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Xenia is an open-source Xbox 360 emulator for Windows and the first to successfully run a commercial Xbox 360 game. Ben Vanik, who also created PSP Player, started developing Xenia in 2013[1] after two years of research.[2] Vanik and three other developers mainly contribute to Xenia's development,[3] but anyone is allowed to contribute to the project's repository on GitHub.

As of July 2022, Xenia is able to play over 1,200 Xbox 360 games, over 250 of which are playable from start to finish with few or no issues.[4]

History[]

While visiting Tokyo, Vanik picked up a set of Japanese Xbox 360 games, but was unable to play them on his console due to their region lock. Frustrated, he started researching Xbox 360 homebrew and emulation.[5] In 2011, Vanik announced his intent on working on a 360 emulator, explaining that he was "looking for a challenge" similar to PSP Player. He had spent a week researching the 360, thanks to the work of Free60 in documenting the Xbox 360's hardware.[2]

In 2014, Vanik posted a video showing his emulator running Frogger 2. This was the first time Xenia was able to run a commercial Xbox 360 game.[6] Development progressed over the next four years, but while games that were "not very technically complex, primarily 2D games" like Frogger 2 were playable, the majority of 3D games were not. In summer 2018, a developer named Triang3l started work on a new implementation of Xenos, the Xbox 360's GPU subsystem, to more accurately emulate 3D games. In addition to Triang3l's work on memory emulation, this update drastically improved the emulator's performance. By April 2021, the list of games with working gameplay had grown to over 1,000.[7]

In January 2022, Xenia released a large update to its graphics post-processing capabilities. Triang3l detailed the new additions, including anti-aliasing, dithering, variable refresh rate, and high DPI monitor support.[8]

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