Xenoblade Chronicles

Xenoblade Chronicles
Developer(s)	Monolith Soft
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Series	Xeno
Release date(s)	JP June 10, 2010 EU August 19, 2011 NA April 6, 2012
Genre(s)	Action, Role-playing
Mode(s)	Single-player
Input methods	Wii Remote + Nunchuk, Classic Controller
Compatibility	4
See also...	Dolphin Forum thread Search Google Search Wikipedia Translations ▼ 中文(中国) Česky Español Deutsch ﻑﺍﺮﺳی Français 日本語 한국어 Nederlands Polski Português Русский Svenska Türkçe

Xenoblade Chronicles, known in Japan as Xenoblade (ゼノブレイド, Zenobureido), is a console role-playing game published by Nintendo and developed by Monolith Soft for the Wii. With the Xeno series traditionally being a PlayStation exclusive, Xenoblade is the first of the series to make it to a Nintendo console. Originally not intended to be released in North America, a massive fan movement called Operation Rainfall convinced Nintendo to publish it in more regions.

The game follows a young man named Shulk, who wields the titular Xenoblade – an energy blade called the Monado – against the Mechon in order to ultimately save the world. The game world is designed to give the feeling of freedom and scope to the player; the environment is massive and most of it is available for exploration right from the start. Xenoblade uses a real time battle system, allowing the player to control his movement and attacks at will while party members attack automatically.

Patches

30 FPS Patch for PAL

There is a patch to make the PAL version run at 30 FPS rather than its default 25 FPS. This makes gameplay smoother and matches the original JAP version's 30 FPS. Download the patch here. You may wish to back up your original .iso game image before applying the patch.

• NOTE: You should only apply this patch if you can maintain a stable 25 FPS.

XBox 360 Button Icons

A texture pack has been made to allow the user to replace all Wii button icons in the game with XBox 360 icons. The pack contains one NTSC pack and three different PAL XBox 360 button icon types. A forum post with pictures on the Xenoblade Dolphin forum thread can be found here. The file can be downloaded here. Be sure to install whichever pack to your Dolphin install directory. Also, you MUST click "Load Custom Textures" under the "Advanced" tab of the "Graphics" configuration window.

Problems

Audio

Xenoblade Chronicles is a very sound-intensive game, so the most common emulation problems relate to sound stutter, choppy voices during cutscenes, and random crackles and pops in the music and in menus. The sound issues occur for most whether using XAudio2 or DSound. Using the LLE sound plugin will improve it, but the main factor appears to be what build is used.

There are hacks available to address the sound issues, which should allow HLE to operate with no audio problems. They can be found on the old forum thread for the game, and the xenoblade HLE audio hack fix thread.

Missing screenshots when saving game

When saving/loading game, screenshots next to a save file will not show correctly. Set EFB Copies to RAM to fix this.

Configuration

Only configuration options for the best compatibility are listed. Please see the performance guide for an overview of performance related settings. A full list of options is available at Template:Config/doc

Graphics

Config	Setting	Notes
EFB Copies	RAM	This needs to be enabled for screenshots to show up when saving/loading game

Audio

Config	Setting	Notes
DSP Emulator Engine	LLE	Resolves sound distortion issues

Version Compatibility

The graph below charts the compatibility with Xenoblade Chronicles since Dolphin's 2.0 release, listing revisions only where a compatibility change occurred. Compatibility can be assumed to align with the indicated revisions. However, compatibility may extend to prior revisions or compatibility gaps may exist within ranges indicated as compatible due to limited testing. Please update as appropriate.

3.5-1381 (current)

2.0 (r5350)

r6880

Testing

This game has been tested on the environments listed below:

