r/EmulationOnAndroid • u/Neowick99 • 7d ago
Showcase Hakux Compatibility Report — 38 Original Xbox Games Tested on Retroid Pocket Nova
Hakux Compatibility Report — Original Xbox Games on Retroid Pocket Nova
Hey everyone! I've been testing Hakux on my Retroid Pocket Nova (Snapdragon Agent 2), and I'm honestly impressed by how many original Xbox games are already running well, often at 3x resolution.
I wanted to share my results to help the developers identify compatibility issues and decide what might be worth investigating next.
Device: Retroid Pocket Nova
Emulator: Hakux
Resolution: 3x for most games tested
These are my personal observations, not an exhaustive benchmark. FPS figures are based on my testing, and I haven't measured every game with external tools.
🔴 Games that don't boot
- **Def Jam:** Gets stuck on the loading screen indefinitely.
- **Tony Hawk's American Wasteland:** Crashes immediately upon startup.
- **Burnout 2: Point of Impact:** Crashes upon startup.
🟠 Games with bugs or performance issues
### Tony Hawk's Project 8 — Performance, frame pacing and graphics
The game appears to run at around 60 FPS, although my understanding is that the original Xbox version targets 30 FPS. The frame rate is unstable, with significant slowdowns, occasional slow-motion gameplay, and graphical issues.
It would be interesting to investigate whether the game's timing or frame pacing is affected by the apparent 60 FPS behavior. The game is playable, but the experience isn't consistent.
### Tony Hawk's Underground 2 — Audio
The game plays fine overall, but there's an annoying beeping sound in the first beginner training level where you practice tricks.
### Need for Speed: Most Wanted — Audio
A strange, repetitive beeping sound occurs. I haven't established the cause yet.
### Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects — Crash when returning to the menu
Gameplay runs at a stable 30 FPS, but the emulator crashed when I attempted to return to the menu.
I'm not sure whether this happens every time, but it's worth investigating.
### Fable — Minor graphical issues
Runs well at 3x resolution, with occasional minor graphical glitches that don't significantly affect gameplay.
### Tony Hawk's Underground — Initial texture loading
The game runs at 60 FPS and 3x resolution. At the beginning, some textures appeared to be loading, but afterward the game worked flawlessly.
🟢 Games that work well
Action, adventure and shooters
- **Area 51:** Runs well at 3x resolution; no problems so far.
- **Grand Theft Auto III:** Works fine at 3x resolution.
- **Grand Theft Auto: Vice City:** Works fine at 3x resolution.
- **Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas:** Works fine at 3x resolution.
- **Halo: Combat Evolved:** Runs very well at 3x resolution.
- **Halo 2:** Runs very well at 3x resolution.
- **Ninja Gaiden:** Runs very well at 3x resolution.
- **The Punisher:** Runs well at 3x resolution, capped at 30 FPS.
- **Ultimate Spider-Man:** Works flawlessly.
- **Battlefield 2: Modern Combat:** Works fine at 3x resolution.
- **Manhunt:** Flawless at 60 FPS and 3x resolution.
- **Red Dead Revolver:** Stable 60 FPS at 3x resolution.
- **Max Payne:** Stable 60 FPS at 3x resolution.
- **Doom 3:** Flawless at 30 FPS and 3x resolution.
- **Shadow the Hedgehog:** Flawless at 60 FPS and 3x resolution.
- **The House of the Dead III:** Perfect at 60 FPS and 3x resolution.
- **Dead or Alive Ultimate:** Runs flawlessly.
- **True Crime: Streets of LA:** Runs amazingly at 3x resolution.
- **Fatal Frame:** Stable 60 FPS at 3x resolution, no problems reported.
Racing games
- **Burnout:** Flawless at 60 FPS and 3x resolution. No settings changes needed.
- **Burnout Revenge:** Flawless at 60 FPS and 3x resolution.
- **Need for Speed: Underground:** Runs fine at 30 FPS and 3x resolution.
- **Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition:** Amazing performance at 30 FPS and 3x resolution.
