hakuX Setup Guide
Table of contents
Best devices for XBOX on Android
If you’re curious what the best devices are, here’s a few of my top picks:
- Snapdragon 8 Elite Device! AYN Odin 3 – (Review)
- Best All-Rounder Device! AYN Odin 2 Portal – (Review)
- Dual Screen Device! AYN Thor – (Review)
What is hakuX?
HakuX is an Android fork of X1 BOX, which is a fork of XEMU – the emulator that let’s you play XBOX games on PC.
ROMs
Alright, now before we actually start the setup, you’re going to need Microsoft XBOX games, of course.
I would suggest simply creating a ROMs folder on your internal storage or your SD card if you’re using one and then a xbox folder inside of it, as that’s where we’re going to put our games.
ROMs should be in a ISO or XISO format – if you have them as ZIP or 7Z, they need to be extracted, they will not work.
BIOS
BIOS files are mandatory for hakuX to work properly.
Think of BIOS files as system files the emulator needs to work correctly.
For BIOS, you will need three files:
- Flash ROM – Complex_4627.bin or Complex_4627v1.03.bin
- MCPX Boot ROM – mcpx_1.0.bin
- XBOX Hard Drive Image – xbox_hdd.qcow2
For how to organize these files, I would create a BIOS folder inside of your ROMs folder from earlier, and then a subfolder called xbox.
Throw all of the above files right inside of there.
I can’t help with where to get these files, but a simple Google search of the file name should get you to the right spot.
Installing hakuX
Alright, at this point, let’s finally install hakuX.
Head to the hakuX Github, and download the latest release (app-release.apk).
Just grab whatever the latest is – you can see the Latest tag next to the title if you’re unsure.
Once you’ve installed it, go ahead and open it.
First thing we need to do is tell hakuX where your MCPX ROM is, so click Choose MCPX ROM and if you followed my earlier advice, navigate to your ROMs folder > BIOS > xbox > mcpx_1.0.bin file.
Click Next.
Now we have to do the same thing, but with the Flash ROM, so click Choose Flash ROM and navigate to your ROMs folder > BIOS > xbox > Complex_4627.bin or Complex_4627v1.03.bin file.
Click Next.
Then we have to do it once again with the Hard Disk, so click Choose Hard Disk and navigate to your ROMs folder > BIOS > xbox > xbox_hdd.qcow2 file.
Click Next.
Lastly, we have to tell hakuX where your XBOX games are located, so click Choose Games Folder and if you followed my advice earlier, navigate to your ROMs folder > xbox folder and Use this folder.
Click Finish.
You should now see your games start to populate on screen.
Settings
Click the Settings icon top right.
hakuX Data
Not many reasons to jump in here, but if you move your games folder or want to use other BIOS files, you can adjust them here.
Graphics
I would leave everything as default currently, but if you’re using a 4:3 device instead of 16:9, change Aspect Ratio from Auto to your aspect ratio.
For GPU Driver, if you’re using a Snapdragon device, I would highly suggest using a custom driver.
This is a fairly advanced topic as custom drivers are finicky, but you can find the ones for your device here: https://github.com/StevenMXZ/Adreno-Tools-Drivers/releases.
Then, just choose Install Driver from ZIP and choose your custom driver ZIP to use it.
Debug
If you want to turn on or off your frame rate information, turn on/off Show FPS counter.
Per-Game Settings
You might have noticed that we didn’t really change many settings, and that’s because for XBOX emulation, you’ll want to do things on a per-game basis.
So, on the Game Library screen, push and hold on a game and choose Game Settings.
Now, any settings here only affect this specific game.
So it’s a good way to play around with graphic settings and more to fix any problem games and avoid breaking other games.