📢 Version v0.1.1 (alpha) - a Native renderer for Dragon Age: Origins

[udarmolota]

📢 Version v0.1.1 (alpha) - a native renderer for Dragon Age: Origins, and updates without reinstalling
ℹ XDroid360 doesn't include any game. You add your own copy: the Xbox 360 disc image of Dragon Age: Origins (.iso, or a .zip with it), or State of Decay's folder from a console's storage as a .zip. The phone builds the game from it.

☕ XDroid360 stays free, but coffee doesn't. If you'd like to support it: Ko-fi 🎮

🆕 What's new

Native renderer for Dragon Age: Origins

✅ Dragon Age: Origins now runs on a new native renderer by default. It draws the game's frames directly with Vulkan instead of emulating the Xbox 360's graphics chip, and it is much faster: on a Galaxy S25 Ultra, at the same spot with the frame cap off, it reaches 110–190 fps where the emulation gave 42–55. With the usual 60 fps cap the phone stays only warm.
✅ The phone builds the shaders itself. The renderer needs the game's shaders translated for Vulkan: the launcher does it on your phone when you add the game and on every Update game (about 10–15 seconds on an S25). Nothing from the game is downloaded or shipped with the app.
✅ You can switch back: the game's Settings → Renderer → Xenia brings back the emulation. If the shader library is missing, the game falls back to Xenia by itself.
✅ State of Decay keeps Xenia's emulation for now.

Updating a game

✅ Update game (⋮ on the game's card) rebuilds the game for a new version of the launcher, without adding it again: the game files, saves and settings stay. Usually about a minute.
✅ Coming from 0.1.0? Use Update game on the Dragon Age card once: the first time takes 5–10 minutes (the game's code is compiled again, the game files aren't copied), and it builds the shader library for the native renderer.

Settings

✅ Game language: English, Italiano, Español, or the phone's language, in its own card.
✅ Renderer: Xenia or Native, in its own card (Dragon Age: Origins).
✅ Vulkan driver: clearer choices (Automatic, Built-in Turnip, System driver, Custom driver), with what each one does; the driver file button shows only for a custom driver.
✅ Info panel (was "In-game display") and Texture quality (was "Textures").

Performance and heat

✅ The screen's refresh follows the game's frame cap: a game capped at 30 fps runs the screen at 60 Hz instead of 120 Hz, for less heat and an even picture.
✅ Phones without an Adreno 8xx: Dragon Age: Origins starts at 30 fps with depth of field off, the lighter settings for weaker GPUs. Your own choices in the game's Graphics tab stay.

Bug reports

✅ Diagnostics (the game's Settings → Advanced): writes the GPU's measurements into the game's log, and tells whether your GPU has what the native renderer needs. Turn it on, play the part that misbehaves, then Report a bug.
✅ Errors from the emulator now reach the game's log too, so reports show what went wrong.

Known issues

⚠ Tested on Snapdragon (Adreno) only, on a Galaxy S25 Ultra. The native renderer hasn't been tried on Mali or other GPUs yet: a report with Diagnostics on is very welcome.
⚠ The native renderer is new. If something looks wrong, switch back to Xenia in the game's Settings, and send a report.
⚠ Minimizing the game doesn't pause it: it keeps using the processor in the background. Close the game if you leave it for a while.
⚠ Space: Dragon Age: Origins needs about 8 GB, plus about 8 GB more while a .zip is unpacked; State of Decay about 3 GB, plus about 2 GB more.
⚠ Text input (a character's name) is Latin letters only.

Licence

The native renderer is a port of nfsmw-android's renderer (GPL-3.0). Thanks to its authors and everyone in its credit chain: nfsmw-nx (StevensND), NFSMW-Recompiled (madelrandel-blip), NFSMW-Recompiled-Mobile (victorgbd) and nfsmw-android (codepdbh). It also builds on the ReXGlue SDK (BSD-3), hedge-dev's XenosRecomp (MIT) and Microsoft's DirectXShaderCompiler (NCSA). Because of the renderer, the APK as a whole is distributed under GPL-3.0; the source is in this repository at this release's tag.

⚠ Reminder
XDroid360 is only a launcher. You need your own copy of the game: its Xbox 360 disc image, or its folder from a console.

Have a question, or want to know what's next? GitHub Issues.

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This discussion was created from the release 📢 Version v0.1.1 (alpha) - a Native renderer for Dragon Age: Origins.