Playing Xbox 360 games on a PC

[rcfant89]

Is it possible? I like playing Halo 3 on xbox live on my xbox 360 but that hardware is garbage. After going through 5 systems with RROD, I'd like to simply play it on the PC that won't crap out on me. I've played gameboy emulators with great success before, is there one for 360? (I looked into it for a minute and found two but they looked like scams to get your info) Only people who know about this reply please, I'm not interested in speculation. Thank you.

 

[ifreestylin]

Am pretty sure there isn't one. It would take to much processing power to emulator an Xbox 360.

 

[Roxas_Boy]

Nope there is no Xbox 360 emulator out and there never will be. It's architecture is much much different from a PC so emulation is currently impossible

 

[apcs13]

There is no way to play a 360 game on PC currently unfortunately. You're going to need a long time to play on an emulator as well, as the emulation machine needs to have 10x the power of the original device, and regardless of what you may think, the PS3 and XB360 are powerful machines, and not even a qual-SLI Titan with an I7 4930K is 10X as powerful as those consoles. Even if it was, not enough people have them to justify making an emulator!

Until powerful enough hardware for an emulator is common, no, you cannot play 360 games on PC.

 

[savantskie]

Actually NONE of the people on this question are right. It has nothing to do with the power of the machine. That is a myth. What it actually needs, is good coding and accurate knowledge of how the system works. The XBOX 360 is basically a PowerPC machine. It was several years behind technology wise.

What is needed is people who can code software versions of the XBOX 360's components. This is what is hard. This is why every emulator in the beginning needs a fast PC. Because the code isn't fully optimized yet. Look at the PS2 emulators out there now. They've finally been able to break the machine down, and fully emulate all of the internals instead of using coding trickery. And it doesn't take as strong of a PC to make it work.

XBOX 360 is just more complicated, and coding for it will take forever until documentation comes out as to how it works, or someone reverse engineers it. Period.

Google is your friend. There are a myriad of topics about this, explaining WHY most emulators in their early days need heavy machines to use them. It's all in the coding of the emulator, and what they are and aren't able to emulate due to lack of understanding how the original machine works. So alot of it is guess work.

 

[apcs13]

Actually NONE of the people on this question are right. It has nothing to do with the power of the machine. That is a myth. What it actually needs, is good coding and accurate knowledge of how the system works. The XBOX 360 is basically a PowerPC machine. It was several years behind technology wise.

What is needed is people who can code software versions of the XBOX 360's components. This is what is hard. This is why every emulator in the beginning needs a fast PC. Because the code isn't fully optimized yet. Look at the PS2 emulators out there now. They've finally been able to break the machine down, and fully emulate all of the internals instead of using coding trickery. And it doesn't take as strong of a PC to make it work.

XBOX 360 is just more complicated, and coding for it will take forever until documentation comes out as to how it works, or someone reverse engineers it. Period.

Google is your friend. There are a myriad of topics about this, explaining WHY most emulators in their early days need heavy machines to use them. It's all in the coding of the emulator, and what they are and aren't able to emulate due to lack of understanding how the original machine works. So alot of it is guess work.

Unfortunately, you're actually the farthest from correct on this issue of everyone on this thread... the power of the machines running the emulator is just as important as having solid coding backing the software... Think about it: Modern phones, with powerful quad core processors upwards of 2 GHz, are just now for the first time being able to emulate games from the Gameboy Advance from 2001. And those games aren't compute requirement heavy either, the graphics in Pokemon aren't really "top of the line". As games get more complex, so does the power of the machines running them, and therefore exponentially so on machines emulating those devices. Some people even have issues running PS2 emulators, not because of poorly coded software, but because their PC cannot handle running the emulator without getting frame rate issues due to a lower-mid range PC.

While good coding skill and knowledge of the system being emulated is critical, you can't run a PS3 emulator on an iPhone 4 just because you are a master of coding, the hardware needs to be there to back it up. Besides, the architecture of the XBox 360 is actually not too far off from that of a PC, especially compared to the PS3 and its cell processor. So all in all, it's not too much more complicated than a PC.

If it were only the simple issue of code knowledge, then why have people who have been making 360 emulators from the release of the actual console still struggling to run emulated games today, when they have been working on and optimizing the code for many years? You're wrong, my friend, current PC hardware is not sufficient enough to properly emulate last gen console games, no matter how well coded the emulator is.

