Faster And Better Emulators?

[CloverGruff]

Hello, I was wondering, is there a chance for certain emulators to be updated?
There are three emulators that I am concerned about:

gpsp - The Game Boy Advance Emulator
Picodrive - The Sega Genesis/Megadrive emulator ( It's only the 32x part that I'm not ok with though )
DrPocketSnes/Snes9x4C - The Super NES emulators

Now, my problem is, all of these emulators work well to some degree, in my opinion, Picodrive being the best of the bunch, but how come they fail at giving decent framerate for the more advanced titles? I am particularly talking about the games with 3D graphics, like the 3D FX Chip snes titles like Starfox or some of the better GBA games with some 3D graphics ( Max Payne, Colin M'crae - which actually crashes the whole thing ).
It would be a blast to play Virtua Fighter for the 32x at a decent speed, too. It works, but it's extremely slow.

Now, my question is, is there a chance for these problems to be fixed in near future? I won't accept a reply saying that the caanoo just isn't powerful enough for this ( I'm quite confident it is, take a look at the PS1 emulation, for instance ), I just want to know if anyone is working on improving the compatibility and performance of these emulators, and if not, is there really noone willing to?.

Thanks!

P.S. Is it just me or is the NES emulator (GPFCE 4) kind of not exactly that perfect? Super Mario Bros., for example, seems to run a bit too fast. And why do you have to press both Home and L buttons at the same time to enter the emulator's menu?

 

[redlemon]

gpsp is unlikely to get better as the original as the original author is no longer interested in it.
32x support in Picodrive is unfinished. I understand Notaz intends to go back to it once he's satisfied with pcsx rearmed.
Snes emulation is quite tricky in general. Better performance would require significant rewrites.

That said I'm not that technically minded so I'm just going off what I've read.

 

[Exophase]

Those GBA games crash/are slow because of self modifying code, not because they're "advanced".. I'm sure you'll find plenty of PS1 games that run poorly or not at all too.

 

[zsonance]

Hello, I was wondering, is there a chance for certain emulators to be updated?
There are three emulators that I am concerned about:

gpsp - The Game Boy Advance Emulator
Picodrive - The Sega Genesis/Megadrive emulator ( It's only the 32x part that I'm not ok with though )
DrPocketSnes/Snes9x4C - The Super NES emulators

Now, my problem is, all of these emulators work well to some degree, in my opinion, Picodrive being the best of the bunch, but how come they fail at giving decent framerate for the more advanced titles? I am particularly talking about the games with 3D graphics, like the 3D FX Chip snes titles like Starfox or some of the better GBA games with some 3D graphics ( Max Payne, Colin M'crae - which actually crashes the whole thing ).
It would be a blast to play Virtua Fighter for the 32x at a decent speed, too. It works, but it's extremely slow.

Now, my question is, is there a chance for these problems to be fixed in near future? I won't accept a reply saying that the caanoo just isn't powerful enough for this ( I'm quite confident it is, take a look at the PS1 emulation, for instance ), I just want to know if anyone is working on improving the compatibility and performance of these emulators, and if not, is there really noone willing to?.

Thanks!

P.S. Is it just me or is the NES emulator (GPFCE 4) kind of not exactly that perfect? Super Mario Bros., for example, seems to run a bit too fast. And why do you have to press both Home and L buttons at the same time to enter the emulator's menu?

I have personally been pretty happy with most of the emulators that are out there for the Caanoo , but I agree with this guy.

I think if more developers actually KNEW about this system there might be a better chance of more emulators programmed by other people to come out.

 

[sukhi2011]

I agree with that too.
All emulators mentioned above are good but it's best to try different games out and see the difference.
Is there any chance of n64 emulator coming,it will be great to see this running on caanoo.

 

[jlenoconel]

I agree with that too.
All emulators mentioned above are good but it's best to try different games out and see the difference.
Is there any chance of n64 emulator coming,it will be great to see this running on caanoo.

