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The $299 XBOX Series S is an Emulation Beast | MVG

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StudioTan

StudioTan

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Oct 27, 2017
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Has anyone been able to get this to work? I downloaded the Dev app, paid the $20 to join the dev program. Now it's giving me a code and saying to go to https://aka.ms/activatexbox to input the code but when I go there it just a list to manage my Xbox One consoles and of course the list is empty. Even the MS help page which has a link to put in the activation code just sends me to the same page with no place to put the code in.

Anyone had success? Did I join the wrong program?

EDIT: Nevermind I found it. You have to click the + on the top right and select Enter Activation Code.
 
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litebrite

litebrite

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Oct 27, 2017
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I see somebody is already testing out Retroarch with the PCSX2 core on Xbox One (They don't own a Series X|S)

Here's Sega Superstar Tennis. It's very laggy on OG Xbox One but likely much better on Series X|S.

 
The Pet of the Month

The Pet of the Month

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Oct 26, 2017
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Amalthea
litebrite said:
I see somebody is already testing out Retroarch with the PCSX2 core on Xbox One (They don't own a Series X|S)

Here's Sega Superstar Tennis. It's very laggy on OG Xbox One but likely much better on Series X|S.

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Video evidence of what CPU rate-limited emulators look like lol

Can't wait for the Retroarch folks to put it in officially tho cuz I reallllllly want to play Driving Emotion and The Bouncer again
 

SecondNature

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,154
Wait wtf. This wont be patched?

U can emulate any older game on Xbox Series S!?

At this point, the Xbox seems like a really wise long term investment.
 
The Pet of the Month

The Pet of the Month

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litebrite said:
I want to play all the PS2 classics, hidden gems, and unique and interesting games that aren't available to be played on modern consoles.
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You know this makes me think about? How easy it is to lose access to these games. Without folks that really care about preservation gaming is just one long corridor to the next big hit and I really don't like that.

What games do you plan on playing? I'm looking to play all my currently owned games. Could emulate on my PC but it's just a pain in the butt when it comes to switching to my TV lol
 
toa95

toa95

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Oct 27, 2017
255
So if I were to do this on a series X would it allow me to actually put a ps2 disk into the disk drive or would I still need to go about ripping the iso before hand?
 
Damaniel

Damaniel

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
6,535
Portland, OR
SecondNature said:
Wait wtf. This wont be patched?

U can emulate any older game on Xbox Series S!?

At this point, the Xbox seems like a really wise long term investment.
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They won't patch it because it's a built-in feature designed for developers (or anyone who has a developer account - i.e. anyone who paid $20 to Microsoft for developer access) to run and test their apps. I seriously doubt Microsoft cares what you run in dev mode. Plus, you still have to provide your own ROMs, BIOS files and disk images for any games you want to run, so it's not as if porting Retroarch to the Xbox Series dev mode is somehow facilitating piracy.

All I know is that I may end up picking up a Series S at some point to serve as my gaming room emulation box (as a replacement for my Pi 3 based Retropie box).

toa95 said:
So if I were to do this on a series X would it allow me to actually put a ps2 disk into the disk drive or would I still need to go about ripping the iso before hand?
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You'll still have to rip your disks and use the images.
 
Fitts

Fitts

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Oct 25, 2017
21,163
This was what I was hoping for when the rumors of a cheap Xbox started surfacing. Stoked that MVG got one.
 
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Damaniel said:
They won't patch it because it's a built-in feature designed for developers (or anyone who has a developer account - i.e. anyone who paid $20 to Microsoft for developer access) to run and test their apps. I seriously doubt Microsoft cares what you run in dev mode. Plus, you still have to provide your own ROMs, BIOS files and disk images for any games you want to run, so it's not as if porting Retroarch to the Xbox Series dev mode is somehow facilitating piracy.
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And I do want to add that emulation isn't piracy in the slightest. Microsoft doesn't want to deal with the stuff on the retail side of things (well apparently you can get Retroarch on retail rn but im not sure how) so dev mode is free real estate. Not to mention we can get full GPU access from dev mode!
 
litebrite

litebrite

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Oct 27, 2017
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They just released RetroArch with the PS2 core for Xbox. The download link is in the description of the youtube video.

 
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The Pet of the Month

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Pipyakas said:
I thought UWP apps only get 45% GPU time?
docs.microsoft.com

System resources for UWP apps and games on Xbox One - UWP applications

Learn how UWP apps running on Xbox One share resources with the system and other apps, and about resource requirements for UWP apps or games.
docs.microsoft.com
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So AFAIK there are two modes to applications in dev mode: app mode and game mode. You can switch between both modes for an application when you hit the menu button when highlighted. That should give full access to the GPU as mentioned in that article.

It's been a minute since I've actually jumped into dev mode on Xbox (One X was painfully slow) but that's how I remember getting more system resources available to me.
 
Teenage Fansub

Teenage Fansub

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May 24, 2019
22,182
I got the default Retroarch XBox UWP app from their download page. Will the PS2 core eventually be available through the internal downloader, or should I swap it for this new package now?

Also, it didn't come with UI icons, just text on the xmb background. In this video everything pops up after downloading assets, but that didn't happen with mine. Any ideas?


edit: Also, How can I delete files I got for the internal downloader? I mean all the 240P test suites and such.
 
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Pipyakas

Pipyakas

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Jul 20, 2018
549
The Pet of the Month said:
So AFAIK there are two modes to applications in dev mode: app mode and game mode. You can switch between both modes for an application when you hit the menu button when highlighted. That should give full access to the GPU as mentioned in that article.

