Will the PSP be powerful enough for a N64 emulator ?
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TekunoRobby
Tag of Excellence
IIRC I'm pretty sure the N64 has 4mb of video ram and 36mb of system ram while the PSP only has 2mb and 32 respectively. The PSP however has a 333mhz processor and the N64 has a paltry 93.75mhz (64bit Risc however). How much would that impact emulation I'm not sure to be honest but it's interesting nontheless.
Not exactly a fantastic spec sheet of the N64 but it works:
http://www.monmouth.com/~atorrone/ts.htm
http://www.vidgame.net/NINTENDO/N64.html
Not exactly a fantastic spec sheet of the N64 but it works:
http://www.monmouth.com/~atorrone/ts.htm
http://www.vidgame.net/NINTENDO/N64.html
TekunoRobby
Tag of Excellence
Yes I see what you mean, IGN has it listed as megabits as well.
JoshuaJSlone
Member
Word. If it's spotty on Xbox and even Nintendo's own emulator used for Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, I don't think it'd work so well on PSP.Hajaz said:
However, never say never. Doesn't seem like it works in a truly playable sense, but there's an SNES emulator GBA. So if a fairly crappy N64 emulator that ran a few things slowly on PSP turned up I wouldn't be surprised.
The Abominable Snowman
Member
If 1964 becomes open-source, or one of the main emu devs help with the project or do it themselves, then I'd say YES!. If my 500MHz laptop can run certain N64 games full speed, so can the PSP and it's dual 300MHz processors (May be faster, never checked).
The problem with N64 emulation on the Xbox is that the biggest, most complete emulator is closed source on PC, so Xboxers had to accept the next best solution. Surreal 2.0 is under works, don't fret. They're taking a break until they have a lot more free time though. They, apparently, got some work done over Thanksgiving. Here's hoping they get some during Xmas break as well.
The problem with N64 emulation on the Xbox is that the biggest, most complete emulator is closed source on PC, so Xboxers had to accept the next best solution. Surreal 2.0 is under works, don't fret. They're taking a break until they have a lot more free time though. They, apparently, got some work done over Thanksgiving. Here's hoping they get some during Xmas break as well.
JoshuaJSlone
Member
Another problem, even if one got running, is a few too few buttons. However, it's imaginable that a game which used the two right prongs (most of them) could use the D-pad for the C functions. Might be clunkier, but hey.
Do The Mario
Unconfirmed Member
I heard the battery life when using an emulator is only 30mins
I wonder how closely instructions translate between the two systems. Their CPUs are both MIPS R4K based, the RCP in N64 is another customized R4K I think. And PSP has a second R4000 as well for graphics. N64's 36Mb RAM is really 4MB because 1 bit is for parity. There's 4MB embedded in PSP plus 32MB DDR SDRAM to load ROMs from.
JoshuaJSlone
Member
Well, things can vary a lot by the people working on them. On the one hand, the SNES emulators for Dreamcast are far from perfect. On the other hand, bleem! got a few PlayStation games working well on Dreamcast.pkasho said:
The Abominable Snowman
Member
It's definitely not a question of "Is it powerful enough". It's a question of "Can developers efficiently enough put in the code to translate N64 instruction yet not take up a LOT of space?" In some cases, the 4MB expansion may have to be emulated, and it might be unpossible (sic) if the dev makes a emu that takes up 24MB of codes.pkasho said:
Well I am pretty sure they are instruction level compatible for most part on CPU side, the R4k in PSP is using slightly extended set from the core implementation (as usual).TKM said:
The expensive part will be emulating vector units on N64 I suppose, but then I remember old N64 emulators run pretty adequately on V2 with 300mhz P2...
As for using MediaEngine for the RCP - someone first needs to find a way to run custom code on it, Sony isn't looking to give us that anytime soon.
Gaia Theory
Member
If you're already concerned about N64 emulation on the PSP, maybe you should be purchasing a DS so that you can play the Nintendo games you want to play. Simple concept no?
The Abominable Snowman
Member
Not when Nintendo butchers them by making a vain attempt at making use of the touch screenGaia Theory said:
A lot of time has passed since those days...But long time ago there was an emulator called Corn.
Corn overrided many of the N64 functions (it was not HLE it was just forgetting about those CPU-intensive things; it was fun to see bilinear emulation XD). This way I remember having a friend that ran it at good framerates with a Pentium 150 and a Voodoo 3.
Even the almighty UltraHLE ran at decent speeds on Pentium II class processors and it featured more decent emulation.
