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

[Chip]

I'am psp fan really. But if psp will come to pandora it will be my dream come true :rolleyes: ... and I've found this article !!!


That article is three years old. Nothing ever came of PSPEmu. The only other PSP emulation projects I'm aware of are both windows-only and far from complete. Potemkin only works with a couple games and PSPE won't run any commercial titles.

Don't get your hopes up about PSP emulation on Pandora. Even if a fully functional emulator were developed, it is highly unlikely that Pandora would be able to play any games at an acceptable speed.

 

[Tom`]

Dosbox will only run DOS games, not Windows games. Unless Blizzard ports it to the pandora or releases the source, it won't happen.

I have run Starcraft under SheepShaver on low-spec PCs before. I think it was playable on my 400 MHz Pentium II. So I believe that it may at least be possible, with an optimized port of SheepShaver.

 

[Esn]

Just out of curiosity, where does the PC-FX fall in? I notice that it's not mentioned in the list.

 

[Prophet]

PC-FX is a 32bit system. It's so fringe I forgot it.

I'll add it to the list, and take a guess that it's doable.

But I have doubts that anyone will bother - it had very few games and most were interactive FMV type games.

 

[vampire8bit]

Prophet, another system ported by zx-81:

Gp2x-ti99 : A Ti-99/4 Emulator


http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=39560

 

[Prophet]

Prophet, another system ported by zx-81:

Gp2x-ti99 : A Ti-99/4 Emulator

http://www.gp32x.de/board/index.php?showtopic=39560



Wonderful! Will yellow it.

I'll check to see if I missed any others. Not sure I should include his all his PSP emus though, altho it's likely they'll be easily ported as well.

 

[Kyo]

A PSP emulator would still be useful for homebrew, even if it can't run games at an acceptable speed.

 

[Prophet]

A PSP emulator would still be useful for homebrew, even if it can't run games at an acceptable speed.

Like what? Any non-gaming PSP homebrew would be far outclassed by other apps on Pandora.

Anyway, if and when hlide gives it a shot, we'll see what's possible or not. Beyond that, PSP emulation isn't even on my radar, and I don't recommend that anyone expect much. It may never happen at all.

 

[Chip]

PC-FX is a 32bit system. It's so fringe I forgot it.

I'll add it to the list, and take a guess that it's doable.

But I have doubts that anyone will bother - it had very few games and most were interactive FMV type games.

The system is almost unheard of outside Japan. It's so obscure, it's not even covered by MESS. The only open source emulator I could find is a multi-system emu called Mednafen. The Mednafen site doesn't list system requirements for PC-FX, but the requirements are pretty steep for other, older systems. It seems unlikely that somebody would go to the trouble of porting an emulator for a system that only plays a handful of Japanese language games and is unlikely to run at full speed.

 

[Ayla]

I'll check to see if I missed any others.

Hmmm...
Gameboy N&B and Gameboy Color ? :unsure:

 

[Kyo]

A PSP emulator would still be useful for homebrew, even if it can't run games at an acceptable speed.

Like what? Any non-gaming PSP homebrew would be far outclassed by other apps on Pandora.

Anyway, if and when hlide gives it a shot, we'll see what's possible or not. Beyond that, PSP emulation isn't even on my radar, and I don't recommend that anyone expect much. It may never happen at all.

True, and while I'm not really in the PSP homebrew scene, I know that every console-specialized homebrew scene has it's unique projects and even if the pandora would be able to handle the projects that doesn't mean they're open source or that their creators are interested in porting them to the pandora.
Myself, I don't really care if the Pandora gets PSP emulation or not (especially since it wouldn't really be usable), but I'm just saying that that is something it could actually be used for while being more than just a demo.

 

[palmertech]

Go read the PS2 emulation thread in the dev forum, Exophase and Tinnus wrote very, very nice long essays on why you would not want psp emulation. Just replace the words "PS2" with "PSP". Not sure I 100% agree, but they do have excellent reasons.

 

[bigtruck]

I am sorry if this is a stupid question, and it probably is, but I have to ask. I don't know much about macintosh or their history or OS versions or anything, so I don't know how early we're talking with "Early models."

When I was younger, I spent many, many hours playing a game called Escape Velocity on a macintosh emulator. According to wikipedia, it was released in 1996. Is there any chance of this working on a mac emulator for the Pandora? Again, I'm sorry if this is one of those "Nurr... so I can run Crysis via WINE on the Pandora, rite?!" questions, but my nostalgia has gotten the better of me.

 

[Tom`]

I am sorry if this is a stupid question, and it probably is, but I have to ask. I don't know much about macintosh or their history or OS versions or anything, so I don't know how early we're talking with "Early models."

When I was younger, I spent many, many hours playing a game called Escape Velocity on a macintosh emulator. According to wikipedia, it was released in 1996. Is there any chance of this working on a mac emulator for the Pandora? Again, I'm sorry if this is one of those "Nurr... so I can run Crysis via WINE on the Pandora, rite?!" questions, but my nostalgia has gotten the better of me.

There was an Escape Velocity game that ran under Basilisk II, which should work fine. Otherwise, you'll have to wait for SheepShaver to be ported. There's no theoretical reason it wouldn't work.

 

[bigtruck]

There was an Escape Velocity game that ran under Basilisk II, which should work fine. Otherwise, you'll have to wait for SheepShaver to be ported. There's no theoretical reason it wouldn't work.

Awesome! One more thing to add to the long list of "any of these features alone would make me buy the Pandora."

 

[Prophet]

I'll check to see if I missed any others.

Hmmm...
Gameboy N&B and Gameboy Color ? :unsure:

They were there! :blink:

I must've accidentally deleted them when I alphabetized parts of the list. I'll fix it now.

 

[Exophase]

PC-FX is a 32bit system. It's so fringe I forgot it.

I'll add it to the list, and take a guess that it's doable.

But I have doubts that anyone will bother - it had very few games and most were interactive FMV type games.

The system is almost unheard of outside Japan. It's so obscure, it's not even covered by MESS. The only open source emulator I could find is a multi-system emu called Mednafen. The Mednafen site doesn't list system requirements for PC-FX, but the requirements are pretty steep for other, older systems. It seems unlikely that somebody would go to the trouble of porting an emulator for a system that only plays a handful of Japanese language games and is unlikely to run at full speed.


I've looked at Mednafen's PC-FX emulation extensively and have talked to the author about it and I think that it's too much for Pandora to handle.

It could do it, but it'd take a more optimized CPU core (probably recompiler) and renderer.

 

[Esn]

Heh, I probably shouldn't have mentioned it. I didn't realize at first that it was really only for those who know Japanese.

BTW, Prophet, you may as well add the Sega SG-1000 to the list... that shouldn't be hard to emulate and had some decent games.

 

[Prophet]

SG-1000 added.

NEC PC-FX moved from "work well" to "might work decently" group in regards to Exophase's comments.

 

[Esn]

Wikipedia says:
QUOTE
The ColecoVision contains the same CPU and graphics chip as the MSX and Sega SG-1000/SC-3000. It also shares a sound chip with Sega consoles (including the Master System), making them identical in hardware capabilities.


I don't profess to understand this... but were they basically the same system with different cartridges?