Homebrew Would a Nintendo 64 Emulator be possible?

[Wolfy]

What boggles my mind is that there is still people that want to play games that are from the 90's on a handheld system that can handle games that look and play 20x better. There's better games now, I understand people want to play old games but still. Just play newer games and enjoy those while you have them..

There comes a time in everyone's life, such as now when things like this need to be said, This generation........Sucksssss( sometimes ), old games have way more replay value than most games today, just because a game looks better means nothing if the rest of it is complete garbage. And how many old games do you see with constant bugs? *cough cough, Arkham Knight*

 

[izy]

the SNES would require at least 3GHz for accurate emulation at good framerates.

Welp thats gonna be someones signature
Considering that the snes ran a 3.5mhz cpu thats some big hype you are playing with.

I mean the PsP could emulate what you just stated accurately with no frameskip at 333mhz, it literally just comes down to optimizing the Emulator itself for the hardware running it.

Hell i could run Ocarina of time N64 Emulator at 720p with a full 2gb texture pack (which hits performance) on a 2.2ghz core 2 duo and a 9200m GS at native speeds.
Without the texture pack cpu usage was sub 1ghz

Maybe think about what you are saying lol

Brb getting out my i7 to play some hardcore Snes games lul

 

[Quantumcat]

What boggles my mind is that there is still people that want to play games that are from the 90's on a handheld system that can handle games that look and play 20x better. There's better games now, I understand people want to play old games but still. Just play newer games and enjoy those while you have them..

Graphics don't make a good game. There's no game out today that has the same magic as Banjo Kazooie or Donkey Kong 64.

 

[Wolfy]

Graphics don't make a good game. There's no game out today that has the same magic as Banjo Kazooie or Donkey Kong 64.

Apparently, "magic" is too expensive these days to be included.

 

[Xenosaiga]

Apparently, "magic" is too expensive these days to be included.

Magic is the DLC add on pack that costs $49.99 for the sarson pass.

 

[Juiss]

Welp thats gonna be someones signature
Considering that the snes ran a 3.5mhz cpu thats some big hype you are playing with.

I mean the PsP could emulate what you just stated accurately with no frameskip at 333mhz, it literally just comes down to optimizing the Emulator itself for the hardware running it.

Hell i could run Ocarina of time N64 Emulator at 720p with a full 2gb texture pack (which hits performance) on a 2.2ghz core 2 duo and a 9200m GS at native speeds.
Without the texture pack cpu usage was sub 1ghz

Maybe think about what you are saying lol

Brb getting out my i7 to play some hardcore Snes games lul

Just to give you an idea of how much more powerful we're talking, the SNES would require at least 3GHz for accurate emulation at good framerates.

Maybe I shouldn't have assumed everyone here was of at least average intelligence and specified I meant perfect hardware emulation.

 

[cvskid]

Maybe I shouldn't have assumed everyone here was of at least average intelligence and specified I meant perfect hardware emulation.

Didn't think there was a such thing as perfect since it isn't the original hardware the games are being played on.

 

[Wolfy]

Didn't think there was a such thing as perfect since it isn't the original hardware the games are being played on.

So does that also apply to Gamecube games on the Wii?

 

[cvskid]

So does that also apply to Gamecube games on the Wii?

With the wii, certain ones the gamecube is built inside of it with controller ports and memorycard ports so i think that has the original hardware built inside of it but no n64 parts are built inside of the 3ds so its emulation right?

 

[Wolfy]

With the wii, certain ones the gamecube is built inside of it with controller ports and memorycard ports so i think that has the original hardware built inside of it but no n64 parts are built inside of the 3ds so its emulaiton right?

Then what about WiiU's Nintendon't playing Gamecube games on there?

 

[cvskid]

Then what about WiiU's Nintendon't playing Gamecube games on there?

lol got me on that one. Curious about it myself. Could be wrong about it though so feel free to correct me as i would like to know.

 

[Wolfy]

lol got me on that one. Curious about it myself. Could be wrong about it though so feel free to correct me as i would like to know.

The problem with being able to play another console's game on any other console is that you only need to fulfill some requirements...

1. The hardware emulating the game must be fast enough to handle it along with anything else it keeps running in the background.
2. A thorough understanding of how both consoles and how the games are handled.
3. A considerable amount of time depending on the platform to create a piece of software to run it and a way to allow the software to run on the console.

