Saturn Emulator

[Ulexes]

So I have some fond memories of the saturn, and I unfortunately am no programmer... So does anyone knwo of an emulator for the caanoo or knwo of someone who might eb making one?>

If anyone is interested in developing one, i would happily contribute Graphics, as that is where my expertise really is.

=peace=

 

[Reo]

I'm pretty sure this will not happen in your lifetime.

 

[Orion4874]

The Caanoo doesn't have nearly enough horsepower for this, sorry dude.

 

[Mega5657]

Pretty depressing but yeah pretty much. At least you're straight to the point ( at least not for the CAANOO or Wiz)

 

[difuno]

Really wonder why N64 and SS emulators have already been ported to PSP but it sounds like impossible to get them ported to CAANOO? Is PSP really so much more powerful than CAANOO? What creates the biggest problem for CAANOO to get these two emulators run on it?

 

[Mega5657]

From what I've learned from lurking on these forums the psp has other things to take some work off the main processor which allows the psp to be more efficient. Look at all the commercial games on the psp. A lot have a full 3d environment with a bunch of actions happening on-screen yet most games play smoothly. I don't think you'll get commercial games like that on the CAANOO/Wiz . There's also something about the psp having a mips processor.

There are a bunch of factors that chip in. If you dig deeper in the forums many of these "problems" become more
apparent.

I recommend you start digging in the Wiz forums.

Although if you want (comma) you could write your own emulator from scratch and prove everyone wrong. There is always a possibility for something to happen.

 

[difuno]

Thanks Mega5657, I think I have a better understanding now.
I am just curious as PSP has been around for years but yet a device released this year can't even do the same thing that an old device is capable of doing. Learning from the spec sheet of CAANOO it sounds that it should be more powerful than a PSP, at least it reads so for non-technical public like me.

 

[traylorpark]

Radiant Silvergun really deserves to be played on a proper system with a proper tube TV anyways

 

[notaz]

Really wonder why N64 and SS emulators have already been ported to PSP but it sounds like impossible to get them ported to CAANOO? Is PSP really so much more powerful than CAANOO? What creates the biggest problem for CAANOO to get these two emulators run on it?

The word "ported" doesn't say anything, SS has been ported to PSP, but do you know it's completely useless and you can't really play any games? The same can be done for Caanoo, but it would be complete waste of time to do it.

 

[ruffnutts]

I still think the Caanoo can run N64 - its just no one wants to do it, I`m not saying it would be perfect in any way though

 

[Exophase]

Someone actually did an SH2 recompiler (and even a 68k one afaik) for Yabause, targeting MIPS for a PSP release. This was only updated in Yabause's source and I wasn't ever aware of anyone even successfully running a binary. It's possible it was never in a 100% tested/finished state where it was proven to run games. Or things could have changed, this was a long time ago. I was very impressed by the effort, at least.

Although Daedalus did start on x86 many years before the PSP release it's certainly not what I would consider a port. It was really redesigned from the ground up for PSP. If someone put that level of effort into a Wiz version it might run as well. FPU emulation performance would be bad, but Ari64 indicates that N64 games don't usually contain that many FPU operations. The memory subsystem is slow, but it's slow on PSP as well. One massive advantage Daedalus has over the Pandora build of Mupen64plus is that it has really direct and efficient access to the GPU. On Pandora OpenGL ES 2 really gets in the way when you do texture uploads and state changes, and requires complex shaders to emulate N64's combiners. Wiz actually has pretty good combiner capability that can do some of the typical N64 stuff, but I doubt it's exposed to OpenGL ES. To get best results an N64 emulator would probably have to access the GPU hardware directly and while it can probably be pulled off with enough work (since the documentation is out there) it's no small task.

But it'd be pretty cool if someone tried very hard at this. Using Mupen64plus's recompiler is a given.

 

[markpeterjameslegg]

So I have some fond memories of the saturn, and I unfortunately am no programmer... So does anyone knwo of an emulator for the caanoo or knwo of someone who might eb making one?>

If anyone is interested in developing one, i would happily contribute Graphics, as that is where my expertise really is.

