Saturday, July 26, 2014

XQEMU F.A.Q. (Updated 7/30/14)

Since I get asked the same questions over and over again, it's time I wrote a FAQ based on the most common questions (as well as the most annoying questions).  So, if you have a question, it probably has a simple answer, which I will address here. :)

1. Q: What's the status of this emulator?

A: It's still in it's early stages and is a little over a year old.  It's capable of launching the BIOS, Dashboard, XDK Launcher, and runs a few games.

2. Q: What games are playable?

A: At the time of writing, only a few games go ingame, and even fewer would I consider "playable".  Smashing Drive, being the simplest of Xbox titles, generally works okay.  This emu is largely untested, so be patient, or try it yourself.  In the mean time, watch the compatibility list.

3. Q: Does game work?

A: Probably not at this point.  Once again, check the compatibility list.  If it's not there, it's either untested or not working.

4. Q: Where can I download XQEMU?

A: The emu is in source only form.  If you want to run this emu, you'll have to build the source code yourself.  If you are not capable of doing this, then chances are you shouldn't be using an emu in it's alpha stages so casually.

5. Q: Can I play "Conker"?

A: I get a ridiculous number of requests for this game.  So far, only the demo has shown to do anything, but doesn't go ingame, and is not playable.  As far as I know, the full game hasn't been tested, and I highly doubt it works.  Also, if it did, don't you think I would have told you by now?

6. Q: Can I play "JSRF"?

A: Again, I get a RIDICULOUS number of requests for this game (even more than the previous).  It does not work.  Don't ask when it will work because I'm not psychic either.  Once again, if it did anything at all, I would have told you already.  This is one of my favourite games and I want to see it playable too.  Just be patient, please!

7. Q: Can I help?

A: If you are knowledgeable of C/C++, x86 assembly, Xbox, and emulation in general, go check out the source on github.  Be warned, this isn't a project for someone who is new to programming.  There is a steep learning curve and it's a tough project.  You are more than welcome to try.

8. Q: Can I be a beta tester?

A: Although you are welcome to test (provided you can create your own builds), but official beta testers are not what we are looking for.  The dev side is the most important right now.

9. Q: What are the system requirements?  Is my machine fast enough?

A: It's too early to tell, so that's not a question I can accurately answer right now.  Right now, only the software MMU is used; no hardware based KVM yet.  The speeds I've been getting have been moderate to somewhat slow on my Macbook Pro (2.93Ghz Core 2 Duo, GeForce 9600 GT, 4GB Ram) without hardware virtualization.  This Macbook is about 5 or 6 years old, so maybe that will give you an idea.

That's about it.  I might update this in the near future.  Now, I appreciate the enthusiasm, support and everything, but I can't answer the same questions over and over again. :)

If you want to learn more, join us on one of our IRC channels: #cxbx on efnet or #xqemu on freenode :)

Shogun.

16 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. With the death of Windows XP, will the project remain XP only, or will there be a vista/7/8 build in the future?

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    1. Cxbx is XP (or others using other settings or VM)
      Xqemu is MacOsX, Linux or even Windows (use MinGW)

      Windows: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vW1XAdqC4r8RP6Vfb3F3cOulVuRIDBElGZx94JlIe4c/pub

      atm: "If you want to run this emu, you'll have to build the source code yourself. If you are not capable of doing this, then chances are you shouldn't be using an emu in it's alpha stages so casually."

      And im stuck at compiling it for Linux (Arch x64, Lenovo E530 I7 with a Nvidia GM635m)

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    2. No, Cxbx runs on all versions of Windows since Win2k, and, as much as I hate to say it, runs best on Windows Vista. There's just no official support for x64. It's been done by someone, but I don't remember who or how.

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  3. Hi, I love the work that you guys have done on this project, looks very promising :) and like others have mentioned I would gladly donate to this project if you put up a link! :)

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  4. Send us a party image when JSRF get's ready to play :3
    Thanks for the Faq.

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  5. You answered questions I didn't even know I had :) I was surprised at all of the Conker requests you mentioned.
    Also, the hardware insight was interesting as well. Would assume it would get a little better once you've nail more things down and can worry about the optimizations. Since people were able to emulate the Wii and GameCube so well (see Dolphin Emulator) I never thought this would be so difficult since the games and OS were based off of C or C++? Anyways, not trying to diminish your work, and thank you for your efforts.

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    1. The language it's "based" on makes little difference. It all boils down to the hardware. It's getting better, but its kinda slowed down a bit. We all get pretty busy irl, but now that I'm laid off, I have some down time and can put in a little work on some things.

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  6. So a 3.3GHz Core-i5 + GTX 660 + hardware virtualization might run it at near full speed?

    PS. Great work. Don't give up.

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  7. is the development still going on?

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  8. Great thing you're doing. I'd kill to play Conker: Live and Reloaded in HD.

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  9. the xbox emulator on xbox 360 works great. did you ever consider to reverse engineer the emulator on 360 and figure out how it works? maybe we can learn something from it. I am suspecting that the 360 uses HLE just like cxbx uses because of the similar API and Direct 3D system. I wish you could find something you need from it. I would like to help but power PC is really way to far from my field, even with idapro I could not understand what the code is doing there. wish you good luck.

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  10. I Didn´t realize XBOX video runs at 480p if is that true, XBOX can run fine on a emulator with this resolution.
    Is not that big as Playstation 2.

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