Pandora's Emulators (my list from the GP32x forums)


Prophet

God I'm old.
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I had to pull this slightly old version of my emulation list from Google cache. When the GP32X forums are back again, I'll replace the up-to-date version here.

All the coloring and formatting is missing too, which ruins things quite a bit, but that will be fixed when I get to the old forums again.

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Kyosys here, I got the google cache version and translated the HTML to BBCode, so here you go:

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As more people around the world discover the Pandora, we're likely to get many requests for emulators. This topic is designed to clarify what sort of emulators are likely to work very well on Pandora, what sort probably won't, and what *might* happen (depending on many variables). This list will also begin indicating emulators known to already be in development, and/or being planned by reputable developers.

Last Updated: 9/14/08 (scroll to the bottom of this post to see a detailed list of updates)

THIS LIST IS SEMI-SPECULATIVE
DO NOT expect to see emulators for every system in the list!


Systems colored in green are known to have emulators already being worked on (i.e. not just planned) using Pandora hardware. When possible, the name(s) of the developers will be listed.

Systems colored in yellow indicate a well known developer has publically declared intent to emulate, but have not yet received Pandora hardware. If more than one emulator is planned, each will have its dev(s) listed in seperate brackets.

Emulators that COULD work well on Pandora: (full speed emulation, full sound, rare frame skipping)

8bit consoles, computers and other platforms including (but not limited to):
Adventure Vision
Atari 2600/7800 [zx-81] [Tinnus->Little John]
Colecovision [zx-81]
Fairchild Channel F
Gameboy & Gameboy Color [Tinnus->Little John]
Intellivision [zx-81]
Microvision
NES/Famicom/FDS [Tinnus->Little John]
Odyssey/2
Sega Master System & Game Gear [Tinnus->Little John]
Sega SG-1000 (pre-SMS console in Japan)
Vectrex [SDW->Vecx]
Amstrad [zx-81]
Apple II
Apple IIGS
Atari 800/XL/XE/5200 [zx-81]
BBC Micro (possible zx-81 port, not confirmed)
Commodore 64
Commodore PET
Commodore Plus/4 [zx-81]
Commodore VIC-20
Dragon 32/64
MSX [zx-81]
Oric 1
Sam Coupé [zx-81]
Sinclair QL
Sinclair Spectrum [Dio/Firefox->EMU]
Sinclair ZX-80/81 [zx-81]
Tandy Color Computer (CoCo) [zx-81]
Tandy TRS-80
Thompson TO7-70 [zx-81]

Arcade games from the 70's and 80's [MAME]
+ various other systems from that era

16bit consoles, computers and other platforms including (but not limited to):

Amiga CD32
Atari Lynx
Genesis/Megadrive/SegaCD [Tinnus->Little John] [Notaz->Picodrive]
NeoGeo AES/MVS [Squidge->Finalburn Alpha] [Pepone->GnGeo]
NeoGeo CD
NeoGeo Pocket/Color [Tinnus->Little John]
Philips CDI
SNES [Squidge ->PandaSNES, see here] [Tinnus->Little John]
Turbografx-16/PC-Engine/CD-ROM (technically an 8bit system but eh...) [Exophase->Temper port]
Wonderswan/Color [Tinnus->Little John]

286 DOS PC (& 386) [DJWillis->SCUMMVM] [Zodttd->DOSbox]
Amiga [Notaz]
Atari ST [Skeezix]
MacIntosh (early models i.e. 68000 based)
TI 99/4A [zx-81]
X68000 (Japanese computer with arcade quality graphics)

Arcade games from late 80's - 90's [/b] (i.e. M68000 based hardware etc.) [Squidge->Finalburn Alpha port] [MAME]
TI-92 Calculator [zx-81]


32bit consoles, computers and other platforms including (but not limited to):

Atari Jaguar [Firefox - see here]
Gameboy Advance [Exophase]
Playstation [ZodTTD & Tinnus *LINK*]
Virtual Boy

386 DOS PC (& 286) [DJWillis->SCUMMVM] [Zodttd->DOSbox]

Arcade games (i.e. PSX based hardware) [MAME [/b] - not sure these would run at good speeds on Pandora though)]

Emulators that MIGHT work decently on Pandora (these are all speculative!): (playable w/frame skipping and/or no sound etc.)