=peace=

Unfortunately, the Sega Saturn was a nightmare to work with for software teams, very complicated meaning it lost to the Playstation's ease of use. It's also this reason that the Saturn is very difficult to emulate. I remember years ago reading that emulating the Saturn on a PC would be an impossible task and apparently Sega themselves had a failed attempt at re-releasing some Saturn classic's for the reason that they were coded for the Saturn. However, there have been a few emulators for the Saturn appear over the years but only one actually has the ability to play the commercial games and that's "SSF", ive actually used it myself and it's as close as your going to get to emulating the Saturn on anything. Unfortunately it requires so much power to function this emulator that it's highly unlikely it would function at all on a Caanoo.

 

[difuno]

Really wonder why N64 and SS emulators have already been ported to PSP but it sounds like impossible to get them ported to CAANOO? Is PSP really so much more powerful than CAANOO? What creates the biggest problem for CAANOO to get these two emulators run on it?

The word "ported" doesn't say anything, SS has been ported to PSP, but do you know it's completely useless and you can't really play any games? The same can be done for Caanoo, but it would be complete waste of time to do it.

Yep, I've also heard that this SS emulator on PSP is quite preliminary. But I am just not sure if there will be any possibility to get it further enhanced so that at least some games could be played with reasonable speed.

 

[Exophase]

Don't hold your breath, that almost never happens with these handheld ports. Porting something is not the same as optimizing it. Unless the original emu author is doing the work themselves (Daedalus) or the FIRST release is a substantial amount of rework (Mupen64plus for ARM) I would call it very unlikely.

 

[Ulexes]

Bummer.

Thanks for the insight though.

I'm surprised it was such a beast.

I stopped by my local Play N Trade and found a Saturn with controllers. But i really only want to play a few games.

 

[blues2]

Although Daedalus did start on x86 many years before the PSP release it's certainly not what I would consider a port. It was really redesigned from the ground up for PSP. If someone put that level of effort into a Wiz version it might run as well. FPU emulation performance would be bad, but Ari64 indicates that N64 games don't usually contain that many FPU operations. The memory subsystem is slow, but it's slow on PSP as well. One massive advantage Daedalus has over the Pandora build of Mupen64plus is that it has really direct and efficient access to the GPU. On Pandora OpenGL ES 2 really gets in the way when you do texture uploads and state changes, and requires complex shaders to emulate N64's combiners. Wiz actually has pretty good combiner capability that can do some of the typical N64 stuff, but I doubt it's exposed to OpenGL ES. To get best results an N64 emulator would probably have to access the GPU hardware directly and while it can probably be pulled off with enough work (since the documentation is out there) it's no small task.

But it'd be pretty cool if someone tried very hard at this. Using Mupen64plus's recompiler is a given.

so now you think n64 is possible on wiz and caanoo? does ari64 think it's possible?

 

[Exophase]

I post the same thing every time, some technical explanation about why I think it's worth trying and what approach people should take. Why does everyone have to read a "yes or no" answer out of everything I say? You're expecting way too much from me. I'm not a fortune teller.

Furthermore, a lot of you say "N64 is on PSP so it's being done there", but have you used it? Define your levels of "working" relative to that.

 

[Rikku2000]

maybe not Sega Saturn but i know there is an Jaguar Emulator for SDL

 

[Gab1975]

An Atari Jaguar emulator would be very "cool", but I don't know if the Caanoo/Wiz "power" is enough...

 

[bigbang]

So I have some fond memories of the saturn, and I unfortunately am no programmer... So does anyone knwo of an emulator for the caanoo or knwo of someone who might eb making one?>

If anyone is interested in developing one, i would happily contribute Graphics, as that is where my expertise really is.

=peace=

well i did some research and its clear that no one is currently working on a sega saturn emulater for this handheld. it needs more hardware power.