details in mind. So far, it only boots the original 3944 BIOS w/ the original MCPX Rom (v1.0) and initializes the hardware components, but doesn't show gfx because the NV2A hasn't been emulated properly yet. This is major progress and it's coming along nicely. Keep your eyes on this for more updates.
4. XbeNext
This is an emu that my friend LoveMhz started sometime ago, and he's finally unveiled it this week. It's another HLE emu (one that does support 64-bit OSes) using OpenGL for gfx. While using OpenGL is key, I explicitly told him that HLE is going to be more trouble than it's worth. Either way, I still support him and offered to help when necessary.
http://forums.ngemu.com/showthread.php?t=154342
So as you can see, Xbox emulation is not dead or inactive. In fact, it's more active than it ever was before! I know all you people care about is playing a few of your favourite games on PC without having to worry about your Xbox crapping out on you, but you still have to appreciate what little progress is coming forth. The biggest issue in the Xbox emu scene is not the lack of people working on them, it's the lack of consistent contributions! Too many people coming and going but the fact that there are people still coming is better than nothing.
So please, stop telling everyone that there isn't anyone working on these emulators!!! :angry:
Shogun.
1. Cxbx
Yeah, yeah, yeah. This one has been around for almost 10 years, still has a compat list of less than 80 games and STILL doesn't have proper x86-64 support, but inspite of that, it's not dead. Me and a few occasional contributors still work on it from time to time because it's so easy to add quick fixes to it. While it doesn't get the attention it deserves, it does get updated a handful of times or two every year. On my blog (http://shogun3d-cxbx.blogspot.com/), I've been posting the progress I've been making as it surfaces. In fact, I just updated it on Christmas day (albeit with a mediocre progress). Before that, I finally managed to prove that Cxbx is capable of playing games that use the Blitz engine (i.e. Zapper, Taz: Wanted, etc.) and even Outrun 2 (which keeps crashing due to an issue with Direct3D's runtime).
Now tbh, there were a few times where I did forget to update the blog and certain progress ends up going unnoticed, like the update involving Crazy Taxi, Castlevania: Curse of Darkness and a few others I forgot about. But the biggest update I had made in a while, one that actually shocked quite a few people that didn't believe it was possible, is the fact that Cxbx can now run the Xbox Dashboard! And just in case you don't believe me:
Keep in mind that Cxbx only runs the 3944 dashboard, or at least that's the only one that's been confirmed to work. Majority of it's functionality appears to be there, although you can't view the system information section.
Also, before I forget I wanted to mention that since this emu uses HLE and user mode WinNT level functions directly, it becomes highly sensitive to the OS it's running on, which is a major drawback. So far, as much as I R-E-A-L-L-Y hate to admit to this, Cxbx works best on Windows Vista. A prime example of this is Panzer Dragoon ORTA, as I, and many others haven't been able to get it running in any other OS. There is one exception to this. A friend of mine did a handful of fixes to Cxbx and managed to get it working on XP and others, but his work never made it to the SVN. I need to get in touch with him and ask him again about his work.
So please, don't count out Cxbx just yet. And if you haven't already, please take a look at the compatibility list on the blog to see what really works and how well it works. I upload my progress to the Cxbx SVN, so it can be compiled and built by anyone who wants to use it.
2. Xenoborg
This is my LLE Xbox emu I started ages ago. So far, it only runs OpenXDK stuff because there's not enough hardware emulated for commercial games to run yet. The goal was to have hardware level emulation and gfx via OpenGL instead of Direct3D. It supports mostly framebuffer drawing, basic ISO support, mid-level kernel emulation with thread support (running in time slices, not parallel) and does have some preliminary but untested sound support. I ended up removing the static-rec stuff in favour of a more reputable interpreter that's easier to debug. The tradeoff was speed, and the gain was portability.
Haven't touched it in a few months. Should pick it back up once I'm not as busy.
3. XQEMU
Now THIS is where things get interesting! There's a guy in Australia somewhere, known as espes, who's been working on the QEMU source and managed to successfully boot both the Xbox Linux and the retail BIOS with a modified build of QEMU, and it's also the first Xbox emu to support MacOSX (which is a bonus for me since I'm a big fan of MacOSX). Considering that QEMU has emulation support for some devices and a few rare chipsets that are on the Xbox mobo (Conexant video encoder for 1.1 boxes, USB, AC'97, VGA, PCI, AGP, a few interrupt controllers, etc.), the development process was speeded up a bit. It's not as easy as making a few changes to the source code as Xbox1 is a far more complex machine than that since there's much more hardware that needs to be emulated.
We've both learned alot from this and each other, so I'm looking forward to seeing more progress on this endeavour.
Link: https://github.com/espes/xqemu
Even though I said that XQEMU boots the retail BIOS, keep these details in mind. So far, it only boots the original 3944 BIOS w/ the original MCPX Rom (v1.0) and initializes the hardware components, but doesn't show gfx because the NV2A hasn't been emulated properly yet. This is major progress and it's coming along nicely. Keep your eyes on this for more updates.
4. XbeNext
This is an emu that my friend LoveMhz started sometime ago, and he's finally unveiled it this week. It's another HLE emu (one that does support 64-bit OSes) using OpenGL for gfx. While using OpenGL is key, I explicitly told him that HLE is going to be more trouble than it's worth. Either way, I still support him and offered to help when necessary.
http://forums.ngemu.com/showthread.php?t=154342
So as you can see, Xbox emulation is not dead or inactive. In fact, it's more active than it ever was before! I know all you people care about is playing a few of your favourite games on PC without having to worry about your Xbox crapping out on you, but you still have to appreciate what little progress is coming forth. The biggest issue in the Xbox emu scene is not the lack of people working on them, it's the lack of consistent contributions! Too many people coming and going but the fact that there are people still coming is better than nothing.
So please, stop telling everyone that there isn't anyone working on these emulators!!! :angry:
Shogun.