Xenia Manager¶

Plays XBOX 360 games on the console with Xenia, an XBOX 360 emulator, in its Xenia Canary builds. The app installs the build pinned for this version of the app, finds your games and adds them to Steam, so they start from Game Mode like any other game.

Xenia is an experimental emulator, and its Linux build more so: not every game starts, and a game that runs on Windows may not run here. Whether a game runs, and how well, is up to Xenia. Its compatibility list says what is known. Compatibility and performance vary by title and are not guaranteed on PlayStation 5 hardware running Bazzite.

What you need¶

Your games, from your own discs and console: disc images (.iso), discs unpacked to a folder with a default.xex, Xenia's .zar archives, and Games on Demand and Arcade packages as the console keeps them. The app never downloads games. Use game files that you are entitled to use.
Steam, started at least once, for Game Mode.
fusermount (FUSE), which Bazzite has. Xenia comes as an AppImage, which mounts itself with it. Without it, it unpacks itself to a temporary folder on every start, which takes longer.
About 18 MB for Xenia itself. Its settings, saves and installed content go in ~/.local/share/Xenia.
No BIOS or firmware: Xenia does not need the console's.

Install¶

Install it from the portal (the Gaming tab), or from a checkout of the repository:

apps/xenia/install.sh                         # the app, its launcher, a menu entry and a Desktop icon
apps/xenia/install.sh --no-desktop-shortcut   # without the Desktop icon
apps/xenia/install.sh --uninstall             # remove it; --purge removes its settings and log too

The launcher is ~/.local/bin/ps5-xenia-manager; the app runs on the suite's shared Python environment. Installing needs no root: run it as your own user. Xenia itself is not part of the install: the app downloads it when you press Install.

Removing the app takes out the app and the Xenia it installed; Xenia's own folder (your settings, saves and installed content) and your games stay. The games in Steam then no longer start: take them out first by unticking them and pressing Update Steam. With --uninstall --purge the app's settings, the pictures found on SteamGridDB and the log go too.

Use it¶

The header shows the Xenia version, Your games (the games found) and those Available in Steam. Refresh reads everything again. Beside the title stands the app's state: Not installed, No games or Ready. Under the introduction, which links to Xenia's release notes and to this wiki, a row of pills does the setting up, each with what it is for on top and what it does under it: Xenia Install and Xenia Uninstall. Two lines below the pills say where each stands, and then come three tabs: Your games, Settings and Log, and Start game, a tab that is a button.

Xenia: Not installed. or Installed., with the button to use under it. The tooltip says which build is installed, or what Install takes, and when a newer build is out. Install asks first, then downloads Xenia from GitHub (about 18 MB) and checks it against the checksum pinned in this version of the app before installing it; a file that differs is not installed. When another build is installed, the tooltip and the log say so, and Install puts the pinned one in. Uninstall takes it out again; Xenia's own folder, with its settings, saves and installed content, stays.
Game folder: where the app looks for games, ~/Games/XBOX360 and a removable drive's Games/XBOX360 (see Where your games go); nothing is chosen or browsed to. The i beside them says what goes there. A game may sit up to six folders deep.

Press Escape or the controller's B/back button to close the active window or dialog.

Where your games go¶

The app has a folder of its own, which it makes when it opens; you never choose or browse to a folder: ~/Games/XBOX360. Put your games there, or in folders in it, and they show in the table. On a USB drive or an SD card, make a folder Games/XBOX360 on it, and the app looks there too while the drive is mounted (under /run/media or /media, as Bazzite mounts it).

Your games¶

The table lists every game found, with its kind (ISO, XEX, ZAR, Games on Demand or Arcade) and its file:

A disc image is a game when it is an XBOX 360 disc (the app looks for the disc's mark where Xenia looks for it), listed under its file's name.
An unpacked disc is its default.xex, listed under its folder's name; the other .xex files in that folder are its parts. Any other .xex is listed under its own name.
A .zar archive is listed under its file's name; the app does not look into it.
A Games on Demand or Arcade package is listed under the name in its header. Keep it in the folders the console made (<title ID>/00007000/ or <title ID>/000D0000/). Saves, downloadable content and title updates are not games and are left out.

