Pandora's Emulators - What Will Work And What Won't

[Zoppe]

why the dreamcast will not run?

what if someone mods marvel vs capcom 2 and capcom vs snk so the pandora would not have to render the 3d backgrounds, only the sprites? would that make the games playable?

sorry about the previous post. that was what i wanted to ask

 

[gruso]

You can't just mod games at will, you need the source code (and if someone did have the source, they'd be porting, not emulating).

Forget about Dreamcast.

 

[A_Llama]

i wonder if the dreamcast could be emulated. im not asking for sonic adventure 2 or shenmue 2, im asking for capcom vs snk 2, marvel vs capcom 2, guilty gear x, etc. is it possible?

Some of those games, or ones very similar, should be playable through MAME/FBA or PSX4ALL.

Que?

Those are all Naomi system games, which isn't emulated on PCs yet. There is no way you'll be seeing those games on the pandora, unfortunately.

If by 'ones very similar' you mean 'other fighting games' then yes, there will be lots of other fighting games to play on the pandora

 

[Prophet]

why the dreamcast will not run?

Dreamcast is extremely powerful hardware, and therefore requires a great deal of resources to emulate. It's unlikely the Pandora is powerful enough, but I will admit this is speculation on my part, but it's based in the current reality of DC emulation

QUOTE
what if someone mods marvel vs capcom 2 and capcom vs snk so the pandora would not have to render the 3d backgrounds, only the sprites? would that make the games playable?


I think I know what you're getting at - basically partial emulation to avoid rendering the more taxing parts of the DC video output, in order to speed up the emulation. That would not constitute a mod of the game images though, but I think that's what you mean.

I don't know enough to say if that would actually work or not. While it might seem like not rendering the backgrounds would help, then again that may not be true. Someone who knows the DC hardware well from an emulation POV might be able to answer.

But even if it worked, it would be ugly, and still might not reach 60fps. And fighting games in particular require very good speeds to truly be playable.

Honestly, forget Dreamcast. Maybe a dev will take a look at it and someday we'll get a definitive answer, but for now everyone agrees it's probably not doable. Let's see what happens with N64 first.

Lastly - Pandora will have tons of great fighting games. NeoGeo, CPS1/CPS2 and PSX emulation will provide that in spades!

 

[gaterooze]

If by 'ones very similar' you mean 'other fighting games' then yes, there will be lots of other fighting games to play on the pandora

What I mean is Marvel vs Capcom 1 instead of 2, Capcom vs SNK 1 instead of 2, and Guilty Gear on PSX. Sure, not exactly the same but I would call those very similar.

 

[x68000]

i wonder if the dreamcast could be emulated. im not asking for sonic adventure 2 or shenmue 2, im asking for capcom vs snk 2, marvel vs capcom 2, guilty gear x, etc. is it possible?

Some of those games, or ones very similar, should be playable through MAME/FBA or PSX4ALL.

The last system you would ever want to play 2D arcade fighting games on would be the PSX!

A CPS3 Emu may be within the pandora's capabilities though judging by it's specs. A big task for sure, but who knows?

 

[KRH]

Forgive me for asking, but should a N64 Emulator be made how easy would it be to also emulate the 4 MB Expansion
Pack for the games that require it?

 

[Prophet]

Forgive me for asking, but should a N64 Emulator be made how easy would it be to also emulate the 4 MB Expansion
Pack for the games that require it?

Pandora has 128MB, so accomodating an extra 4MB of emulated RAM would probably be no big deal. It's everything else - emulating the N64 CPU, GPU etc.

 

[KRH]

Pandora has 128MB, so accomodating an extra 4MB of emulated RAM would probably be no big deal. It's everything else - emulating the N64 CPU, GPU etc.

Ah, Thank you.

 

[Joshwaan2k]

Forgive me for asking, but should a N64 Emulator be made how easy would it be to also emulate the 4 MB Expansion
Pack for the games that require it?

Pandora has 128MB, so accomodating an extra 4MB of emulated RAM would probably be no big deal. It's everything else - emulating the N64 CPU, GPU etc.


Yeah that's right, I followed N64 emulation for many years on emutalk.net. I remember to run a few games at full speed, the emu's needed a 550MHZ or 600MHZ P3 and 128MB ram to run at full speed. But games like Goldeneye and Perfect Dark required 1GHZ machine to be fully smooth.

But I'm mostly looking forward to Full speed SNES,GENESIS,32X,PSX

Also Prophet does the CPU power need to be 6 times faster then the unit your trying to emulate, or is that way off?

 

[Tinnus]

That "x times" statement is incorrect and imprecise simply because there a lot of variables in the mix, specfically the architecture of the host and emulated systems, and the techniques used in emulation (interpreter/dynarec, HLE/LLE etc).

For a pure CPU emulation point of view, the usual figure is around 10 times (with classic interpretation). But of course there's a HUGE more deal to consider.

 

[Joshwaan2k]

That "x times" statement is incorrect and imprecise simply because there a lot of variables in the mix, specfically the architecture of the host and emulated systems, and the techniques used in emulation (interpreter/dynarec, HLE/LLE etc).

For a pure CPU emulation point of view, the usual figure is around 10 times (with classic interpretation). But of course there's a HUGE more deal to consider.

Thanks for clearer that up Tinnus I was not sure.

I also remmeber Corn a PC n64 emu running some roms with a 300MHZ PC .