Test Entries
Revision	OS Version	CPU	GPU	Result	Tester
r7714	Windows 7 x64	Phenom x4 965 @3.6GHz	ATI Radeon HD 4870	PAL version tested; Doesn't have crackling sound! But have random hiccups and doesn't support custom texture; Settings were JIT Recompiler, ENABLE Audio Throttle,Set FPS Limit to 25,VBEAM ON,Block merging ON,Directsound/48000Hz,when ever cpu tries to up/down FPS limit and audio throttle fast correct it preventing any crackling sounds have Creative Audigy 2 ZS sound card	IcemanSR
r7414	Windows 7 x64	Intel Core i5-2500K @ 4.5GHz	nVidia GeForce GTX 480	PAL version tested; Perfect apart from very rare sound popping and crackling and very brief load stutter upon entering new areas; Used www.xtemu.com x64 build; Settings were JITIL Recompiler, Lock Threads to Cores, Disable Audio Throttle, XAudio2/48000Hz, have Creative X-Fi sound card	Brumbek
r7414	Windows 7 x64	Intel Core i5-520M @ 2.4GHz	nVidia GeForce GT 330M	PAL version tested; Very playable, sound is a bit choppy when in battles with a lot of enemies; Game runs between 75% and 100% speed. No crashes at approximately 4 hours of gameplay	Thunderbolt
3.0	Windows 7 x64	AMD Phenom II x3 720 @ 3.5GHz	nVidia GeForce GTX 460	PAL version tested; DX11 1080p (Auto x 640x528) with constant 25 FPS; Some rare sound crackling; Lock Threads to Cores, Load Native Mipmaps, EFB Scaled Copy, Copy EFB (Texture), Accurate Texture Cache (Safe), Disable Audio Throttle, HLE Dsound/48000Hz	Sergio-Miguel
3.0	Arch Linux x86_64	AMD Phenom X6 @ 3.3GHz	nVidia GeForce GTX 460	PAL version tested; Only problems were encountered with the sound, the rest of the game works perfect.	Istar Eldritch
3.0	Mac OS 10.7.2 Lion	Intel Core i7 @ 2.93GHz	ATI Radeon HD 5750	PAL version tested; Both background music and cut scene voices crackle occasionally. Lots of tinkering with audio settings to reduce occurrence, e.g. using LLE, disabling audio throttle, etc. Patched to 30 FPS works great.	Dantiston
r7714	Windows 7 x64	Intel Core i5-2500K @ 3.3GHz	AMD Radeon HD 6870	PAL version; Beat the game, it's fully playable, I rarely got the sound distortion, but it resolves itself. The game gets pretty laggy in some battles towards the end of the game. Settings are: D3D9; No-AA (as it causes issues with the game); EFB copies: Virtual and RAM; OpenMP Texture Decoder; and HLE audio with Dsound back-end. JIT compiler.	Garteal
r7714	Windows Vista x64	Intel Core i5-750 @ 4GHz	nVidia GeForce GTX 460	PAL version tested; Few cutscenes have crackling sound.	X
r7719	Windows 7 x64	Intel Core i5-2500K @ 3.3GHz	nVidia GeForce GTX 580	PAL version tested; Plays nearly perfect. Lightning issues with DX11, plays fine with D3D9. Sound distortion occasionally presents with LLE, restarting the game corrects the issue. Use same general settings as Brumbek.	Wolfi
r7719	Windows 7 x64	Intel Core i7-920 @ 3.2GHz	nVidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti	PAL version tested; Plays nearly perfect. Sound distortion is still present and prominent during battles. Happens occasionally during cutscenes. Turning on DSP LLE may or may not fix issue. Use same general settings as Brumbek.	Getz2oo3
r7719	Windows 7 x86	Intel Core i5-480M @ 2.67GHz	nVidia GeForce GT 540M	PAL version tested; Here's my settings: Enable Audio Throttle, JIT Recompiler, Uncheck Lock Threads to Cores, DSP HLE Emulation, DSound(48000Hz), Backend(Direct3D9), Anti-Aliasing(None), Anisotropic Filtering(1x), Uncheck Disable at EFB Copies, Uncheck RAM at EFB Copies, Check Disable at External Frame Buffer, and Check OpenMP Texture Decoder; Now game runs fine from 20 to 25 FPS but I was still not contented; Patched the ISO using the PPF-O-MATIC v3.0 to make the PAL version run up to 30 FPS; Taskkill(explorer.exe) using the ".bat" method; Used the Game Booster 3.0 by IObit; Now game runs surely from 22 to 30 FPS and most of the time with constant 25 FPS except when you reach Alcamoth where the environment gets heavy; You will hear crackling sounds when FPS goes below 20 or 23.	Vehn Dreakk