It was just the next efforts: project 64, daedalus and others that made N64 slow and tedious and to require T&L for fast speeds.
My opinion is that it is possible. But well, why don't we start with PSX/SNES emulation first ? That would rock much harder !!!!
And regarding the use of the Media Engine to cooperate with the main MIPS, it's a think I have been thinking a lot. It's a pity you have so much great pieces such as the VME and Media Engine and that you have little to no access to them when developing games. They could be useful to produce even better things (and to run out the battery faster as well
).
Corn overrided many of the N64 functions (it was not HLE it was just forgetting about those CPU-intensive things; it was fun to see bilinear emulation XD). This way I remember having a friend that ran it at good framerates with a Pentium 150 and a Voodoo 3.
Even the almighty UltraHLE ran at decent speeds on Pentium II class processors and it featured more decent emulation.
It was just the next efforts: project 64, daedalus and others that made N64 slow and tedious and to require T&L for fast speeds.
My opinion is that it is possible. But well, why don't we start with PSX/SNES emulation first ? That would rock much harder !!!!
And regarding the use of the Media Engine to cooperate with the main MIPS, it's a think I have been thinking a lot. It's a pity you have so much great pieces such as the VME and Media Engine and that you have little to no access to them when developing games. They could be useful to produce even better things (and to run out the battery faster as well
).
The Faceless Master
Member
i don't doubt the ability of the psp, but i DO doubt the willingness of the people who have the ability to do it...
plus, there's the whole PSP running foreign code thing that you have to get around first...
plus, there's the whole PSP running foreign code thing that you have to get around first...
MG Acid looks like a PSONE game, and Advent Rising looks like a Dreamcast game ... there's no 'sure' nice looking games - everythings in between. And even then, just to get away from a big gay ass graphics arguement, lets just say its as powerful as the XBox - the XBox can't even do N64 emulation worth a crap with a hard drive. And PSP isn't close to powerful as it.
The Abominable Snowman
Member
Hahahaha.... First: The Xbox does not have a decent N64 emulator, but it has a freakin DREAMCAST emulator coming up in development, and Shenmue is running in it. Are you saying that the N64 is more resource intensive than Shenmue?Hollywood said:
Second; The PSP is a much more powerful machine than the target spec of home PCs running N64 games emulated. The PSP is Dual 300MHz and I was running games perfectly on my old, archaic 500MHz laptop with no video acceleration. These N64 emus were made with 266MHz P2s in mind for performance, and I seriously doubt that a 266MHz PC can run Smash Bros and Mario 64 very well but a dual 300MHz cannot. There's more issues than just power at work, however. The reason why Xbox does not have a "decent" (Which is false as well, Surreal 64 is pretty decent) emulator is because they've all so far been ports of existing emulators for PC, and not built with the Xbox in mind. Therefore they cannot run DirectX code with it, make extensive use of the GPU or anything. Even still, the N64 scene on Xbox would take a huge shot in the arm (Positive metaphor) if 1964 becomes open source, meaning viable for port. You know little of the subject....
YOUR AN IDOT
The Abominable Snowman said:
Show me. All this 'running stuff' is BS, and most of these emulators turn out to be nothing more than starting up a menu for a game. Where's the videos? Screenshots? In development doesn't mean shit man.
Second; The PSP is a much more powerful machine than the target spec of home PCs running N64 games emulated. The PSP is Dual 300MHz and I was running games perfectly on my old, archaic 500MHz laptop with no video acceleration. These N64 emus were made with 266MHz P2s in mind for performance, and I seriously doubt that a 266MHz PC can run Smash Bros and Mario 64 very well but a dual 300MHz cannot. There's more issues than just power at work, however. The reason why Xbox does not have a "decent" (Which is false as well, Surreal 64 is pretty decent) emulator is because they've all so far been ports of existing emulators for PC, and not built with the Xbox in mind. Therefore they cannot run DirectX code with it, make extensive use of the GPU or anything. Even still, the N64 scene on Xbox would take a huge shot in the arm (Positive metaphor) if 1964 becomes open source, meaning viable for port. You know little of the subject....
YOUR AN IDOT
First off ... learn how to spell idiot before you call someone it. And the processor isn't even the most important part. The most important part is the RAM - which XBox has 64 MB of and can't emulate the N64. And the XBox is based off of a PC - which by common sense is probably the easiest thing to run code for, for emulators, which is why the XBox is the best emulation console out there. And if the most powerful home console that has run most everything up until the last generation, perfectly fine, can't run N64 emulation - you can forget about the PSP. It's a pipe dream.
