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How backwards compatibility works on Xbox One. Microsoft talks about how backward compatibility works on Xbox One

Xbox Lead Program Manager Bill Stillwell announced an update to the backwards compatibility system. It introduced new accessible legacy games and features for the Xbox One X.

Four Xbox 360 titles have received improvements on Xbox One X, including , and Crackdown. They have also become available to run on the current generation of Microsoft consoles; you just need to insert your existing disc into any of the Xbox One models and download the game from the Microsoft Store. If you have a digital copy, it is already waiting in the library.

Microsoft also announced the release new setting graphics to enhance Xbox 360 games on Xbox One X to give you more control over your gaming experience. Supported projects (listed below) run on a powerful console model with a higher resolution and 9 times more native pixels. “The power of Xbox One X allows the Xbox 360 emulator to showcase the very best version of the game with existing assets without touching the game code.”, writes Larry Hryb on his blog.

Full list of Xbox 360 games that support enhancements on Xbox One X:

Assassin's Creed
Crackdown
Fable Anniversary
Fallout 3
Forza Horizon
Halo 3
Mirror's Edge
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Skate 3
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

When you play one of these on Xbox One X, you'll have a choice of graphics settings. Enhanced Image will be enabled by default. The project will launch with a higher resolution, 9 times more pixels, improved textures and anti-aliasing. If you disable this setting, the graphics will be comparable to Xbox One or Xbox One S, but performance will increase.

To change the emulation settings, you need to hold down the View and Menu buttons on the controller during the game to bring up the Xbox 360 Guide, and then from there go to “Settings” and select “Xbox One X Settings”.

You will have two options available: graphics or performance. You will need to restart the game for the changes to take effect.

Additionally, Larry Hryb revealed that the Xbox community has logged more than 840 million hours of playtime in backwards compatible games on Xbox One. The feature is very important for Microsoft, developers and their projects, as well as fans of the platform. “Preserving the art form of video games is part of our DNA, which is why Xbox One is the only console designed to play the best of the past, present and future.”, writes Larry.

Currently, the backwards compatibility library includes more than 460 projects with Xbox 360 and 13 with Xbox.

Backwards compatibility on Xbox One is a major technological advancement in the current generation of consoles. Two and a half years ago, Phil Spencer demonstrated the original version in Los Angeles Mass Effect for Xbox 360 running on the Xbox One hardware platform. After an impressive early access period, the backwards compatibility program is in full swing, with hundreds of Xbox 360-era titles now available for players to play on Xbox One, and several enhanced 4K-ready games on Xbox One X. Read more about exactly how backwards compatibility works. Eurogamer spoke with Microsoft.

Something has leaked out before. Thus, the original Xbox 360 executables for the PowerPC architecture seem to be parsed into an intermediate format and then recompiled into code close to x86. There have also been mentions of some hardware compatibility blocks being integrated into the Xbox One SoC to simplify the emulation task, but overall little has been known so far.

"Basically, we have VGPU - Xbox GPU360, recompiled for x86 - and we run the entire Xbox operating system package 360 in a virtual machine,- explained Bill Stillwell, head of Xbox Platform. — We take every game and recompile it so that it runs, but essentially it still runs in the environmentXbox360, and our team is working on the game in several stages."

The first step is for the team to assemble GPU shaders, and what Mr. Stillwell calls “Enlightenments,” a technical term that describes starting points for improving the process of recompiling games that require CPU power rather than GPU power. This is information about which game instructions are intended to directly access hardware, function call points, and so on.

The task of emulation is made much easier by the fact that several aspects of the Xbox 360 hardware design are actually built into the Xbox One chip - in particular, support for texture and sound formats. The emulation task is quite difficult, given the fact that the Xbox 360 processor uses PowerPC architecture, which is very far from the x86 in the Xbox One. For example, floating point calculations need to be adapted from 40-bit instructions to 32-bit, with potential implications for aspects of the game like collision detection, but Microsoft's goal is clear - to be able to run game code on its virtual Xbox 360 as close to the original hardware as possible . So that the executable project itself does not understand that it is not running on a real Xbox 360: that is, regardless of how the emulator converts the data, the game returns the values it expects from the console.

