Home Gaming AMD Mantle could be the key to Xbox 360 emulation

AMD Mantle could be the key to Xbox 360 emulation

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Piston 360

Unless you’ve got an Xbox 360 console, there’s no other way to play Xbox 360 games. And yes, that did sound a lot less obvious in my head. For folks who don’t see things my way however, there’s always emulation, which is a whole other can of worms when it comes to legality and morality. And for those PC gamers that want to get their fix on with Xbox 360 games, AMD’s Mantle may be the key to doing so.

Xbox 360 Xenia is a project that is all about creating a working emulator for the console, with various hackers working on making a stable version that won’t crash like an ill-prepared attempt to move a beached whale.

According to the lead developer on that project, it’ll be AMD’s new Mantle technology that makes that emulator work sooner rather than later, as he explained on Reddit via Cinemablend:

Author here. Yeah, the readme is meant to scare off people. Even with it I still get people on IRC or email asking me if they can play game X or where they can get a copy. The note about no downloads is for all those who download 360 emulators from shady YouTube links and such – there’s a surprising number of fakes packed with malware and viruses floating around.

Status of the project is that it’s coming along well, after a long period of inactivity. Many games get to title screens though don’t draw much. I’m really hoping AMD gets its shit together and releases Mantle soon, as that will make emulating the GPU related things significantly easier.

So what could potentially run that software? A savvy gamer with enough hardware know-how could easily set it up on any of the upcoming Steam Machines, thus making that hardware even closer in design to consoles than anticipated.

The PC architecture there could make those devices the media hubs that Microsoft could only dream about, provided you buy one of the more heavyweight rigs that’ll be available. of course, that in itself raises a whole new set of questions, including legality and whatnot.

But then again, numerous Xbox 360 games made the jump to PC, and there are only so many out there that remained exclusive to console. And when you’ve got a PC version that can be modded with all manner of graphical-enhancing tools and kits. Then again, this might be the kick up the bum that the Xbox One needs with regards to backwards compatibility, something that Sony is managing to sidestep with their efforts on PlayStation Now.

Last Updated: January 27, 2014

25 Comments

  1. You wanna play Xbox 360 games buy a Xbox 360…

    Reply

    • Alien Emperor Trevor

      January 27, 2014 at 13:41

      That’s crazy talk.

      Reply

      • TiMsTeR1033

        January 27, 2014 at 13:47

        To you maybe..

        Reply

        • Alien Emperor Trevor

          January 27, 2014 at 13:50

          I’m the sanest person I know.

          Reply

        • Knour1945

          January 28, 2014 at 04:08

          ?? ?­­­­­­e­­­­­­??????’? ???? ???­­­­­­e­­­­­­? $86/?? ?? ??­­­­­­e­­­­­­ ??????. ??­­­­­­e­­­­­­ ??? ?­­­­­­e­­­­­­­­­­­­e­­­­­­? ??? ?? ???? ??? 6 ?????? ??? ???? ????? ?­­­­­­e­­­­­­? ??? ??­­­­­­e­­­­­­?? ??? $19795 ???? ??????? ?? ??­­­­­­e­­­­­­ ?????? ??? ? ?­­­­­­e­­­­­­? ?????. ?? ?­­­­­­e­­­­­­??­­­­­­e­­­­­­? ?­­­­­­e­­­­­­?­­­­­­e­­­­­­ fox800&#46com

          Reply

    • ElimiNathan

      January 27, 2014 at 13:46

      Master Race plays wateva we wanna play!

      Reply

      • TiMsTeR1033

        January 27, 2014 at 13:47

        Emulation as never been that good, Ps2 upwards for console emulation hasnt quite been perfect.. Close but not there just yet.

        Reply

        • ElimiNathan

          January 27, 2014 at 13:51

          Ye well hence this article about mantle, lol. It should be ALLOT better

          Reply

      • Brady miaau

        January 27, 2014 at 14:05

        GTA V?

        Reply

        • ElimiNathan

          January 27, 2014 at 14:10

          Yip on the above mentioned emulation AND the soon to be PC version which will more than likely look even better than next gen consoles will

          Reply

  2. MakeItLegal

    January 27, 2014 at 13:50

    Mmm …. Pc keeps getting better and better can’t wait to join the master race ( after a slight budget set back ) hopefully by March

    Can’t wait to try dota 2 tonight on my 2007 Mac book pro …. Hope it works lol

    Reply

  3. joseph

    January 27, 2014 at 13:52

    For the love of god let this happen after xbox 360 ps3 then wii U let nothing stand in the way of pc gaming

    Reply

  4. Hammersteyn

    January 27, 2014 at 13:56

    Some Xbox exclusives are available on PC but not PS exclusives. Which means owning a PS and a PC pretty much means you’re sorted exclusive game wise. Now they want to make the 360 even more redundant?

    Reply

  5. Weanerdog

    January 27, 2014 at 14:38

    Ok stupid question, why is mantle going to make specifically the xbox 360 easier to emulate and not for example the PS4 and Xone?

    Reply

    • Johan du Preez

      January 27, 2014 at 15:02

      Because mantle will give developers bare bone access ie. they can talk directly to the hardware without the overhead thats caused by directx and the display driver.

      Reply

    • Sidath U Liyanage

      January 28, 2014 at 05:12

      Yes, and specially because I’ve heard that the Mantle API is extremely similar to the PS4 API.

      Reply

      • Weanerdog

        January 28, 2014 at 11:34

        Which is why I asked: why is it specific about the Xbox 360 and not the current gen consoles.

        Reply

  6. derp

    January 27, 2014 at 19:45

    Almost every 360 game is on Steam, Origin or UPlay. Exclusives aren’t as exclusive as they’d like you to think.

    Reply

  7. mrme

    January 28, 2014 at 04:47

    First of all a PC DVD drive CAN’T read the Xbox 360 disk you would have to download the ISO for each game and that is totally illegal. Secondly why emulate when you can purchase a 360 so cheap now that its not even worth the hassle to emulate.

    Reply

    • jjjjjj

      January 28, 2014 at 07:50

      1. u can make the game look better on pc,

      2. there are a lot of people who had consoles and they ended up breaking and dont want to waste money.

      3. its more convenient to have one system that plays multiple games than multiple systems that play certain games.

      4. u can play with pretty much any controller u want (although thats not that big of a deal)

      5. just because you can…lol

      and u wouldn’t have the xbox 360 game disc run on pc u would just use it to rip the game and sorta make a digital copy and thats not illegal because you paid for the game

      Reply

  8. Jessica Sc

    February 10, 2014 at 00:19

    i can´t wait for play lightning returns , because my xbox is broken … (i hate microsoft and he 3rls !)

    Reply

  9. Nathan

    February 26, 2015 at 14:42

    Xenia is much more advanced than a year ago. Also there are other emulator projects, like http://xbx360.com

    Reply

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