[poll] Vote For Nulldc Dreamcast Emulator On Pandora!

[naples39]

Good luck to the devs on this project.

I've never really played DC very much and kind of wrote off DC emulation on Pandora as very unlikely to ever be playable.

Now we have the original emu developers working on a port that has shown great progress in just a few days. Pretty exciting stuff!!

Thinking back, the current performance of this emu is comparable to the very first SNES emulator released for the GP2X. If DC emulation on the Pandora ends up at even half of where SNES emulation on GP2X finished that would be incredible.

 

[drkIIRaziel]

Yeah, clocks are 500/55

15 fps, yeah?

I'm sure doubling the graphics speed doubled the fps in Quake 3.

You never know

I'm quite sure it is not pvr limited yet, especially in that scene.

Very exciting. I didn't expect to see any games running for a few weeks at least. For comparison, could we see this running at 600/110?

Games have been running before we got gfx output -- almost all of the emulation code is derived from the pc version.This port is based on the psp port (and thats a cut-down version of the original pc code).The code was designed quite modular (and that was extended w/ the psp work) so we just have to fit the platform specific code and *poof* it works .Well, without sound anyway =)

Are they even using the graphics hardware or is this all currently software rendering?

The renderer is a gl|es 2.0 based one, written in ~ 45 minutes.The textures did take quite a bit longer tho, thanks to the different encoding for 16 bit textures (that was solved by upconverting everything to 32 bits)

My post showed nothing that talks about my interests only, but as developers and people in general. I'm looking out for others interests. When it comes to these things, I believe it's your own opinion that matters the most when it comes to weather you should develop something or not. Why develop something you'll hate to develop for, when you have no obligation to do so?

From what I've seen, you must enjoy developing the emulator enough to get it this far. Nice work on the emulator!

I'd just like to point out that the pandora specific work so far is quite .. small.Its about a week (?) old ? maby two .And that includes Zezu getting used to arm assembly, writing the arm emitter code, and me explaining him how the current dynarec works.So yeah, theres plenty plenty plenty room for implementation, and then optimization.

 

[Xmas]

The renderer is a gl|es 2.0 based one, written in ~ 45 minutes.The textures did take quite a bit longer tho, thanks to the different encoding for 16 bit textures (that was solved by upconverting everything to 32 bits)

That's impressively little time to write an ES2.0 renderer, even if it just needs a few shaders.
But isn't the only difference between the 16-bit texture formats the channel order?

 

[RajTakhar]

Great work :lol: - shows just how much these guys know about coding the Dreamcast emulator for the Pandora - someone trying to code this afresh would have taken a lot lot lot longer

I can understand the reasoning behind using the smaller footprint NullDCe as opposed to the full blown NullDC from a PC.

Hey I was wondering what spec of the BeagleBoard you guys have?

The older ones had 128MB ram whereas the newer ones, which are nearly same spec as Pandora have 256MB.

The Pandora using the NullDCe should prove more capable than the PSP with it's rather more limited RAM

Once again on behalf of us who appreciate your work - a great big thanks - and I sincerely hope you guys stick with it

 

[Polossatik]

I've preordered my Pandora together with "Pandora Developer Fund" and I think nullDC is the kind of project which should be supported by this fund by sending pandora devboard (or even final pandora) to the nullDC team at least.

+1

I'm personally not interested in the dreamcast that much, but this is the reason why I donated my bit for that fund. Anyone doing a thing like this should at least get a Pandora for free.

 

[ZeZu]

Wow too many things to respond to at once .. and I just wokeup !

First, we have some donations i should have announced but have a hard time sorting out everyones names vs usernames and if they want me to announce it or not!

Pandorasloveflaps & Kyosys both both donated, and a few more I still haven't sorted out, please send me a pm if you donated and want your name mentioned on the forums and/or in thanks on the emulator !

I'm not sure the cost of a pandora, but my guess tells me donations must be at least halfway there !

Some of the questions:

SGX is running @ 110mhz, Cortex-A8 is running at 500mhz for those vids.

Other games: some are similar speeds, many are slower.. It really depends on what works best with the recompiler in its current state, and the ammount of geometry it displays onscreen.

More vids soon !

 

[Classic Team]

They said it was impossible...

They said it couldn't be done!

But they where WRONG!
(And thank goodness)

ZeZu, you are nothing short of amazing. A round of applause goes to you for your hard work and determination. Can't wait to hear more from this project.

If I had any cash lying around, I'd be sure to donate it.

SPECULATION: Assuming the emulator still needs to be optimized, and that the Pandora can be overclocked, could we be seeing 40 FPS +? (Assumption made based on the footage of PoP.)

Question: Will frame skip be added as an emulation option? and can we see one more game running on it to compare the two games to each other?

Thanks a lot.

(Now I want a Pandora even more so than before, XD)

 

[ZeZu]

I wont speculate, my goal is full speed emulation, but I have to work in the confines of the hardware limitations.

Frameskip isn't like frameskip on an emulator that renders 2D operations.
It is possible however, and I will add it if it is at all beneficial.

The emulator will still have to process some of the data, but it may help if SGX is a limiting factor or if the vertex processing turns out to be processing enough data to make a difference.

 

[mcobit]

So this Version is already using OpenGL ES/ ES 2 For the graphics?
Will a lower resolution bring higher speeds?

EDIT: Sweeeet work also!

 

[Classic Team]

Thanks for your fast reply ZeZu.

Fullspeed emulation would be a godsend.

The reason I ask about frame skip and another game for comparison is because I'm wondering how more demanding games will run. I don't know about any of the other members, but I most likely will be playing games like Sonic Adventure 1/2, Crazy Taxi, etc. on this emulator (which I know is a bit of a stretch). How demanding these games are I'm not entirely sure, but seeing as how they would require fast emulation to play properly, you can see where I'm coming from.