Microsoft also has an army of more than 100 testers who play games and collect thousands of hours of video data. Based on the data obtained, the developers are debugging the emulator, which becomes more and more advanced with each new port of the next game.

The task of adapting code developed for a three-core 6-thread 3.2 GHz PowerPC processor to low-power, low-frequency x86 cores is quite non-trivial. In theory, the six Xbox 360 hardware threads can be assigned to specific Xbox One processor cores, but it's a little more complicated. For example, the Xbox One had a Windows-like thread scheduler that distributed the load, but the 360 had a fixed and extremely consistent thread scheduler. Therefore, when emulating, Microsoft had to rewrite its own thread scheduler for compatibility purposes: as soon as the Xbox 360 logo is launched, the thread management on the console is transferred to the rails of the old console.

At its core, backwards compatibility with the Xbox 360 relies almost entirely on emulation. It relies partly on special hardware blocks and some secret ingredient (for example, Microsoft is not talking about how the emulator implements support for VMX128 vector blocks from the Xbox 360). However, the Microsoft team is now at the stage that the current Xbox One console can replicate all the capabilities and functions of the Xbox 360 in software. And this is impressive, because at the end of the Xbox 360 era, many developers began to rely much less on software standards like the DirectX API and often used access to lower-level hardware to squeeze more out of the platform - all of which makes recompiling code more difficult.

When developing an emulator important stage became Halo Reach: after the release of backward compatibility, press reports began to arrive that this difficult game performs worse than on the Xbox 360. Microsoft had to invest a lot of effort and money in developing a new testing procedure and tools, identifying problem areas and ensuring higher emulation efficiency. Now even high-end games sometimes run better and smoother than on the original console. This is partly due to the fact that the team set this goal from the beginning, realizing that the power of the Xbox One allows it to squeeze more out of older games.

Microsoft adheres to a number of principles regarding backward compatibility. For example, the company does not change a single line of code or game assets, even in scenarios where it would be useful. For example, problems with uneven frame rendering in Halo 3 on Xbox 360 were fixed on Xbox One, but only due to the additional power of the GPU. All improvements are carried out exclusively using the emulator.

By the way, the new testing methodology also helped improve the performance of Xbox One games on the updated Xbox One X platform, which, due to some architectural changes, also partially required emulation. Xbox One X brought not only improved performance, but also reduced resource loading times, 16x hardware anisotropic filtering, and even support for FreeSync technology to synchronize the frame rate in games with the display frequency. In addition, seven Xbox 360 games have received major improvements on Xbox One X, such as support for native 4K resolution thanks to the Heutchy method, named after the developer Eric Heutchy, who invented the technology.

"When the game is rendered to the original render target, our virtual GPUXbox360 recognizes dimensions and scales the target render so that we essentially get a high-resolution copy of the asset hidden in the Xbox memoryOne, Bill Stillwell explains. — The game doesn't know this, but since we're dealing with an emulator, when this surface is used as a texture on the screen, we can replace it with a high-resolution version. Exclusively game resources are used, and since we use thisRAM-cache, all this happens very quickly. This is a case where the approach is more piece-by-piece than factory-made. We have to go through each game and evaluate how it changes, especially when we use higher resolution assets and scale the final resolution by 9x (3x on each axis). As a result, we achieve the same or better performance with higher resolution textures.".

Sometimes the results of improvements on Xbox One X are quite impressive. And not only in terms of an increase in the number of pixels, but also in the field of texture filtering and increased detail of models, as in Fallout 3 and Halo 3. The Assassin's Creed games for Xbox 360, which received improvements on the Xbox One X, have significantly improved shadows ( they are calculated with 9 times increased detail).In the same way, the pre-calculated shadows and combined with textures in Mirror's Edges remained unchanged, but the dynamic ones received increased resolution.

Halo 3 and Mirror's Edge also received HDR support, which was the result of the work of the backwards compatibility team and the Advanced Technology Group. In theory, all games of the Xbox 360 generation that had a 10-bit rendering pipeline (output was previously always carried out in 8 -bit mode) could get HDR support, but it's not easy. For example, not all games used 10-bit color processing throughout the rendering pipeline. Additionally, HDR mode can change the game visually somewhat, and some developers do not agree with this.

