Xenia Xbox 360 Emulator Setup Guide 2026

Xenia is the leading Xbox 360 research emulator. It runs Halo 3, Fable II, Gears of War, Red Dead Redemption, and 2,000+ Xbox 360 titles on PC.

Xenia Canary vs. Xenia Master

Xenia Canary is the actively developed branch with the latest fixes and compatibility improvements. Xenia Master is the stable release branch. For arcade cabinet builds, use Xenia Canary for the best game compatibility.

CPU Requirements: AVX

Xenia requires a CPU with AVX (Advanced Vector Extensions) support. All Intel Core i5/i7/i9 processors from 2011 onwards support AVX. AMD Ryzen processors all support AVX. The B-Link mini PC in G&G Arcade cabinets meets this requirement.

D3D12 Configuration

Xenia uses Direct3D 12 for rendering. Set gpu = "d3d12" in xenia.config.toml for best performance. The "d3d12_allow_variable_refresh_rate_and_tearing" option improves performance on displays with VRR support.

Game Patches

The Xenia community maintains game patches that fix compatibility issues and enable features like 60fps in games locked to 30fps. Patches are applied via the xenia-game-patches repository.

Guide written by Greg Ferguson, G&G Arcade. Questions: (434) 278-6393.