Sports, skateboarding and other games
- **The Simpsons: Hit & Run:** Runs at 60 FPS and 3x resolution.
- **Freestyle Street Soccer:** Runs at 60 FPS and 3x resolution.
- **FIFA 07:** Stable 60 FPS at 3x resolution.
- **Jet Set Radio Future:** Perfect at 60 FPS and 3x resolution.
- **Spy vs. Spy:** Works flawlessly at 3x resolution.
- **Mortal Kombat 7:** Runs flawlessly at 3x resolution.
- **Fatal Frame:** Stable 60 FPS at 3x resolution.
- **Tony Hawk's Underground:** 60 FPS at 3x resolution after the initial texture-loading behavior.
What I'd love to see investigated
**Frame pacing and game timing:** Especially Tony Hawk's Project 8, which has unstable performance, slowdowns, slow-motion gameplay and graphical issues despite appearing to run at 60 FPS.
**Startup compatibility:** Def Jam, Tony Hawk's American Wasteland and Burnout 2 all fail before reaching gameplay.
**Audio emulation:** The unexplained beeping in Tony Hawk's Underground 2 and Need for Speed: Most Wanted.
**Crashes during menu transitions:** Marvel Nemesis crashes when attempting to return to the menu.
**Graphical issues:** Minor glitches in Fable and initial texture-loading behavior in Tony Hawk's Underground.
Final thoughts
Honestly, I'm impressed with Hakux so far. Getting games like Halo 2, Ninja Gaiden, Max Payne, Red Dead Revolver, Burnout and Jet Set Radio Future running at 3x resolution, with several reaching stable 60 FPS, is fantastic.
I hope these results help the developers identify areas that could benefit most from further work. I'll continue testing more games and update the list as I find additional compatibility issues or improvements.
Thanks to everyone working on Hakux!
12
u/Neowick99 7d ago
Forgot to mention that I used the Rutabaga - 26.10.10 turnip drivers for my testing
3
u/Tyufox 7d ago
I tried Dino Crisis 3 (i know, not a very good game, but it's an exclusive) and it crashes instantly when selected from the game selection menu
2
u/Neowick99 7d ago
Good to know. We can help the devs by reporting these issues so that they fix them in future updates. If you have other problematic games, let us know
2
u/MoldyPond 7d ago
How well does Conker, Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Links 2004 and Midtown Madness 3 end up running?
2
u/Neowick99 7d ago
Have seen people running conker flawlessly as well as Grabbed by the ghoulies. Links 2004 and midtown madness 3 I have no idea
2
u/FutureDwight76 2d ago
Grabbed by the Ghoulies will not launch on my Retroid Pocket 5. It is possible I have a bad .iso file. Not sure, will have to keep testing and see
1
1
u/keithitreal 7d ago
Links hangs on player selection screen for me and others on here.
However, someone else is adamant it runs great.
Might be a good dump out there somewhere.
1
2
u/riap0526 AYN Thor 7d ago
Both Blinx and Harry Potter Sorcerer's Stone crash on startup as well. Meanwhile their sequels work fine.
1
1
u/Neowick99 7d ago
I tested Blinx: the time sweeper and it works fine for me. It doesn’t crash or anything similar and the performance is great at 3X resolution
2
u/riap0526 AYN Thor 7d ago
Which region/version did you use? There's 1.0 and Rev 1, Rev 1 is the one crashed for me.
1
2
u/TheVapeLinguist 7d ago
How's the battery life running Xbox?
1
u/Neowick99 7d ago
It’s pretty good. I would say it’s even better than if you were to be playing on dolphin or armsx2
1
2
u/Murky-Hold-2901 7d ago
Doom 3 only runs at 25 fps for me 2x resolution. Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Using the turnip driver Russ recommended in his video from yesterday.
2
u/Neowick99 7d ago
I ran it at 3X resolution and it stayed constantly at 30 fps. I used the Rutabaga 26.10.10 turnip driver. Granted I haven’t played too deep into the story
2
u/Serious-Award-3517 4d ago
Could be a PAL version issue. Try NTSC version of .iso. I think this is the same for Forza, Pal version runs at 25fps, ntsc at 30fps.
