Pandora-on-Pyra Emulator?

[Grench]

Not sure why we'd want a Pandora emulator when we can just port everything (or kindly ask the people who have games with close source ports to port to the Pyra for us.

I'm sure they'd be happy to do that when we get hardware but we don't have the hardware yet right?

For the most part you're right.

There are a few where we have no source and have lost contact with the one(s) who would. Super Geometry Dust is the glaring example. Maybe the author will pop up again once production Pyras exist.

Can anyone list any other titles that are in this category?

 

[levi]

Not sure why we'd want a Pandora emulator when we can just port everything (or kindly ask the people who have games with close source ports to port to the Pyra for us.

User @wermy has even been flagged here a couple of times but hasn't posted anything for over 5 years now. I assume he's not looking any more and has moved on, unless you know more.

 

[Hellfleck]

Anyway, as has been repeated a lot of times already, the OMAP5 is a lot faster than the OMAP3. Conservatively at least 3.5 times as fast per core, which makes it 7 times with both cores, that is plenty.
The real trouble with the OMAP5 is not performance but lack of current features like 64-bit and OpenGL ES 3.

sounds reasonable but that actually falls into the "not that much more powerful" category for me (in this use case also it will throttle a lot under constant full load) - it will be plenty fast to do a lot of great things but emulating different hardware needs a lot of oomph

missing 64bit and OpenGL ES3 is an annoyance for sure but the Pandy did not have that either

 

[Wally]

User @wermy has even been flagged here a couple of times but hasn't posted anything for over 5 years now. I assume he's not looking any more and has moved on, unless you know more.

They've got a github, i'm sure we can channel them on there

 

[God Ginrai]

Not sure why we'd want a Pandora emulator when we can just port everything (or kindly ask the people who have games with close source ports to port to the Pyra for us.

I'm sure they'd be happy to do that when we get hardware but we don't have the hardware yet right?

Same reason we needed GINGE: Cave Story.

Seriously, tho'. There will always be stuff that we had on previous hardware that we have no way to get on current hardware due to:

1. Lack of source
2. Lack of competent devs who also wish to port said software

And because of this, a compatibility layer or an emulator (if the hardware would be better served emulated) will always be appreciated.

-God Ginrai

 

[Lightkey]

sounds reasonable but that actually falls into the "not that much more powerful" category for me (in this use case also it will throttle a lot under constant full load) - it will be plenty fast to do a lot of great things but emulating different hardware needs a lot of oomph

missing 64bit and OpenGL ES3 is an annoyance for sure but the Pandy did not have that either

Then maybe you need to adjust your definition of "not that much more powerful"? Just a thought.. do you have any idea how hard it is to find benchmark comparisons between desktop CPUs with a 3.5 times difference in single-thread performance (in the same CPU line, both being the fastest available model at the time)? Anyway, I actually managed to find an example, just to show you what that means (thanks Anandtech!): It's like the very first Core 2 Duo generation built in 65 nm from 2007 compared to the current Core i7 Coffee Lake generation in 14 nm from 2017 (see Cinebench R10 results). That is a full decade in-between!

Of course that is not anywhere enough to actually emulate an OMAP3 on an OMAP5 but anyone who thought that would be possible is delusional. So I mentioned the missing features because they are requirements for any emulator that needs more power than the Pandora has, like Dolphin.