 

[.Gogeta§§J4BR.]

thats because it used very complex techniques, specific to your pc processor

people just dont want everyone to get excited, because it might take a while till its playing well, but n64 emulation is really within pandora's reach. even the psp can run simple games perfectly, such as mario 64. pandora has a great processor, and if people use it correctly, it is certainly possible to emulate most n64 games correctly (just excluding some troublesome games such as golgeneye and perfect dark)

plus, it MAY be possible to give it a try to some dreamcast games. but we are talking of over a year of hard development, it's not practical to think about it right now

just think about perfect neogeo and psx, because its going to be one of the most kickass systems you will emulate

 

[StriderNo9]

Thats cool.

All I want is SNES, Genesis, NES, PSX, MAME, TGX16, and PC games.

 

[Kid-Ras]

I have a question with the pandora i know it can hold an SD card now i have an R4 for the Ds and a Sd card goes in there and i can get anything for the Ds with it i was wondering if there was some sort of firmware that would pick up the info on my Sd card like my Ds and R4 do so i could use the pandora like my Ds/R4

 

[Chip]

I have a question with the pandora i know it can hold an SD card now i have an R4 for the Ds and a Sd card goes in there and i can get anything for the Ds with it i was wondering if there was some sort of firmware that would pick up the info on my Sd card like my Ds and R4 do so i could use the pandora like my Ds/R4

I think you're asking if you can play DS games on the Pandora. If that is your question, then the answer is no, at least not right now. There may be a DS emulator at some point in the future, but do not expect one soon.

 

[gruso]

I think he might be asking if Pandora can "just read what's on the card" - something a DS can't do without the help of an R4.

If that's the question, the answer would be of course, that's exactly what Pandora is all about! It's not a closed system like DS or PSP, that will only read "official" media. Think of it more as a computer, that you can put any old disk into (or SD card, in this case). It's an open system; no hacking or modding required. If you want to use your existing MicroSD, you'll just need an adaptor like this.

Kid-Ras, if you actually were asking about being able to play DS games on Pandora, that's a different story, refer to Chip's post above.

 

[Kid-Ras]

I think he might be asking if Pandora can "just read what's on the card" - something a DS can't do without the help of an R4.

If that's the question, the answer would be of course, that's exactly what Pandora is all about! It's not a closed system like DS or PSP, that will only read "official" media. Think of it more as a computer, that you can put any old disk into (or SD card, in this case). It's an open system; no hacking or modding required. If you want to use your existing MicroSD, you'll just need an adaptor like this.

Kid-Ras, if you actually were asking about being able to play DS games on Pandora, that's a different story, refer to Chip's post above.



yes i think you got it i just want to know if i can get my pandora to work like my DS/R4 because with the R4 i can watch movies listen to music and have mltipul games on at once and all that info is on my SD i wanted to know if the pandora could read it like my DS cause i was planning to buy a new ds but if pandora is compatable with the r4 data why waste the money

I think he might be asking if Pandora can "just read what's on the card" - something a DS can't do without the help of an R4.

If that's the question, the answer would be of course, that's exactly what Pandora is all about! It's not a closed system like DS or PSP, that will only read "official" media. Think of it more as a computer, that you can put any old disk into (or SD card, in this case). It's an open system; no hacking or modding required. If you want to use your existing MicroSD, you'll just need an adaptor like this.

Kid-Ras, if you actually were asking about being able to play DS games on Pandora, that's a different story, refer to Chip's post above.



yes i think you got it i just want to know if i can get my pandora to work like my DS/R4 because with the R4 i can watch movies listen to music and have mltipul games on at once and all that info is on my SD i wanted to know if the pandora could read it like my DS cause i was planning to buy a new ds but if pandora is compatable with the r4 data why waste the money


thanks for the help

 

[gruso]

Yep, Pandora will do all that and more without the need for any mods or third party add-ons. And it's a whole truckload more powerful than a DS.

Just to pull you up on a technical point, there's no such thing as "R4 data", it's just data. But there may be some things on your SD card that are specific to DS, which won't work on Pandora:

- MP3s: They're a universal format, so naturally Pandora will play them fine (along with many other audio formats)
- Video files: If you've converted to .dpg format, they won't play on anything but DS. But the originals you converted from will most likely play on Pandora, in full DVD quality or better. Pandora will have very broad codec support.
- Emulators: The emulators you're using will be DS specific, but all those systems will be emulated on Pandora, and much better. You'll be able to get hold of these emus just as easily, as they're released. You *should* be able to use your existing ROMs.
- DS Homebrew: Again, that stuff is DS specific. But there will be no shortage of homebrew for Pandora, because homebrew is why Pandora exists.

In short (oops, too late for that), if you're considering another DS just for all the stuff you do with your R4, perish the thought. Pandora will be a million light years better.

 

[Kid-Ras]

Yep, Pandora will do all that and more without the need for any mods or third party add-ons. And it's a whole truckload more powerful than a DS.

Just to pull you up on a technical point, there's no such thing as "R4 data", it's just data. But there may be some things on your SD card that are specific to DS, which won't work on Pandora:

- MP3s: They're a universal format, so naturally Pandora will play them fine (along with many other audio formats)
- Video files: If you've converted to .dpg format, they won't play on anything but DS. But the originals you converted from will most likely play on Pandora, in full DVD quality or better. Pandora will have very broad codec support.
- Emulators: The emulators you're using will be DS specific, but all those systems will be emulated on Pandora, and much better. You'll be able to get hold of these emus just as easily, as they're released. You *should* be able to use your existing ROMs.
- DS Homebrew: Again, that stuff is DS specific. But there will be no shortage of homebrew for Pandora, because homebrew is why Pandora exists.

In short (oops, too late for that), if you're considering another DS just for all the stuff you do with your R4, perish the thought. Pandora will be a million light years better.

ok cool thanks for the advice cant wait when it comes out