3DO
NEC PC-FX (CD based JPN-only system with mostly FMV games)
Nintendo 64 (no active projects)
Sega 32X [Notaz->Picodrive]

MacIntosh (later generations i.e. PowerPC based)

Emulators that probably will NOT work well on Pandora (these are all speculative!): (unplayable or just plain impossible)


Nintendo DS (might eventually move into the "work decently" tier, time will tell.)
PSP (might be attempted, believe it or not...)
Sega Saturn (altho 32bit, it's very messy hardware to emulate)
Dreamcast [drkIIRaziel->nullDC, see here]
Playstation 2
XBox
Gamecube
486 based PC's and higher
Current mainstream consoles (Wii, PS3, 360 etc.)

These lists are preliminary and semi-speculative. But hopefully they give some idea of what Pandora's emulation furture will hold. As always in emulation, you never know what some brilliant dev will do in the future, but it's good to have a sense of proportion. Remember, Pandora is very powerful (easily surpassing all current handheld game devices) but it's not a miracle machine. So don't hold your breathe for things like Dreamcast or PS2 emulation - you'll only end up dying! ;)

Any mistakes or suggestions for additions/changes, please post below!

And remember:

THIS LIST IS SEMI-SPECULATIVE
DO NOT expect to see emulators for every system in the list!


UPDATES:
5/26 - started indicating systems that are actually in development using Pandora dev hardware
5/27 - indicated that PSP emulation is being considered *LINK*
5/27 - started yellow lighting declared emulators by well known devs who don't have Pandora hardware yet; added NeoGeo CD to list
5/28 - yellow lighted various classic systems since zx-81 announced intent to adapt his many emu ports for Pandora (including ZX-80/81, MSX, Intellivision, Thompson TO7-70, Amstrad, Atari 2600 & 7800, Sam Coupé, Commodore Plus/4, Colecovision, Atari 800/XL/5200, TI 92 calculator)
5/28 - moved Atari Jaguar to "work well" category and yellow lighted Firefox for intent to emulate (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) (Tempest 2000 on a handheld, yum!)
5/28 - semi-alphabetized "work well" & "work decently" lists in this order: consoles,computers,arcades,others
5/28 - removed "defining terms" section since this info is repeated in the list headers
5/28 - yellow lighted Pepone for a GnGeo (NeoGeo) port, and Tinnus for a Little John (NES, SNES, GB/C, SMS/GG, Genesis, NGP, Wonderswan/Color and Atari 2600 + possibly others!) port
5/28 - yellow lighted Genesis/Megadrive/SegaCD for Notaz' intended port of Picodrive
5/29 - yellow lighted Amiga having found this post by Gnostic (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
6/3 - yellow lighted all arcade sections in regards to the inevitable MAME port to Pandora
6/3 - yellow lighted TG16/PCE/CD in regards to Exophase indicating a port of Temper
6/4 - yellow lighted 286 & 386 PC in regards to SCUMMVM (it's an interpreter really but eh...) DOSbox is also likely but awaiting confirmation
6/5 - indicated DOSbox for x86
6/11 - yellow lighted TI-994A & Tandy Color Computer for zx-81, added MacIntosh, BBC Micro and NEC PC-FX to the list
6/11 - readded Gameboy & GB Color, must've accidentally deleted them when I alphabetized parts of the list
6/13 - added Sega SG-1000 to the list, there are still a few more obscure/unusual things to possibly add (i.e. PalmOS)... wondering if I should add GP32?
6/13 - moved NEC PC-FX from "work well" to "work decently" group in light of Exophase's comments on emulating it on Pandora, adjusted list format a little for clarity
6/20 - added Oric 1, TRS-80, Apple IIGS Commodore Vic and Commodore PET. NOTE: generally I will only add platforms that had software uniquely written for them (i.e. won't list every version of a particular computer platform; like Amiga for example), and which were reasonably popular and/or well known in their day and/or historically significant to some degree
6/20 - added Adventure Vision, Microvision, Fairchild Channel F, Dragon 32/64 and Virtual Boy
6/21 - added Sinclair QL and later gen Macs (i.e. PowerPC based)
7/19 - Atari Jaguar green lighted since Firefox successfully ported his emulator, and it's running very, very fast!
7/24 - added link to Firefox's PandaSNES thread (note PandaSNES is by Squidge, not Firefox) for SNES
7/27 - green lighted Genesis/SegaCD since Picodrive is now confirmed to be ported and running on Pandora hardware
7/29 - yellow lighted Vectrex (SDW) and Dreamcast (drkIIRaziel) - personally I'm not expecting DC to ever run well, but you don't know until you know, ya know? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) Good luck devs!
7/31 - yellow lighted Sega 32X, since Notaz has said he will add it to tocoPicodrive _after_ Pandora is released
9/14 - Amiga greened for Notaz, GB/GBC yellowed for Tinnus, greened Speccy for Dio/Firefox, added Amiga CD32 to list
9/17 - N64 blackened. Zod backed out.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
quadomatic said:
Not sure if he cares that I say this but drkiiRaziel said he did preorder his Pandora, so I'm guessing (this he did NOT say) a nullDC port will be worked on soon after Pandora ships.

