[00:11] in the hearts of those who bought into Microsoft's vision back in 2001. Of course, it was defined by its launch title, Halo, and then Halo 2 in its twilight years. But Xbox had so much more to offer beyond Bungie's efforts.
[00:25] It truly played host to a string of cult classics, many of which have no modern-day port or even remaster. Thankfully, it is possible to revisit many today on Xbox One and Xbox Series consoles via backwards compatibility,
[00:38] and they scale very well indeed. Better yet, as of this week, that same back compat for OG Xbox is now extending to PC as well via a new early release beta. But before we go into much more depth, a big thanks to Alienware for sponsoring
[00:53] big thanks to Alienware for sponsoring our PC content. The firm's Area 51 games machine is back, better than ever. Yes, the flagship gaming PC has received a full refresh with a refined focus on highquality design paired with high-end
[01:06] cooling, taking care of the best gaming silicon on the market. In addition to supporting high-end RTX 5000 GPUs up to the RTX5090, the new Area 51 also supports AMD's top-of-the-line Ryzen 9000 processors.
[01:21] top-of-the-line Ryzen 9000 processors. From the brilliant Ryzen 7 9800 X3D From the brilliant Ryzen 7 9800 X3D through to the latest Ryzen 9 9950 X3D2. through to the latest Ryzen 9 9950 X3D2. In our tests, Ryzen 9000 X3D processors
[01:33] offer up by far the best CPU gaming performance available. A key recommendation for a high-spec gaming PC. Keeping thermals in check is the new gasket architecture, using a combination of 180 and 140 mm fans to create
[01:48] positive pressure, moving 25% more air while being 45% quieter than prior Area 51 generations. There's a 1500 W platinum power supply and more than enough thermal headroom to handle the extreme demands of the RTX5090
[02:04] extreme demands of the RTX5090 which pulls 600 W just by itself. Put simply, the new Area 51 is built for the absolute limit of modern PC gaming. Check out the link in the video description below to find out more. This
[02:16] week then we have four classic Xbox games running on PC with ROG Ally X support factored in. First, there's Conquer Live and Reloaded. the most visually standout of the quartet, I'd say, and the most demanding on the Alli
[02:30] X handheld in test later. Next along, there's Blinks, the time sweeper, a handsome looking platformer from X Sega staff that tasks you with defeating all enemies using timebending abilities. We then have Fusion Frenzy, a miniame
[02:44] collection of sorts that throws up to four players into a gauntlet of randomized challenges. And finally, there's Crimson Sky High Road to Revenge, an aerial combat game set to an alternate 1930s universe in the clouds.
[02:57] Just a quartet of games then, but it's the start of what Xbox hopes to be an ongoing initiative on PC. Reason being, by limiting the selection to four, it gives the team a narrower focus to iron out any bugs in this early release. Case
[03:11] in point, due to a few issues myself, I've actually had to delay and recapture much of the footage for this video with a resolution workaround, which I'll explain in a second. As for its underlying technology, evidence points
[03:23] to it being the team's own official Xbox 360 emulator running ZFU, an original Xbox emulator layer running within an Xbox 360 environment on PC. It's an emulator within an emulator, if you will. As such, it's not just a litmus
[03:39] test for future Xbox back and pack efforts on PC, but the work here could also set the stage for Xbox 360 support on PC down the line. The other exciting prospect is that achievements are being retrofitted to OG Xbox titles with all
[03:53] four games here being updated in the coming months. Great stuff. After booting any of these games on PC, you'll be presented with a unique menu
[04:08] to change a few settings. Firstly, there's the resolution, which starts with the original native 640x480 of the Xbox original, and this can be increased by factors of two times, three times, and four times, taking us all the way up
[04:22] and four times, taking us all the way up to 2560 by 1920 at maximum. This top figure, by the way, 1920p, is what Xbox Series X uses. So, this is where I encountered my first issue. Since I use
[04:34] encountered my first issue. Since I use a 27in 4K display, I happen to be using 200% display scaling to actually see the text via the DPI setting in Windows itself. The problem being with that setup, right now the emulator has a bug
[04:47] that breaks the native resolution setting, making most run at lower figures. So, with 200% DPI set, the top two resolutions in the emulator actually two resolutions in the emulator actually max out at 1440x 1080 regardless of the
[05:01] label. Other figures are possible depending on your Windows DPI setting, depending on your Windows DPI setting, whether that's 150, 175%, and so on. It's a curious one and has a workaround while the Xbox team patch it properly.
