macXenos is an unofficial macOS port of Xenia Canary, maintained by dmg, an occasional Mac YouTuber and developer. Point it at your own Xbox 360 discs or extracted game folders, plug in a controller, and play, on Intel and Apple Silicon alike.
macXenos features a completely native Metal pixel pipeline, ported from Xenia Canary and Edge with a focus on stability, compatibility, performance and power.
Patreon pays for signing, notarization, test hardware and build infrastructure. Supporters get signed builds first.
Support on PatreonmacXenos features a completely native Metal pixel pipeline, ported from Xenia Canary and Edge with a focus on stability, compatibility, performance, and power.
macXenos is an unofficial macOS fork and port of Xenia Canary with a few tweaks from Xenia Edge. The foundational research and discovery are credited to the Xenia, Xenia Canary, and Xenia Edge contributors; this project covers only the Mac-specific work.
Out of respect for the Xenia projects, I’ve picked a name related to Xenia. Xenia is the concept of hospitality to strangers, likely a play on Xenos, which means “Stranger” or “Foreigner”. It’s also the codename of the GPU in the Xbox 360. This port largely focuses on the graphics API, hence macXenos.
The work is translating the graphics pipeline onto Metal, and the harder job of running PowerPC on ARM64 when Canary was written for x86-64. It follows the Linux build closely, since that path already uses Vulkan and SDL2.
An app you open, point at a game you own, and play. Underneath sits the usual emulator work: JIT memory, Darwin faults, Vulkan surfaces, native menus, audio, input, saves, fullscreen, and packaging.
Landing the recompiler’s cache reliably underneath macOS ASLR.
Current engineering focus
Toggling W^X the way Apple Silicon requires, without stalling.
Current engineering focus
Guest memory faults and illegal instruction traps, legible again.
Current engineering focus
Rendering routes MoltenVK can actually present on Metal.
Current engineering focus
The port keeps upstream Canary intact wherever it can. Almost all of the Mac-specific work lands in three places: graphics, platform, and the two CPU targets.
Graphics · Vulkan → Metal
Xenia Canary’s Vulkan backend stays intact. MoltenVK bridges Vulkan to Metal, so the port avoids writing and maintaining a second renderer.
Platform · window · input · audio
SDL2 carries the practical macOS pieces: windowing, controllers, and audio, with native system affordances layered on where they belong.
Targets · x86-64 · arm64
Intel targets x86-64 directly. Apple Silicon work points at the existing arm64 backend and a Universal-style build that covers both.
Mac deltas live in the port layer, not scattered through Canary.
One Vulkan path serves Linux and macOS through MoltenVK.
macXenos is an independent, one-developer effort. Patreon covers the ongoing macOS work: Apple Developer Program fees, test hardware, tooling, signing, notarization, and build infrastructure.
Supporters get signed and notarized builds, early access to releases, and development updates. That support funds the macOS port and its maintenance, not the Xenia or Xenia Canary projects themselves.
Early builds and development updates.
dmg, occasional Mac YouTuber.
macXenos is based on Xenia Canary and stays as close to it as practical. Credit for the emulator itself belongs to the Xenia and Xenia Canary contributors.
The original emulator project.
The upstream codebase for this port.
The latest development log, on Patreon.
An earlier development log, on Patreon.
An older development log, on Patreon.
Unofficial macOS port based on Xenia Canary. For games you legally own. Not affiliated with Microsoft or the Xenia project.