In Mirror's Edge on Xbox One X, HDR support slightly changes the style of play

In Mirror's Edge, despite the increase in resolution, pre-computed shadows do not improve when executed on Xbox One X

In addition to seven backwards compatible games improved for Xbox One X, Microsoft promises similar innovations for some other projects. Moreover, Xbox One X improvements can be disabled: in this case, users will receive the game in its original resolution, but with increased productivity, which the new console can provide in emulation mode.

Assassin's Creed on Xbox One X improves not only the resolution, but also the quality of shadows

As you know, the architectures of Xbox One and PlayStation 4 are very similar, so Microsoft's further progress in compatibility and improvement of older games on new system becomes important distinctive feature its platforms. Moreover, the company began emulating games from the first Xbox, which also receive improvements in the form of increased resolution and better texture filtering.

The launch lineup of Xbox 360 games adapted for the Xbox One console included 104 projects. Their full list on Monday, November 9, according to the DualShockers portal.

List of backwards compatible games

A Kingdom for Keflings
A World of Keflings
Alien Hominid HD
Assassin's Creed II
Asteroids & Deluxe
Banjo Kazooie: N n B
Banjo-Kazooie
Banjo-Tooie
BattleBlock Theater
Bejeweled 2
Bellator: MMA Onslaught
Beyond Good & Evil HD
Blood of the Werewolf
BloodRayne: Betrayal
Borderlands
Call of Juarez Gunslinger
Castle Crashers
Castlestorm
Centipede & Millipede
Condemned
Crazy Taxi
Deadliest Warrior: Legends
Defense Grid
DiRT 3
DiRT Showdown
Discs of Tron
Doom
Doom II
Dungeon Siege III
Earthworm Jim HD
Fable II
Fallout 3
Feeding Frenzy 2
Gears of War
Gears of War 2
Gears of War 3
Gears of War: Judgment
Golden Ax
Halo: Spartan Assault
Hardwood Backgammon
Hardwood Hearts
Hardwood Spades
Heavy Weapon
Hexic HD
Ikaruga Arcade
Jetpac Refuelled
Joy Ride Turbo
Just Cause 2
Kameo
LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game
LEGO Star Wars: TCS
Lode Runner
LUMINES LIVE!
Mass Effect
Metal Slug 3
Metal Slug XX
Might & Magic Clash of Heroes
Mirror's Edge
Missile Command
Monday Night Combat
Monkey Island 2: SE
Monkey Island: SE
Ms. Splosion Man
Mutant Blobs Attack
N+
NBA JAM: On Fire Edition
NiGHTS into dreams…
OF: Dragon Rising
Pac-Man C.E.
PAC-MAN CE DX+
Perfect Dark
Perfect Dark Zero
Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds
Pinball FX
Plants vs. Zombies
Prince of Persia
Putty Squad
R-Type Dimensions
Rayman 3 HD
Sacred Citadel
Sega Vintage Collection: Alex Kidd & Co.
Sega Vintage Collection: Golden Ax
Sega Vintage Collection: Monster World
Sega Vintage Collection: Streets of Rage
Shadow Complex
Sonic CD
Sonic The Hedgehog
Sonic The Hedgehog 2
Sonic The Hedgehog 3
Super Meat Boy Arcade
Supreme Commander 2
The Stick of Truth
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas2
Torchlight Arcade
Toy Soldiers Arcade
Toy Soldiers: Cold War
Tron: Evolution
Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegeddon
Viva Piñata
Viva Piñata: T.I.P.
Wolfenstein 3D
Zuma

Over time, this list will expand. It is already known that in December it will be replenished with Halo Reach, Halo Wars, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Bioshock, Bioshock 2, Bioshock Infinite and Skate 3. Microsoft, which is behind the production of the console, wants to transfer the entire game library from the past to it device generation.

Backwards compatibility will be enabled on Xbox One on November 12th. On this day, the next update will be freely available, which will add an emulator that runs games from the Xbox 360. At the same time, the set-top box itself will be controlled by the new Windows 10 operating system. In addition to visual changes in the interface, the device will receive a number of important innovations.

Microsoft did not hide its plans to transfer games from one Xbox generation to another, but it was officially announced in June 2015. The company's engineers are optimizing for the new architecture; copyright holders can either give permission or prohibit porting. In addition to games, add-ons and various functions are being adapted for the console, in particular cloud saving. The online infrastructure for legacy games on Xbox One will continue to function as long as their servers are still running and receiving technical support.