 

[savantskie]

Actually NONE of the people on this question are right. It has nothing to do with the power of the machine. That is a myth. What it actually needs, is good coding and accurate knowledge of how the system works. The XBOX 360 is basically a PowerPC machine. It was several years behind technology wise.

What is needed is people who can code software versions of the XBOX 360's components. This is what is hard. This is why every emulator in the beginning needs a fast PC. Because the code isn't fully optimized yet. Look at the PS2 emulators out there now. They've finally been able to break the machine down, and fully emulate all of the internals instead of using coding trickery. And it doesn't take as strong of a PC to make it work.

XBOX 360 is just more complicated, and coding for it will take forever until documentation comes out as to how it works, or someone reverse engineers it. Period.

Google is your friend. There are a myriad of topics about this, explaining WHY most emulators in their early days need heavy machines to use them. It's all in the coding of the emulator, and what they are and aren't able to emulate due to lack of understanding how the original machine works. So alot of it is guess work.

Unfortunately, you're actually the farthest from correct on this issue of everyone on this thread... the power of the machines running the emulator is just as important as having solid coding backing the software... Think about it: Modern phones, with powerful quad core processors upwards of 2 GHz, are just now for the first time being able to emulate games from the Gameboy Advance from 2001. And those games aren't compute requirement heavy either, the graphics in Pokemon aren't really "top of the line". As games get more complex, so does the power of the machines running them, and therefore exponentially so on machines emulating those devices. Some people even have issues running PS2 emulators, not because of poorly coded software, but because their PC cannot handle running the emulator without getting frame rate issues due to a lower-mid range PC.

While good coding skill and knowledge of the system being emulated is critical, you can't run a PS3 emulator on an iPhone 4 just because you are a master of coding, the hardware needs to be there to back it up. Besides, the architecture of the XBox 360 is actually not too far off from that of a PC, especially compared to the PS3 and its cell processor. So all in all, it's not too much more complicated than a PC.

If it were only the simple issue of code knowledge, then why have people who have been making 360 emulators from the release of the actual console still struggling to run emulated games today, when they have been working on and optimizing the code for many years? You're wrong, my friend, current PC hardware is not sufficient enough to properly emulate last gen console games, no matter how well coded the emulator is.

The Xbox 360 and PS3 are nowhere NEAR PCs currently. They are several generations old compared to modern PC's. The Cell processor isn't as advanced as its led to believe, and is more or less just a 1.2 ghz 9 core processor, with only 7 useable for games.

Lets take the Nes emulators. Back in the day, emulating for the nes was hard as hell. You needed a damn good computer to run it. Now, since they now completely understand how ti works, and can more easily code for its multiple parts, they can code more efficiently.

Now a nes emulator can run on early EARLY pentium 3s.

Same happened for snes emulation, and playstation 1 emulation. Now that the documentation for ps2 emulation has come out, they've made an emulator that doesn't need massive pc's. you can run it on a simple dual core now.

Most emulation starts with coding to try and fool the program into running anyway. Then when they're able to, and information or reverse engineering is available, they'll try to emulate the hardware.

And you just made my point for me with the cellphone analogy. Cellphone emulation of classic consoles used to not be even possible without hardware emulation like a noac (nes-on-a-chip) or other hardware equivalent. Now it can be done with software, and the more they understand, the less power you need.

Cellphones that run quad cores are no where near as powerfull as pc quad cores. I don't see how you could think so.

And yes, while having bigger hardware does mean emulation can be easier, I'm saying that it's NOT required when you can emulate the hardware in question in software.

 

[apcs13]

Actually NONE of the people on this question are right. It has nothing to do with the power of the machine. That is a myth. What it actually needs, is good coding and accurate knowledge of how the system works. The XBOX 360 is basically a PowerPC machine. It was several years behind technology wise.

What is needed is people who can code software versions of the XBOX 360's components. This is what is hard. This is why every emulator in the beginning needs a fast PC. Because the code isn't fully optimized yet. Look at the PS2 emulators out there now. They've finally been able to break the machine down, and fully emulate all of the internals instead of using coding trickery. And it doesn't take as strong of a PC to make it work.