The Title ID column shows the game's ID (4D5307E6), from the .xex or the package, where the app can read it.

Remove game… deletes the chosen game from the disk. A window first lists what would go, a row each with its size: the game's file or folder; for a Games on Demand or Arcade title in the console's layout a row per part of its title ID folder (the game, its title updates, its add-ons), so the add-ons can stay; and its Steam shortcut when it is in Steam. Every row is ticked; untick what you want to keep, then Delete marked; Cancel deletes nothing. Xenia's content folder, with the saves, stays. A game the app will not delete (one at the top of a drive, or in a folder that holds another game) is said so under the tabs: delete it by hand.

Xenia settings opens Xenia's own window, with its other settings, profiles and installed content. A game runs from Steam: Start game starts the chosen one there.

Steam¶

Tick the games you want in Steam and press Update Steam. The app adds them to Steam as non-Steam games and takes out the games you unticked and games it no longer finds. Steam keeps these files in memory, so it closes for the change and starts again in the background. The pictures on the tiles are drawn from the app's icon, with the game's title, and the icon is the logo on the banner. Xenia has to be installed first: the games in Steam start it.

In Steam each game's name starts with its system, for example [X360] Halo 3, so it stands apart from the same title on Steam or on another system in Steam's menus.

The games are in the library under Non-Steam, on the desktop, in Big Picture Mode and in Game Mode alike. They start the game alone in Xenia, full screen. Steam's overlay works over a game started from Steam, in Game Mode and on the desktop: press Shift+Tab or the Steam button for the game's page, its controller layout and its settings, without leaving the game.

Change Steam from Desktop Mode: in Game Mode Steam is the session itself and cannot close for the change. Update Steam is off there, and until Steam has been started once on the console.

Covers¶

With a SteamGridDB API key, the app takes all four pictures from SteamGridDB instead of drawing them: the cover, the wide picture, the banner and the logo. Press Steam artwork… to enter the key; Update Steam then looks each game up on SteamGridDB by its title. A picture SteamGridDB does not have stays drawn. The key is free with a SteamGridDB account, and it is one key for every app of the suite, kept in ~/.config/bazzite-console/steamgriddb-key. Leave the field empty to look nothing up: the pictures already found stay in use.

Steam in the line under the table is a link: it opens Steam's library (Steam starts when it does not run).

Start game¶

The last tab, Start game, is a button. Choose a game in the table and click it: the game starts through Steam, as its shortcut in Steam starts it, and Steam starts first when it does not run. The tab you were on stays open. A game that is not in Steam yet is not started: the line under the tabs says to tick it and press Update Steam first.

Settings¶

Xenia's settings that matter for playing, each written into Xenia's own settings file (xenia-canary.config.toml in its folder) the moment you change it; Xenia reads it when it starts. A game's own settings file in Xenia comes before these; everything else is in Xenia's own window (Xenia settings, under the games).

Picture: Graphics (Vulkan, the Linux build's; Automatic picks it), the Resolution scale (a multiple of the game's own picture, mostly 1280 × 720; a higher one asks much more of the GPU, and breaks some games), Anti-aliasing (FXAA smooths jagged edges after the game has drawn), Scaling and sharpening (Bilinear, Contrast Adaptive Sharpening or FidelityFX Super Resolution), Keep the picture's shape (bars where the screen's shape differs; off, the picture is stretched) and VSync.
Speed: the Frame limit (As the game is 60 with VSync on) and Readback resolve (for a game that shows wrong or missing effects: Fast reads them a frame late, Full exactly and slowly).
Sound: the Sound output (SDL, the Linux build's; Automatic picks it) and Mute.
Console: the Arcade license (for an XBOX Live Arcade game: Full version unlocks the whole game where its package has the trial alone licensed; All licenses also its other content), Achievement messages and Guide button to the game (the controller's guide button reaches the game; off, Steam keeps it).

Each setting shows what Xenia's settings file holds, or Xenia's own default while there is no file or line; a value set in Xenia that the app does not offer is shown as it is. Nothing is written while Xenia runs.

