Dreamcast Emulator For Pandora?

[jakshep2]

I've heard all sorts of things going around about the pandora, like for instance 'it's more powerful than the ps2' and 'its graphics are comparable to the nintendo gamecube' so, if these statements are true, then could the pandora emulate the dreamcast to a playable standard??
Ta,
You Know Who I Am. B)

 

[Exophase]

I have no idea what you mean by "playable standard", to me that basically means full speed, not something like half speed. And you probably mean it in a way that applies to more than just some game no one cares about.

It's very unlikely, it's safe to just say "no."

I just don't want to look stupid if someone pulls it off in any meaningful capacity.

I don't know who said that its graphics are comparable to Gamecube's, I think you misinterpreted that from somewhere. No one knows, but I doubt it'll be that good.

 

[Rivroner]

Una-i some weeks ago said in gp32spain forum that he has a private beta of Sonic Adventure in Chankast running about 2/3 fps of real speed for XBOX.

Maybe in the future he would like to make a port to Pandora Or not, maybe XBOX is more powerfull than Pandora will be.

 

[StealthBagel]

While what an ARM CPU at ~600 MHz can accomplish with so little power consumption is impressive, the XBox CPU is significantly more powerful and Chankast is an x86 application, likely optimized for it. 2-3 fps is already unplayable, it would run even slower. Also, Chankast has very low compatibility last I checked.... NullDC far outshines it.

 

[Rivroner]

No,no ,no not 2-3 fps...... 2/3 of real speed

So if Sonic in a real Dreamcast runs about 30fps in the chankast emu for XBOX it is running at 20 fps

 

[squeakypants]

Holy crap, I never realized the Xbox had such a fast CPU!

I suppose it's possible to get some games running at maybe half speed with a lot of work, but who's going to do that work? Unless someone can get the source code from nullDC and change the graphics (and other things) to OpenGL ES (it's DX9) and get it to compile on linux (it uses VC++), then there's VERY little chance.

Why would they bother porting it to the Pandora when there isn't even linux support, and a Pandora port would never run at fullspeed or with a decent amount of compatibility?

 

[icurafu]

It's not so hard to get a visual studio project to compile for linux. Unless they used the MS libs other than the typical win32 guis ones which would be lame.

 

[Game_over]

I would of initially said no there is just no way a running Dreamcast emulator of such is possible. However, now I think since the Pandora uses a newer generation PowerVR GPU, I would thing it would be possible to make a highly optimized version of one. Im guessing the GPU has some of the same calls as the older PowerVR the dreamcast has (it probably changed long sine then though). Oh and WinCE. Just a hunch.

 

[Kayday]

I still hope that it's a possibilty. Maybe not full compatibility but if some of the popular Dreamcast titles can run almost full speed, that'd be great.

Nothing can compare to NullDC for a near perfect Dreamcast emu but it's for windows but there is lxdream for linux. Still being worked on but not sure how far along they are compared to NullDC.

 

[Zarneth]

I've heard all sorts of things going around about the pandora, like for instance 'it's more powerful than the ps2' and 'its graphics are comparable to the nintendo gamecube' so, if these statements are true, then could the pandora emulate the dreamcast to a playable standard??
Ta,
You Know Who I Am. B)

I do recall reading someone said it would be somewhat comparable to gamecube for graphics level. But emulation usually requires a good 10 to 50 times the cpu power of the system it's trying to emulate. You'd need to investigate dreamcast emulators a bit more to find out what's really required but it's unlikley we're going to know for certain until the Pandora comes out and someone tries it.

 

[God Ginrai]

Even if the Pandora was as powerful as a gamecube (which btw, I think that gamecube thing was about processing power, not graphics, but I could be wrong) The pandora still would not be able to emulate dreamcast even at half speed. The Gamecube and the DC are both the same generation. Same Generation cannot emulate same generation. (except in a few cases of extremely powerful same gens like the XBox)

-God Ginrai

 

[icurafu]

The point made earlier was that the Pandora is better for emulating the dreamcast than the cube because it has similar video technology. We're still dreaming about emulating.

I can safely say that even if they are in the same generation, the Cube runs rings around the Dreamcast. I would even say that the Pandora outperforms it by a fair margin.

 

[Julius]

I would of initially said no there is just no way a running Dreamcast emulator of such is possible. However, now I think since the Pandora uses a newer generation PowerVR GPU, I would thing it would be possible to make a highly optimized version of one. Im guessing the GPU has some of the same calls as the older PowerVR the dreamcast has (it probably changed long sine then though). Oh and WinCE. Just a hunch.

WinCE was AFAIK only used in certain games, not generally.

I guess the DC could be emulated as good on the Pandora as the PSX on the GP2X But that is a completely uneducated guess.

 

[Clad]

What could be possible though would be that the day the Pandora huge sales drive Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony out of the hardware market, Sega might consider porting it's dreamcast title on the Pandora.

 

[Jarska333]

That would be the same day the Devil starts to pay for heating.

 

[PokeParadox]

With all this climate change, it may happen!
As usual the simple answer to this is "unlikely" but someone may attempt it...
It would have to be very very well tuned...

 

[Game_over]

Those posted PCB pics will help alot in emulator creation in terms of helping see all the components and their location on the system; that coupled with all the spec, docs, and SDKs on the CPU an GPU of the console, no?

 

[atomicthumbs]

I'd think that (as an extreme generalization) a megahertz for a CISC CPU (Xbox's Celeron 733) is worth more in terms of power than a megahertz for a RISC CPU (ARM). Of course, this doesn't take into account the various features of each, and the various coprocessors, etc. on the OMAP.

Those posted PCB pics will help alot in emulator creation in terms of helping see all the components and their location on the system; that coupled with all the spec, docs, and SDKs on the CPU an GPU of the console, no?

I don't think emulator developers will be worried about transmission latency on PCB buses.

 

[Zarneth]

What could be possible though would be that the day the Pandora huge sales drive Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony out of the hardware market, Sega might consider porting it's dreamcast title on the Pandora.
Unfortunately world war III is more likely. (Probably started by Microsoft and co.)

 

[Clad]

What could be possible though would be that the day the Pandora huge sales drive Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony out of the hardware market, Sega might consider porting it's dreamcast title on the Pandora.
Unfortunately world war III is more likely. (Probably started by Microsoft and co.)

My friend, you really lake Fatih.

Err, I mean, Faith.