XBOX 360 is just more complicated, and coding for it will take forever until documentation comes out as to how it works, or someone reverse engineers it. Period.

Google is your friend. There are a myriad of topics about this, explaining WHY most emulators in their early days need heavy machines to use them. It's all in the coding of the emulator, and what they are and aren't able to emulate due to lack of understanding how the original machine works. So alot of it is guess work.

Unfortunately, you're actually the farthest from correct on this issue of everyone on this thread... the power of the machines running the emulator is just as important as having solid coding backing the software... Think about it: Modern phones, with powerful quad core processors upwards of 2 GHz, are just now for the first time being able to emulate games from the Gameboy Advance from 2001. And those games aren't compute requirement heavy either, the graphics in Pokemon aren't really "top of the line". As games get more complex, so does the power of the machines running them, and therefore exponentially so on machines emulating those devices. Some people even have issues running PS2 emulators, not because of poorly coded software, but because their PC cannot handle running the emulator without getting frame rate issues due to a lower-mid range PC.

While good coding skill and knowledge of the system being emulated is critical, you can't run a PS3 emulator on an iPhone 4 just because you are a master of coding, the hardware needs to be there to back it up. Besides, the architecture of the XBox 360 is actually not too far off from that of a PC, especially compared to the PS3 and its cell processor. So all in all, it's not too much more complicated than a PC.

If it were only the simple issue of code knowledge, then why have people who have been making 360 emulators from the release of the actual console still struggling to run emulated games today, when they have been working on and optimizing the code for many years? You're wrong, my friend, current PC hardware is not sufficient enough to properly emulate last gen console games, no matter how well coded the emulator is.

The Xbox 360 and PS3 are nowhere NEAR PCs currently. They are several generations old compared to modern PC's. The Cell processor isn't as advanced as its led to believe, and is more or less just a 1.2 ghz 9 core processor, with only 7 useable for games.

Lets take the Nes emulators. Back in the day, emulating for the nes was hard as hell. You needed a damn good computer to run it. Now, since they now completely understand how ti works, and can more easily code for its multiple parts, they can code more efficiently.

Now a nes emulator can run on early EARLY pentium 3s.

Same happened for snes emulation, and playstation 1 emulation. Now that the documentation for ps2 emulation has come out, they've made an emulator that doesn't need massive pc's. you can run it on a simple dual core now.

Most emulation starts with coding to try and fool the program into running anyway. Then when they're able to, and information or reverse engineering is available, they'll try to emulate the hardware.

And you just made my point for me with the cellphone analogy. Cellphone emulation of classic consoles used to not be even possible without hardware emulation like a noac (nes-on-a-chip) or other hardware equivalent. Now it can be done with software, and the more they understand, the less power you need.

Cellphones that run quad cores are no where near as powerfull as pc quad cores. I don't see how you could think so.

And yes, while having bigger hardware does mean emulation can be easier, I'm saying that it's NOT required when you can emulate the hardware in question in software.

This isn't the time nor place for this, you're trying to start an argument on a thread that has been dead for months. Please move your discussion to a new location. Thanks.

 

[q13]

There is no way to play a 360 game on PC currently unfortunately. You're going to need a long time to play on an emulator as well, as the emulation machine needs to have 10x the power of the original device, and regardless of what you may think, the PS3 and XB360 are powerful machines, and not even a qual-SLI Titan with an I7 4930K is 10X as powerful as those consoles. Even if it was, not enough people have them to justify making an emulator!

Until powerful enough hardware for an emulator is common, no, you cannot play 360 games on PC.

That is not true, my friend. You are SO WRONG. the xbox 360 and ps3 PALE IN COMPARISON TO THE i7 and TITANS!!

The xbox 360's gpu is like a 4850 or something. The cpu is a dual core!! YOU ARE JUST PLAIN WRONG.

 

[apcs13]

There is no way to play a 360 game on PC currently unfortunately. You're going to need a long time to play on an emulator as well, as the emulation machine needs to have 10x the power of the original device, and regardless of what you may think, the PS3 and XB360 are powerful machines, and not even a qual-SLI Titan with an I7 4930K is 10X as powerful as those consoles. Even if it was, not enough people have them to justify making an emulator!