Log¶

Everything the app said and did, with the time: Xenia installed or removed, games deleted, every change to Steam, and every error. The same lines are in ~/.local/share/ps5-xenia-manager/ps5-xenia-manager.log, which turns over at 1 MB (the three older files are kept). The log holds what the app did, with your home folder written as ~, and not your SteamGridDB key. install.sh --uninstall keeps it; --purge removes it.

From a terminal¶

ps5-xenia-run starts the installed Xenia with the options you give it. The Steam shortcuts use it, so they keep working when a newer version of the app brings a newer Xenia. Xenia's options take the form --name=value.

ps5-xenia-run --fullscreen=true "/path/to/game.iso"   # a game full screen (Steam)
ps5-xenia-run "/path/to/game.iso"                     # a game in a window
ps5-xenia-run                                         # Xenia's own window

New Xenia builds¶

Xenia has no stable releases: Xenia Canary publishes a build for almost every change, named after the change (838850f). Each version of the app installs one build, the one pinned in it. When the window opens, the app asks GitHub for the newest build; when one was published after the app's, the Xenia line's tooltip and the log say so, with a link to what changed. The app does not install it. A newer build comes with a newer version of the app, from the portal: after updating the app, the tooltip and the log say so, and Install brings it.

How it works¶

The Steam shortcuts start ps5-xenia-run, which starts Xenia. Started from outside Steam (Xenia settings, or ps5-xenia-run in a terminal), Xenia runs as it is.

The app goes online for three things: the download of Xenia from GitHub when you press Install, the question to GitHub for the newest build when the window opens, and, only with a SteamGridDB key, the pictures from SteamGridDB on Update Steam. Privacy has the whole suite's list.

Controllers¶

When Steam starts a game, it tells the game's controller library (SDL) to ignore the controllers Steam handles itself, and gives the game Steam's virtual controller in their place (Steam Input). Xenia then sees only that virtual controller, and on the desktop it follows the layout Steam has active, which may be Steam's desktop layout (mouse and keys).

So the run wrapper undoes it: while a real controller is connected, Xenia reads that controller itself and leaves Steam's virtual one (USB ID 28DE:11FF) out. Without a real controller, where the only controls are Steam's virtual controller, the wrapper leaves Steam's choice as it is.

A game renamed, moved or gone¶

A game renamed or moved after it was put in Steam keeps its mark: the app knows each game in Steam by its code (or, without one, its file's size), so on Refresh it finds the game again under its new name, ticked, and says so under the tabs; Update Steam then takes the old shortcut out and puts the game in under its new name. A shortcut to a game that is no longer there (deleted, or on a drive that is not in) does not start Xenia: a window says which file is missing and what to do, and closes by itself, so Steam sees the game end.

Steam's overlay on the desktop¶

Xenia's window goes through X11 (XWayland on the KDE desktop of Bazzite) by itself, so Steam's overlay sees it on the desktop too, and the run wrapper has nothing to change for it.

What goes where¶

What	Where
The app	`~/.local/share/ps5-xenia-manager/app`
Xenia	`~/.local/share/ps5-xenia-manager/emulator`
Xenia's settings, saves and installed content	`~/.local/share/Xenia` (Xenia's own folder)
Your games	`~/Games/XBOX360` (the app's own folder), and `Games/XBOX360` on a removable drive
The app's settings	`~/.config/ps5-xenia-manager`
The app's log	`~/.local/share/ps5-xenia-manager/ps5-xenia-manager.log`
The Steam shortcuts	Steam's `shortcuts.vdf` and `grid` folder, per Steam user
The pictures found on SteamGridDB	`~/.local/share/ps5-xenia-manager/covers`
The SteamGridDB key, one for the suite	`~/.config/bazzite-console/steamgriddb-key`
Launchers	`~/.local/bin/ps5-xenia-manager`, `~/.local/bin/ps5-xenia-run`

License¶

GPL-3.0-or-later, see LICENSE. Xenia (BSD-3-Clause) is a separate program under its own license, downloaded from its own releases.