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Options / Configuration

How to use

  • Run Ainex if you haven't before.
  • Show file name extensions in Explorer.
  • Go to Documents\Ainex and open ainex.config.toml in a text editor like Notepad++.
    • If a portable.txt file is present in the same directory as ainex.exe it will be in the same directory as ainex.exe.
    • Per-game configs go in config\TitleID.config.toml. Note that per-game configs are highly unstable, only very few options can be changed from it safely or at all, as most emulator subsystems are initialized before per-game configs are loaded.
  • For launchers/frontends like Bottlenose you can use the --config launch parameter to specify what config to use.
    • To launch specific games, add the path to the game before the launch options. For example: ainex.exe path/to/game/default.xex --vsync=false

Config Settings

Each setting has a table explaining the different options.
Expand a section by clicking it to see the table.

Each table follows this pattern.

setting_name value type
description value

APU

APU

The system used to output audio to the speakers.

apu string
The first available. (default) any
No audio nop
SDL2 sdl
XAudio2 xaudio2
FFMPEG Verbose

Makes FFMPEG output verbose logging.

ffmpeg_verbose boolean
Disable verbose logging. (default) false
Enable verbose logging. true
Mute

Mutes all audio output.

mute boolean
Audio is enabled. (default) false
Audio is disabled. true

CPU

Break on Unimplemented Instructions

Break to the host debugger if an unimplemented PowerPC instruction is encountered (or crash if no debugger is attached).

break_on_unimplemented_instructions bool
On (default) true
Off (hack, needed for certain games) false
Clock: No scaling

Disable real-time clock scaling code.
Time management and locking is bypassed. Guest system time is directly pulled from the host.

clock_no_scaling bool
Guest time is scaled proportionally to the running speed. (default) false
System time is pulled from directly the host. true
Clock Source: Raw

Use the RDTSC instruction as the time source.

Host CPU must support invariant TSC.

clock_source_raw bool
Gets the guest time using the system clock. (default) false
Gets the guest time using the RDTSC instruction. true
CPU

The CPU backend to be used for emulation.

cpu string
The first available. (default) any
x86_64 architecture x64

In all reality, the emulator can only be compiled for one CPU architecture at a time. This option is completely useless.

Config

Content

License Mask

Set the license mask for activated content.

license_mask #
No licenses enabled (Demo/Trial mode. default) 0
XBLA activated mode (First license enabled) 1
Full mode (All licenses enabled) -1
0xFFFFFFFF

D3D12

DXGI Adapter

Index of the DXGI adapter to use. Enter any positive number to use a specific physical adapter.

d3d12_adapter #
WARP software rendering. -2
Any physical adapter. (default) -1
CPU Readback After Render Target Resolving

This is needed for certain games

d3d12_readback_resolve bool
Off (default) false
On true

Display

GPU

Allow Invalid Fetch Constants

Allow texture and vertex fetch constants with invalid type - generally unsafe because the constant may contain completely invalid values, but may be used to bypass fetch constant type errors in certain games until the real reason why they're invalid is found.

gpu_allow_invalid_fetch_constants bool
Off (default) false
On (hack) true
Renderer/Backend
gpu string
Any backend (default, recommended) any
Direct3D 12 d3d12
Vulkan vulkan
Null (blank/nothing) null
Render target path

Leave this option blank for auto-selection.

render_target_path_d3d12 string
Auto-selection
RTV (recommended for speed) rtv
ROV (if available, for higher accuracy in certain cases) rov

What is ROV (rasterizer-ordered views)?

Improves accuracy at the cost of performance. Recommended to be disabled.

Long ROV (rasterizer-ordered views) explanation

The Direct3D 12 mode in Ainex has two code paths for rendering output (the currently used one is displayed in the window title bar): "RTV" (Render Target Views) and "ROV" (Rasterizer-Ordered Views).

On the Xbox 360, pixels are written to a 10 MB memory chip called the eDRAM, and many games reinterpret the data in it in different formats for various purposes (clearing, HDR rendering, etc.) This is not the case on PC, where different render targets are independent from each other.

The "RT" path uses conventional PC render targets (RTV — Render Target Views — and DSV — Depth-Stencil Views — in Direct3D terms) for rendering output, and copies data between PC render target textures and the 10 MB buffer to allow for reinterpretation of eDRAM data in different formats.

However, copying has a very heavy performance impact, causing noticeable slowdowns even on modern graphics cards. Another issue is that the Xbox 360 has certain render target formats not available on the PC (7e3 HDR floating-point, 16-bit fixed-point with −32…32 range, 20^4 floating-point depth) that have to be approximated with other render target formats. This causes unfixable transparency issues (because the blending hardware works with different ranges and precision of numbers) and depth buffer-related issues such as shadow acne.

Using the Rasterizer-Ordered Views (ROV) feature of Direct3D 12 allows Ainex to overcome those issues by doing blending and depth/stencil testing manually in pixel shaders, rendering directly to the 10 MB buffer. This allows for much higher performance since there's no expensive data copying, and better accuracy because of no pixel format limitations.