Until powerful enough hardware for an emulator is common, no, you cannot play 360 games on PC.

That is not true, my friend. You are SO WRONG. the xbox 360 and ps3 PALE IN COMPARISON TO THE i7 and TITANS!!

The xbox 360's gpu is like a 4850 or something. The cpu is a dual core!! YOU ARE JUST PLAIN WRONG.

I never said they were equal or even close, but it is a fact that they are not 10X weaker than that hardware, so actually you're the one who is continuing the chain of misleading information. Please stop doing that and go and educate yourself before you start harming the thoughts of others.

Also, this thread has been inactive for a very long time. If you wish to continue to whine on with your drivel, please create a new thread. Thank you.

 

[Gman450]

Though this is a thread made long ago, I have to agree with q13. It's not about power of the machines, but coding. The architecture is different among PC and those consoles, that finding and implementing the right codes to utilize it is a very difficult job indeed. That is the reason why most high end PCs struggle to maintain playable frame rates with games like 'Shadow of the Colossus' on a PS2 emulator. The hardware is tons better on PC compared to consoles, but the code to utilize the GPU power is hard to make up with.

 

[zxthehedgehog]

I'm going to add my words to this thread:
An emulator for the Xbox for the PC is theoretically possible, However, that does not mean it is probable or easy. The emulation community is comprised of fans, who do not get paid for their work on these projects, only have a limited knowledge of the software and hardware, and must spend hours working on the way each and every single chip works. Even if they make an emulator, there's still the way the drive works, and the fact of dumping the games so they will work, until it is complete. This is again, possible, but it often takes years to perfect. If you want to play a modern system on the PC, the farthest forward one you will find are the great people who made Dolphin, who I give great credit to for figuring out the Wii's hardware so fast. If you want to know how far modern interpretation of these types of games are, check out RPCS3. They have successfully run a few games on the PS3, but they do not have sound, and are slow and laggy.
RPCS3
Dolphin

 

[werberman]

Actually... Speaking as someone who has worked with emulator design on a hardware level, I can say with a good deal of authority that both code efficiency AND raw computational power are required for a successful emulation. Every processor, be it GPU or CPU, has its own "shortcuts" built into the architecture - that is to say, they can be thought of as physical bypasses built into the chip. These "shortcuts" allow for specific equations and functions to be performed far more quickly than would otherwise be possible and thus lower the demands on the chip. In fact, it is these "shortcuts" that allow a single core of an i7 (for comparison reasons, assume the i7 is, for some reason, being used to execute an old 32-bit task) running at 3.0Ghz to waaaaaay outperform an old P4 running at the same speed, even when both are running the same instructions set (x86). Unfortunately, consoles are cheap. Really cheap. To make them cheap, they minimize cost of chips and cooling - they design special architectures with many very specialized "shortcuts" built in to suite the needs of the game designers while keeping the technical overall computational power relatively low. These specially made chips always , (or, at least, so it seems) do things that x86 chips cannot. That means that for every task the processors running the emulation have to do through hard computations instead of through built in "shortcuts", huge amounts of efficiency is lost. There is no way around this sad fact (other than perhaps recompiling the game to run on the x86 architecture, but that would be... absurdly time consuming) As a programmer, one tries to ensure the code used to emulate the machine is designed to use as many tricks as possible as made available by typical PC hardware (defining what typical PC hardware is, by the way, a task in and of itself). In order to do this requires complete understanding of the unit being emulated, and that takes years and years. Hell, N64 emulation is still something of a pain. That's where hardware is essential. And yes, sadly, there is not a pc for sale today that could emulate an xbox360. Ironically, in 5 years, the pc you read this on in 2014 might well be able to. Just a geek giving out a bit of education...

 

[gamerk316]

In order to do this requires complete understanding of the unit being emulated, and that takes years and years. Hell, N64 emulation is still something of a pain. That's where hardware is essential. And yes, sadly, there is not a pc for sale today that could emulate an xbox360. Ironically, in 5 years, the pc you read this on in 2014 might well be able to. Just a geek giving out a bit of education...

Yep. Taking the N64 as an example, no one really knows how the RSP/RDP works yet. Likewise, the N64 renders differently then modern PCs do, making it VERY tough to emulate accurately to this day. These are the two primary reasons a lot of things do not work, or do not emulate accurately. And trying to force HW processing entirely in SW is very expensive, hence why same games, to this day, run incredibly slowly.

