Gaming Gamecube Emulator confirmed?

[DeslotlCL]

most of the emulators are hard on the cpu, the gpu barely matters as long as it can do the shadders and such, you dont get any improvemente if you have a gpu that costs 800$ or one that costs 300$ dolphin and 99% of the emulators are all cpu dependant.

Then how do you expect a quad core cpu clocked at 1GHz to do the job? Even a mid range phone with a better cpu and more cores cant do dolphin justice.

 

[alucard_xs]

Any way to launch it on nvidia shield (not chinese version) ?

 

[pedro702]

Then how do you expect a quad core cpu clocked at 1GHz to do the job? Even a mid range phone with a better cpu and more cores cant do dolphin justice.

dolphin only uses 2 cores so having more cores does nothing, also phones have way more stuff running on the background than any console, not to mention not a dedicated gpu either.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

1.0GHz is plenty enough for GCN emulation if you optimize for multi-core support. Native internal res is low af.

No it isn't, at least not when it's an ARM CPU. This is because ARM CPUs have very low IPC, something that's quite important when you start emulating higher gen consoles like the Gamecube. Mainly because these consoles require a lot of instructions for emulation (because of how much more complex they are), and a higher IPC = more instructions that can be completed each cycle. This is also why, pre Ryzen anyways, AMD CPUs weren't usually recommended for Dolphin or PCSX2 over Intel, because their IPC are very, very low vs Intel CPUs. That's why a dual core Pentium G3258 running at 3.2GHz can beat out an 8 core AMD FX8350 running at 4.2GHz in pretty much every Dolphin benchmark, the Intel CPU's IPC is likely 2-3x the AMD's.

ARM CPUs have an equally low IPC, meaning they have to work much harder to achieve any kind of high-instruction based processing...like emulation. Losing out on 1GHz across all 4 cores, in this case, would drastically reduce performance compared to the Shield TV. The Switch would be able to pick up a bit of that lost performance because it would have much lower OS overhead (since the Switch is obviously not running Android, thankfully ), but it still wouldn't perform as well a Shield TV would, even if Nintendo optimized the hell out of it (which they probably already did for the Shield version).

If we see Gamecube VC on the Switch, it'll either be some kind of port (like Wind Waker or Twilight Princess HD on the Wii U) or it'll be those "easier to emulate" Gamecube games, like Animal Crossing or Luigi's Mansion (at least, if they can figure out a digital->analog trigger fix). Anything harder to emulate would likely require a lot of speed hacks to run well on the Switch, something that nobody really wants (at least, if they want a decent experience).

 

[Xzi]

No it isn't, at least not when it's an ARM CPU. This is because ARM CPUs have very low IPC, something that's quite important when you start emulating higher gen consoles like the Gamecube. Mainly because these consoles require a lot of instructions for emulation (because of how much more complex they are), and a higher IPC = more instructions that can be completed each cycle. This is also why, pre Ryzen anyways, AMD CPUs weren't usually recommended for Dolphin or PCSX2 over Intel, because their IPC are very, very low vs Intel CPUs. That's why a dual core Pentium G3258 running at 3.2GHz can beat out an 8 core AMD FX8350 running at 4.2GHz in pretty much every Dolphin benchmark, the Intel CPU's IPC is likely 2-3x the AMD's.

ARM CPUs have an equally low IPC, meaning they have to work much harder to achieve any kind of high-instruction based processing...like emulation. Losing out on 1GHz across all 4 cores, in this case, would drastically reduce performance compared to the Shield TV. The Switch would be able to pick up a bit of that lost performance because it would have much lower OS overhead (since the Switch is obviously not running Android, thankfully ), but it still wouldn't perform as well a Shield TV would, even if Nintendo optimized the hell out of it (which they probably already did for the Shield version).

If we see Gamecube VC on the Switch, it'll either be some kind of port (like Wind Waker or Twilight Princess HD on the Wii U) or it'll be those "easier to emulate" Gamecube games, like Animal Crossing or Luigi's Mansion (at least, if they can figure out a digital->analog trigger fix). Anything harder to emulate would likely require a lot of speed hacks to run well on the Switch, something that nobody really wants (at least, if they want a decent experience).

I guess we'll see. AFAIK Shield TV can emulate Gamecube at about 60 FPS, Switch should be able to at least manage 30.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

I guess we'll see. AFAIK Shield TV can emulate Gamecube at about 60 FPS, Switch should be able to at least manage 30.

That's not really how it works. Just because the Shield is running the games at 60FPS doesn't mean the Switch will manage to run them at 30 FPS since it has half the clock speed. The instructions it has to process aren't just halved because the framerate is, the number of instructions will still be relatively the same/slightly lower at best. And because the Switch's CPU is downclocked, it'll still have to take more cycles to process them.

 

[Xzi]

That's not really how it works. Just because the Shield is running the games at 60FPS doesn't mean the Switch will manage to run them at 30 FPS since it has half the clock speed. The instructions it has to process aren't just halved because the framerate is, the number of instructions will still be relatively the same/slightly lower at best. And because the Switch's CPU is downclocked, it'll still have to take more cycles to process them.

