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

every once in a while i get asked to cover the xbox one security and that is an interesting story simply because its security has not yet been defeated there are a number of reasons for this of course the first is that microsoft invested heavily on security after the xbox 360. and for those people interested microsoft security architect tony chen in 2019 discussed xbox one security in detail and what makes the system extremely difficult to defeat but microsoft would also remove motivation for hacking the xbox one and they did this by adding developer mode or dev mode if we go back and consider why consoles are hacked it's usually for three reasons first off there's piracy which is simply the ability to run illegal versions of games number two would be the ability to run other operating systems such as linux and third is the ability to run emulators and homebrew these three motivators hold true in just about every console that has been hacked in the past all the way up to the sony playstation 4 when sony famously removed other os from the ps3 users from all three groups piracy linux and homebrew work together to defeat the ps3 security which they did so in a matter of months the motivation to run unsigned code on any console is high but what if you took away that motivation and allowed homebrew or unsigned code access albeit in a tightly confined sandbox this is exactly what developer mode does on the xbox one line of consoles to explain further a retail xbox you buy from the store actually comes with two modes retail mode and developer mode in retail mode the console is in the state that the customer or user of an xbox one console would use when you turn it on you can play games and run apps like you normally would however in developer mode you can develop software for the console this is essentially a dev kit but you cannot play retail games or run retail apps developer mode can be enabled on any retail xbox one system and you can switch back and forth between retail and developer modes developer mode is not new however it's an inexpensive way to develop games for the xbox one and it's a easy way to get into xbox game console development there's a one-time cost of 20 to activate and it does remove the motivation on the homebrew and emulation group to want to hack the xbox one as that mode is available already developer mode does come with limitations however devmode is something i've dabbled with in the past and wanted to discuss on the channel but i never felt it was quite compelling enough on its own but now we have a new generation of xbox with the series s and series x dev mode is still there and all of a sudden you're getting so much more power and performance and at 299 dollars you can turn an xbox series s into one of the best emulation boxes out there so let's jump in and see what's actually possible setting up an xbox series s for dev mode is easy but keep in mind once you switch over you cannot play retail games but you can easily switch back and forth between retail mode and dev mode and you won't lose anything the only problem is you can't have both at the same time to set up dev mode simply download the dev mode activated from the xbox store and just walk through the steps as mentioned there's a one-time cost of twenty dollars to grant you a license to use it i'll leave a link to a guide on setting it up in the description below but once you follow through with the steps the system will ask you to reboot and when you come back you'll be in dev mode and this is the view that you'll see now from here we will need to download some emulators and this is where the fun starts but keep in mind there are a few things going on here first off this dev mode will not give you full access to the hardware and as such the emulators that we are going to use are built as uwp apps uwp stands for universal windows platform it's microsoft's method to create and run windows 10 applications on many different supported device such as computers laptops tablets the xbox one and the xbox series s and x the core api runs on many different devices the downside of uwp is that it's a very high level and somewhat restrictive although dev mode was confirmed to be a part of the xbox series s and series x it does not add any hardware specific features to it microsoft themselves have already pretty much abandoned uwp confirming in 2019 that it's not likely to be supported going forward dev mode on a retail xbox one or series s will support uwp apps however but as mentioned uwp does not give you access to lower level features and hardware but with that said there are some uwp build emulators that run on the xbox one and indeed the xbox series x and series s which we can install and run thanks to backward compatibility so let's get on to the good stuff and there is some really impressive stuff going on here the only emulator that you'll need to download and install is retro arch there is a specific xbox one uwp app that we can download from the website this will run under backward compatibility on the series s to install it you will need to take note of the http address on the xbox one devmo that has been set up for you to do this simply enter the url into your web browser which should bring up the xbox device portal and from here click on add in my games and apps select the retro arch xbox uwp press next and then start to install after around 30 seconds the app will be installed onto the xbox and you'll see it on your list of installed apps keep in mind you'll need an xbox live account to sign in and run the app once you do and with any luck you'll see a familiar retro arch blue screen so how good is the emulation and this is where the fun starts right off the bat is that you'll get some of the very best emulation that i've seen on a console pretty much beating everything that i've seen on high level android devices like the nvidia shield tv dolphin the gamecube and nintendo wii emulator have been added to retro arch recently and it's very impressive but there are some compatibility issues the good stuff here however is that games like the legend of zelda wind waker mario strikers metroid prime mario kart double dash luigi's mansion and fire emblem all run really well now it's not perfect the biggest thing are the stutters either during disk access or shade compilation and there may be an option to fix this it doesn't seem like that the ssd is really being utilized here in any meaningful way and most of these stutters are minor i did install all the games onto the internal ssd although you can just as 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 series s it's fast and fluid 95 of the time now i'm not an expert on retro arch and dolphin settings and if there is a way to smooth this out please let me know in the comments below but i did keep the retro arch settings 99 stock other than change the video drive from opengl to directx 11 which offered the best compatibility but taking a step back for a second i'm absolutely amazed at how a 299 console can handle gamecube emulation like this it's seriously impressive and one of the best reasons to check out devmode on the xbox series s i also took a quick look at the nintendo wii running under dolphin and it plays quite nicely it's difficult to talk about emulating the wii however due to its unique control system which doesn't translate well to a conventional gamepad but technically the series s does a fine job with the wii with what i tested on it and it does show off the power of the hardware sega saturn is a console that is notorious for struggling under emulation although in recent times we have seen some significant advancements with java sanchiro for android devices as well as medinafen that runs on the pc retro arch comes with beetle satin emulation and well it's fantastic as you would expect the series s handles the emulation with ease with no dips at all with what i played so far that included panzer dragoons y 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 the series s delivers on that moving on to sega dreamcast it's another system that has had advancements in recent times over on the series s i did try a few titles marvel vs capcom 2 was the highlight for me running quite nicely crazy taxi around great as well even the legendary skies of arcadia did run exceptionally well now i did have some compatibility issues metropolis street racer would not load beyond the initial fmv retro arch is using raid casts for its dreamcast emulator and overall it scales up quite nicely on the xbox series s as you can gather by now the series s is fast turning into my favorite emulation box sega dreamcast is not perfect but it is overall a very good experience once again nintendo 64 is another system that's had its ups and downs but it's also very well supported here as you would expect i did run into a few compatibility issues and goldeneye still runs poorly but these are minor knit picks with the majority of roms that i tested running exceptionally well and i think if you're a fan of the nintendo 64 you'll have no complaints here whatsoever playstation 1 is a system that has been emulated well for many many years we expect good emulation on the series s with retro arch and it delivers just that for me tekken 3 is the benchmark with some cheaper devices struggling to hold its 60 fps lock on the series s with dev mode smooth as butter as you would expect another system that really struggles to hold its frame rate on cheaper devices is sony psp i can tell you that psp emulation on the series s is really good testing out a few games such as god of war goes for sparta crisis core virtua tennis and ultimate ghouls and ghosts all ran exactly how you would expect silky smooth at full frame rates with no issues whatsoever this is very impressive because once again psp does have a tendency to dip frames every once in a while now full disclaimer here i only ran about 5 to 10 minutes of each game in the beginning so there still may be issues as you play through these games and my comparison really has been against other devices that i've tested in the past such as the nvidia shield tv and the raspberry pi i also tested out nintendo ds emulation which runs great but like the nintendo wii emulating the touch and stylus doesn't really offer a great user experience you can map the stylus and touch to the thumbsticks but it's just not right for my liking still i was impressed at how the series s handles the emulation once again and to round out 8 16 bit and handheld systems like the sega genesis super nes game boy game boy advance all work as expected retro arch has so many cores that i couldn't possibly run through them all and speaking of cause there is now talk of playstation 2 emulation being added to retro archway pc sx2 if this ends up in the uwp build all of a sudden the xbox series s would be compatible with ps1 and ps2 games something that sony currently doesn't have much interest in adding on the ps5 when ps2 emulation makes its way to the xbox series s we will definitely cover it on the channel so in conclusion dev mode on the series s can turn your system into a killer emulation box that handles everything from chip 8 to the nintendo wii and everything in between at the best performance i've seen for the price i absolutely love it the original xbox was applauded for being one of the best emulation boxes that stood the test of time and i'm getting a similar feeling with the series s and its dev mode the possibilities here are enormous there's potential for ps2 nintendo wii u and nintendo switch to run on the hardware and i'll definitely keep everyone updated on progress as it comes out so there you have it guys that is emulation on developer mode on the xbox series s and i gotta say as you've seen it's very impressive let me know what you thought about this episode in the comments below is this something you're planning on checking out and if you do have a series x let me know what your experiences with running retro arch on that in theory it should run a little better than the series s but guys i'm going to leave it here for this episode thank you so much for watching if you liked it you know what to do leave me a thumbs up and i'll catch you guys in the next video bye for now you

