The $299 XBOX Series S is an Emulation Beast | MVG

Every once in a while I get asked to cover Xbox One security and that's an interesting story simply because their security hasn't been beaten yet. There are several reasons for this, of course, the first being that Microsoft invested heavily in security after the Xbox 360. And for those interested, Microsoft security architect Tony Chen discussed Xbox One security in detail in 2019. and which makes the system extremely difficult to defeat but microsoft would also remove the motivation to hack

xbox

one and they did that by adding developer mode or dev mode if we go back and consider why consoles get hacked it's usually for three reasons, first is piracy which is simply the ability to run illegal versions of games, second would be the ability to run other operating systems like linux and third is the ability to run emulators and homebrew all three of these motivators are valid on almost all consoles that have been hacked in the past right up to the sony playstation 4 when sony removed other operating systems from the ps3 users from all three groups linux and homebrew hacking worked together to defeat ps3 security and did so in a matter of months the motivation to run unsigned code on any console is high, but what if you removed that motivation and allowed access to unsigned or homebrew code, albeit in a tightly confined sandbox.

This is exactly what developer mode does on the

xbox

one line of consoles to explain in more detail. and developer mode in retail mode, the console is in the state that the customer or user of an xbox one console would be in when they turn it on, they can play games and run apps as they normally would, however in developer mode they can develop software for the console this is essentially a dev kit but you can't play retail games or run retail apps developer mode can be enabled on any xbox one retail system and you can toggle between retail and developer modes Developer is not new, however it is a cheap way to develop games for xbox one and it is an easy way to get into xbox game console development.

Activation has a one time cost of 20 and removes the motivation in the homebrew and

emulation

group wants to hack the xbox one as that mode is already available developer mode comes with limitations however dev mode is something with that I've dabbled in the past and wanted to discuss it on the channel but never felt like it was quite compelling enough on its own but now we have a new generation of xbox with

series

s and

series

x dev mode is still there and all of a sudden you get a lot more power and performance and for 299 bucks you can turn an xbox series s into one of the best

emulation

boxes out there so let's go in and see what is actually possible to set up an xbox series s for dev mode is easy but keep in mind that once you switch you can't play retail games but you can easily switch Switch back and forth between retail mode and development mode and you won't lose anything.

The only problem is that you can't have both at the same time to set up development mode. Just download dev mode activated from the xbox store and follow the steps as mentioned there is a one time cost of twenty dollars to give you a license to use it I will leave a link to a guide on how to set it up in the description below but a once you follow the steps the system will ask you to reboot and when you come back you will be in developer mode and this is the view you will see now from here we will need to download some emulators and this is where the fun begins but keep in mind that there are a few things that happen here first in this mode of development will not give you full access to the hardware and as such the emulators we are going to use are built as uwp apps uwp stands for universal windows platform it is microsoft's method of building and running windows apps 10 on many different supported devices such as c laptops tablets xbox one and xbox series s and x the main API is ej It runs on many different devices the downside of uwp is that it is very high level and somewhat restrictive although dev mode has been confirmed to be part of xbox series s and series x does not add any hardware specific features to it. microsoft has pretty much abandoned uwp already confirming in 2019 that it's not likely to be supported in the future dev mode on a retail xbox one or s series it will support uwp apps however but as mentioned uwp doesn't give you access to level hardware and features lower but with that said there are some uwp build emulators that run on xbox one and indeed xbox series x and series s that we can get up and running thanks to backwards compatibility so let's get started.

As for the good stuff, there's some really awesome stuff going on here. The only emulator you will need to download and install is Retro Arch. There is an Xbox One specific uwp app we can make. download from the website this will run backwards compatible on the s series to install it you will need to make a note of the http address on the xbox one devmo which has been set up to do this just enter the url in your browser web which should open the xbox device portal and from here click add in my games and apps select xbox uwp retro bow press next then start installing after about 30 seconds the app will install on the xbox and you will see it in your list of installed apps, note that you'll need an xbox live account to sign in and run the app once you do and hopefully you'll see a familiar retro arc blue screen so how good is the emulation and this is where the fun starts from the beginning is that you will get some of the best emulation I've ever seen on a console pretty much beating anything I've ever seen on High end android devices like nvidia shield tv dolphin the gamecube and nintendo wii emulator have been added to re tro arch recently and it is very impressive but there are some compatibility issues the good thing here though is that games like the legend of zelda wind waker mario strikers metroid prime mario kart double dash luigi's mansion and fire emblem work great now its not perfect the most important thing is stuttering during disk access or shadow compilation and there may be an option to fix this .