At the end of the day, it comes down to how accurate you want the emulator to be. The more accurate you are, the slower you are going to be. BSNES (now Higan) is the best example of this aspect. You can run SNES9x to emulate the SNES and ~98% of its library with a Pentium III. BSNES is FAR more accurate and handles those edge cases, you but need a C2D to run it well.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/08/accuracy-takes-power-one-mans-3ghz-quest-to-build-a-perfect-snes-emulator/

You saw this happen in the Dolphin emulator after Version 3.5 released. All the cleaver hacks over the years were removed to make the emulator more accurate (and stable), and performance took a hit.

 

[Mustahsin Khan]

Try this website:

http://www.caustik.com/cxbx/download.htm

It works, I use it but I use it to play far cry classic and halo combat evolved, but I don't know if it will run other games.

You can also try out these other sites, although I don't know if they work:

http://www.zophar.net/xbox/xeon.html

http://xbox360emulatorx.com/

 

[scott28280]

Nope there is no Xbox 360 emulator out and there never will be. It's architecture is much much different from a PC so emulation is currently impossible

wrong, research is key here, http://www.polygon.com/2014/3/29/5560764/video-shows-xbox-360-emulation-pc

Just thought everyone should know, everyone saying its not possible, are wrong, there is one being made and it works, it's still in the early stages but its happening!!

 

[Musky]

xbox 360 games are made on PC. People wasting their time to inverse engineering or emulate Power PC consoles are dumb. Any Gears of war games are made with the Unreal Engine (Windows) and can be compiled on Windows, MAC, Linux, PS3, XBOX360, iPad and the next gen consoles. If those games are not on PC this is just because exclusive contracts made for specific console makers. Don't waste your time!!!!!! For each of those dam games you have a PC version working with some libraries, framework you don't have on your PC. Those consoles are NOT more powerful than actual i7 PC with GTX460 video cards nor even a i5 and the next gen consoles are NOT more powerful than those PC config neither. That means save your dam money!!! 😀
All console games can be played on a PC and on actual Tablet called Nvidia Shield and other using the same processor.
Of course this is via streaming services. Do a simple search on the net. You can play any PS1, PS2, PS3, PSx games on a PS4 console the same way. One day all games gonna be available on that type of tablets.... Welcome to the new generation of gamers and forget the dam crappy emulators made by newbies not understanding 1/10000 of the console concept wasting their time and our time for nothing. 😀

 

[gamerk316]

xbox 360 games are made on PC. People wasting their time to inverse engineering or emulate Power PC consoles are dumb. Any Gears of war games are made with the Unreal Engine (Windows) and can be compiled on Windows, MAC, Linux, PS3, XBOX360, iPad and the next gen consoles. If those games are not on PC this is just because exclusive contracts made for specific console makers. Don't waste your time!!!!!! For each of those dam games you have a PC version working with some libraries, framework you don't have on your PC. Those consoles are NOT more powerful than actual i7 PC with GTX460 video cards nor even a i5 and the next gen consoles are NOT more powerful than those PC config neither. That means save your dam money!!! 😀
All console games can be played on a PC and on actual Tablet called Nvidia Shield and other using the same processor.

Nope, wrong. The 360 has libraries that are different then their PC variants. You also have a lot of low-level coding to take advantage of the 360's architecture. Never mind the render backend is totally different. 360 titles simply won't compile against Windows without significant recoding.

 

[Musky]

xbox 360 games are made on PC. People wasting their time to inverse engineering or emulate Power PC consoles are dumb. Any Gears of war games are made with the Unreal Engine (Windows) and can be compiled on Windows, MAC, Linux, PS3, XBOX360, iPad and the next gen consoles. If those games are not on PC this is just because exclusive contracts made for specific console makers. Don't waste your time!!!!!! For each of those dam games you have a PC version working with some libraries, framework you don't have on your PC. Those consoles are NOT more powerful than actual i7 PC with GTX460 video cards nor even a i5 and the next gen consoles are NOT more powerful than those PC config neither. That means save your dam money!!! 😀
All console games can be played on a PC and on actual Tablet called Nvidia Shield and other using the same processor.

