N64 Anyone?

[pder]

I've been experimenting with Mupen under Linux on my Aspire One (Atom CPU). Super Mario 64 is fairly playable at 800MHz with frame skip, but some other games aren't. Majora's Mask completely maxes out the CPU at 1600Mhz, and even then its still kinda slow. So I'm guessing a game like this will not work too well on the Pandora, unless someone comes up with some rather extensive optimizations.

Did you try using Mupen64+ by any chance? It is quite a bit more optimized than the older Mupen64. I am curious what kind of performance you get with that on your Aspire One.

Unfortunately its not all that applicable to the Pandora since the optimizations are x86 specific.

 

[Tom`]

Majora`s Mask (and, in fact, most games) are playable on a 400 MHz PII, with Project64. Corn is even faster for some games. So I think they should be perfectly playable on the Pandora, using HLE if necessary, but better if someone writes a dynamic recompiler. I do not know why they should be so slow on the Atom, unless Mupen64 is really that much slower than PJ64 (never tested it on the old PC).

 

[Exophase]

Majora`s Mask (and, in fact, most games) are playable on a 400 MHz PII, with Project64. Corn is even faster for some games. So I think they should be perfectly playable on the Pandora, using HLE if necessary, but better if someone writes a dynamic recompiler. I do not know why they should be so slow on the Atom, unless Mupen64 is really that much slower than PJ64 (never tested it on the old PC).

Those N64 emulators using dynarecs in addition to HLE, it's not one or the other. Maybe we have different ideas of playable, but I think Project 64 will at least struggle to get fullspeed on those computers.

ALL N64 emulators except MESS (which is very incomplete/incorrect w/o MooglyGuy's work and would be very slow with) and some old ones that barely emulate anything use HLE.

 

[Tozarian]

Would someone just commit to starting an emulator already?

 

[Exophase]

Would someone just commit to starting an emulator already?

Go ahead.

You N64 loving fanboys should give it a rest, very few devs are up for this particular kind of work and it's not like the Pandora is going to have tens of thousands of people developing for it. Look at GP2X and you will see that few emulators were written especially for it - that might not be necessary for N64 but quite a lot of new code has to be done. All of this nagging and pressure is actually just making things worse.

 

[Alpha2]

I have to agree, I'd like to see it as much asn anyone else but I've seen the kind of pressure that people put on emulator devs and I'm surprised that any of them still do it today.

remember codeing for many of them is as much a hobby as playing the games are for you. The minute someone forces you to do your hobby it becomes work.

 

[MarkoeZ]

I have to agree, I'd like to see it as much asn anyone else but I've seen the kind of pressure that people put on emulator devs and I'm surprised that any of them still do it today.

remember codeing for many of them is as much a hobby as playing the games are for you. The minute someone forces you to do your hobby it becomes work.

Although i think that with the dev fund available, a playable N64 emu would allmost certainly collect

That being said, there are so much other games and platforms allready available to keep at least me busy for a while (once it actually get's released ofcourse)

 

[#1 GameMaster]

I'd do some work on emulation if only I knew how to. If someone had a link or something to teach me how to I would because I'm a very fast learner. B)

 

[Alpha2]

If it where easy enough to learn from a link I think there'd be a lot more people doing it.

 

[Tom`]

I'd do some work on emulation if only I knew how to. If someone had a link or something to teach me how to I would because I'm a very fast learner. B)

fms.komkon.org/EMUL8/HOWTO.html

 

[neko]

Majora`s Mask (and, in fact, most games) are playable on a 400 MHz PII, with Project64. Corn is even faster for some games. So I think they should be perfectly playable on the Pandora, using HLE if necessary, but better if someone writes a dynamic recompiler. I do not know why they should be so slow on the Atom, unless Mupen64 is really that much slower than PJ64 (never tested it on the old PC).

Part of the reason that Majora's Mask (and OoT) is slow in Mupen is the graphical effects that it uses. In particular it gets much slower when it rains in the game. So maybe it can be sped up by cutting out some of the graphical effects in the HLE.

Many of the Windows-based emus have some crazy x86 optimizations which are not portable. Mupen is more portable because it doesn't have a lot of assembly code optimizations other than the dynamic recompiler. I wouldn't be surprised if Mupen compiles and runs on the Pandora as-is, just don't expect it to run at playable speed without at least a new dynarec.

 

[conso]

Total agree with exophase. All this pressure will lead to developers fear the task. Imagine someone releases a N64-emu in alpha-stage, I wouldn't want to get that ton of feedback and demands that await him...

