I take no responsibility for your actions, if you follow these guidelines and somehow break something, it's your fault. All emulators listed here are owned by their respective parties and are copyrighted as such.
Finding emulators:
The only hard part about installing emulators is finding the best ones. Personally, I found the best ones by downloading several and testing their features. All of these can be found on xbins. How do you get on xbins? Click here (This is the so called "usual places")
NES: fceultra
Genesis: neogenesis
Snes: Zsnesbox
GBA: Xboyadvanced
N64: Surreal64
These are all superb emulators and offer excellent quality.
Installing emulators:
This is extremely easy. FTP to your Xbox and look for a folder in E:\ named "Emulators". If has not been automatically created, create the folder. Simply drag and drop the downloaded emulator (ONE EMULATOR AT A TIME) into your folder. I say one at a time because FTP transfers will sometimes fail if your connection breaks. One failure can affect the entire transfer.
READ THIS BEFORE RUNNING ANY OF THE EMULATORS OR YOU WILL FUCK YOURSELF OVER.
A common problem is that your roms are not showing up. These emulators all look for roms in certain areas and can be modified to your needs. Assuming you have the stock hard drive, you have roughly 4 gigabytes free for whatever roms you want. To reduce clutter and make things easy, make a folder in E:/ named "roms" (no quotes). Then move further, you should have it setup something like this:
E:/roms/
E:/roms/nes/
E:/roms/snes/
etc
Remember, paths are CaSe SeNsItIvE
Open your Emulator and look for it's initialization file. (.ini) For example, lets look at neogenesis initialization file.(neogenesis.ini) Inside you will see this:
[GENERAL]
text_offset_x=0
text_offset_y=0
screenx=0
screeny=0
screenmaxx=640
screenmaxy=480
scroll_speed=10
skin=DEFAULT_NEOGENESIS
skin_dir=D:\EMUSKINS
rom_dir=E:\roms\gen <<<--- The rom directory, change this to E:\roms\gen
smbshare=SMB://ADMINISTRATOR@DVd/D$
smb_nameserver=
rlxshare=f:\@192.168.123.77:8989
etc...
Notice how they used forward slashes (/) instead of backslashes (\), different emulators use different styles, so make sure you go along with the emulator's setup.
Special configurations:
While some emulators need to edited before being ran, others will have you change the directory while playing it.
NES: fceultra: Can be configured in the program.
Genesis: neogenesis: ini file must be edited. (neogenesis.ini)
Snes: Zsnesbox: ini file must be edited. (path.ini)
GBA: Xboyadvanced: Can be configured in the program.
N64: Surreal64: This one is a bitch if you've ran it before as it will save your previous path. Make sure to edit surreal.ini
[Settings]
Rom Path=E:\roms\n64\
Media Path=D:\Media\
etc...
Stupid questions people often ask:
Q: I have a larger hard drive with an F:\ partition, how can I configure my paths?
A: Simply change the paths (EX: E:\roms\n64\ to F:\roms\n64\ )
As long as you have the folders in the right place, the emulator will find it.
Q: I'm some sort of idiot and have ran Surreal64 before configuring it, how do I delete it's saved path so it will look for my new settings in surreal.ini
A: Quoted from the Surreal help thread at Xbox-Scene: "If you have already ran Surreal64, then your ini was saved to the TDATA folder, and you have to edit it there.
/E/TDATA/a64fea57/Surreal.ini <-- That is the path to it. Simply edit that file right there to reflect the directory of your roms, and then launch the emu and hit the 'refresh' button in the lower right hand corner."
Q: Can you help me install these emulators?
A: Nope.
Q: Where can I find <insert game title here>?
A: I don't know.
Q: <insert game title here> won't load, how do I fix it?
A: Emulation is not perfect and will not always work. Expect a large amount of N64 games to malfunction or just not work properly. There is a full list of compatible games listed at Xbox-Scene: Click here
Q: I've heard that PS1 emulation is possible.
A: It has several quirks and you would find better advice elsewhere.