Intro

It’s been a while since Microsoft decided that emulation on retail Xbox machines are unacceptable and banned most of them, eventually becoming the winner in the Hide & Seek game. After finishing the heartbreaking journey of Zack in CRISIS CORE -FINAL FANTASY VII– REUNION, I finally scooped out my XSS and found some time to dig into the Xbox Series S/X dev mode. This mainly serves as a personal reminder thus won’t be delicate or go into details.

Dev Account

Fairly simple, head to Partner Center, fill out some basic information, become an individual Xbox partner, pay $19 (prices vary among regions), and it’s done.

Dev Mode

• Needed UWP in retail mode to activate: Xbox Dev Mode (XSS/XSX), Dev Mode Activation (X1)
• In dev mode, settings > preference > Treat UWP apps as games by default
• Shortcut: Settings > System > Console Info > Press LB RB LT RT > Developer Settings > Developer Mode

Emulation

• Dev Mode Repository
• Recommended Compression Formats
• RetroArch
  • Download (Xbox Series / One)
  • Settings -> Input -> Hotkeys -> Menu Toggle Gamepad Combo -> L3 + R3
  • Path: Xbox Device Portal > File Explorer > LocalAppData > RetroArch > LocalState
  • Better keep ROMs inside LocalState\downloads or LocalState\roms, since files outside would lack permissions
• XBSX2
  • Launch once and upload bios, cheats, patches (and covers if needed) via Xbox Device Portal before loading a game
  • Do NOT change default file directories, or a reinstallation is needed for recovery (changing rom path is an exception and works great)
• Xenia Canary for UWP
  • ISO not working (due to file size limit?), use XEX/GOD instead
  • Use XboxMediaUSB to set special permission (permissions for ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES) beforehand
• Dolphin for UWP
• flycast
• PPSSPP-UWP-ARM
• DURANGO-FTP: use v1.2 in dev mode, NOT latest (or you would have a faulty installation and experience only crash)
• safe-exit: return to retail mode safely
• moonlight-xbox
• The Emu Shack (formerly Xbox Emulation Hub) Discord is a gold mine and has plenty of information about this topic, you should definitely check it out if interested in emulation on Xbox.

Thoughts

PPSSPP & RetroArch works great. XBSX2 requires mandatory BIOS setup but works fairly well afterwards. Some GameCube games running with standalone Dolphin UWP have texture issues, and the UWP still needs polishing. Xenia Canary requires permissions for ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES and does not support many games (simulator issue, not dedicated to the UWP port). Honestly speaking, not worth the money ($19) for the time being. If the price is somehow as low as $2 or even 50 cents, absolutely a nice goodie to have.

PSA: Dev mode has a notorious dev mode brick which would make apps & games unusable as they cannot access many files. Be careful when tweaking & playing. There are also many limitations in dev mode, for details check How to Put Your Xbox Series X or S into Developer Mode.

On an Xbox One or Series X or S console, UWP apps can only access files that are 2GB or smaller. This might be an issue if an app you’re trying to use attempts to access a large ROM or video file. This limitation is unique to developer mode.

There are hardware constraints, too, in terms of which system resources UWP apps can access. The maximum allotted memory for apps is 1GB, while games get 5GB. Apps can share 2-4 CPU cores and have up to 45% of the GPU. Games can use 4 exclusive and 2 shared CPU cores, but have full access to the GPU.

Only 64-bit (x64) apps are permitted (there’s no support for 32-bit (x86) apps). While apps are limited to DirectX 11, games get full DirectX 12 features.