Xbox 360

Built on

SwARc Xbox 360 platform module, on a PowerPC core

Progress

SwARc platforms/xbox360 on main (commits)

Updated

2026-11-09

The Xbox 360’s Xenon runs 64-bit PowerPC code in 32-bit mode, so SwARc has a PowerPC core: a lifter (recomp_lift_ppc) and the CPU model its lifted code runs on, over a big-endian 4 GiB guest arena. The core knows no console (it is on main, for later PowerPC systems too; the Xenon’s extensions decode only under its CPU profile). The Xbox 360 platform module sits on that core as Orbis and Horizon sit on theirs, and shares the same base; a 360 title builds without the x86 core or Win32.

The module is on SwARc’s main branch, in platforms/xbox360, off by default until it is done; its commits are the progress log.

Status

• XEX2 reader: stored, basic and LZX-compressed images (with an LZX decoder of its own), PE sections, .pdata, import thunks and exports by ordinal. An owner’s encrypted XEX is decrypted first with their own key file, which is never part of any repository.
• Integer core: fixed-point, branch, condition register, storage control and special-purpose register instructions, with function discovery and jump tables.
• Floating point, exact: SoftFloat under FPSCR with the PowerPC’s own NaN and rounding rules and every FPSCR effect.
• VMX: the 128-bit vector registers and VSCR, every VA, VX and VC form, and the Xenon’s LVLX loads.
• VMX128, the Xenon’s extended vector set, checked through its VMX equivalents.
• Runtime: memory with the physical views, threads and their kernel structures, synchronisation, files, modules, settings, the display and audio drivers, timers, xam’s start-up exports and messages, users and profiles, content packages, XMA contexts, and a GPU command processor that runs the ring buffer without drawing. Each swap’s front buffer is shown in a window. A game’s start-up runs on it: it loads files and swaps frames, with nothing drawn into them yet.
• Oracle: QEMU’s PowerPC 970 in 32-bit mode. A fixture built from source must print the same lifted, every instruction form is checked bit for bit from random states, and planted bugs in the lifted semantics must be caught.

Next

1. The rest of the runtime: XMA decoding, APCs, and the xam messages games wait on.
2. Xenos: drawing, the GPU’s shaders and presentation on SwARc’s graphics device.

Games come from your own console: a dump of a copy you own.

Ports