 

[gibberish]

well then the solution is dont even mention that you're working on anything until it semi-works. im sure someone will pick it up eventually.

 

[MDave]

The Pandora isn't even out yet, so your going to wait a while until it gets into the hands of a capable developer with lots of time that wants to write an N64 emulator.

 

[Phawx]

Well, ARM is only ever going to get more and more attention. Maybe someone will develop a N64 Emu for an ARM Netbook and didn't even realize that Pandora exists.

Eventually something will happen.

 

[God Ginrai]

Majora`s Mask (and, in fact, most games) are playable on a 400 MHz PII, with Project64. Corn is even faster for some games. So I think they should be perfectly playable on the Pandora, using HLE if necessary, but better if someone writes a dynamic recompiler. I do not know why they should be so slow on the Atom, unless Mupen64 is really that much slower than PJ64 (never tested it on the old PC).

Those N64 emulators using dynarecs in addition to HLE, it's not one or the other. Maybe we have different ideas of playable, but I think Project 64 will at least struggle to get fullspeed on those computers.

ALL N64 emulators except MESS (which is very incomplete/incorrect w/o MooglyGuy's work and would be very slow with) and some old ones that barely emulate anything use HLE.


From what you've said, it does seem to me that you and I have different definitions of playable. I see fullspeed as a rank above playable. In other words, you get something that works decent with frameskip, that's playable. You get something at 60fps, that's fullspeed. And I feel this way about emulating any system, not just the N64.

Many of the Windows-based emus have some crazy x86 optimizations which are not portable. Mupen is more portable because it doesn't have a lot of assembly code optimizations other than the dynamic recompiler. I wouldn't be surprised if Mupen compiles and runs on the Pandora as-is, just don't expect it to run at playable speed without at least a new dynarec.

That's why we have said that unless we were porting Daedalus, it would be pointless to port an emu. Porting Daedaelus itself would be a lot of work, but it would more than likely require less work than porting Mupen and then getting it up to Daedalus's speeds. Otherwise, an emu from scratch is pretty much the only other option.

-God Ginrai

 

[Tom`]

From what you've said, it does seem to me that you and I have different definitions of playable. I see fullspeed as a rank above playable. In other words, you get something that works decent with frameskip, that's playable. You get something at 60fps, that's fullspeed. And I feel this way about emulating any system, not just the N64.

Certainly I am not saying it was fullspeed, but I was not using a framerate counter, so I can only report my impression...I have a fairly high standard for playability, though, I tend not to like frameskip. I was using basically default settings, and nearly all games that I tried played fine on that computer - the only ones I remember not being playable were Paper Mario, because of graphical issues, and Rogue Squadron, which wouldn't start at all.

 

[Happy]

I must admit I have rather high expectations for playability as well. I would prefer to define it as providing the same experience as the original. I cannot recall any emulator where Paper Mario came close to a really enjoyable experience. So in my opinion I would not consider it to really be playable. I realize that sometimes we must settle for less, but that should not stop us from trying for something better. It is just a question of where you decide to settle. This means there are some rather high requirements before I would release any work.

 

[God Ginrai]

From what you've said, it does seem to me that you and I have different definitions of playable. I see fullspeed as a rank above playable. In other words, you get something that works decent with frameskip, that's playable. You get something at 60fps, that's fullspeed. And I feel this way about emulating any system, not just the N64.

Certainly I am not saying it was fullspeed, but I was not using a framerate counter, so I can only report my impression...I have a fairly high standard for playability, though, I tend not to like frameskip. I was using basically default settings, and nearly all games that I tried played fine on that computer - the only ones I remember not being playable were Paper Mario, because of graphical issues, and Rogue Squadron, which wouldn't start at all.


I was responding to Exophase. I agree with you for the most part.

-God Ginrai

 

[Keyaku]

wait... I'm a little confused...
I've been reading some pages of this topic... N64 is fully playable on a PSP?
that is weird... Exophase, I know that by computing processors, the iPhone wouldn't just run emulators just well but how come PSP run N64 when iPhone can't? I mean, does the PSP have a 64-bit processor?

also, if people say N64 is possible, why wouldn't the Dreamcast be possible?

READ: I do not own a Dreamcast or N64 nor I have ever played on them, so I don't know very much about them so don't start off and saying that I'm a n00b. Unlike others, I don't say PS2 is possible on iPhone or even that the Pandora is stronger than Quads.

Thanks for understanding

PS: I don't receive any replies even though I check "Enable email notification of replies". any fix?