3.0-201	Windows 7 x64	Intel Core i7 920 @ 3.80 GHz	ATI Radeon HD 5850	PAL version tested; Had some issues with the sound at first using English dialogue, but for some reason this did not occur when setting it to Japanese in the Game Options. It did not always occur however. Other than that the game runs flawless so far.	xRyudo
r3.0-72 HLE Hack	Windows 7 x64	Intel Core i7-875k @ 2.93GHz	ATI Radeon HD 5850	PAL patched to 30 FPS; 40+ hours in the game. Only one very minor issue : the screenshot next to your save games doesn't appear correctly. Otherwise, as far as I can tell, graphics and audio are perfect. No crackling sound at all, which was the purpose of this HLE Hack build. FPS Limit off, JIT recompiler, lock threads to core, HLE, Enable audio throttle, DSound, Direct3D9.	Tech
3.0-204	Windows 7 x64	Intel Core e6600 @ 3.15GHz	ATI Radeon HD 5850	PAL patched to 30 FPS both tried fully; 9+ hours in the game. So, with 3GHz I generally had no overhead and every big situation could lead to crackling despite HLE Hack or LLE DSP, LLE DSP fared generally a lot more well, when I overclocked to 3.15GHz I had an overhead of about 20% which is nice, this could also because I had far lower memory timings 700MHz @3.15 with 5/5/5/13 (could lower even more, but tends to be more unstable, T2, could imagine T1 gives another speedup but is often very unstable with picky programs) with 3GHz I had 888MHz at 6/6/7/20 and with 2.4GHz I either use 800 or 1066MHz at respective settings. IdleSkipping ON, accurate Vbeam emulation ON (this one helped a lot) also OpenGL gives the best results for me with the least fuck ups and most accurate results, LLE is locked to core, also I assume that with a dual core clocked less than 3GHz you should disable Sound all together if your rig doesn't give you good results, this will also result in a big speedup, for me e6600 @ 3GHz wasn't playable with stable best looking settings and memory management but I still have to try out very low memory timings on less FSB, it could be viable because an increase of 150MHz from 3000 to 3150 shouldn't let me jump from 76/84/96-98% to an even 98-100% (114/126/140 without framelimit/throttle) in big locations or with dozens of monsters. Also patching the PAL version to 30 FPS doesn't seem to have a negative FPS impact whatsoever. Also don't cache display lists as it's sometimes needed, EFB copies are needed for caves and other locations (you can disable it safely and only have minor glitches, like no head but hair etcpp)	SunnySalvadore
3.0-363	Windows 7 x64	Intel Core i7 @ 3.07GHz	nVidia GeForce GTX 570	PAL patched to 30FPS. Runs PERFECTLY at fullspeed 99.5% of the time, some really short(<1sec) slowdowns when too many effects on screen. No sound bug/crackle using HLE on vlakipn build (using XAudio2). EFB to texture break save file thumbnail, set EFB to RAM to fix it but it's slower. SETTINGS : OpenGL back-end, NativeRes x4, AF x16, no AA, Scaled EFB to texture, safest texture cache, per pixel lighting enabled, forced texture filtering, OpenMP enabled, XFB disabled. Be careful not to let the controller disconnect, or you might be unable to reconnect it without closing! (Tested with X360 Wireless)	Skullbot
3.0-415	Windows 7 x64	Phenom x4 965 @3.6GHz	ATI Radeon HD 4870	PAL version tested; Sound works perfect! No hangups or slowdowns; Settings were JIT Recompiler,LLE Recompiler,Set FPS Limit to 25,VBEAM ON,Block merging ON,Directsound/48000Hz,It crashes when emulator is left unattended for 5-6 min's (when gamepad goes in afk mod),So save game before leaving it!Have Creative Audigy 2 ZS sound card.	IcemanSR
3.0-590	Windows 8 CP x64	Intel Core i5-2500K @ 3.3GHz	AMD Radeon HD 6950	PAL version tested; Perfect speed and sound with FPS limit by audio.	//
3.0-710	Windows 7 x64	AMD Athlon II 250 @ 3.8GHz	nVidia GeForce 9600GT	PAL version tested; Perfect.