It's been a minute since I've actually jumped into dev mode on Xbox (One X was painfully slow) but that's how I remember getting more system resources available to me.
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ah okay, I dont actually have a Xbox so I dont really know if they essentially lock you to only developing UWP apps in dev mode
jotun? said:
Costs a lot more than $300 to build a decent HTPC
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It's also a full blown PC though, which massively fix the lack of software problem. PS3 and Switch emulation instantly comes to mind, however borked or poorly perform that might be
 
RoninChaos

RoninChaos

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Oct 26, 2017
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Can't watch the video. Will this emulate Dreamcast games or GameCube games? Cause I NEED to finish skies of Arcadia.
 
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RoninChaos said:
Can't watch the video. Will this emulate Dreamcast games or GameCube games? Cause I NEED to finish skies of Arcadia.
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Mvg tried skies of Arcadia out and said it ran "exceptionally well". Yes, GameCube games work too.

I should play my copy someday, seems like it's actually good lol


Pipyakas said:
ah okay, I dont actually have a Xbox so I dont really know if they essentially lock you to only developing UWP apps in dev mode
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I hear you, honestly I'm not sure what the state of uwp is rn but it's not dead - more evolving into something else and that works on Xbox.
 

Fredrik

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Oct 27, 2017
9,003
Damaniel said:
I seriously doubt Microsoft cares what you run in dev mode. Plus, you still have to provide your own ROMs, BIOS files and disk images for any games you want to run, so it's not as if porting Retroarch to the Xbox Series dev mode is somehow facilitating piracy.
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It's not like you couldn't easily just download a full set of the required files and all games ever released on any old system, saying that they don't care because you have to provide your own files is kinda naive, I think they'll leave it in simply because it's positive PR. But this is off topic let's just continue celebrating this surprising awesomeness :)

Is there any way to add cover art? I want some kind of frontend, this is great but super janky.
 
Teenage Fansub

Teenage Fansub

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May 24, 2019
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Now I've bought it, what other neat things are there to do in dev mode? (other than actually developing things, which I won't be doing)
 
PeaceSeeker

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Apr 17, 2018
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When there are model 3 and og xbox emulator, it will be the time to buy series s.

I already have series x, just don't want to turn it into dev mode
 
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Fredrik

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Oct 27, 2017
9,003
I haven't kept myself updated and find it incredibly difficult to choose among these emulator cores.
What's the best for SNES, Megadrive, PS1?
 

Deleted member 5956

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Fredrik said:
I haven't kept myself updated and find it incredibly difficult to choose among these emulator cores.
What's the best for SNES, Megadrive, PS1?
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SNES/BSNES. Megadrive/Genesis plus GX with the Nuked YM2612 audio option and low pass filter set to 55, this is very important for accurate audio. PS1/Beetle.
 
UltraInstinct

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Nov 19, 2017
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I'm interested in checking this out on the Series X. Is it safe to do so? No horror stories of consoles being bricked or developing issues with apps like this? Can this be played without being online?
 
ghostcrew

ghostcrew

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Oct 27, 2017
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Fredrik said:
Now that's a sentence I never thought I would see without it being a joke! Some sutters but this is still beyond awesome. I take PS1 emulation is even easier, a piece of cake with this box?
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It has to be. It's essentially flawless on a £30 Raspberry Pi. The Series S should absolutely crush it.
 

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ZOONAMI said:
How long until this gets killed by an MS firmware update? Or are they likely to let it be?
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It's very unlikely for MS to kill this in an update since the point of dev mode is to allow people to develop apps using the retail console as a devkit. People are able to run applications on the hardware without having to go through any approval process (which would be, quite frankly, ridiculous to see if your program even runs in the first place) for development purposes, so the only way they could stop people from doing this would be by removing the ability to go into dev mode in the first place, which isn't something they'd want as people legit use the retail console as devkits.

So it'd be akin to a Windows update that would block all compilers on Windows, the only way they can really stop people from running the RetroArch code is by removing the ability to develop on the platform in the first place.

All in all, given dev mode existed since the Xbox One days, it's unlikely to get killed when you consider that the Series X is the second generation of Microsoft consoles which allows you to do this.
 

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ghostcrew said:
It has to be. It's essentially flawless on a £30 Raspberry Pi. The Series S should absolutely crush it.
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What core is the Pi running, a middle of the road emualtor like PCSX-R? That isnt remotely flawless no matter how the performance is. But yes the S should have no issues whatsoever with the Beetle PS1 core.

Does this support Vulcan BTW becuase without that you are not going to be able to use the best N64 plugins or use the best backend for the Beetle HW core, would be a real shame if despite all thatt power you are still limited to using GLideN64 instead of the Parallel RSP +RSP options.
 
eebster

eebster

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Nov 2, 2017
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The Series S was such a genius move by Microsoft, especially paired with Gamepass. So many people are gonna buy it as their secondary console next to their PS5 or PC, when otherwise they wouldn't have gotten the Series X
 
RoninChaos

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Oct 26, 2017
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The Pet of the Month said:
Mvg tried skies of Arcadia out and said it ran "exceptionally well". Yes, GameCube games work too.

I should play my copy someday, seems like it's actually good lol



I hear you, honestly I'm not sure what the state of uwp is rn but it's not dead - more evolving into something else and that works on Xbox.
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... shit. Mario Golf and Skies of Arcadia here I come.
 
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