Author Topic: Regarding Emulators  (Read 16844 times)

Vgr

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Regarding Emulators
« on: 2011-10-01 18:02:34 »
Note: I'm not distributing emulators! Google is your friend.

I think it's better to clear things up for newbies (read : stupid people) who think such or such console is emulable.

NES : Very easy to emulate, and there are lots of emulators out there. The computers are powerful enough to emulate this without any trouble.

SNES : Still easy to emulate, and there are quite a few emulators for this. Look at any SMW (on emulator) vid and you'll see that there are no problem to emulate at all.

Nintendo 64 : The first console that has 3D models in it (besides maybe 1 or 2 games on the SNES) and is really easy to emulate too. No problem here.

PlayStation One : Well-known but a bit sloppy to emulate on too old machines, there are still a few problems but it's still good.

GameBoy Advance : Quite easy to emulate and no problem either. It's not something very difficult.

Nintendo DS : A bit harder to emulate, but not something difficult either.

PlayStation Two : Now it gets interesting... An emulator DOES exist, however it can be slow on most machines even if less than a year old.

XboX : Hehe, now it's really interesting... An emulator exist, but can only emulate a single game, and is rather slow.

Game Cube/Wii : Two good consoles with a good emulator but can be slow, depending on your machine.

XboX 360 : It doesn't exist. Period. Any download you could find is fake. Anything you could hear or read is fake. Any video you can watch is fake. Period.

PlayStation Three : It doesn't exist. Period. Any download you could find is fake. Anything you could hear or read is fake. Any video you can watch is fake. Period.

Feel free to correct me, however if you write to say "An emulator exists for XboX 360 and/or PS3" then you indeed are stupid.

Hope everything is clear now.

Thanks, Vgr.
« Last Edit: 2011-10-01 19:19:15 by Vgr »

Tenko Kuugen

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Re: Regarding Emulators
« Reply #1 on: 2011-10-01 19:15:55 »
you forgot the wii, for which there is a pretty good emulator
and my machine is, or rather the hardware came out, 3 years ago and I can run everything with over 100 fps on the ps2 emu
NDS emu really depends on which one you use. There are several really shitty ones

Vgr

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Re: Regarding Emulators
« Reply #2 on: 2011-10-01 19:17:30 »
Wow, what emulator are you using for the PS2?

Yes I forgot the Game Cube and the Wii. Will add them right now.

dkma841

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Re: Regarding Emulators
« Reply #3 on: 2011-10-01 21:17:31 »
Im guessing hes using the emulator PCSX2 runs really good after the new big update they released a month ago but you will need a powerful comp and turn down the graphics slightly in the options for Wii/gc "Dolphin" is the best and for DS "Desmume"  it will take a few more years to make emulators for ps3/xbox

Tekkie.X

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Re: Regarding Emulators
« Reply #4 on: 2011-10-01 22:38:41 »
Some are saying the PS3 may never be emulated.

Prince Lex

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Re: Regarding Emulators
« Reply #5 on: 2011-10-01 23:59:03 »
Dreamcast: nullDC was also left out ^_^

And that can emulate in real HD, beautiful. As can PCSX2.

Hellbringer616

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Re: Regarding Emulators
« Reply #6 on: 2011-10-02 14:12:24 »
Some are saying the PS3 may never be emulated.

It will be! in like 2045 haha.

PS3:"The PS3 uses the Cell microprocessor, which is made up of one 3.2 GHz PowerPC-based "Power Processing Element" (PPE) and six accessible Synergistic Processing Elements (SPEs). A seventh runs in a special mode and is dedicated to aspects of the OS and security, and an eighth is a spare to improve production yields"

PS2:"CPU: 64-bit[3][4] "Emotion Engine" clocked at 294.912 MHz (299 MHz on newer versions)"

So... to emulate the PS2's single core... you need a 4.0ghz PC to have little to no speed hacks on.

PS3 has a 3.2ghz PPC (which on an older iMac would be simple to emulate as it has a PPC) then it has 8 additional cores.. So lets factor this up here...-caclulates, head explodes- Yeah, maybe 2045 was an understatement haha

Tenko Kuugen

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Re: Regarding Emulators
« Reply #7 on: 2011-10-02 20:13:06 »
I run PCSX2 on a 3,2ghz dual core and a E5570 ATI card
speedhacks obviously enabled, most have little to no impact on the game.
some games run mostly of the GPU so for those you need quite a bit of speedhacks.