 

[Juiss]

Didn't think there was a such thing as perfect since it isn't the original hardware the games are being played on.

Well obviously there's no such thing as perfect when it comes to emulation, let's not argue semantics though

Then what about WiiU's Nintendon't playing Gamecube games on there?

The Wii was basically just a beefed up GameCube and the Wii U has specific hardware to run in vWii mode so running GameCube games shouldn't be a problem in theory (and it isn't).
That's how I understand it, but I might be wrong.

 

[dubbz82]

Welp thats gonna be someones signature
Considering that the snes ran a 3.5mhz cpu thats some big hype you are playing with.

I mean the PsP could emulate what you just stated accurately with no frameskip at 333mhz, it literally just comes down to optimizing the Emulator itself for the hardware running it.

Hell i could run Ocarina of time N64 Emulator at 720p with a full 2gb texture pack (which hits performance) on a 2.2ghz core 2 duo and a 9200m GS at native speeds.
Without the texture pack cpu usage was sub 1ghz

Maybe think about what you are saying lol

Brb getting out my i7 to play some hardcore Snes games lul

Here's the truth of it, the part that you quoted actually isn't far from the truth, if you're talking cycle accurate emulation (which I'm guessing is what the intent was with "accurate" emulation). This may seem overkill for some, but there's others that won't touch emulation unless it IS in fact cycle accurate. bsnes/higan do in fact require some pretty heavy duty (comparatively) cpu power to play stuff reasonably smoothly. I don't recall if it's in fact 3ghz or not, but I know it DOES require at least a 2ghz dual core (maybe better) cpu to run fullspeed. We likely won't ever see THIS happen on the 3ds, however many people still consider less accurate (but still "good enough") emulation to be sufficient, and that we can probably pull off pretty well on the 3ds.

tl;dr: the post you quoted wasn't as laughable as you might think it is.

Im sorry i assumed people you had the intelligence to realise that perfect HARDWARE emulation would actually require HARDWARE.

We do have hardware acceleration that help but having software,speed and compatibility is entireley a different

Now maybe perfect software emulation of the consoles operating parameters and games at an accurate level with speed, well thats an entirely different matter.

But still saying that a SNES requires a 3ghz cpu for 1:1 emulation is a nice very large overstatement.

Basically that roughly translates to saying for accurate gamcube emulation (486mhz cpu) would require over 400ghz

Yet you could accurately get perfect software emulation on dual cores sub 3ghz.

You can see emulators run like shit on the most extreme of hardware or you can see them run butter smooth on the most minimal of devices

(because like i said it mainly due to the optimization of the emulator which is the bigger performance hit)


Heres a littly example look at any emulator in the beginning stages, hell look at the PSP n64 Emulator as poor as it is, it couldnt even run games with graphics when it first came out, now it can at least run certain games like mario 64 at a playable framerate 30fps even if the audio was buggy.


Look at the dolphin emulator, the amount of coding and optimzation that has had over the years, its miles ahead of what its capable off on the same hardware it was using 4 years ago.

And back then i was capable of playing wii games at 1080p and 60fps on a 2.6 ghz quad core and a gtx 280
Which by your standards shouldnt even be capable of playing native resolution at a lower performance rate


Also if you dont want to argue about the word being used in THAT context DONT use it in that context you git


So unless you are trying to run your emulators from potato 3ghz is OVERKILL

On notes of your gamecube comparison, it doesn't necessarily work like that (although we VERY likely would need a machine that's FAR more powerful than anything that's actually on the market right now to get cycle accurate gamecube emulation). Emulation requirements don't scale directly based on the mhz speed of the machine you're emulating, but fluctuate based on a number of factors, including hardware similarities on the hardware you're running the emulator on. It's hard to say WHAT the hardware requirements for a cycle accurate gamecube emulator would actually be, but nothing consumer grade currently would likely get you very far, which is why no one's taken a stab at it (heck, even cycle accurate n64 emulation won't play full speed on most higher end machines right now, using cen64)

 

[Juiss]

I don't recall if it's in fact 3ghz or not, but I know it DOES require at least a 2ghz dual core (maybe better) cpu to run fullspeed.

Homepage says "Intel Core-series processor", so I'm not really sure either, but considering Exodus (Genesis) requires 2.8GHz minimum and recommends at least 3.4GHz I think it's safe to assume it should be around the same for SNES emulation.

