Hardware How Come Emulation on Nintendo Consoles is so Hard?

[Awesomekid956000]

Now, I don't understand how this works, so take what I say with a pinch of salt. The Wii U can't emulate much above Nintendo Gamecube games correct? (Or nintendo 64) The Virtual Wii cant run above Playstation 1 (homebrew wise, Nintendo 64 otherwise) emulation. What makes emulation much harder to do then running games made for the console is what I'm trying to get at. SSB4 is a good example i think, lots of 3d models, big maps, you can even do 8-player smash (on select stages). However it can't run 3DS games. If I'm right the Nintendo Switch is the most powerful console to date able to run as well as PS4 and Xbox One, and be portable. I'd love an explanation as I don't understand.

 

[spectral]

Now, I don't understand how this works, so take what I say with a pinch of salt. The Wii U can't emulate much above Nintendo Gamecube games correct? (Or nintendo 64) The Virtual Wii cant run above Playstation 1 (homebrew wise, Nintendo 64 otherwise) emulation. What makes emulation much harder to do then running games made for the console is what I'm trying to get at. SSB4 is a good example i think, lots of 3d models, big maps, you can even do 8-player smash (on select stages). However it can't run 3DS games. If I'm right the Nintendo Switch is the most powerful console to date able to run as well as PS4 and Xbox One, and be portable. I'd love an explanation as I don't understand.

Emulation takes a lot more power because its not just using the console to play the game like it does for its own games. Emulation is basically mimicking hardware using software. So for 3DS for example, its building a fake virtual 3DS which uses resources, then its running the game on it that takes more. That takes a lot more power than the device you are trying to emulate has.

Also you are wrong about the switch, it is significantly less powerful than a PS4 or Xbox One.

 

[Awesomekid956000]

Oh, well that does explain a lot

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Also how does gba games on the new 3ds work then, cause the only few gba games from the ambasador program work fine, but trying to emulate them with the homebrew emulators dont work as well. Atleast for me anyway.

 

[OrGoN3]

Oh, well that does explain a lot

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Also how does gba games on the new 3ds work then, cause the only few gba games from the ambasador program work fine, but trying to emulate them with the homebrew emulators dont work as well. Atleast for me anyway.

Sure, but you can inject other GBA roms into those games and they'll work 100%. Your emulator isn't Nintendo's. Plus, Nintendo tends to build their next console/handheld on top of their pre-existing one. What I mean is, most of their consoles include compatibility layers for their previous systems. After all, Nintendo's bread and butter is reselling you the same game on a new system.

 

[x65943]

T

Oh, well that does explain a lot

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Also how does gba games on the new 3ds work then, cause the only few gba games from the ambasador program work fine, but trying to emulate them with the homebrew emulators dont work as well. Atleast for me anyway.

The difference is Nintendo has professionals getting paid to make emulators AND all of the documentation from the original consoles. Not to mention a better working understanding of the console it is emulating on.

Ninty holds all the cards ofc they make better emulators.

 

[Awesomekid956000]

Yeah DS can play gba games, wii plays gamecube games, and the wii U plays wii games, idk if the super gameboy counts though. But the nintendo switch is a confusing

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T

The difference is Nintendo has professionals getting paid to make emulators AND all of the documentation from the original consoles. Not to mention a better working understanding of the console it is emulating on.

Ninty holds all the cards ofc they make better emulators.

Ok I'll give you that, I had a blank moment there.

 

[Captain_N]

Yeah DS can play gba games, wii plays gamecube games, and the wii U plays wii games, idk if the super gameboy counts though. But the nintendo switch is a confusing

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Ok I'll give you that, I had a blank moment there.

The super gameboy is not using emulation. The gameboy hardware is included on the cart. The output just goes to the snes graphics processor. So the super gameboy is a gameboy in a snes cart.

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

Hard? Did you miss the front page?

REMINDER: It hasn't been two full years since nintendo switch release. (March 3 2017)

 

[Awesomekid956000]

Im talking bout emulating on nintendo consoles, besides I dont have a high end pc for that

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Hard? Did you miss the front page?

View attachment 148506

REMINDER: It hasn't been two full years since nintendo switch release. (March 3 2017)

Also the first comment on the post was 2 hours before that

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Oh, well that does explain a lot

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Also how does gba games on the new 3ds work then, cause the only few gba games from the ambasador program work fine, but trying to emulate them with the homebrew emulators dont work as well. Atleast for me anyway.

