Emulating emulators to emulate more emulators?

[JustABadger]

Please don’t put this into the EOF.


What would be the maximum amount of emulators you could use to play a game?

I was thinking:

PC (start) -> Switch -> Game Cube -> GBA -> NES

Can you go beyond this? Make the chain longer?

 

[AmandaRose]

Can you go beyond this? Make the chain longer?

Yes by adding android to the mix

PC (start) -> Android -> Switch -> Game Cube -> GBA -> NES

 

[Deleted member 702243]

there's gamecube emulation for horizon os? as far as I'm aware it's only on android or linux/lakka, and if you're running that on pc then you're not really emulating switch at that point

 

[Osha]

Only tengentially related, but funnily enough I know that for a time, running DraStic through an Android emulator was the better way to play DS games on PC.

 

[M7L7NK7]

there's gamecube emulation for horizon os? as far as I'm aware it's only on android or linux/lakka, and if you're running that on pc then you're not really emulating switch at that point

 

[Deleted member 702243]

assuming that the emulators are functional enough and that your host machine is strong enough (so that each emulator can be good enough to actually be able to run what you want)

pc -> switch (yuzu/ryujinx) -> psp (ppsspp) -> ms-dos (dosbox) -> gba (no$gba) -> gbc/nes (goomba/pocketnes)

I'm not necessarily sure how well the dos version of no$gba actually works even on actual dos though, but as long as you can get the last game displaying on screen I would call it a success

if you want you could make a long chain of nested vms at the beginning, but unless you alternate between architectures every time I don't know that this would count as emulation. and it would kind of just be cheating anyway

 

[M7L7NK7]

Start with Linux > wine

 

[AmandaRose]

Start with Linux > wine

The name of Wine is short for Wine is not an emulator so wine does not count towards Emulating emulators to emulate more emulators?

 

[Deleted member 702243]

somehow this old thread remained active over the years

Emulation inside emulation: DOS-based emulators under DOSBox.

you could theoretically run classic mac os under dosbox, and on that run c64, and on c64 run... something else idk

 

[Faust03]

I played virtual console games through dolphin, that counts right?

 

[BlusterBong]

For the sake of how many you want to daisy chain disregarding the processing power and other resources needed and what is directly availible now (So nothing currently publicly released like XWine1), using Virtual Machines would be paramount to puling it off.

Windows PC --> Linux (WSL/Virtual VM) --> 4 Windows PC (Virtual Box VM) + Linux (Virtualbox VM) -> Android (Bluestacks on Windows VM 1 and 2), 2 Xenia instances on Windows VM 3, at minimum 15(!!!) Cmeu instances on Windows VM 4 (14 of which are becuase of Virtual Console across Wii U and using vWii to avoid another chain with Dolphin but you can to also use Virtual Console releases to emulate the same systems the Wii VC shares with WIIU VC if you want to be extra about it) , and Four instances of RPCS3 On Linux VM 2 --> Switch (The forks of the two dead emulators on Bluestacks on Windows VM), 1 Xenia instance using Fusion for OG Xbox and the other running a XB360 game, One of every console covered by Wii and Wii U VC across Wii U and vWii, plus one Wii U game running and a Wii Game running through vWii on Windows VM 4 and MultiMan for PS1, PS2 and PSP on the three RPCS3 instances and one PS3 Game on the fouth instance on Linux VM 2 -> GameCube -> GBA -> NES (homebrew on Switch emulator on Bluestacks on Windows VM 1)

The amount of resources needed just to run all this at once will be very signicant and will be better off on literally anything else, especially since the later gen emulators and the VMs will be what will take the lionshare of resources.