 

[izy]

Yea obviously, why are you people so obsessed with my use of the word perfect though? My original statement said accurate, as in cycle accurate.
Do you own a PC with a sub 3GHz CPU? If so try Higan and tell me how it went.


Exactly, Dolphin is pretty fucking far from being cycle accurate, that's why it's playable.
Also I'm not sure I understand what the fuck you're trying to say, can you like, actually try to sentence

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

So from your latest edit I can see you have no idea what I (and by extension you) are talking about.

higan is a Nintendo multi-system emulator that began development on 2014-10-14. It currently supports the following systems:

Im sorry tell me how optimized an emulator will be when its focusing on trying to accurately emulate 5 consoles and 3 sub systems.
Give him a few years and i bet you he could drop the CPU requirement for what you are wanting (btw how anal can you be mentioning this kinda stuff when people want to just play games)

there is also a major difference between one person trying to make an optimal emulator and has only been doing it for just a year compared to say dolphin which has been constantly under development by multiple people since 2003 so 13 years.

Dolphin could probably have perfect cycle emulation on all its games by now, hell i bet it does on quite a few at native resolution.

But considering the fact they can upscale the content and use custom textures to have FAR better visuals and also double the frame rate of the original games then of course they are not going to hit that, they can easily just make older games fit in with newer visuals.

But hey if you really wanted to be that accurate better get out the CRT

But hey are we going to argue all day on how this isnt possible because it isnt perfectly accurate for you delicate eyes ( better get out the audiophile gear i can hear my game crackle every 60 seconds)

Or more importantly can we discuss how its actually possible to get working emulator even if wee baby cycles cannot be perfect we can actually get a playable framerate if it was done even if it isnt 100% you can still get 90%+

 

[dubbz82]

higan is a Nintendo multi-system emulator that began development on 2014-10-14. It currently supports the following systems:

Im sorry tell me how optimized an emulator will be when its focusing on trying to accurately emulate 5 consoles and 3 sub systems.
Give him a few years and i bet you he could drop the CPU requirement for what you are wanting (btw how anal can you be mentioning this kinda stuff when people want to just play games)

there is also a major difference between one person trying to make an optimal emulator and has only been doing it for just a year compared to say dolphin which has been constantly under development by multiple people since 2003 so 13 years.

Dolphin could probably have perfect cycle emulation on all its games by now, hell i bet it does on quite a few at native resolution.

But considering the fact they can upscale the content and use custom textures to have FAR better visuals and also double the frame rate of the original games then of course they are not going to hit that, they can easily just make older games fit in with newer visuals.

But hey if you really wanted to be that accurate better get out the CRT

See the edits to my above post. Cycle accurate doesn't mean what you think it does.

 

[izy]

See the edits to my above post. Cycle accurate doesn't mean what you think it does.

Yeah i know many factors play into getting perfect cycles but hey we can still get playable framerates, on lower end systems even with these factors, you wont even see these discrepancies 99% of the time if you are at accurate speeds, you only have to be truly ANAL to care about perfect cycles

Its like do you want perfect cycles in which you wont see the minor glitches which you would notice unless you REALLY focused on them.

Or do you want your emulator to have a cycles skips yet play at full speed and have no graphical issues that you would see in the first place because they are so minor that and having a large amount of devices being capable or using your software

this is basically like arguing with an audiophile on how you need a £3000 sound setup to hear those lower frequencies that the human ear wouldnt pickup if you were listening for the enjoyment instead of spending 100% of you focus trying to find.

tl;dr stop trying to be mr anal on perfection, you wont notice it if you focus on having fun

 

[pdapanda]

Since when emulation means "accurate emulation"? If you just want a N64 emulator which runs，I‘m sure New 3DS is enough to handle it，with its 804Mhz quardcore. People claimed that a PSX emulator on New 3DS is Impossible a few months ago, but we have a PSX emulator now. The problem is just if there are talented developers want to make such thing happen,rather than to think the things too difficult.

 

[dubbz82]

Since when emulation means "accurate emulation"? If you just want a N64 emulator which runs，I‘m sure New 3DS is enough to handle it，with its 804Mhz quardcore. People claimed that a PSX emulator on New 3DS is Impossible a few months ago, but we have a PSX emulator now. The problem is just if there are talented developers want to make such thing happen,rather than to think the things too difficult.

N64 emulation isn't even all that good on PC...