It doesn't seem like the ssd is really being used here in any significant way and most of these stutters are minor. I installed everything. the games on the internal ssd though you can easily use an external usb drive to load your games from another gamecube title that has always had issues is star wars rogue squadron 2. on the xbox s series its fast and smooth 95% of the time now not I'm an expert on retro arc and dolphin setups and if there's a way to smooth this out please let me know in the comments below but I kept the retro arc 99 stock setup other than cha changing the video unit from opengl to directx 11 , which offered the best compatibility, but stepping back for a second, I'm absolutely in awe of how a 299 console can handle gamecube emulation like this, it's really impressive and one of the best reasons to check devmode on xbox s series i also had a quick look at the nintendo wii running under dolphin and it plays pretty well it's hard to talk about emulating the wii though due to its unique control system it doesn't tr it plays well on a conventional gamepad but technically the s series does a good job with the wii with what i tested on it and shows the power of the hardware sega saturn is a console that is known to struggle under emulation although of late we have seen some significant advancements with java sanchiro for android devices as well as medinafen running on pc retro arch comes with beetle satin emulation and well its fantastic as you would expect the series handles the emulation with ease no crashes at all with what i played so far which included panzer dragons and guardian heroes and magic knight ray earth having a good sega saturn emulation experience for me is very important and the combination of retro arch and s series fulfills that moving to sega dreamcast is another system that has had advancements of late over the s series tried a few titles marvel vs capcom 2 was the highlight for me running great crazy taxi around genius l also even the legendary skies of arcadia ran exceptionally well now i had some compatibility issues metropolis street racer would not load past the initial retro arch fmv you are using raid casts for your dreamcast emulator and overall it scales up pretty well on the xbox s series as you can tell by now the series s is fast becoming my favorite emulation box sega dreamcast its not perfect but overall a very good experience once again nintendo 64 is another system which is h and its ups and downs but also it's very compatible here as expected i ran into some compatibility issues and goldeneye still crashes but these are minor point picks with most of the roms i tried working exceptionally well and i think if you're a fan of nintendo 64 , you won't have any complaints here, playstation 1 is a system that has emulated well for many, many years, we expect a good emulation on s series with retro arch and gives me exactly that tekken 3 is the benchmark with some cheaper devices struggling to maintain their 60fps lock on s series with buttery smooth dev mode as it was from wait another system that really struggles to keep its frame rate on cheaper devices is sony psp i can tell you the psp emulation on s series is really good trying some games like god of war goes for sparta crisis core virtua tennis and ultimate ghouls and ghosts all ran exactly as you would expect silky smooth at full frame rates with no issues at all this is very impressive because once again the psp has a tendency to dip frames from time to time, now full disclaimer here i only ran 5-10 minutes of each game at first so there can still be issues as you play through these games and my Comparison really has been to other devices I've tested in the past, like the Nvidia Shield TV and the Raspberry Pi. stylus doesn't really offer a great user experience, you can map the stylus and touch the joysticks, but it's not suitable for my taste.

Still, I was impressed with how the series handles emulation once again and to top off 8 16 bit and portable systems like the sega genesis super nes game boy game boy advance everything works as expected retro arch has so many cores it couldn't possibly run them everyone and speaking of which because now there is talk of playstation 2 emulation will be added to retro archway pc sx2 if this ends up in the uwp build all of a sudden xbox s series would be compatible with ps1 and ps2 games something Sony currently not much interest in adding on the ps5 when ps2 emulation comes to xbox s series we will definitely cover it on the channel so in conclusion dev mode on series s can turn your system into a box of killer emulation that handles everything from the 8 chip to the nintendo wii and everything in between at the best performance i've ever seen for the price i love the original xbox it was applauded for being one of the best emulation boxes This has stood the test of time and I have a similar feeling with the s series and its development mode the possibilities here is huge potential for ps2 nintendo wii u and nintendo switch running on the hardware and I will definitely keep everyone updated on the progress to come. as it comes out so there you have it guys it's developer mode emulation on the xbox series s and i have to say as you've seen it's very impressive let me know what you thought about this episode in the comments below is it something you are planning to check out and if you have an x ​​series let me know what? your experiences with running retro arc in theory it should work a bit better than the series but guys i'll leave it here for this episode thanks so much for watching if you liked it you know what to do let me. a thumbs up and i'll see you guys in the next video, bye for now