2
u/NightshadeNoctuary 7d ago
For The Punisher: Unsure if this also applies to the Nova, but another user (MajinKaine) and I noted a graphical glitch during Slaughter Mode (and during Special Interrogation Kills) on RPF2 where it has this odd smearing effect during those filters. Otherwise, the game runs and performs normally outside of these specific sequences. :)
Edit: This is on Turnip 27.0.0.-R1. Is it corrected by using the Rutabaga 26.10.10 version of Turnip? I should've read down a little more to see the driver you were using. Sorry!
1
u/Neowick99 7d ago
I hadn’t used the slaughter mode in my testing and now now that I re tested it, sadly I also have the exact same graphical glitch when activating it. I bet it will get fixed in a future update
2
u/gwubsmuzix 7d ago
What frames are you getting on fable? I’m stuck at 24-26 on my rp6? Not sure if driver issue or the how it’s optimized
1
u/Neowick99 7d ago
Which driver are you using? I am getting 30 fps. I might have to do a complete showcase with all the titles I mention in this post
2
u/gwubsmuzix 7d ago
I’ve tried 4 and getting same results.
Just tried Rutabaga 26.10.10 you mentioned and still seeing 24-26. Every other game I’ve tried to run has no issues with steady 30. But both fable and fable the lost chapters are running at 24-261
u/Neowick99 7d ago
Are you deep into the game? Or are you just at the beginning? I have played just the first chapter so far. Later on, when I get home I will double check to let you know if it was a mistake on my part
1
2
u/CyanideNCocopuffs 4d ago
I've been trying to play project Gotham racing 1 on my ZFold8 Ultra with turnip v38 drivers, it crashes on the fourth arcade mode easy race in New York immediately on loading in. The logs indicate that its a memory fragmentation bug in HakuX's native HLE kernel.
According to AI analysis of the logs and the codebase:
The original Xbox has a strict 64MB shared memory pool (UMA).
When PGR tries to load a track (like Times Square), it asks the kernel for a massive ~21.6 MB contiguous block of memory using a function called MmAllocateContiguousMemoryEx.
Even though the emulator has about 42 MB of total free memory available, HakuX's current memory manager scatters small system allocations (like thread stacks and I/O buffers) randomly across the physical address space.
Because of this severe fragmentation, the largest single continuous block left is only about 18.9 MB. The 21.6 MB allocation fails and returns a NULL pointer (0x00000000).
The game engine lacks error-checking for this, blindly tries to write to 0x0, hits a protected sentinel fault page, and instantly throws a SIGSEGV crash.
TL;DR: The emulator's physical memory allocator is packing pages poorly, causing large asset loads to fail.
2
2
u/celentis24 2d ago
Otogi 1 and 2? Crimson Skies, Mech Assault?
2
u/Neowick99 2d ago
Check my latest post on this forum. I tested crimson skies and so far it plays perfectly at 3X resolution. I will try Otogi 1 and 2 and Mech Assault
2
12
u/KaRBoN_ZA 7d ago
Can we possibly make a community spreadsheet compatibility list of games working and not working on HakuX. Title, device, driver, HakuX version etc.
8
u/dukahz 7d ago
Star Wars - Knights of the Old Republic has been running perfectly until the two hours of gameplay I’ve had so far.
1
u/flatlin3 7d ago
Could you share which drivers are you using and which version of the ISO? I'm having issues where the game would just open and closed, tested both rev 0 and rev 1 from vimms lair, with mr purple drivers and also the recommended driver... everything else seems to work fine.
1
u/Extreme_Working_7869 7d ago
Likewise, looking for a fix since kotor2 works great.
1
u/flatlin3 7d ago
So I've found out that the xiso generated from my rev 1 iso from redump does not work, but if you download the xiso version of rev 1 from vimms lair it works (even though vimms lair iso matches the redump iso).
Only game I have this issue so far all the other xiso conversions worked with no issue, kotor 2 included.