[05:14] By dropping your Windows scaling option to 100%, you get each resolution as intended, right up to 1920p. Yes, it is a hassle and all text in Windows will be
[05:26] minuscule in the meantime, but lo and behold, it does fix the issue. For now, then, if you're giving these PC versions a try, it's something to bear in mind. Returning to the settings, our options are rather limited otherwise. There's no
[05:39] widescreen support and each game is presented in a 4 to3 aspect ratio as per frame rate option. All of these games run at 30 frames pers fixed on PC with
[05:52] the exception of Fusion Frenzy, which goes for 60 fps. For now, then the PC emulation sticks to those original Xbox frame rate targets. On the plus side, further down the menu, we have options for VSSync, a drop- down menu for MSAA,
[06:05] multi-sample anti-aliasing going up to two times and four times, and finally a toggle for anotropic filtering. Again, both four times MSAA and anotropic filtering are enabled on Xbox Series X by default for most games, with one
[06:20] exception I'll get to. Finally, looking to the audio section, there's a slider that balances sound latency with audio clarity. Personally, I kept this at the default setting of three with no noticeable issues in lag or crackling.
[06:43] Series X, the good news is that visual settings via PC's back compat are mostly spot-on. Textures, shadows, and effects in each game are usually identical to the results on Xbox Series X. Image quality is a match of course as well
[06:57] with the setting at an equivalent 1920p on PC with four times MSAA in tow. Even for a taxing game like Conquer, the complex fur shaders on each NPC work as they should. While its depth of field post effect is accurate to the source,
[07:12] it's a solid start and it's mostly there. But yes, I have noticed a few occasional problems. Some points are nitpicks, while others are bigger frustrations that really do need a more urgent solution. In the visual bug
[07:25] category, there's stuff like this in Conquer Bad Fur Day. Character lighting that's outright missing via the PC emulation. Notably, in cutscenes, the entire cast appears darker without that lighting pass engaged next to the more
[07:38] accurate Series X delivery. Next along, in Fusion Frenzy, the PC version has some mini games running with visible wireframes around each character. Most mini games aren't affected. And again, it's not an issue on Series X.
[07:51] Otherwise, the game is identical on either platform. seeing par with Series X across the board with one exception. Oddly enough,
[08:06] there are shadow artifacts stemming from the character here, like threads to a puppet, which is related to the MSAA setting on PC. This should in theory be fixable in a future patch. And fortunately, the rest of the
[08:19] presentation for Blinks is spot-on. Finally, rounding out the bugs, there's issues with motion jutdder. Looping back to conquer, for example, there's an early tutorial area with a bridge. And here, it's very easy to trigger a
[08:31] stretch of choppy camera movement. The bug also appears in a boat race miniame in Fusion Frenzy. So, here, notice the jutdder as we loop around the course on PC. In summary, most of the emulation is accurate to the source and Series X. We
[08:45] are in early access for exactly this purpose, of course, and certainly as far as the visual bugs go, the Xbox team has updates planned to fix them as they appear. Still, this is the state of affairs right now. On the plus side, the
[08:58] PC version does have a few advantages. Flipping over to Crimson Skies by running maxed out, it's possible to get cleaner, less alias image quality on PC. Looking into why this is the case, Series X and PC do indeed both run at
[09:12] 1920p, but the issue for Series X is an apparent lower MSAA setting, whereas PC reaps the rewards for running at four times. It's a curious case because most other games have identical MSAA settings, so it's a specific Crimson
[09:27] settings, so it's a specific Crimson Skies limits on Series X. with updates, but the largest issue right now is in performance. Essentially, frame rates for each Xbox title stay exactly at their original
[09:41] title stay exactly at their original targets on PC, whether that's 30 or 60 FPS with no way to unlock it higher. It's a missed opportunity obviously, but the bigger problem is that there are frame pacing issues too, causing frames
[09:54] to update inconsistently around an intended cap. So, for example, Conquer intended cap. So, for example, Conquer is capped at 30 FPS on a 60 Hz display. The nature of this cap means that the frame time graph trills between 16, 33,
[10:06] and 50 milliseconds, causing visible jutdder on PC. To be fair, it's not a constant issue in Conquer, and most areas flatten out at 33 milliseconds, but once it triggers, it's hard to ignore a prolonged bout of jerky motion.
[10:21] The same issue applies to Blinks with its 30 FPS cap. So, it's fundamentally an emulator problem rather than being confined to any one game. By comparison, Xbox Series X runs all games correctly. Flipping over, we get a perfectly
[10:34] smooth, evenly frame paced 30fps cap on Xbox consoles. It really feels a whole exception to this is Crimson Skies, which always had uneven frame pacing on Series X, causing jutdder at certain
[10:48] points. But on PC, in the exact same scenarios, like as we engage our boosters here, those wavering frame times are exacerbated.
