Xbox 360 Emulators: There is no doubt agreeing Xbox 360 is an infamous console that’s probably the most intricate gaming console to emulate. It’s because Xbox’s hardware is extremely complex and the documentation isn’t comprehensively elaborated.
If you do a simple Google search, you may find an exhaustive list of viable emulators for playing Xbox games on PC. But the problem is most of them aren’t working correctly, and some have discontinued the project. For the very reason that furthermore adds the convenience to the readers, below we have listed the top best Xbox emulator for PC.
Best Xbox 360 Emulators for PC
However, it’s common to encounter some minor bugs, periodical crashes, or occasional freezes with the emulators but at the time of writing this article, the mentioned ones are the only working Xbox 360 emulators for Windows PC that stand out from the pack.
Xenia Emulator
Being an open-source program, Xenia is free-to-use, and currently, it’s the best option which helps ideally emulates Xbox 360 console games on modern PCs. Unlike other emulators, when it comes to the performance, it doesn’t often undergo any lags or application crashes.
As of now, Xenia is only available to Windows (10/8.1/8) supported PCs only, however alongside the developers are also working on its Linux build; we hope to see it soon.
Additionally, it doesn’t require any Xbox 360 system files. All you have to do is, download the program, extract the .zip file, and run the program as an administrator. Sometimes, your system may detect it as a virus, so make sure you ignore it. With Xenia, you can play up to 90 Xbox 360 titles on your computer.
For more details on system requirement, you can refer to this official GitHub page.
CXBX Emulator
It’s a powerful emulator that is designed explicitly for emulating Xbox One games on PC. Xbox 360 fanatics can also make use of it, but with a higher chance, you may not find it the absolute best for your need.
The emulator is easy to install with a smooth GUI that boasts an array of features. CXBX Xbox 360 emulator comes with an inbuilt program that helps you converting Xbox games into .exe files. Although, with this emulator, you don’t even have to worry about the system lags – that are quite typical for any emulator – CXBX is well optimized to eradicate such issues.
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You may not like this, but this emulator has a limit of only 5 Xbox games you can play as it merely supports Smashing Drive, Battle Cry, Whacked, Futurama, and Turok. Since it doesn’t require you to create a virtual machine to initiate Xbox games, you can run them within the program.
Adding to its notable features, CXBX Xbox 360 emulator comes with consisting an inbuilt Xbox Executable Viewer that is useful for viewing and managing the game’s files. It can also run Xbox Pixel shaders and able to emulate various Xbox SDK samples as well.
Lastly, it’s available for 64-bit & 32-bit versions of Windows. To enable the emulator to reach its optimum performance, you ought to have a PC with high-end built since the program used many resources.
DXBX Xbox 360 Emulator
This emulator is well known for its inherent features and compatibility it comes with. It hosts an inbuilt Direct3D8 engine which is responsible for performing all graphics work. DXBX perfectly emulate the core of the Xbox games including pixel shaders, controllers, graphics and soundtracks.
Besides emulating a considerable number of Xbox 360 games flawlessly, it also works well with Xbox One games. In addition, DXBX emulator incorporates customizable sophisticated symbol detection system.
The emulator is compatible with working on Windows 7/8/8.1 and 10. But unfortunately, it only supports 32-bit PC versions that makes it good for nothing for most of the users.
XQEMU Emulator
It’s yet another open-source program that is designed for the original Xbox. Currently, at the time of writing this article, XQEMU Xbox 360 Emulator supports about 275 games. Among top 25 Xbox games of all time, XQEMU is capable of emulating Halo: Combat Evolved, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Mercenaries, Jet Set Radio Future and more.
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It’s a cross-platform emulator that supports all major operating systems (Windows, macOS, and Linux.) Since the program is still under active development, the audio isn’t working properly, and you may also have to deal with slow and buggy graphics. However, no need to fret because bug patches and new features for the games are constantly being added, so pretty soon we can expect to have an incredibly well-working emulator on hand.
Despite having easy to use interface, for getting started with XQEMU you mandatorily require some prerequisites that contain making use of copyrighted files and other stuff, novice users may encounter some difficulties.
Xeon Emulator
This emulator is available for only Windows and DOS operating system. Xeon can only emulate one commercial game – the NTSC version of Halo – that’s itself a huge accomplishment.
Furthermore, the emulator comprises a Backup Creator in its program that is primarily responsible for saving the game progress of an individual. Xeon Xbox 360 emulator is effortlessly easy to use as it gives you an instruction wizard while emulating the game.
But sadly, the developers aren’t working on it anymore; thus, there will be no new version releases anytime soon.
EX360E Xbox 360 Emulator
As its name implies, it’s an emulator that is originally designed and developed for Xbox 360. However, you can also emulate the Xbox one games using it. EX360E is precisely known as an experimental emulator for obvious reasons.
Same as the above mentioned Xbox emulators, it also incorporates a certain functionality that directly creates executable files and allows skipping the need of virtual environment to emulate games. EX360E Xbox 360 Emulator only supports 64bit Windows OS with Windows 7 installed or later.
The only potential downside of this emulator is its user interface that’s not quite as good as the other emulators listed in this article.
So it’s time to wrap up this guide, and we hope you’ve found what you came looking for on this web page. Let us know in the comments which Xbox emulator does work well for you and also which is your favorite game.
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