Microsoft 'Thinking Through' 360 Emulator for Xbox One

[TwistedDruid]

But third-party emulators Xbox360 to PC already exist (like: XeMu360), it will be easy for Microsoft to make one for Xbox One if was made already for PC's.

I'm pretty sure that the emulator you referenced is fake

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-nBH298XyY

 

[agentbb007]

But third-party emulators Xbox360 to PC already exist (like: XeMu360), it will be easy for Microsoft to make one for Xbox One if was made already for PC's.

I've checked everywhere and have never found a 360 emulator, so I'm convinced they are all fake and one does not exist.
Just read the comments on any of the emulators and no one can get it working.
http://xemu360.software.informer.com/comments/

 

[Victor Marconi]

Microsoft should have thought this before. They could have made like PS2/PSOne backward compatibility. Perhaps emulating the GPU is easier duo being manufactured by the same company.

 

[alextheblue]

For starters the Xenon uarch (powerPC) was only 3 cores. Jaguar (x86) is 8, so a direct translate will already eliminate 5 of the cores. They will always be idle because the game was never designed to scale to 8 cores.

If Microsoft pulls this off, I would be very impressed. If they do it via the cloud, they could throw significantly more processing power behind it.

Actually, Xenon is an SMT chip, so you're only partially correct. It has three cores, but six threads. So a lot of games actually ARE capable of scaling easily to at least 6 cores, leaving two free to assist in emulating other components. Also the modern-day out-of-order Jaguar cores are pretty darn competent compared to the older in-order PPC cores used in Xenon. More so than you give them credit for. They also may be able to lean on the AVX units to handle VMX code. With that being said, I still don't think they have enough raw power given the broad architectural differences and inherent difficult in emulating very different systems. Maybe with a really advanced dynarec engine and game-specific profiles?

But their best bet is cloud-based, and I think that's the direction they'll go. However, given how powerful their cloud is, I don't really see this as a bad thing. They've got tons of server power all over the place, so if you've got a halfway decent connection it should work pretty well for most games. Anyway, something is better than nothing. I just hope they'll eventually support XBLA games purchased on 360.

Also, I see they fixed formatting! Hurray, no more need to manually edit everything in the forums!

 

[eriko]

There has got to be MILLIONS of Xbox 360 player, who've not purchase a Xbox One, as they have such an existing library of games that they quite enjoy.

Stands to reason...

 

[rwinches]

It comes down to does MS want those 360 owners who have hundreds invested in games they still use and enjoy? Yes, then emulate.

 

[weilin]

Actually, Xenon is an SMT chip, so you're only partially correct. It has three cores, but six threads. So a lot of games actually ARE capable of scaling easily to at least 6 cores, leaving two free to assist in emulating other components. Also the modern-day out-of-order Jaguar cores are pretty darn competent compared to the older in-order PPC cores used in Xenon. More so than you give them credit for. They also may be able to lean on the AVX units to handle VMX code. With that being said, I still don't think they have enough raw power given the broad architectural differences and inherent difficult in emulating very different systems. Maybe with a really advanced dynarec engine and game-specific profiles?

Ya I probably should have thrown my warning up higher, I didn't actually have time to look at the CPU specs too carefully. I looked now and I see that Xenon actually has 2 VMX128 engines per core. This makes Xenon significantly higher performing with SMT (Simultaneous multithreading). Based on Wikipedia (I'll fix the Wiki in a minute), I thought it was just 1 VMX128 per core which makes the second thread essentially worthless so I didn't bother mentioning SMT. This puts the Xenon core+SMT vs Jaguar 2 cores at par in terms of SIMD engine count (lets ignore which one is more efficient).

All this being said, I'm not sure this helps the case for Jaguar to emulate Xenon, Xenon performing than I had initially anticipated... I will add a pointer to your comment in my original post, credit where credit's due

 

[DrBackwater]

Microsoft wants to emulate x86 to xbone. shouldn't be a problem given that the xbox one was initially ment to launch in 2014 november.

All these idea Microsoft wanted to incorporate into their console was all to late due sonys part.

So it's either fight or fly, and microsofts motto is: we buy out our competitor not compete.

But given the brand awareness sony has, micrsoft would most likely not tolerate it. so yeah xbox one was initially intended for a full roll out, and with all the current updates and strong demand for exclusive games their goals were not met, but now I gather some people at Microsoft find this pleasing news now given what conspired last year.

So 360 emulator was no doubt in the works it just possibly would have been when the console was fully featured as it's not.