xemu 0.8.138: new audio and Vulkan 1.4 for the Xbox emulator

After four months without a release, xemu ships 0.8.137 and then 0.8.138: a new audio DSP, Vulkan 1.4 and fixes for Halo 2 and Splinter Cell.


Two releases in five days

xemu, the original Xbox emulator for PC, had released nothing since 0.8.136 on 8 June 2026. It now ships, in quick succession, 0.8.137 on 16 October and 0.8.138 on 20 October.


0.8.137: audio

• A new audio DSP emulator (DSP56300), with a recompiler. The recompiler is disabled by default for this first release.
• Fixes for audio and cutscenes: Ultra Bust-A-Move and Outlaw Golf no longer freeze, the audio in Sonic Mega Collection Plus is no longer out of sync, and the overly fast cutscenes in True Crime: New York City and The Da Vinci Code are fixed. Halo 2, Terminator 3 and Prisoner of War are also on the list.
• On Windows, display now goes through DXGI, and a performance loss related to vertical sync on AMD cards is fixed.

0.8.138: graphics

• Support for Vulkan 1.4, and better compatibility with older Vulkan versions.
• Rendering more faithful to the Xbox graphics chip: spot lighting, specular highlights, new texture formats.
• Fixed games: the flames in Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, the water in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, as well as MechAssault 2, Crazy Taxi 3, Fatal Frame II and FireBlade.

What you need

xemu runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. It requires the Xbox boot files (MCPX, BIOS), dumped from your own console, and a hard drive image. To prepare your games, follow our tutorial on original Xbox ISOs; for the console itself, see the solderless softmod.


Sources: xemu 0.8.138 (GitHub) · xemu 0.8.137 (GitHub) · Official website