3.0-801	Windows 7 x64	Intel Core i5-3570k @ 4.7	nVidia GeForce GTX 670	NTSC Version Tested. After many attempts at trying to find ideal settings, I've found the best I can at the moment. Using Enable Dual Core, Enable Idle Skipping, Limiter set to "Audio", JIT Recompiler, Threads locked to cores, DSP LLE, DSP LLE on thread, xAudio2/48000hz. Using the OpenGl backend at 1440p, 4x Native, 8xQ CSAA, 16x Anisotropic Filtering, "Scaled EFB Copy" Checked, "Per-pixel Lighting" Checked, EFB Copies set to "Texture", Texture cache set to the Safest, "External Frame Buffer" Disabled, "Per-Pixel Depth" Checked, "OpenCL Texture Decoder" Checked, "OpenMP Texture Decoder" Checked. Using the Xbox 360 Button replacement scheme via "Load Custom Textures" under advanced. Now the big thing that was keeping my performance held back was enabling Accurate VBeam emulation. With those set to the game defaults instead, the game went from 20-30 FPS (stuttering) to almost 30 constant. The first battle upon loading the game will have a framerate dip as the attacks as fired off, but it's smooth sailing for the most part after. Still not perfect, but it's hard to notice if the FPS meter isn't on. After maybe 3 hours of play in one sitting, the audio can become garbled and requires a restart of the emulator. Otherwise, even if the framerate drops, the audio just keeps on going perfectly. It's only happened once; I will update this page if it occurs again. (Even with 16xQ CSAA, the game runs at 30. I just can't notice the jump so I leave it at 8xQ. This game needs a more powerful CPU to be 30 constant at absolutely all times, unless there is a setting I've overlooked.) :D	Blitzxgene
3.0-845	Windows 7 x64	Intel Core i5-2500K @ 4GHz	AMD Radeon HD 5770	PAL version with 60 VPS patch and HLE Patch applied. Used DX9, 4x resolution, no AA, 16 AF, EFB copies to Texture. Fullspeed. No graphical issues except: 1. Flickering on very distant objects 2. Weird bloom scaling/ghosting on high internal resolutions (see issue 5781)	Animus
3.5-305	Windows 7 x64	Intel Core i3-2350K @ 2.3GHz	nVidia GeForce 410M	Playable 20-25 FPS (PAL), the two problems mentioned are still valid (stuttering audio + image backup overview)	Dratal
3.5-269	Win7 Home Prem x64, SP1	Core i5-2400 @ 3.10GHz	GeForce GTX 570, 1G VRAM, driver 306.97	Butter. Constant 30 fps, *except* for barely noticable pauses when entering new areas (texture access slowdown?) . No audio problems. Game config: check Enable Dual Core, uncheck Enable Idle Skipping, check Accurate VBeam, uncheck DSP HLE emulation. General config: Enable Dual Core, Framelimit - Audio, JIT Recompiler. Audio: DSP LLE recompiler, DSP LLE on Thread, XAudio. Graphics: D3D9, Fullscreen, Auto Aspect Ratio, 4x Native, 16x AI Filtering, Scaled EFB Copy, Ignore Format Changes, EFB Copies - RAM - Enable Cache, EFB On - Virtual. Anything not specifically listed is unchecked/turned off.	quaestor
3.5-367	Windows 7 x64	Intel Core i5 3570k @ 3.4GHz	nVidia GeForce 560 Ti 448	Played a few hours with NTSC version, works fine, audio is perfect with LLE and I have no slowdowns on my system without any advanced tweaking. HD textures and button textures work fine for me (remember to enable "load custom textures" in the video plugin).	Herpderpus

Gameplay Videos

Xenoblade PAL HD - A protective mother (Dolphin Emulator @ 720p)

Dolphin Emulator Xenoblade Chronicles HD 3D + Sweetfx

Xenoblade JP HD Gameplay 1B (Dolphin Emulator @ 720p)

• Xenoblade JP HD Gameplay 1A (Dolphin Emulator @ 720p)
• Xenoblade JP HD Gameplay 2 (Dolphin Emulator @ 720p)
• Xenoblade JP HD Gameplay 3 (Dolphin Emulator @ 720p)
• Xenoblade JP HD Gameplay 4 (Dolphin Emulator @ 720p)
• Xenoblade PAL HD Intro (Dolphin Emulator @ 1080p)
• Xenoblade PAL HD Gameplay 1 (Dolphin Emulator @ 720p)
• Xenoblade PAL HD Gameplay 2 (Dolphin Emulator @ 720p)
• Xenoblade PAL HD Gameplay 1 - Near start of game (Dolphin Emulator @ 720p)
• Xenoblade PAL HD Gameplay 2 - Continuation of Gameplay 1 (Dolphin Emulator @ 720p)
• Xenoblade Intro HD 1080p (Dolphin)