The trick is that the 3DS has GBA hardware inside of it (sort of, it's actually there for DS backwards compatibility because the DS is so similar to the GBA hardware-wise), the ambassador games make use of this.
The general rule of thumb is that emulating something takes 10 times the power of the console you're trying to emulate. But that varies wildly depending on how the emulator is designed (speed vs accuracy) and how similar the system you're emulating on and the system you're trying to emulate are. Something like bsnes/higan can struggle to run even on some modern PCs because it's designed for accuracy over speed. Still, it's impressive that Yuzu runs as well as it does, the hardware it's running on is probably nowhere near 10 times the power on the Switch.

 

[Awesomekid956000]

Very insiteful, thanks

 

[Ryab]

Oh, well that does explain a lot

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Also how does gba games on the new 3ds work then, cause the only few gba games from the ambasador program work fine, but trying to emulate them with the homebrew emulators dont work as well. Atleast for me anyway.

thats because GBA VC on 3ds isnt emulated its actually a seperate chip running the original gba system

 

[the_randomizer]

T

The difference is Nintendo has professionals getting paid to make emulators AND all of the documentation from the original consoles. Not to mention a better working understanding of the console it is emulating on.

Ninty holds all the cards ofc they make better emulators.

And yet, they still can't get many aspect of N64 emulation right, like the horrible point-sample interpolation in DK64, which wasn't present on real hardware nor was it on noncommercial emulators *shrug*. Other than that, they do a decent job. Snes emulation still has some quirks with official VC, esp. in the audio department.

 

[Awesomekid956000]

thats because GBA VC on 3ds isnt emulated its actually a seperate chip running the original gba system

Then why arn't others taking advantage of this chip, is there something stopping people from using it? I just think if it's there, why not use it?

 

[AmandaRose]

Then why arn't others taking advantage of this chip, is there something stopping people from using it? I just think if it's there, why not use it?

What are you on about?? there are hundreds of gba injected games available to install on 3ds if you know where to look.

 

[Awesomekid956000]

I know you can inject them, if thats possible whats the point of attempting to emulate gba games then.

 

[DonCaballero]

What are you on about?? there are hundreds of gba injected games available to install on 3ds if you know where to look.

There's also an incredibly easy to use tool that do that for you. Homebrewed 3DS + Homebrewed Wii U truly is a godly combo.

 

[xs4all]

I know you can inject them, if thats possible whats the point of attempting to emulate gba games then.

I can only assume for the simplicity of it all, correct me if I'm wrong:

Custom Injects = Only "1" gba game per inject which = 1 game icon on the 3DS Home Menu with your own custom game icon, banners, etc.. making it look all nice. Have to spend time making your own or downloading pre made injects.
GBA Emulator = Only requires 1 game icon on the 3DS Home Menu + rom files on SD CARD = Able to select what game you want to play.

For me, if you only play a few GBA tiles, then having custom injects is the way to go, but if you want to have access to the FULL GBA library. Then you don't want to install every single game as a game icon, so for this scenario, you would better off using a GBA Emulator to access all your games/roms.

At the end of the day it's about personal choice and what is on offer, people will choose accordingly.

 

[Rioluwott]

I know you can inject them, if thats possible whats the point of attempting to emulate gba games then.

Maybe about the features of the emulatorlike save states ,cheats, having only 1 icon since you can´t have more than 300, time to inject each one, you cant run some romhacks on the real hardware, you can easily access to the save data and make a backup of it, easier access to all your games, some people don´t know how to make an injection even trough is easy,etc.
but yeah injection is currently better at the moment it may change in the future.

 

[Awesomekid956000]

Ok, I can see something like that being up to preference. However, I'm still wondering why the emulators can't just use the chip one way or another to make it a little easier on o3ds, i have a n3ds, but i can see people disappointed when trying it on an o3ds

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Maybe about the features of the emulatorlike save states ,cheats, having only 1 icon since you can´t have more than 300, time to inject each one, you cant run some romhacks on the real hardware, you can easily access to the save data and make a backup of it, easier access to all your games, some people don´t know how to make an injection even trough is easy,etc.
but yeah injection is currently better at the moment it may change in the future.

Ok then, I can realize that being a concern, 300 games as an example would be a pain to inject each one individually