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I want to run xBox 360 games on my computer (I can't stand the controller, and love my mouse and keyboard). So is there an xBox 360 emulator available for Windows 7? If not, what is required for there to be one, eg. why isn't there one yet?
wizlog
Posted 2011-11-20T20:34:37.530
Reputation: 12 320
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No, there are no Xbox 360 emulators. The most basic reason is that the Xbox 360 uses a triple-core 3.2 GHz PowerPC processor, and desktop PCs use x86 processors.
Because they are different CPU architectures, the emulator would have to translate the PowerPC machine code into x86 machine code on the fly, which takes a significant amount of processing power. As a general rule of thumb, expect the emulated software to run 10 times slower in an emulated environment. So we would need triple-core x86 processors running at 30 GHz.
(There are many other factors, and this is just the most basic first hurdle. These numbers are also just ballpark estimates: there is a lot of variation in emulation methods and different processors are not directly comparable on a clock speed basis. But this gives you the basic gist of the problem.)
scott.squires
Posted 2011-11-20T20:34:37.530
Reputation: 1 001
Actually, I remember PCs choking on N64 emulators back in the days. – slhck – 2011-11-20T21:28:42.497
Actually Super Nintendo Emulators are fine. – user4951 – 2011-12-16T06:04:35.247
1If the only reason to do this is for using mouse and keyboard, you'd be wasting your time anyway because the 360 games on an emulated 360 will still be expecting a 360 controller. – Alan B – 2011-11-22T09:28:43.513
Voting to close this, while technically interesting, and a real problem, it might fall under the same legally dubious category as hackintosh questions . With obsolete hardware there might be some degree of leeway, but i do think companies frown on emulation of current hardware. That said, there's apparently a company that sells a mouse/keyboard adaptor for consoles called XCM, which might be a possible option – Journeyman Geek – 2012-01-07T00:00:59.297