4 ms·

I thought there was already an Xbox 360 emulator called Windows 7

goosedragons 3y ago
Compatibility is pretty poor. No support for Forza 2-4, Gears of War 2 or 3, Lost Odyssey or Blue Dragon. And controller support is broken on Oblivion and many other titles requiring another app to fix.
- tymscar 3y ago
  Forza 3 and 4 are on windows. 1 and 2 aren’t
  - mrbuttons454 3y ago
    Forza Horizon 3 and 4 are on Windows, but Forza 3 and 4 were Xbox 360 only.
29athrowaway 3y ago
Windows 7 is malware, bloatware, and everything wrong with software.
- grishka 3y ago
  Windows 7 is the last usable one. You probably meant 10 and/or 11.
  - 29athrowaway 3y ago
    Actually I forgot what it was like. I have not used it in decades. But it's all malware nevertheless and with each new version you can expect it to become more aggressive (e.g.: Pluto).
  - noduerme 3y ago
    Agreed. It was what I kept running under emulation for years when I still had to maintain backward compatibility with IE on some sites. It was the last one that was actually a user-first OS as opposed to a corporate-first ad platform.
  - MisterTea 3y ago
    You forgot about 8 (likely for the better.)
- ChuckNorris89 3y ago
  The thing wrong with SW is postured elitism over other software from clueless users like you who just like to spread FUD.
  - dang 3y ago
    Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse. Also, personal attacks will get you banned here, so please don't do that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- dang 3y ago
  Ok, but please don't fulminate or post unsubstantive comments on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
chasil 3y ago
The Xbox 360 ran on a triple-core PowerPC. It was not an x86 architecture, and would have required an emulator to run x86 Windows 7. I also never owned one. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360 Windows NT 4 had a POWER port. This was discontinued when Windows 2000 arrived. If Microsoft wanted to release another version for POWER, they could easily do so. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT "Windows NT 3.51 added support for the PowerPC processor in 1995, specifically PReP-compliant systems such as the IBM ThinkPad Power Series laptops and Motorola PowerStack series; but despite meetings between Michael Spindler and Bill Gates, not on the Power Macintosh as the PReP compliant Power Macintosh project failed to ship."
- LarsDu88 3y ago
  The best way to get information online is to say the wrong thing. Kudos for enlightening me on this topic!
  - chasil 3y ago
    Actually, Sony and Nintendo were also on POWER at this stage. Sony ran a particularly exotic variant, the "Cell" processor; this used a single POWER core that was tied in a ring architecture to several specialized coprocessors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(processor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(processor) For the next generation of consoles, AMD's integration of ATI graphics onto a single die CPU/GPU/APU proved irresistible, and both Sony and Xbox switched to AMD x86 variants. The Nintendo Switch adopted the Nvidia Tegra ARM architecure. IBM essentially had one generation of consoles. I don't know why they didn't fight harder for this market.
RajT88 3y ago
Original Xbox had a tool released which could convert an Xbox binary to a Windows PE file and run it. Original Xbox was x86 running at 800mhz with a windows kernel IIRC. You are probably thinking of that.
- bri3d 3y ago
  In a bizarre plot twist, there is an actual project which tries to recompile Xbox 360 XEXes to run on x86 Windows: https://github.com/rexdex/recompiler https://github.com/rexdex/recompiler
- jamesfinlayson 3y ago
  Was that an official tool? I thought one of the Xbox emulators worked that way.
  - RajT88 3y ago
    Not official, no
- IntelMiner 3y ago
  Minor edit. It was 733Mhz with a Celeron/Pentium III with its cache halved

Compatibility is pretty poor. No support for Forza 2-4, Gears of War 2 or 3, Lost Odyssey or Blue Dragon. And controller support is broken on Oblivion and many other titles requiring another app to fix.

tymscar 3y ago
Forza 3 and 4 are on windows. 1 and 2 aren’t
- mrbuttons454 3y ago
  Forza Horizon 3 and 4 are on Windows, but Forza 3 and 4 were Xbox 360 only.

29athrowaway 3y ago

Windows 7 is malware, bloatware, and everything wrong with software.

grishka 3y ago
Windows 7 is the last usable one. You probably meant 10 and/or 11.
- 29athrowaway 3y ago
  Actually I forgot what it was like. I have not used it in decades. But it's all malware nevertheless and with each new version you can expect it to become more aggressive (e.g.: Pluto).
- noduerme 3y ago
  Agreed. It was what I kept running under emulation for years when I still had to maintain backward compatibility with IE on some sites. It was the last one that was actually a user-first OS as opposed to a corporate-first ad platform.
- MisterTea 3y ago
  You forgot about 8 (likely for the better.)
ChuckNorris89 3y ago
The thing wrong with SW is postured elitism over other software from clueless users like you who just like to spread FUD.
- dang 3y ago
  Please don't respond to a bad comment by breaking the site guidelines yourself. That only makes things worse. Also, personal attacks will get you banned here, so please don't do that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
dang 3y ago
Ok, but please don't fulminate or post unsubstantive comments on HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

chasil 3y ago

The Xbox 360 ran on a triple-core PowerPC. It was not an x86 architecture, and would have required an emulator to run x86 Windows 7. I also never owned one. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360 Windows NT 4 had a POWER port. This was discontinued when Windows 2000 arrived. If Microsoft wanted to release another version for POWER, they could easily do so. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT "Windows NT 3.51 added support for the PowerPC processor in 1995, specifically PReP-compliant systems such as the IBM ThinkPad Power Series laptops and Motorola PowerStack series; but despite meetings between Michael Spindler and Bill Gates, not on the Power Macintosh as the PReP compliant Power Macintosh project failed to ship."

LarsDu88 3y ago
The best way to get information online is to say the wrong thing. Kudos for enlightening me on this topic!
- chasil 3y ago
  Actually, Sony and Nintendo were also on POWER at this stage. Sony ran a particularly exotic variant, the "Cell" processor; this used a single POWER core that was tied in a ring architecture to several specialized coprocessors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(processor) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_(processor) For the next generation of consoles, AMD's integration of ATI graphics onto a single die CPU/GPU/APU proved irresistible, and both Sony and Xbox switched to AMD x86 variants. The Nintendo Switch adopted the Nvidia Tegra ARM architecure. IBM essentially had one generation of consoles. I don't know why they didn't fight harder for this market.

RajT88 3y ago

Original Xbox had a tool released which could convert an Xbox binary to a Windows PE file and run it. Original Xbox was x86 running at 800mhz with a windows kernel IIRC. You are probably thinking of that.

bri3d 3y ago
In a bizarre plot twist, there is an actual project which tries to recompile Xbox 360 XEXes to run on x86 Windows: https://github.com/rexdex/recompiler https://github.com/rexdex/recompiler
jamesfinlayson 3y ago
Was that an official tool? I thought one of the Xbox emulators worked that way.
- RajT88 3y ago
  Not official, no
IntelMiner 3y ago
Minor edit. It was 733Mhz with a Celeron/Pentium III with its cache halved