The Xbox One's closest competitor, the PS4, does not have backward compatibility at the hardware level. According to the head of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, Shuhei Yoshida, the console architecture is designed to implement this function. Instead, Sony is releasing re-releases of major PS3 blockbusters on PS4.

In 2015, the famous E3 exhibition took place, where Microsoft company spoke about the new features of the Xbox One console. In particular, it was presented backwards compatibility feature, linking the previous generation Xbox 360 console with the new console.

What is Xbox One backwards compatibility?

The Xbox 360 already had a similar feature. It allowed you to run games from the Xbox Original. Organizing this process was difficult for the developers, since each project needed separate emulator.

In the case of Xbox One, it has changed a little. Initially, the developers had some technical issues, but then a solution was found - virtual machine. This application could completely emulate not only games from the 360, but also part of the capabilities of his dashboard: sending messages, communicating with friends and in a team. Also available is Snap from Xbox One - taking screenshots and recording gameplay.

If you have friends with Xbox 360, they can share games on Xbox One.

How to download games from Xbox 360 on Xbox One

If you still have discs from the Xbox 360 or have already purchased digital copies on your account, they can be downloaded on Xbox One.

When you go to the Xbox Live store, in the list of games available for download you will see Previously purchased Xbox 360 games. Just load it and play. There will definitely not be any difficulties.

There were more questions about games on discs. Microsoft was able to find a solution: You just need to insert the disc into the Xbox One and download the game from Live. Xbox One does not fully read Xbox 360 discs. In simple words, he pays attention only to some game files, which help him find out the name of the game in order to find it in Live.

In general, the developers did their best. They were able to make the process of downloading old games as comfortable and simple as possible. The only thing to install is for you anyway you will need internet.

How games have been updated on Xbox One

Almost all Xbox 360 games are displayed slightly differently on the new console. The picture is no different from the standard image in resolution 1920x1080 pixels, but there are slight differences. The contrast and sharpness of the picture increased, which caused the appearance of so-called “artifacts”. Fortunately, there are not many of them and they do not affect the perception of the game in any way.

Many, after playing games for Xbox One, couldn’t get used to 30 fps again, including Xbox 360. It seemed that the game was terribly slow.

So, because of vertical synchronization, which is turned on forcibly when emulating a game on Xbox One, games from the “360” will not work smoother. On the contrary, sometimes significant drops in FPS appeared. But the number of image tearing has significantly decreased.

With direct comparing the same game moments on Xbox 360 and One you can see that on the first screen the maximum drops are 24-26 FPS, while on the new console it is 14-16 FPS. But this is only the maximum drop, which does not occur very often. On average, the number of frames per second on both consoles is identical – around 30 FPS.

How to save money on Xbox One games

The issue of further resale of used discs and the ability to exchange discs on Xbox One has been dragging on for a very long time. Initially, Microsoft imposed certain restrictions, which, by the way, no longer valid.

You can buy games from the Xbox 360 that cost less, rather than paying significantly more for "remasters" (ported games).

In addition, you no need to buy an old console to play 7th generation games if you have new console. However, many Xbox 360 games run faster on Xbox One.

Let's take as an example popular game Mass Effect. On Xbox One, we get a stable picture without tearing, almost perfect 30 FPS, fast loading of locations (without visible objects diving right during the game), improved color rendition and many other minor differences.

Produced in our workshops Xbox One repair. You can confidently trust the many years of experience of our specialists. Call and make an appointment!

The main idea of this block: you can buy games from Xbox 360 and play them on Xbox One. This way you save a lot of money and get excellent masterpieces that were released on the previous generation console.

You can now play hundreds of Xbox 360 games and classic games from the original Xbox on Xbox One. Select Xbox 360 games will receive "Best on Xbox One X" status, meaning they will play to take full advantage of the new console's extra power for better visuals. high resolution, with nine times the number of pixels and enhanced color detail. Favorite games different generations- owners can play them at no additional cost! For Xbox 360 games, you can continue to play all of your saved games with all add-ons, achievements, and points earned in those games. And Xbox Live Gold members can play multiplayer games with friends on both Xbox One and Xbox 360. Xbox One is the only way to play best games past, present and future.*