"Rasterizer-ordered" here means that access to the buffer is synchronized — if multiple polygons in a single draw call are covering the same pixel, the buffer will be accessed in the correct order, without conflicts that would happen if the data was written through a regular unordered access view (UAV). You can read more about this feature at Intel.com, another common use for ROV in game development is order-independent transparency algorithms.

However, this is a hardware feature, and thus on older graphics cards, Ainex is limited to the RT path.

Rasterizer-ordered views are used by default in Ainex where available, but if you're experiencing graphical issues, you may try disabling it in the config.

The minimum requirements for ROV are:

  • Nvidia GeForce GTX 950 on desktops, GTX 965M on laptops (Maxwell 2nd generation — 2014)
  • AMD Radeon Vega (GCN 5th generation — 2017)
  • Intel HD Graphics 4200 (2013)
Resolution Scaling

This is a hack, and as such, bugs should be expected.

Horizontal Scale

draw_resolution_scale_x #
1x (1280x, default) 1
2x (2560x) 2
3x (3840x) 3
4x (5120x) 4
5x (6400x) 5
6x (7680x) 6
7x (8960x) 7

Vertical Scale:

draw_resolution_scale_y #
1x (x720, default) 1
2x (x1440) 2
3x (x2160) 3
4x (x2880) 4
5x (x3600) 5
6x (x4320) 6
7x (x5040) 7
Vertical Sync
vsync bool
On (default) true
Off (uncaps FPS) false

This won’t improve the framerate if your PC can’t handle running the game at it’s native FPS.

This doesn’t work with all games

General

HID

Input Backend

This option controls which backend the controller is mapped to.

hid string
Any input method (default) any
SDL2* sdl
XInput xinput
Keyboard winkey
  • SDL supports many controllers and many advanced features (not all of them are implemented).
    SDL supports an ever-growing list of controllers.
  • XInput supports all Xbox controllers starting with the Xbox 360, including the Guitar Hero and Rock Band instruments.
    Wireless Xbox 360 controllers and some Wireless Xbox One controllers require you to own a USB wireless adapter.
  • WinKey only supports keyboards that are compatible with your device.

When using SDL

If your game controller is not mapped correctly, download gamecontrollerdb.txt and place it in the folder next to your Xenia executable.

HID WinKey

Windows Key Bindings

The following settings all follow the same rules.

The value must be a key identifier, or multiple key identifiers separated by spaces.
Modifiers may be added in front of key identifiers to change the meaning of a bind while another key is pressed.

Key identifiers

Key modifiers

Modifier Meaning
_ only with Caps Lock enabled
^ only while Shift is pressed

Examples

Setting and Value Meaning
keybind_a = "0xBA" Bind to ;
keybind_x = "X" Bind to X
keybind_y = "Y U 0xA0" Bind to Y, U or Left Shift
keybind_b = "_0xBA" Bind to ; only when Caps Lock is enabled
keybind_dpad_up = "^X" Bind to Shift+X

Default bindings

Setting Name Default Value Meaning
keybind_a 0xBA Bind to ;
keybind_b 0xDE Bind to "
keybind_back Z Bind to Z
keybind_dpad_down ^S Bind to S (Caps Lock on)
keybind_dpad_left ^A Bind to A (Caps Lock on)
keybind_dpad_right ^D Bind to D (Caps Lock on)
keybind_dpad_up ^W Bind to W (Caps Lock on)
keybind_left_shoulder 1 Bind to 1
keybind_left_thumb F Bind to F
keybind_left_thumb_down _S Bind to Shift+S
keybind_left_thumb_left _A Bind to Shift+A
keybind_left_thumb_right _D Bind to Shift+D
keybind_left_thumb_up _W Bind to Shift+W
keybind_left_trigger Q I Bind to Q or I
keybind_right_shoulder 3 Bind to 3
keybind_right_thumb K Bind to K
keybind_right_thumb_down 0x28 Bind to Up
keybind_right_thumb_left 0x25 Bind to Left
keybind_right_thumb_right 0x27 Bind to Right
keybind_right_thumb_up 0x26 Bind to Up
keybind_right_trigger E O Bind to E or O
keybind_start X Bind to X
keybind_x L Bind to L
keybind_y P Bind to P

Kernel

Logging

Memory

Protect Zero
protect_zero bool
On (default) true
Off (hack, needed for certain games*) false

Certain games require this to set be set to false to work around crashes.
This includes, but isn't limited to:

SDL

Storage

UI

Vulkan

Win32

XConfig

User Language
user_language # region code native name
English (default) 1 EN English
Japanese 2 JA 日本語
German 3 DE Deutsche
French 4 FR Français
Spanish 5 ES Español
Italian 6 IT Italiano
Korean 7 KO 한국어
Traditional Chinese 8 ZH 繁體中文
Portuguese 9 PT Português
Polish 10 PL Polski
Russian 11 RU русский
Swedish 12 SV Svenska
Turkish 13 TR Türk
Norwegian 14 NB Norsk
Dutch 15 NL Nederlands
Simplified Chinese 16 ZH 简体中文

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