Nope, wrong. The 360 has libraries that are different then their PC variants. You also have a lot of low-level coding to take advantage of the 360's architecture. Never mind the render backend is totally different. 360 titles simply won't compile against Windows without significant recoding.

Man read the entire message we talk about Unreal engine games. The game is made on pc then cooked for xbox360. Yes you have low level coding to make it run on xbox 360 but it is already running on PC during the making of the game.

 

[RealHurdle69]

Yes, it is possible. Download the Xbox360Emulatorx program and you can play all the games that your heart desires.

 

[gamerk316]

Man read the entire message we talk about Unreal engine games. The game is made on pc then cooked for xbox360. Yes you have low level coding to make it run on xbox 360 but it is already running on PC during the making of the game.

No it won't. Typically you develop/compile on a PC, build the executable, then run/test on the platform you are developing against. Just because you develop on a platform does not mean that platform can actually run the program.

Look at the PS3 as an example: different CPU architecture, different memory setup, a render API that simply will not run on Windows. But development is done...on the PC. But Windows can't run a PS3 game, because the APIs and underlying architecture are totally different.

Saying "Well, they're developing using Unreal, so it should run natively on any platform" is just like saying "It was coded in C, so it should run natively on any platform", both of which are wrong assumptions to make.

 

[The Kasafist]

The correct answer is werberman's it's really easy to understand this when you understand BUSINESS! All this hardware achitecture is stricly proprietary. Proprietary hardware and code is the biggest issue plain and simple. It takes a boat load of effort from coders to understand not just the code but the hardware and how the code utilizes the hardware to run these games. It also involves running some verion of the concoles OS on today's OS's and hardware architecture. Fact is the game dev companies don't like to release information like this as it can be used against them by their competitors. Also releasing coding and hardware architecture info too soon can hurt them as well.

Fact 1: Sony and Microsoft are still making money on PS3 and 360 hence why Destiny a new gen game title was still released and supported on those old consoles.

Fact 2: As long as they can make money from those who don't upgrade their stuff they will and as long as they continue to make money and there is still a market for it and it continues to be supported directly from the orignal manufacturer's (i.e. Sony & MS) they will NOT release this information until the console itself is actually still in use.

Fact 3: It's illegal to emulate something a company still holds the rights for and neither of them is going to let these go anytime soon anyway PERIOD!

Fact 4: Most companies don't bother letting it go until the general population has moved on to the next generation console which has not happened yet.

Fact 5: If you were a dev or console company you wouldn't either because you wouldn't have a business for very long because doing so is just plain bad business decision making.

Fact 6: Unless some engineer/programmer who specifically works or worked for these companies is willing to leak that information and risk his/her career (considering it's illegal) I don't see anyone successfully emulating last gens consoles unless it's extremely simplistic (which it isn't) or they're some kind of engineering/programming genius, (which obviously we have none who care to waste their time or this emu would already exist) then it's a waiting game plain and simple.

Fact 7: You will wait for these industries to release this information. Why, you ask? It's simple because they can make us all wait because they own the rights and they have the power to do that.

Fact 8: Even they (MS, Sony) have had and still are having a heck of a hard time creating emu just for the PS4 and X1 for those old consoles to the point that they plain quit and decided on rentable streams of old titles! Just an example of this is the new Playstation Now services (another way to squeeze gamers of tons of money but hey that's business) you can rent old titles from PSX-PS3 and stream them to your PS4. Even if it does cost you more.

See it's simple and it can go on forever as to reasons why this emulation is still floating around in the clouds right now. Coders for those emus are pretty shooting in a dark hollow cave trying to hit a target the size of a pea plain and simple. Like others have stated before unless that information is released coding emulators and understand its hardware architecture heck even alone its OS and the coding involved is plain old "guess work."

When they know we'll know and that's really all there is left to say about this subject. @werberman Thanks for the explanation you provided it was quite accurate I just wanted to add some emphasys on the business aspect since the companies are keen to making sure these things remain this way until they can capitalize on them first.

 

[Saga Lout]

I'm not trying to give anyone the last word but I think it's time to close this thread down. It's not bordering on the illicit poaching of Intellectual Property - a.k.a. piracy - and opinions on the basic issue of this thread will always vary.