[11:04] because it's the only game of the set to target 60 fps. For anyone running on a 60 Hz monitor, that's perfect and it'll sync up with no issues. The catch is if you're running on a 120 Hz monitor or an even higher refresh, the game will
[11:18] deploy a 60 fps cap in that case. And yes, it's there that you'd see the very same problems all over again with uneven frame pacing, albeit with a higher frame rate line. Again, at 60 Hz, there's no issue with this one, especially running
[11:31] on a top-end PC. On which note, frame time issues aside, the games do run well. Certainly no problem for an Intel i9 13900 KFP PC paired with an RTX480.
[11:44] There are very occasional hitches in concrete at set points, but the baseline performance is absolutely solid otherwise. It's well optimized in pure performance terms, so it's just the frame pacing that's a bother for now.
[12:01] 25-year-old console won't be particularly troublesome on a PC running a higherend CPU and GPU. So, with that in mind, taking a look at how OG Xbox titles run on the ROG Xbox Ally X is perhaps more instructional on the
[12:16] performance impact. Not only that, the Ally handhelds are the only modern Xboxes that can't run legacy Xbox games until now. So, it's an interesting testing point. On the hardware side, the Alli X's Z2 Extreme is capable by
[12:30] handheld standards, but it does reveal some of the limitations of the emulator on lower-end kit. But even so, the results are still impressive overall. After testing the quartet of games, I locked on to 1920x440
[12:43] with two times MSAA and AF enabled for testing on the Alli X. And here's why. Conquer Live and Reloaded seems to be one of the most demanding games of the 2560x920 resolution, performance is clearly way
[12:59] off the 30 fps target. Even with the Ally X set to 35 W of power. So 1920x440 with two times MSAA, it is. And suddenly the situation is transformed. I'm
[13:11] running at 35 W here again as it basically acts as what you might call a docked mode. That power level only being available when the handheld is running from the mains. So, while the visual bugs and poor frame pacing remain fully
[13:23] in effect, from a performance standpoint, at least, this is impressive with the single player content I tested running just fine at the 30 fps target. The bot zone still has its moments, however, with some drops into the 20s.
[13:37] Frame rate purists may want to drop down to 1280 by 960 resolution to circumvent this problem, but that'll be quite a hit to image clarity. Here's where things get interesting, though. running at 17 watts to simulate
[13:50] typical handheld play with more of an emphasis on battery life. It was a surprise to see that performance didn't actually change that much. I could still run the single player mode at 30 frames per second without dropping the 1920x440
[14:04] resolution, suggesting quite a lot of overhead. However, the bot zone multiplayer content performed very very badly by comparison as there is no overhead. At 17 watts, I did have to drop resolution down to 1280 by 960, but
[14:18] at least I was rewarded with the smoothest frame rates I'd seen from all the testing conducted so far. There are drops, but they aren't as noticeable as running at higher resolutions, even with more wattage. And some might say that
[14:31] 1920x440 resolution with two times MSAA running on a 1080p handheld screen may running on a 1080p handheld screen may well be overkill. Anyway,
[14:44] only 60 fps game in the initial lineup of OG Xbox titles, representing a different kind of challenge for the emulator and the handheld hardware. very similar to what I experienced with Conquer Live and Reloaded. The top
[14:58] Conquer Live and Reloaded. The top resolution selection 2560 by 1920 is off the table for running at the target frame rate. However, 1920 x440 with two times MSAA again ran the game just fine in the 35W docked configuration I'd set
[15:13] up. Locked 60 fps, no camera jutdder. Very crisp and clean. Good stuff. Dropping processor TDP down to 17 W delivers intriguing results as despite the processor running with less than half the power of the 35W mode. In-game
[15:28] performance is generally fine. It seems to operate mostly at 60 frames pers, but more demanding effects work can see it move more into a 50 to 60 fps window. On a fixed refresh display, you might be tempted to drop down to 1280 by 960 for
[15:43] flawless frame rates. Good results overall though, and the chances are that by lowering resolution, the significantly less capable Nunx Ally significantly less capable Nunx Ally should run these titles just fine.
[16:01] this first round of OG Xbox games on PC. Then limiting the scope of early access to just four games makes a lot of sense to the end of troubleshooting the issues we're seeing. They're achingly close to being a watertight match for Series X
[16:13] though, if not for those few visual bugs. With patches, updates, we should see that gap narrow in the comparisons, though a bigger question mark dangles over how the Xbox team will address its frame pacing. But that's all from me
[16:26] today. If you did enjoy this video, feel free to like or subscribe, and don't forget to hit that bell for instant notifications as any new video lands. To check out our website at digitalfoundry.net. And to get in touch
[16:39] directly, you know where to find us. But from me for now, thanks for watching.