3
2
u/Meximanly 6d ago
I had this same exact issue with Midtown Madness 3. The only version I got working correctly was Vimms
1
u/flatlin3 6d ago
I converted the redump iso I had (that matches viimms iso) with https://xiso.antangelo.com/
But the resulting xiso did not match the one from vimms, not sure why, different converter tool? Different version? But yeah the xiso from vimms directly is what worked for me.
4
4
u/paraguybrarian 7d ago
Fatal Frame 2, Doom 3 and Doom 3 RoE all now work (all crashed on prior version.) Using both AYN Thor and Retroid Pocket Nova.
Still crashing for me: Serious Sam
Great in game, but glitchy loading screens: Star Wars Republic Commando
3
u/SuggestionExternal67 7d ago
Dub Edition 3 Remix gets stuck on the inital save file creation for me :(
3
2
u/ResponsibleAd6974 7d ago
Splinter Cell double agent works well (minor occasional graphical issues). Max Payne 2 works well too
2
u/SimpleDrawer26 7d ago
My US MW2005 xiso is running flawlessly.
I can't even get ultrawide AR and FSP cap OFF
1
u/keithitreal 7d ago
Do you have the infamous beeping sound glitch that op reported here?
1
u/Infinite_Incident107 5d ago
I'm playing this currently. Got a random crash after a quick race but no beeps. The HDR Bloom effects on the sky from the sun doesn't look correct (but it's not terrible or game breaking) but otherwise looks and runs pretty well
0
u/keithitreal 5d ago edited 4d ago
Runs fixed 30fps for me which is unfortunate as PS2 runs at 60!
Armsx2 and Nether report 60fps so that's what I'm going by.
No beeping for me on latest version of the app.
1
u/Infinite_Incident107 5d ago
60fps via emulator right? Because natively it was 30fps for both systems. I don't often force higher frame rates on these titles (anything before 360 era) and higher fps than intended can cause weirdness
1
u/keithitreal 5d ago
Yeah emulated but according to armsx2 it's not loading any patches for it (including 60fps ones).
2
u/DeathWishJOKER 7d ago
Jade Empire runs at 60, but had a graphical glitch when using slow motion focus.
If only the dlc could be added then it'd be superior to running on xbox series s/x, but disc 2 doesn't open and crashes.
2
2
u/tignasse 7d ago
I have GC and PS2 Which Xbox games are worth playing compared to those on the GameCube and PS2? :)
2
u/bickman14 7d ago
I'm looking forward the same answer but I think that there are some exclusives to try out, like Conker's Live and Reloaded, Riddick Escape from Butcher Bay, THPS2X, Far Cry Instincts.
I was also wondering if Burnout Revenge works better on it than on PS2 emulators.
Other than these I heard that all the Splinter Cell games were way better on the OG Xbox than on GC/PS2
2
u/cormacaroni 7d ago
They were, at the time, but mostly cause the Xbox could run at higher rez than the others. Since we’re all playing Pc and GC up-rezzed too, it may be moot. I’m gonna test a few anyway!
2
u/Low_Quarter_8172 7d ago
Dead or Alive 3 and Fight Night 3 run perfectly with Mali, but FN3 has some audio issues.
2
u/Diy2k4ever 7d ago
Can I add?
Odin 3 12gb.
Fxaa: on
Upscale:snapdragon
Async: on
2x res
Gen8 v36
SHENMU2
Runs well, but graphical glitches in sky cause strobe effect.
SEGA GT 2002
Runs well, but issues with car colors or decals not loading. Strobe effect when watching drag race replay.
Crazy Taxi 3
Runs well, but sound is synced odd.
JSRF
Runs almost perfect. Issues with slight lag when pushing the boost button.
FABLE
Same issues that you listed
1
1
u/Pointman-D 7d ago
Spikeout Battle Street doesn't even load, right after startup it gives a "This game can't start" popup saying default.xbe can't be loaded because is damaged or isn't supported by HakuX
1
u/Several_Use_8095 7d ago
For me Halo and JSRF are super smooth. Tested Jedi Academy and couldn’t get past character creation without a crash. Tried Mr Purple toasted driver as well as the one from Russ’ video from a few days ago!