Naturally, but that's probably why they're experimenting on Shield TV first and then trying to optimize/fit the emulator for Switch later. I don't believe it's going to be as difficult as you think, good N64 emulation seems much harder to achieve.

 

[pedro702]

That's not really how it works. Just because the Shield is running the games at 60FPS doesn't mean the Switch will manage to run them at 30 FPS since it has half the clock speed. The instructions it has to process aren't just halved because the framerate is, the number of instructions will still be relatively the same/slightly lower at best. And because the Switch's CPU is downclocked, it'll still have to take more cycles to process them.

you do realize shield tv clock down hard due to overheat right? after not even one hour shield tv is on switch level cpu clock speed so unless they make the gc games only play for one hour there emulator doesnt need 2ghz all the time since its fisicaly impossible for shield tv to not throtle down unless you wanted it to melt.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Naturally, but that's probably why they're experimenting on Shield TV first and then trying to optimize/fit the emulator for Switch later. I don't believe it's going to be as difficult as you think, good N64 emulation seems much harder to achieve.

N64 emulation is harder to achieve because we have much less documentation and it's a more complex console in general. The GC uses what is basically a bog standard PPC CPU with an ATI GPU. This is also why Wii emulation is so far ahead of any PS3/360 emulator, it was essentially 2 GCs duct taped together specs wise, so we already had a general understanding of how it works.

you do realize shield tv clock down hard due to overheat right? after not even one hour shield tv is on switch level cpu clock speed so unless they make the gc games only play for one hour there emulator doesnt need 2ghz all the time since its fisicaly impossible for shield tv to not throtle down unless you wanted it to melt.

The CPU doesn't get clocked down on the Shield TV, but the GPU does from the 1GHz to 768Mhz. Please provide a source that shows the Shield TV's CPU throttles, and not the GPU.

 

[MAXLEMPIRA]

This is merely baseless speculation. The Switch is nowhere near as powerful as an Nvidia Shield.

But it's more powerful than WiiU, and WiiU emulate near perfect NGC

 

[Mat37]

Isn't the Switch CPU at 2Ghz ?

 

[Edgarska]

But it's more powerful than WiiU, and WiiU emulate near perfect NGC

There is no Wii U Gamecube emulator.

 

[Mat37]

But it's more powerful than WiiU, and WiiU emulate near perfect NGC

Nintendon't isn't an emulator, it's more like a program that uses native GC compatibility of Wii to boot ISOs

 

[a9lh-1user]

Isn't the Switch CPU at 2Ghz ?

yep and the gpu is at 1 Ghz

 

[MAXLEMPIRA]

There is no Wii U Gamecube emulator.

This:

Nintendon't isn't an emulator, it's more like a program that uses native GC compatibility of Wii to boot ISOs

Yeah but the native NGC compatibility of the Wii it's because of hardware... missing on the WiiU... so, at the end it's like emulating, I know it's easy having vWii, but still kind of emulated NGC

 

[Edgarska]

This:

Yeah but the native NGC compatibility of the Wii it's because of hardware... missing on the WiiU... so, at the end it's like emulating, I know it's easy having vWii, but still kind of emulated NGC

No it's not, it has nothing to do with emulation.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

But it's more powerful than WiiU, and WiiU emulate near perfect NGC

The Wii U doesn't emulate GC games, it uses vWii compatibility and some virtualization to play them natively. There's no real emulation going on, because it's running from the hardware, not via software emulation.

Isn't the Switch CPU at 2Ghz ?

No, the CPU is downclocked to 1GHz, and the GPU is downclocked to 768Mhz in the dock and 384Mhz in portable mode.

 

[Kioku]

The Wii U doesn't emulate GC games, it uses vWii compatibility and some virtualization to play them natively. There's no real emulation going on, because it's running from the hardware, not via software emulation.


No, the CPU is downclocked to 1GHz, and the GPU is downclocked to 768Mhz in the dock and 384Mhz in portable mode.

Virtualization isn't native... Is it? That just sounds weird.

 

[Mat37]

The Wii U doesn't emulate GC games, it uses vWii compatibility and some virtualization to play them natively. There's no real emulation going on, because it's running from the hardware, not via software emulation.


No, the CPU is downclocked to 1GHz, and the GPU is downclocked to 768Mhz in the dock and 384Mhz in portable mode.

Oh, the 2Ghz speed was what i always heard

 

[pedro702]

Virtualization isn't native... Is it? That just sounds weird.

nintendont is not virtualizating anything. it straight up uses wii cpu and gpu since they are the exact same, nintendont only redirects gc calls to wii calls and emulates memory cards and some more trivial components missing on vwii.

 

[Kioku]

nintendont is not virtualizating anything? it straight up uses wii cpu and gpu since they are the exact same, nintendont only redirects gc calls to wii calls and emulates memory cards and some more trivial components missing on vwii.

Oh, I see. Nintendont is a weird thing to me. Especially since the "v" in "vWii" stands for virtual. Not very straightforward...