Dolphin can actually be more CPU intensive than pcsx2 though. For example, running Xenoblade on it

Hellbringer616

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Re: Regarding Emulators
« Reply #8 on: 2011-10-02 22:03:27 »
PCSX2 is 80% CPU in most cases, intels run better then AMD, And like i said, all most games need no speedhacks, some games need a bit. you can run them with lower hardware. But of course you need the speed hacks, most the time they have zero impact. But EE Cycle rate speed hack breaks level 3 in Dark Cloud 2. and it causes stuttering audio in Shadow Hearts.

i think a 4.5ghz CPU sand bridge can emulate everything currently out with no speed hacks. (this includes SotC)

Dolphin is usually less CPU intensive because Wii/GC is more similar to a PC then the PS2. Though i don't use it, No bluetooth on my PC, thus, no Wiimote.

Covarr

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Re: Regarding Emulators
« Reply #9 on: 2011-10-03 03:43:32 »
Note: I'm not distributing emulators! Google is your friend.
Umm, why not? Most emulators are free, contain no copyrighted code, and are completely legal. There's no trouble to be had for distributing them, or at least linking the best in each category.

Nintendo 64 : The first console that has 3D models in it (besides maybe 1 or 2 games on the SNES) and is really easy to emulate too. No problem here.
Except PC-FX, 3DO, Atari Jaguar, Playstation, and SEGA Saturn.

PlayStation One : Well-known but a bit sloppy to emulate on too old machines, there are still a few problems but it's still good.
Less demanding to emulate than N64. pSX requires a slightly faster machine, but still most anything you can find will run it just fine. ePSXe will work on damn near anything, though; its requirements are crazy low.

Nintendo DS : A bit harder to emulate, but not something difficult either.
Nintendo DS emulators have trouble with a lot of games, and some games won't even run at fullspeed with any processor not from the last year or so. DS emulation is not very sophisticated at all.

PlayStation Two : Now it gets interesting... An emulator DOES exist, however it can be slow on most machines even if less than a year old.
It really depends on the game. Some games run at fullspeed on almost anything, and some on almost nothing.

Game Cube/Wii : Two good consoles with a good emulator but can be slow, depending on your machine.
And also depending on the game, and your settings. Although interestingly, Super Smash Bros Brawl will run great on less recent machines, but games you'd expect to be less demanding such as Sonic 4 struggle even on good ones.



But more than anything else, I question why this thread was necessary. We don't frequently get people asking for a PS3 emulator so they can play the FF7 tech demo, or any stupid crap like that.

Vgr

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Re: Regarding Emulators
« Reply #10 on: 2011-10-03 12:12:53 »
It's because people roam around the Internet thinking it does exist and then they download fake things like virus or whatever.

As for distributing, it was just to be safe regarding the forums rules.

Tenko Kuugen

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Re: Regarding Emulators
« Reply #11 on: 2011-10-03 22:19:36 »
PCSX2 is 80% CPU in most cases, intels run better then AMD, And like i said, all most games need no speedhacks, some games need a bit. you can run them with lower hardware. But of course you need the speed hacks, most the time they have zero impact. But EE Cycle rate speed hack breaks level 3 in Dark Cloud 2. and it causes stuttering audio in Shadow Hearts.

i think a 4.5ghz CPU sand bridge can emulate everything currently out with no speed hacks. (this includes SotC)

Dolphin is usually less CPU intensive because Wii/GC is more similar to a PC then the PS2. Though i don't use it, No bluetooth on my PC, thus, no Wiimote.

suikoden 3 runs almost entirely off the GPU
Harvest Moon AWL also relies HEAVILY on the GPU
And I have a intel processor but an AMD GPU and the AMD GPU runs better than the intel GPU I had before
also, playing at 60 fps is lame
I play usually at 90 to 100 fps or more

Hellbringer616

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Re: Regarding Emulators
« Reply #12 on: 2011-10-04 12:12:17 »
If you play at over 60 everything is sped up. Which i don't like.

Granted i am using an AMD CPU, But, in most cases Suikoden 3 is taking a lot of CPU power, it is more GPU dependent then others however.

And to clarify. by 80% CPU, i meant 80% of games use heavy CPU and very little GPU (for example, on Native i could play 90% of games with a 9800GT and if i hit a limit it was my CPU)

There are other games that use more GPU then that (Zone of Enders for example), but as a general rule, if you're not hitting 60FPS, it's because of your CPU, in most cases (unless you have integrated graphics, then it's that. Always)

Tenko Kuugen

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Re: Regarding Emulators
« Reply #13 on: 2011-10-04 21:08:45 »
playing on native is gigantic eye-cancer
how the hell do you play like that?

pyrozen

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Re: Regarding Emulators
« Reply #14 on: 2011-10-04 23:45:36 »
regarding GBA emu, yes it is very easy. just ask my Droid X cellphone lol.

Decent thread, I haven't been into the emu scene in a long time. I was huge into it back when DCemu was run by the original owners and new stuff was constantly coming out. I actually still have my NesterDC and SNES emu cds for dreamcast, i took them down to my lake house for rainy day nostalgia sessions.

