Question about emulation programs on Pyra

[bobzilla]

I am an owner of the original Pandora and liked it very much for emulation although I have not used it much in the last couple of years,

I got a GPD Win recently but I was not super impressed by it.The thing corrupts MicroSD cards like crazy, The build quality is also questionable. Additionally, it also crashes frequently.

Because of this I looked for something better. I just found out about the Pyra!

Now I am definitely looking to upgrade to the Pyra but I was wondering what emulation software would be available at release. Will the Pyra run emulators from the Pandora or will there need to be new programs written. As I don't code I want to ensure I can run my SNES, MAME, Genesis, Amiga, GBA, N64 as well as PS1,PS2, Gamecube, and other "high end" emulators.


Thanks in advance for any response to help me with my decision.

 

[Silent-Hunter]

Those should all work, except for PS2 and Gamecube, they're too power hungry.

The emulators will likely need to be ported from the Pandora, which should happen relatively quickly.

 

[rygD]

I am pretty sure emulators will be a high priority once people get units in their hands. ptitSeb does a lot of porting, and he maintains many of the emulators in addition to the games and other software, so be patient once the Pyra is released. I think you may be able to use some of the emus from the Debian ARM repo, if there are any (I haven't checked), although they may not perform as well as when they are eventually optimized for the Pyra.

Another thought is that maybe you can learn what needs to be done to port stuff, and you can help out. The more people helping out the more software we all have to use. That will be especially valuable early on. I need to get off my ass and help out...

 

[Murakami]

An additional question... for the emulation of the more power hungry systems like dreamcast, would you recommend getting 4GB Pyra or do you think 2GB are good enough? Or in general, is it recommendable to get 4GB right away? Thanks

 

[matzesu]

As Dreamcast was still running on the 1ghz Pandorae, I think it will also work on the 2gb Pyrae (is this the correct plural of Pandora/Pyra ?? )

I also preordered a 4gb Unit, but I think the most users want use the 2gb extra ram much and it's just for the good feeling not to have the "bader " Hardware

 

[AnimatedFreak]

The Dreamcast emulator are already running at full speed on the devboards and they are only 2GB as far as I'm aware so I don't think that would be a problem

 

[rygD]

TrashyMG made videos with a devboard and showed that for the average user there probably won't be a need for the 4GB. It is a bit of a trade-off, as with it you might be better off eventually, but you will lose battery life. There are probably other things, but that seems like the big one to me.

 

[FBnil]

Or in general, is it recommendable to get 4GB right away?

If you reboot often (i.e. once every 2 days, to start with all applications closed), 2GB will suffice. If you never reboot, and keep a firefox open, next to a programming environment with a running webserver.... AND want to game without closing anything.... you MIGHT... need more than 2GB.... so far everything works (without degradation) on 2GB too.

 

[lukey]

and keep a firefox open, next to a programming environment with a running webserver.... AND want to game without closing anything....

s/firefox/palemoon with noscript/g
and you'll have no Problem on a Classic OpenPandora with 256 mb of Ram with multiple days of Uptime. (You may have to killall -STOP palemoon depending on the Game)

 

[levi]

I keep firefox open on my 512MBi pandora almost all the time, and a programming environment, and a music player, and playtest games as they come out. Admittedly I don't use an IDE - my programming environment is a shell with occasionally spawned instances of vim and less, and I use noscript with my firefox. My Pandora only gets updated when I forget to charge it and it runs out of charge, or after a system update, so perhaps once a month or so at most.

 

[Murakami]

Awesome!

Being a Sega Fanboy knowing a capable Dreamcast Emu is probably happening is quite a selling factor for me!

What about Saturn? I know it's a "demanding" system to emulate but is there something to look forward to as well?

 

[AnimatedFreak]

Awesome!

Being a Sega Fanboy knowing a capable Dreamcast Emu is probably happening is quite a selling factor for me!

What about Saturn? I know it's a "demanding" system to emulate but is there something to look forward to as well?

Last time I used it, I couldn't even get it to work properly on my desktop computer. It is of course is a pretty complex system, but also Saturn emulation just doesn't get much love in the development front compared to other consoles. Of course I haven't used it for a while so maybe it has changed now, but I'm skeptical. I heard they made some advances when someone managed to get pass the Saturns complex DRM some 20 years later lol

 

[Murakami]

Last time I used it, I couldn't even get it to work properly on my desktop computer. It is of course is a pretty complex system, but also Saturn emulation just doesn't get much love in the development front compared to other consoles. Of course I haven't used it for a while so maybe it has changed now, but I'm skeptical. I heard they made some advances when someone managed to get pass the Saturns complex DRM some 20 years later lol

aahh... Sega... XD

 

[asimov-solensan]

There is the yabuse emulator. Already ported to pandora and close to usable. I remember Ingoreis uploaded some videos and some games where close to be playable.

So yabuse on Pyra is highly probable, if it will run games at playable speeds or not is another question.

As a saturn former owner I would love to see a playable saturn emulator.

 

[Murakami]

There is the yabuse emulator. Already ported to pandora and close to usable. I remember Ingoreis uploaded some videos and some games where close to be playable.

So yabuse on Pyra is highly probable, if it will run games at playable speeds or not is another question.

As a saturn former owner I would love to see a playable saturn emulator.

I think I know how you feel. I'd so like to play Shining Force 3 and Holy Arc on Pyra... not to mention the Panzer Dragoons.

 

[Peixinho]

For sega saturn there is mednafen for x64 systems that is super awesome. Maybe it could be ported.

 

[AnimatedFreak]

For sega saturn there is mednafen for x64 systems that is super awesome. Maybe it could be ported.

Oh okey, my Pandora was out of shape so I sold it. I'll have to take a second look at yabuse for my desktop. I would love to have Saturn emulation, one of the best console of all time. But last time I used it I couldn't even get Rayman to play Hopefully they will make more progress in the furture and we can have portable Nights with the analog nubs of the Pyra Fun fact, all games that are compatible with the steering wheel of the Saturn are also compatible with the 3D controller as it just maps the analog over form the wheel to the 3D controller. I think it's the same with the flight stick to if I remember.

 

[Xcl4m4t10n]

For me, Saturn is Guardian Heroes.