Can someone else not get the source code for the GBA emulator and work on it. That really bites if that's all we're gonna get as far as speed. I remember when I had a PSP and the emulators were sometimes updated weekly or bi-weekly. The Caanoo sucks in this department.

 

[Reesy]

The Caanoo depends on homebrew developers and at the moment there is a very small number of them working on emulators...in fact apart from Notaz is there anyone? So to answer your question, no, there will not be any faster or better emulators..

 

[jlenoconel]

Well that really sucks then doesn't it? I guess I should have stuck with my trusty PSP. So, basically everyone has more or less given up on the Caanoo then?

 

[Exophase]

You never know what could happen in the future. notaz is far from the only person who is working on emulators for ARM handhelds. Is anyone really updating emulators for PSP anymore?

 

[CloverGruff]

Well that really sucks then doesn't it? I guess I should have stuck with my trusty PSP. So, basically everyone has more or less given up on the Caanoo then?

There is actually more software coming out, sure it's not a weekly or daily type of thing, but I'd say PCSX ReArmed was a really great release for caanoo users already. I see more awesome software coming out for it soon as well, like a port of Duke Nukem 3D, Quake 2 and Hexen 1/2, (They are already available for gp2x and wiz)

On top of that, I recently started modding my Caanoo, like making the shoulder buttons less stiff and soon I'll cut the plastic piece around the screen to uncover hidden pixels.

So in a word, no. I'm not done with Caanoo just yet.

 

[LTStone]

There really isn't much competition as far as open handhelds and I think this is a good thing for the Caanoo and Wiz, As long as there are people out there who are into retro stuff and like these kind of things there should be hope. Part of it is the community's fault, Sure there can be more ports, new apps, features etc but even still there are lots of things to enjoy already, Psx rearmed, mame, pdfviewer, A Web Browser(for Caanoo) etc. For now keep discussing these things, what emulators,apps,features are you favorites, what games do you play etc. Obviously people are buying Caanoo's and Wiz's , we need these people to get on this forum and start getting involved somehow. It seems lately its alot of the same people posting. Im sure if the need for something is great and there is a demand more developers will notice.

On a last note I have talked to Hardyx and although he's been busy he is still working on stuff for the Caanoo and showed some interest on improving the current PDFviewer. Also Rodolpho and I have been working on a cool app I think many will enjoy as well.

Don't forget to thank everyone (developers,testers,porters) who have given us all the stuff we have at the moment

 

[joyrider]

People just expect too much for nothing, most of the devs do this in their spare time for free because they like doing such things. The problem is certain homebrew and especially emulators need a lot of work and if you spend so much time and get ridiculous comments or questions dev's just don't see the point anymore why they should even bother to do anything.

I used to be quite active in the gp2x day's, creating remakes of all kind of games, but people liked emulators more so i stopped doing that and started porting emulators (in my dingoo days) cause that's what people basically are after most of the time (there are exceptions) and even then there some people that don't respect what you actually did and just demand things.

I have a caanoo, gp2x and a dingoo as well as an android phone and the nokia n810 but those are not really related, and i can honestly say that in my case, it would take really a lot before i would even think to program anything again for these devices, i just don't care anymore, there was no fun it anymore and takes way too much time and most of the time you get nothing out of it.

It's only one of the reasons though another one is having to program 8 hours a day at work already.

I only bought these devices for programming purposes i never used it for playing games, they just don't intrest me, probably because i'm spoiled by my XBox360 & PS3

 

[sebt3]

notaz is far from the only person who is working on emulators for ARM handhelds.

Does that mean we should expect an awesome release from you in a short futur ?

 

[Exophase]

Does that mean we should expect an awesome release from you in a short futur ?

Nope ;p

 

[jlenoconel]

People just expect too much for nothing, most of the devs do this in their spare time for free because they like doing such things. The problem is certain homebrew and especially emulators need a lot of work and if you spend so much time and get ridiculous comments or questions dev's just don't see the point anymore why they should even bother to do anything.

I used to be quite active in the gp2x day's, creating remakes of all kind of games, but people liked emulators more so i stopped doing that and started porting emulators (in my dingoo days) cause that's what people basically are after most of the time (there are exceptions) and even then there some people that don't respect what you actually did and just demand things.

I have a caanoo, gp2x and a dingoo as well as an android phone and the nokia n810 but those are not really related, and i can honestly say that in my case, it would take really a lot before i would even think to program anything again for these devices, i just don't care anymore, there was no fun it anymore and takes way too much time and most of the time you get nothing out of it.

It's only one of the reasons though another one is having to program 8 hours a day at work already.

I only bought these devices for programming purposes i never used it for playing games, they just don't intrest me, probably because i'm spoiled by my XBox360 & PS3

I bought the Caanoo for about 150 dollars, and have spent an extra 50-60 dollars for accessories for the system. I'm not mad at the developers for not producing homebrew per say, but its pretty disappointing when you spend that much money on something for it to be a paperweight. I do play it quite often anyway. The main point I was making was that PSP emulators were updated very regularly, whilst the Caanoo gets no love. Is there any real reason for it, I mean really?

 

[joyrider]

I bought the Caanoo for about 150 dollars, and have spent an extra 50-60 dollars for accessories for the system. I'm not mad at the developers for not producing homebrew per say, but its pretty disappointing when you spend that much money on something for it to be a paperweight. I do play it quite often anyway. The main point I was making was that PSP emulators were updated very regularly, whilst the Caanoo gets no love. Is there any real reason for it, I mean really?

Well the gph market has always been a niche market that sustained itselve. On the one hand you had developpers intrested in developping games and such for handhelds and on the other hand people that are intrested in such games / software. Problem in this situation is if the devs are gone or there were no dev's intrested in programming for such devices in the first place, the product would never sell cause you get nothing on it. So you can even say that product was / is being kept alive by dev's and if they are gone there's no product at all

Also if you did some research before buying a caanoo you'd have know it was a niche market and could have suspected things like this to happen, and not much happens nowadays in the psp scene either and your correct with saying "were updated" it doesn't happen reguarly nowadays anymore.

PSP had everything you needed in the first place well related to emulators that is if you hacked / crack / whatever your psp.

with al these products and even psp, if there is no intrest to develop software for a certain product there product will get a quick death, this happens in homebrew scene's and with commercial products. So no devs = no sales = no people intrested in the product.

And the problem with emulators is also that not many people are capable of programming a new emulator from scratch, it takes a lot of knowledge about the emulated system and programming. I can honestly say i would never be able to do it, not only because i lack the knowledge but it's time consuming. That's why most (not all) emulators are ports or based on another emulators and not really brand new emulators

 

[darklight1138]

Even if the Caanoo is a paperweight, it's more than paid for itself several hundred times over again. I have somewhere near 6000 games on my system, which means if I were to play 2 games a day it would take 8 years to play them all. Most of the games I haven't played (obviously) so it's a joy picking it up and trying out something new every day. I also use it for viewing movies and listening to music. Now if it had built in wireless and a fast web browser, it would be perfect.

 

[LTStone]

Now if it had built in wireless and a fast web browser, it would be perfect.

Thats What I say about the Wiz

 

[CaanDoo]

I really enjoy my Caanoo but it is a shame that there are many emus and games that don't run as well as they could. There's a lot of potential under the hood but I don't see it being tapped.

I know this is going to sound negative but it seems to me that a few of the devs in this scene are happy just to get software up and running and then call it a day (I don't want to name names so as to avoid offence) as if ticking a box on the CV.

It really is a pity that there is noboby pushing this hardware to it's limits (yet!).

 

[stpat]

Personally, I think that's a pretty shitty comment.

Seems pretty obvious to me that you have no appreciation of what's involved in improving/optimizing code.

I know this is going to sound negative but it seems to me that a few of the devs in this scene are happy just to get software up and running and then call it a day (I don't want to name names so as to avoid offence) as if ticking a box on the CV.