FUUUCCCK YAHHHHH!!!!!

lol..sorry, im just excited!
 
quadomatic said:
Not sure if he cares that I say this but drkiiRaziel said he did preorder his Pandora, so I'm guessing (this he did NOT say) a nullDC port will be worked on soon after Pandora ships.

AWESOME! I don't care if it runs at 10 FPS or 50, I just want to see it. I believe the PSP version at least booted into certain games, right?

Also, n64 emulation is a big deal to me, but as it says at the bottom of the Big List, zod backed out. I'm sure we'll at least see a quick port of Daedalus soon.
 
jbr said:
quadomatic said:
Not sure if he cares that I say this but drkiiRaziel said he did preorder his Pandora, so I'm guessing (this he did NOT say) a nullDC port will be worked on soon after Pandora ships.

I believe the PSP version at least booted into certain games, right?

Well the PSP version was just him getting the source code rewritten so nullDC could be ported to other platforms, like Pandora. So all the stuff you saw for PSP was proof-of-concept with no optimizations.
 
Too bad the Saturn is such a hardware mess. There are a few gems that that console produced.

Hopefully a good N64 emu comes to pass.

If a good nullDC could work on Pandora, I would be in heaven
 
Alright, I got the google cache and went through it translating the HTML to BBCode. Boy, that sure was a pain in the ass to do.


Anyway, I'm going to edit your post now, so it contains pretty colors
 
brandonorban said:
I thought Zodttd was going to try n64.

-Brandon

Yeah, he was, but he stopped working on it, if I'm not completely mistaken :(
 
My DS can do that too, but SNES compatability is far from perfect, and there are some features i would like to see in the emulators that they lack. (Like loading more than one savestate for NES, actually saving settings for SNES, etc. etc.)
 
Kyosys said:
My DS can do that too, but SNES compatability is far from perfect, and there are some features i would like to see in the emulators that they lack. (Like loading more than one savestate for NES, actually saving settings for SNES, etc. etc.)

Yeah, I used to use emulators on DS, and really, they were not very good. Speeds improved a lot over time, but the issues with saving were just too much.
 
I absolutely love my DS and it's emulators, it's just that I can have it better. I don't consider it to be horrifying, though
 
Kyosys said:
My DS can do that too, but SNES compatability is far from perfect, and there are some features i would like to see in the emulators that they lack. (Like loading more than one savestate for NES, actually saving settings for SNES, etc. etc.)

I agree entirely. More fleshed out Emu's are always a good way to go. And yes, the Snes one is definately one I'm hoping finally gets to run like it should.
 
Looks like we need to give zx-81 and Franxis each a Pandora and the list will be pretty complete!
 
Thanks for getting this back up and in glorious technicolour, prophet/kyosys. (thanks too to sebt3, who got a decent version up on his README).

zodttd lacked time due to his other projects, which is a real shame.
 
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