But weather or not it runs those or not doesn't really matter to me at this point. Seeing Dreamcast running at these speeds is already an amazing achievement in of itself. I can't think of anyone here on the boards who thought those speeds where possible and you proved us all wrong. And for that, you deserve as many Pandoras as we can give you.

EDIT: I was going to ask a question, but I'm not very knowledgeable at all and I'll end up making a fool of myself if I ask. So Never mind. XD

 

[rikisg]

I wouldn't count on Crazy Taxi and Sonic Adventure Classic Team at 30 fps, though probably some 3d games might be run full speed with heavy optimization. Of course I'd love to be proven wrong.

 

[airbeckley]

Once again on behalf of us who appreciate your work - a great big thanks - and I sincerely hope you guys stick with it

+1 Fantastic work and thanks - this and the Qu3 vid have made me SO happy I've stuck with the amazing journey that has been Pandora!

 

[Raz]

My question is aimed at the devs..

As any emu dev, the goal is obviously 100% compatible full-speed emulation..

Is there going to be near-100% emulation for the dc? what are thoughts about marvel vs. capcom 2

 

[Eolair]

I'm so impressed by this! I never thought I'd see DC emulated at these speeds. You've done amazing work in such short time

 

[gaterooze]

Yes, it's good stuff - this was about the level I would have expected DC to run eventually, so hitting it so soon is a nice surprise. Anything more would be fun. I'd love to see a 2D game running to see if there's much difference in speed. Thanks ZeZu & drkIIRaziel.

 

[fusion_power]

I wont speculate, my goal is full speed emulation, but I have to work in the confines of the hardware limitations.

Frameskip isn't like frameskip on an emulator that renders 2D operations.
It is possible however, and I will add it if it is at all beneficial.

The emulator will still have to process some of the data, but it may help if SGX is a limiting factor or if the vertex processing turns out to be processing enough data to make a difference.

How complicated is the DC Hardware to emulate? AFAIK, the DC has very powerful Chips, for Example a beefy Yamaha AICA Sound Processor. And can there be any benefit from the fact, that the Dreamcast also used a PowerVR graphics unit like the Pandora?
Do 2D games run faster in emulation than 3D games? (I think they should but I know Emulation is not that easy to realize )

Well, I already would be happy with full Speed Super Puzzle Fighter

 

[ZeZu]

@Raz Like I said, I'd rather not speculate what will or won't happen.. There is a limit here with the pandora, and there are always more optimisations that can be done.

@fusion_power: The DC hardware is actually nice to emulate compared to something like ps2, saturn, or 32x .. but it was also a very capable system, 200mhz sh4, arm7tdmi, AICA dsp, powervr clx2 ... so therein lies the limitation of pandora .. its low power ARM processor is great compared to previous generations and many other processors targeted at embedded applications, but it is still a far cry from the performance level of a current generation x86 processor or even 5years ago ..

2D actually may be faster due to the lower requirements from floating point operations, I will test one and let you know!

This could be a very cool platform for Sammy Atomiswave, a shame that there is only one known dump, but it is a fairly new arcade system. For those who aren't familiar, the atomiswave is a dreamcast hardware based arcade, and was meant to be the next generation of 2D fighting arcades ala SNK / neogeo.

 

[Raz]

Good luckz to you anyways Zezu

May a 100% Shenmue, Dead or Alive, Carirer, Draconus, Gauntlet Legends, Half-Life, Ferrari Challenge, F1 World Prix, Hydro Thunder, Gundam Side Story, Jet Grind/Set Radio, Legacy of Kain, MVC 1&2, MDK2, Powerstone 1&2, Phantasy Star, Skies of Arcadia, Resident Evil 3&Code Veronica, Sonic Adventure 1&2, Virtua Tennis, Wild Metal, Virtua On, Space Channel 5, Toy Commander, 4-in-1 SHMUP and last but not least Soul Calibur exist... (I iz DC Savvy)

 

[drkIIRaziel]

My question is aimed at the devs..

As any emu dev, the goal is obviously 100% compatible full-speed emulation..

Is there going to be near-100% emulation for the dc? what are thoughts about marvel vs. capcom 2

Actually nullDCe the goal isn't 100% compatibility.Thats the work for the pc version.nullDCe will generally simplify the code by making many assumtions about how the games will use the hardware.Generally this shound't have much effect on games, but it will affect some things (ie, mmu and smc are planned to be _not_ implemented/enforced, unlike on the pc version where extensive work is done to support mmu (interpreter only for now) and almost-full smc).

nullDCe is generally a slimmed down version designed to have much lower requirements, nullDC is generally targeted at 100% emulation.

For comparition here is ram usage:
nullDCe/psp 38 mbs
nullDCe/psp-win86 42 mbs
nullDCe/pandora-win86 ~70 mbs (most of the overhead is due to the opengl | es texture cache)
nullDC ~ 120 mbs

 

[darkblu]

May a 100% Shenmue, Dead or Alive, Carirer, Draconus, Gauntlet Legends, Half-Life, Ferrari Challenge, F1 World Prix, Hydro Thunder, Gundam Side Story, Jet Grind/Set Radio, Legacy of Kain, MVC 1&2, MDK2, Powerstone 1&2, Phantasy Star, Skies of Arcadia, Resident Evil 3&Code Veronica, Sonic Adventure 1&2, Virtua Tennis, Wild Metal, Virtua On, Space Channel 5, Toy Commander, 4-in-1 SHMUP and last but not least Soul Calibur exist... (I iz DC Savvy)

so no ikaruga or le mans 24? - phail.

: )