As someone who grew up with the Saints Row games, I still think that the original Saints Row is the most comforting. The game still has the best atmosphere in the series where you feel like you are a part of Stilwater, not the center of it. Part of it has to do with it being Volition's first go at the series and 7th generation hardware. Unfortunately, Saints Row was released in a weird period in gaming, when many publishers did not want to release their games on PC due to fear of piracy, This is mainly why many games such as The Darkness and Skate stayed stuck on hardware from 2005. Thankfully, we don't need to worry about this anymore thanks to emulation!

In order to get started, you will need...

• Saints Row ISO/Loose Files
  
• Xenia Canary[github.com] (Controller), Xenia Canary Mousehook[github.com] (KBM), or Xenia Manager[github.com] (Recommended)
  
• Keyboard Button Prompts[www.saintsrowmods.com] (Mousehook)
  
• Xenia Canary Game Patches[github.com]
  
• Saints Row TU1[digiex.net]
  
• Saints Row DLC (Optional)

Unfortunately, I cannot supply the Saints Row files or DLC, so you will have to either burn the disc to your PC or find them online.

Xenia Manager is a program that allows you to manage Xenia in a much more convenient fashion, like RPCS3. It allows you to download both Xenia Canary and Xenia Mousehook, on top of configuring the settings of each without a problem.

• Download Xenia Manager and unzip xenia_manager.zip
  
• Place the folder outside your downloads folder and boot up XeniaManager.DesktopApp.exe
  
• Click the plus icon on the top right and direct it to your XEX or ISO file
  Note: [If you are on Linux, copy and paste the path to your games. Then, add a Z: to the start of the path and replace all slashes with backslashes (/ -> \) [EX: Z:\user\blah\blah\Saints_Row.iso]
  
• Select the Xenia Settings tab, and verify these settings
  Max Queued Frames: 4
  Scaling and Sharpening: AMD FSR
  Protect Zero Page: Off
  Title Updates: On
  Game Patches: On
  
• Go back to Home and right-click Saints Row, select Patches>Download Patches
  
• Download and install the patch with [TU1], verify these settings
  Unlock FPS: On
  Havok Fix: On
  
• Right-click Saints Row, select Content>Install DLC/Updates and install your DLC and title update

Congratulations! You should now be able to plug in a controller and launch Saints Row!

NOTE: If you are on Windows, you can skip this section

In order to run Xenia Canary or Mousehook on Linux, we need to install either the Heroic Games Launcher or Lutris. It is up to personal preference, or whatever you have installed, but for the sake of example I'll be using Heroic. The same process applies to Xenia Mousehook.

• Open Heroic Games Launcher and click ADD GAME
  
• Change the Wine version to Proton/ProtonGE under Show Wine Settings
  
• In Select Executable, point to the path of xenia_canary.exe
  
• After clicking finish, right click the listing and select Settings
  
• In Wine, scroll down and click on RUN EXE ON PREFIX, then install Visual C++ 2015-2022[aka.ms]
  
• In Other, turn off BattlEye AntiCheat Runtime and EasyAntiCheat Runtime

Great! Xenia is now set up, simply continue below.

Before you get started, I would recommend putting your Xenia Canary and Saints Row ISO is respective folders. Anywhere outside of your downloads folder is a good idea. If you want to play Saints Row like god intended (with a controller), download Xenia Canary. Otherwise, if you want to play Saints Row with a keyboard and mouse, download Xenia Canary Mousehook.

1. Extract game-patches.zip and place the patches folder in the Xenia Canary directory.
   
2. Open the patches folder and open 545107D1 - Saints Row (TU1).patch.toml
   
3. For Unlock FPS, Skip Intros, and Havok Physics FPS Fix, make sure is_enabled = true
   Note: If you are going to be playing on keyboard and mouse, make sure Disable Auto Aim has is_enabled = true and Enable Debug Console has is_enabled = false
   
4. Go back to your Xenia Canary directory and open xenia-canary.config.toml or xenia-canary-mousehook.config.toml
   
5. Make sure that apu_max_queued_frames = 3, protect_zero = false, and render_target_path_d3d12 = "rtv"
   Linux Note: Make sure you are rendering with D3D12 and NOT Vulkan
   
6. Open xenia_canary.exe and go to File>Install Content, then select your Saints Row title update and DLC to install it
   
7. Open xenia_canary.exe and go to File>Open and select either your Saints Row ISO file or default.xex file
   Linux Note: You may need to start the path with Z: and change every forward slash to a backslash, only if you don't have a mnt folder. (Z:\Stilwater PD Hard Drive\Xenia Games\Saints Row\default.xex)

Congratulations! You can go ahead and play Saints Row!

Now if you like convenience or needing to let your friends know you're playing Saints Row, this part of the guide is for you!

1. Click the Add a Game button on the bottom right of Steam.
   
2. Click Browse and select xenia_canary.exe, then click Add Selected Programs.
   
3. Go to your library and right click it on steam, then select properties.
   
4. Rename it to Saints Row.
   
5. In Target, point to the path of your xenia_canary.exe first, then the path of your Saints Row ISO/XEX file. (EX: "C:\Users\Playa\Misc\Xenia Canary\xenia_canary.exe" "E:\Xbox 360 Games\Saints Row\default.xex")
   
6. Make sure that the Start In folder is your Xenia Canary directory. (EX: C:\Users\Playa\Misc\Xenia Canary)
   The game should now launch through steam, but we still need to make it look good.
   
7. Grab some art from SteamGridDB[www.steamgriddb.com]
   
8. Right click all the missing art (Icon, Hero, Logo, Etc) and assign it accordingly.

Congratulations, you now have Saints Row on PC! This is probably as good as it will get for a while, so go ahead and relive 2006 in Stilwater.

If you wanna go crazy with console commands, have fun![www.fl1ppy.com]