Channel: Modern Vintage Gamer

Views: 1,037,813

Rating: 4.9460001 out of 5

Keywords: xbox, series s, xsx, xbox series x, xbox series s, xbox one, uwp, dev mode xbox one, developer mode, retroarch, emulation, mvg, modern vintage gamer, retail mode, dolphin, gamecube, nintendo wii, sega saturn, dreamcast, emulator, playstation, ps1

Id: UGAjhjp8dnI

Length: 14min 29sec (869 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 23 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/kuroyume_cl]

Oh wow i had no idea you could do this. I wonder how easy it really is to switch between dev and retail mode

[u/Leeemon]

Damn! I've spent the entire weekend messing around on my PlayStation TV and hacking it to run stuff was a long process.

So on my Series S, all I have to do is... Activate dev mode? Holy shit, I'm in.

MvsC2, here I go.

[u/[deleted]]

[removed]

[u/schwabadelic]

I am waiting to see people figure out how to install Linux and get Steam to work on both the PS5 or XSX.

[u/Dasnap]

I never actually knew about the developer mode.

Tangentially, I also enrolled myself into the Steam version of RetroArch to see what that's like. I've only dabbled in emulation before and never used a frontend. It all seems to be getting easier and easier and it's mad that it's even being supported by an official PC client.

[u/Torque-A]

Anyone know of any other good homebrew apps that can be run on this? Like, I know emulators exist, but I was wondering what else is available.

[u/mikerophonyx]

That's pretty cool. Can we get xbox media center back yet? I use kodi on my pc now but xbmc will always have a place in my heart.

[u/makaveli93]

I’m impressed with emulation so far as well my issue is I find retroarch such a pain to setup. I can’t get it to recognize my arcade games for banner art and I can’t find a way for it to recognize my PS4 fight stick (this worked on other consoles like switch but maybe I need to find a driver for it if that’s even possible). I really wish it was just plug and play.

[u/theonewhoknack]

Is an open source OG xbox/360 emulator possible for the series? I would love to play JSRF,GUN and papa Nier on it!