The Abominable Snowman
Member
I complain about them doing any port, honestly. I still have my N64 around here somewhere, most of these games have current-gen sequels, and I still emulate N64 a lot. I applaud when they're bonuses, a la the Zelda disc, but as a main game? heh... nolockii said:
[
That's not only subjective, and has it's variables as well, but it has NOTHING to do with emulation. You're assuming it cannot do N64. That's fine. Don't assert your opinion as fact and try to shove it in everyone's faces however.Hollywood said:
Here's a fun little spot of trivia: The Dreamcast recieved a PSX emulator, after everyone said it could not be done. Bleem!Cast rolled around and changed all that, and even made Gran Turismo and MGS look a bit better. Homebrew devs also worked on a N64 emulator, and it was ported successfully, had all the opcodes running very well and faster than fullspeed, however, because there was no work or effort put into it, there was no real push, and the author (Only ONE) did not even implement video or audio.
Hollywood said:
Very true. And regardless of the "power" of a particular system. Some systems are just a complete pain in the ass to emulate due to the architecture of the hardware, not because of how powerful it is. Just like it would be hard for Microsoft to emulate Nvidia graphics on their ATI card with Xenon.
The Abominable Snowman
Member
While I somewhat agree and heavily anticipate pics and videos, We only have OFFICIAL WORD FROM THE DEVELOPERS OF CHANKAST to go by. A release should be following soon, but they're probably keeping it under wraps for now, until they complete the PC version at least. The next ChanKast version will be for Xbox and Windows, and possibly open source as well for MacOS. Oh yeah. Forgot about Linux... but who caresHollywood said:
First off, It was purposefully made like that to patronize YOU'RE (sic) INITIAL MISUSE OF 'your'. Come on, you're going to patronize me for an intentional, joking mis-spelling of idiot when you're the one with grammar issues? Talk about hypocritical.
Secondly, The most important part is the coding by the authors. forget what you've heard, at this point, especially for emulation of last generations' systems, almost all the hardware on the market today (Exceptions being Nintendo's two handhelds) have the potential to run a N64 emulator efficiently and well. IF the coders put a lot of time and effort into it, we could see N64 on Dreamcast. Yes, Ram and Processor is important, but as the Xbox has shown, it's useless if not in the right hands (No disrespect to the makers of Surreal). You're going to discount the fact that the Xbox is capable of a more complete N64 emu? I have access to a 350MHz AMD computer with no vid card tomorrow. Lets see how well 1964 runs on it, okay? You're going to tell me that a 500MHz laptop is more powerful than the Xbox? :lol
The Xbox emulators are ports, ports of programs that originally ran in the Windows API and DirectX. A lot of to-the-hardware routines have been cut. I know you may not grasp that, but if you don't, why put your hands in the pot if you don't know whether there are cookies or snakes within?
The PSP is very capable. End of thread.
The Abominable Snowman said:
As I recall Bleemcast was a special emulator PER each PSONE game. So it was entire company making a specific emulator for EACH game. One disc for Tekken 3, one for GT 2, one for MGS. And I beleive at first it was supposed to be one disc covering most of the PSONE library, but it couldn't be done. I'm sure if these steps took place:
1) A company starts up with the sole purpose of finding a way to make a specific game on the N64 work on the PSP.
2) Someone finds a way to get a UMD disc to burn onto, period .. and burn an N64 game onto it ... someone COMPLETELY design a emulation program around just that game and only that game - and the game itself isn't graphics heavy so the PSP can actually handle it.
Then fine, yeah maybe it could work. But none of that is ever going to happen. Bleem! was only able to do it, since the Dreamcast was already easily hackable with CD-R's ... and the CD format was the same. Taking an N64 cartridge, putting it on a UMD or gigantic memory card, having a company write out an entire emulator for a specific game - and thats assuming it can TECHNICALLY be done, then having all that work out isn't going to happen.
The best you can hope for is GBA/SNES emulator - that should be possible since the PS2 can do it.
The Abominable Snowman
Member
You cannot compare the N64, which is well documented and well emulated, to the 'secretive' graphics card on the market, which isn't a complete system in itself. You aren't really emulating in the typical sense it in the instance you're talking about, you're finding a way to run native Nvidia routines on an ATi. The N64 is definitely not a pain in the ass to emulate, A La Saturn and PS2. THOSE are pains in the ass to emulate, and both have been emulated to the point that there are emulated games very playable.Hardknock said: