Gamecube emulator and/or 3DS on P2

[Perusa]

Is it possible?


I think there was a simular question  for an PS2.emulator, but is there a way to run 3Ds or Gamecube on the next Pandora!?

It will be really awesome.  :rolleyes:

 

[LuSimon]

well I know that until now a 3ds emulator wasn't done... Andyou have probably more chance at the gamecube emulator wich happens to be a Wii emulator(Dolphin EMU) as well, and it's opensource and has been optimised for ARM platforms...

And somehow I feel that PS2 Emulation will be possible

 

[Klumpen]

PS2, Dreamcast, more advanced N64 (compatibility and graphics) and maybe even GameCube are probable, I think,

IF this awesome community with its devs still exists then.

One of these would already suffice for my attention, if P" won't have anything to do with Google.

 

[FaeMinx]

I thought PS2 was out of the question?

And GameCube wouldn't be fullspeed. Perhaps not even playable. But I would love to be corrected if I'm wrong here.  ^_^

 

[WizardStan]

I thought PS2 was out of the question?

 
Drop a 2.4Ghz CPU into it and it goes from "out of the question" to "maybe if someone is particularly insane enough to really work at it".

 

[Klumpen]

No octa-core?

 

[Perusa]

yeeeeeaaaaaah! I hope this is true. I think this communitity/the devs give us more awesome stuff.  B)

 

[Exophase]

I'd say, based on the current level of PS2 emulation on PCs, that the prospects aren't great. I also don't have high expectations for Gamecube to be that great on high end phones today and I don't have high expectations for Pandora 2 to exceed those phones (actually there's a good chance it'll be weaker instead).

3DS isn't even worth speculating over until emulators are relatively mature on PC. Right now they haven't even been started.

 

[WizardStan]

No octa-core?

As far as I know PCSX2 does not depend heavily on multi-threading. That's pretty standard, most emulation is difficult (and frequently impossible) to multi-thread well. Drop as many cores as you want into it, it's not going to make a lot of difference.

 

[Klumpen]

I still got a working Athlon Barton flying around.

Build a ton of heatsinks, fans and watercooling around it and there you go!

 

[Perusa]

I'd say, based on the current level of PS2 emulation on PCs, that the prospects aren't great. I also don't have high expectations for Gamecube to be that great on high end phones today and I don't have high expectations for Pandora 2 to exceed those phones (actually there's a good chance it'll be weaker instead).


3DS isn't even worth speculating over until emulators are relatively mature on PC. Right now they haven't even been started.

Oh no...what a shame.

;_; 

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

I'd say, based on the current level of PS2 emulation on PCs, that the prospects aren't great. I also don't have high expectations for Gamecube to be that great on high end phones today and I don't have high expectations for Pandora 2 to exceed those phones (actually there's a good chance it'll be weaker instead).


3DS isn't even worth speculating over until emulators are relatively mature on PC. Right now they haven't even been started.

In terms of hardware, how similar is DS to 3DS?

 

[rohezal]

There are 300$ missing for a decapping (reading stuff from the cpu via electron microscope). This is needed to get the last keys of the 3ds cpu.

http://www.3dbrew.org/wiki/Fundraiser

Not sure if they are needed for an emulator.

@Exophase:

Why would a GC emulator so hard? It is a power pc 500 mhz with 150 mhz gpu from ati. It has a normal graphic api and a normal gpu. At least not a lot of strange chips to emulate. Do you know why it works quite well on a desktop pc, but bad at smart phones? Just too little horse power or not enough optimisation on smart phones?

 

[Exophase]

In terms of hardware, how similar is DS to 3DS?

I'm not aware of any similarities outside of the fact that they're both ARM. You could reuse an ARM recompiler but 3DS uses ARMv6 (ARM11s) so you'd have to augment the instruction site a fair amount.

Why would a GC emulator so hard? It is a power pc 500 mhz with 150 mhz gpu from ati. It has a normal graphic api and a normal gpu. At least not a lot of strange chips to emulate. Do you know why it works quite well on a desktop pc, but bad at smart phones? Just too little horse power or not enough optimisation on smart phones?

Emulating a 485MHz extended PPC750 is a big deal. Decent desktop PCs are far more powerful than the most powerful phones out now. And it often needs something high end. I tried a particular Wii game on my i5-2500K and it couldn't even handle it when overclocked to 4.5GHz. Wii is for all intents and purposes a Gamecube scaled 1.5x in clock, at least in any way that matters for emulation. So if I were using 3GHz i5-2500K with a very demanding Gamecube title it would have probably struggled with that too.

Not sure what you mean by normal graphics API. No consoles execute something like a vanilla OpenGL with all of the performance gotchas on a desktop or phone. They always let you get away with a lot more since they're to the metal. And although ATi supplied the GPU it was really made by ArtX whom they acquired.

The performance of Dolphin speaks for itself. I doubt there is this huge well of untapped optimization they're not tapping into at this point, even if there's a bit more they can do with the recompiler. And they need OpenGL ES 3.0 to get the emulation right despite emulating what's typically considered "DX7" level hardware.

 

[ekianjo]

the only thing you can probably hope for a p2 is proper psp emulation. Beyond that. do not dream too much.

 

[Batou456]

I'd say, based on the current level of PS2 emulation on PCs, that the prospects aren't great. I also don't have high expectations for Gamecube to be that great on high end phones today and I don't have high expectations for Pandora 2 to exceed those phones (actually there's a good chance it'll be weaker instead).


3DS isn't even worth speculating over until emulators are relatively mature on PC. Right now they haven't even been started.

In terms of hardware, how similar is DS to 3DS?

Going off Wikipedia and the associated suspected stats:

Nintendo DS:

ARM9 67MHz & ARM7 33MHz

4MB RAM

Nintendo DSi:

ARM9 133MHz (2X) & ARM7 33MHz

16MB RAM (4X)

Nintendo 3DS:

ARM11 MP2 400MHz (Common WAG) (~8X)

128MB of RAM (32X)

PICA200 GPU (Much more powerful then the DS)

The clock speed of the ARM11s in the 3DS is unknown.  The clock rate does appear to be higher then the DSi, and the ARM11 architecture should result in a higher average operations per clock then the DSi hardware.

From what I've seen a Rebirth unit with a 850MHz Cortex A8 does okay, but not wonderful with emulating a DS.  Now ARMH lists the Cortex A8 as having a theoretical 2.0 DMIPS/MHz, and the Cortex A9 is rated at 2.5.  Newer processors don't appear to have this rating, but the rumor mill put the Cortex A15 at around 3.5 DMIPS/MHz.

At a conservative but reasonable 1.5GHz the Cortex A15 should have 162.5% more performance then the 1GHz Pandora model.  At a unreasonable 2.5GHz, the Cortex A15 should have 337.5% more performance then the 1GHz Pandora model.  Multicore versus single core is not being accounted for in that, however if the 3DS is running both ARM11s at, at least 266MHz, based on the current implimentation you're probably asking too much from a potential Pandora 2 to be able to emulate it based on the current approach.  If it's closer to the 400MHz estimates, back of the napkin ballparking points to a need for a more efficient approach then current.

If they do decide to refresh associated with the 28nm node next year or the year after with a 3DSi, it's entirely possible they'll switch those ARM11s for Cortex A5s and bump the max clock speed up.  Not so much in the interest of increasing performance as a Cortex A5 should have less die area at 28nm then an ARM11 does at 45nm, and battery life should be improved with the newer architecture and process.

 

[Mr_Loon]

the only thing you can probably hope for a p2 is proper psp emulation. Beyond that. do not dream too much.

My dream would be to see a Dreamcast emulator running at full speed on P2.

The thing is that no informed answer to any of the above can be given until we know the SOC for a P2.

 

[comradekingu]

Save all your monies now, throw them at whatever target you see fit when the time comes.

 

[PokeParadox]

I think realistically Dreamcast could be possible. GameCube - might be possible to play some games.

N64 will likelybe playable for everything fullspeed.

PS2? Not sure but I've not heard of any ARM ports...

3DS No emulator even exists yet.

 

[Hồng Thất Công]

I think realistically Dreamcast could be possible. GameCube - might be possible to play some games.

N64 will likelybe playable for everything fullspeed.

PS2? Not sure but I've not heard of any ARM ports...

3DS No emulator even exists yet.

With notaz's and Exophase's brains, all of these will run full speed on P2