I still find it interesting though, that when I was into the scene 4+ years ago, the status on nearly all of those emulators was the same then as it is now.

Hellbringer616

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Re: Regarding Emulators
« Reply #15 on: 2011-10-05 02:22:31 »
playing on native is gigantic eye-cancer
how the hell do you play like that?

I don't, Was an example of how most games use CPU.

I play at 3x scaling on basically everything. FFX i get up to 4x,

jeffdamann

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Re: Regarding Emulators
« Reply #16 on: 2011-10-05 05:25:35 »
With my 4.0ghz Phenom II and 3 6970's, I usually max out every graphics option, filters, etc, at insane resolutions, with 24xEq Edge-Detect Super Sample AA, 16x Anisotropy, and all the other goodies.

This does however make many models look very funny(for example the first girl you get in Legend Of Dragoon) As the extreme level of AA can do some very interesting things to less complex models.

As far as the framerate on older 3d systems I find it is best to increase the frames by 15%. Older 3d games have really bad animation, and the subtle increase in frame speed makes the animations look much more fluid.

Hellbringer616

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Re: Regarding Emulators
« Reply #17 on: 2011-10-05 11:46:49 »
Not sure how you do that in PCSX2, as you can't force AA in the drivers, or AF, and you only use a single GPU

Know what you mean though, At 3.8 my CPU places basically everything, I have speed hacks enabled most the time however.

As for ePSXe (the only PS1 emu worth using) not sure if you can force AF with it.. To be honest, I never tried.

Covarr

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Re: Regarding Emulators
« Reply #18 on: 2011-10-05 18:40:02 »
As for ePSXe (the only PS1 emu worth using)
Until you run into one of the many, many games it simply refuses to run properly, and switch to the far more accurate pSX.

Hellbringer616

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Re: Regarding Emulators
« Reply #19 on: 2011-10-05 18:54:52 »
Isn't pSX a dead project? I use ePSXe to enhance the graphics. If pSX can do that (just as good or better) i'd gladly switch :D

Covarr

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Re: Regarding Emulators
« Reply #20 on: 2011-10-05 19:07:18 »
pSX isn't quite dead; the author pops up somewhere every year or so to say he's still working on it and the next release is almost done.

And as I said, its main use is for when ePSXe simply won't run something. It can't do much in the way of enhancements, but there are some games that just don't work right in ePSXe that do work in pSX.

Hellbringer616

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Re: Regarding Emulators
« Reply #21 on: 2011-10-05 19:09:11 »
Yeah, all my PS1 gamse work, To bad it doesn't support enhancements. Man that'd be awesome haha

Vgr

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Re: Regarding Emulators
« Reply #22 on: 2011-10-05 19:33:44 »
PsxJin is good too, as it's still in development. It's used mainly for TASes.

Borde

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Re: Regarding Emulators
« Reply #23 on: 2011-10-05 20:05:12 »
There is a very good reason to run PCSX2 in software renderer: special GFX effects. The hardware renderer will do a great job most of the time, but sometimes it just fails miserably to do some tricks. Specially when dealing with postprocessing, which can be anoying on some games and completly ruin the experience in others (such as Valkirie Profile 2). And Dolphin is certainly way more demanding than PCSX2 in most cases.

As for the XBox, CXBX can run several games to some degree (see compatibility list here http://shogun3d-cxbx.blogspot.com/2009/11/cxbx-compatibility-list-updated.html). It was also very fast back when it only emulated Turok Evolution since it relied on virtualization instead of emulation. Don't know how it works currently. The project died a month ago, though, as far as I recall. There was that other one called Xenon that could only handle HALO and was very slow several years ago.

Talking about 3D, the Sega Genesis could also handle a bunch of untextured triangles too (without extra hardware). And if we talk about wireframe, hell, even the NES had Elite.

The Saturn is also pretty well emulated too through SSF. No fancy enhacements, though. There were a few atempts at that years ago (Casini and Satorune), but they were cancelled. The PSP emulator (JPCSP) is also surprisingly advanced too.

dkma841

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Re: Regarding Emulators
« Reply #24 on: 2011-10-05 20:15:54 »
for some weird reason Dolphin runs much better than PCSX2 my system specs: 2gb ram Nvidia geforce 8400 GS, Intel core duo 2 it isn't a really powerful computer couple of years old i played super mario on Dolphin it runs really smoothly and runs better than when i was playing God Of War on PCSX2 which my system couldn't handle even with speedhacks i think its about how good the coding is since Dolphin is a more popular emulator more people and coding and working for them and PCSX2 well i know for a fact not many people work on it but they did manage to release a update a month or two ago (PCSX2 0.9. 8) which i did see a difference with the gameplay which went a bit more smooth
« Last Edit: 2011-10-05 20:26:48 by e1sunz »