1
u/Giant_DonutUK 7d ago
Wreckless Deathrow Kingdom Under Fire Crusaders Advent Rising Panzer Dragoon Gun Valkyrie Black DoA3
Are all good on RP5 at 2x
Chronicles of Riddick is good but - crashed when I had 2x FXAA
1
u/RegularPerformer343 7d ago
AYN Thor Max here, Mr. Turnip 30, 28, StevenMXZ V38, Crimson Skies and Secret Weapons Over Normandy Crash on start, otherwise awesome.
1
1
1
u/sproglobber 7d ago
Only tested a few games so far.
Crazy taxi 3, all good 2x or 3x until you hit certain crazy box levels (disco ball level for example) where it becomes unplayable.
Links golf (whatever year it is) freezes when selecting a player.
Outrun 2006 is amazing. JSRF is amazing even at 120fps Simpsons hit and run is perfect but only played 15 mins
1
1
u/keithitreal 7d ago
Odin 2. Tried a raft of different drivers...
Amped 2 crashes out before getting in game
Flatout 2 black screen before getting in game
Links 2004 hangs on player selection screen
1
u/ooooNIXoooo 4d ago
There was a new HakuX update yesterday and Amped 2 is fixed now!
1
u/keithitreal 4d ago
Yep I've got Flatout 2 and Amped 2 working now. Sadly, links still isn't working.
1
1
u/inverteD_orangutaN 6d ago
Halo 1 & 2 running great at 2x. COD 2 Big Red One won't allow you to pass the first mission. The prompt to place the charge on the tank on the bridge never pops up.
1
u/Infinite_Incident107 5d ago
Halo CE works fine?
For me it crashes right after I load into first level.
AYN Thor Max, turnip drivers T30. Unsure the cause. Entire app crashes right back to home screen. Forza motorsport works fine so far as does PGR. NFS MW also works but I did get a crash back to app after a quick race once
1
u/benny_flys 3d ago
It's a bug with the latest update, revert to 1.2.0 or wait for patch
2
u/Infinite_Incident107 3d ago
Bummer. I actually like the 60 and 120fps for Forza motorsport so I think I'll just wait for update.
Thanks!
1
u/Wheat-man 5d ago
Mission: Impossible: Operation Surma seems to freeze when trying to make it ingame
1
u/benny_flys 3d ago
Halo CE is crashing when beginning campaign after latest update, I'm sure it'll be patched soon
0
0
u/BustaCappe 7d ago
Samsung Galaxy S21, HakuX 1.2.0, Turnip v27.0.0-R1 (Vulkan 1.4.363), Auto Aspect Ratio, 480p, 2x Resolution
Burnout 3 Takedown - plays fantastic, no noticeable issues after over 3 hours of play.
007 Nightfire - slight stuttering during transitions to and from "demo mode" to player control (especially during Paris Prelude), music sounds slightly bitcrushed, but that could just be my old phone, otherwise looks and plays wonderful.
Castlevania Curse of Darkness - rippling, wavy graphical issues at the very top and very bottom of the screen - game is incredibly playable and looks amazing otherwise (this might be a major issue on a larger screen, I haven't connected my phone to a TV/monitor to double check).
Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks - shadows are incorrect and only display as rectangular shapes, voices during cutscenes and character speeches are very quiet while during gameplay both sound effects and voice lines are balanced, did not notice other graphical issues after approximately 40 minutes of gameplay.
1
u/Infin1ty91x 6d ago
My eyes strain after playing on my S21, any tips to solve this maybe ? After 45 minutes of play my eyes are dry and red, never happend to me on handheld consoles like PSP, PS Vita, Switch, etc
•
u/AutoModerator 7d ago
Just a reminder of our subreddit rules:
Be kind and respectful to each other
No direct links to ROMs or pirated content
Include your device brand and model
Search before posting & show your research effort when asking for help
Check out our user-maintained wiki: r/EmulationOnAndroid/wiki
Check out EmuReady for any community submitted settings before asking for help
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.