In the 15 years since Xenia, Xbox 360 for PC hardware has evolved considerably. We’re now at the point where emulators are powerful enough to run both Xbox 360 and PS3 games at playable framerates. Well, at least on top-tier hardware. This is important because, during the seventh-gen, PC wasn’t as important a platform as it is now. Today, we almost take it for granted that multiplatform games will launch on PC. But there are a lot of seventh-gen games like Red Dead Redemption that never received PC ports. Besides that, PC gamers are also forced to miss out on many great exclusives.
But Xenia and RPCS3, the best Xbox 360 and PS3 emulators, respectively, can let you experience these games without seventh-gen hardware when paired with a powerful PC. Both of these emulators are highly capable. But in terms of usability, we’d have to give the edge to Xenia. The PS3’s Cell architecture was infamously hard to code for back in the day. And this makes creating a performant emulator even more difficult. The Xbox 360 has an advantage because its 3-core IBM PowerPC architecture is better understood. Today, we’ll explore how to emulate Xbox 360 games like Red Dead Redemption on your PC with Xenia. Read on to find out.
Before we start
Before continuing with this guide, you’ll need to have a few things ready. For starters, you need a legally-purchased, licensed copy of any game you plan to emulate in Xenia. Emulation is a bit of a grey space. But you’ll (probably) be safe from a legal standpoint if you use emulators exclusively to run games you own. (Disclaimer, don’t take our word as valid legal advice). Fortunately, it’s very easy and cheap to get hold of seventh-gen games. You can pick up used disc copies on eBay for as little as a few dollars. You’ve probably spent more on Candy Crush.
Once you own a legal copy of the game you want to emulate, you need to obtain a soft copy in a format Xenia can use. You can check out our upcoming guide on how to rip games on Xbox 360 disk and dump the files on a PC. But for today’s guide, we’ll point you to an easy alternative: Downloading the ISO.
GPU Requirements
Third, you’ll need a fairly powerful, modern PC. The Xbox 360 had a powerful GPU, making Xenia more GPU-bound than many other emulators. To get 30 FPS or more in games like Halo 3, these are our GPU recommendations:
- GTX 1070 or better for Nvidia users
- Vega 56 or better for AMD users
Upper midrange GPUs like the RX 580 will run Xenia, but you might not get playable performance. Don’t even try running the emulator with integrated graphics. Unless you like gaming at 2 FPS, that is. Keep in mind that the latest builds of Xenia use the Vulkan API. This means you won’t be able to use these with older GPUs that don’t support the Vulkan standard. This means anything newer than the HD 7000 line from AMD and the GTX 600 line from Nvidia.
CPU Requirements
As an emulator, Xenia also places a fairly heavy load on your CPU. You’ll need a fairly decent processor to get playable framerates. What that means in terms of CPU recommendations is:
- A Skylake i5 like the i5 6500 at the minimum for Intel users
- Ryzen 1500X at the minimum for AMD users
These processors are at the lower end of what we’d use in Xenia. If you want more performance from your AMD processor, we highly recommend overclocking it.
RAM and Storage Requirements
You’ll need 8 gigs of RAM and at least 128 GB of free storage space, too (to accommodate 360 ISO files).
Input Device Requirements
You will also need an Xbox 360 controller connected to your PC. If you don’t have a 360 controller, you can use X360CE to trick your PC into thinking that your controller is indeed a 360 controller. This will work with various controllers, such as the Dualshock 3, 4, and Xbox One controller. You can technically control Xenia with the keyboard, but this is a terrible way of playing most Xbox 360 games.
Once you have all this, it’s time to get Xenia to work. Read on to find out how.
How to use Xenia
Step 1. Download the latest build of Xenia from the official site.
Step 2. Extract the zip file containing Xenia to a folder of your choice.
Step 3. Launch Xenia. You might get a Windows Defender popup. Don’t worry about this. Click on “More info,” then click on “Run Anyway.” Xenia is not malware, but Windows Defender tends to report emulators as such.
Step 4. You’ll be presented with a blank screen and a menu bar at the top.
Step 5. Click on the file, then open it. Select the ISO you downloaded
Step 6. That’s all there is to it. You can press F11 to go fullscreen if you want.
Note that, as Xenia is still in development, not all games work with it, and few work well. Look at the Xenia compatibility list before trying to run a game.
Conclusion
If you’ve followed all of these steps, you will have your favourite Xbox 360 games up and running on PC. Xenia is a work in progress. It’s not without its limitations. You need top-of-the-line hardware to get games running at 30 FPS. Moreover, many titles don’t work, and because it’s a volunteer project, there are no clear ETAs on when they’ll be fixed. If you can get past these issues, Xenia is a great way to enjoy Xbox 360 games that you might have otherwise missed.
Author’s Opinion regarding the Xenia Xbox 360
The Xenia Xbox 360 has very powerful features while considering the security purpose; priority is very high. No VPN or RDP is required for the said purpose. In some cases, the emulator also works fine, and middleware software also has an important role in smooth functioning. Therefore, the author recommended the Xenia Xbox 360 for personal use and has no issue regarding the installation on PC (Windows and Mac). I hope you also use it without any trouble. If you have any issues, please mention them in the email, and we will provide you with the proper solutions. Please like and share with others; we made a lot of effort while collecting the software for your download.
