Android Gamecube emulator possible for Android at all, or in near future?

[Tom Bombadildo]

In the future maybe, like...10 years from now. We can barely get N64/PS1 emulators running. Don't expect it anytime soon.

Wow, 10 years goes fast! /sarcasm
My phone has quadcore and runs n64 and ps1 smoothly at 60 fps even with only use of 2/4 cores.

If there came a gamecube, nds or xbox emu witch supports quadcore/tegra 3, it would run just as smooth

HAHA. Xbox Emulators won't be for so long. We can't even emulate it on PC. Also, just because your phone is quad core doesn't mean it's capable of running a GC emulator. Cores =/= performance. Besides, when it comes to GC emulation CPU hardly means shit. GPU is where the trouble is at. So unless you somehow have a GPU that performs better than say...the NVIDIA 8 series good luck.

 

[Rydian]

Well I'd argue that there does need to be a certain minimum level fo CPU performance... but yes the GC uses a lot of graphical tricks that are hard for PCs to emulate for various reasons (think about the framebuffer/RDRAM issue with N64 emulation, and then extrapolate that to about 5 different things the GC can do that games take advantage of).

 

[TripleSMoon]

Cores =/= performance.

This is even MORE true when it comes to emulators... though you can normally multi-thread apps and games among different cores, that can't be done with emulators, because the games on the system being emulated were never designed for multi-core operation in the first place. Unless I'm remembering incorrectly, console emulators on Android can only utilize one core, so it doesn't matter how many. So you're talking about waiting for a future when each core is something like 10 ghz or so (just a guess). And since the focus seems to be on adding more cores in phones each year as opposed to increasing the power of each one, I doubt that's going to happen any time soon. Remember, two years ago we hit a "norm" of 1ghz single core, the year after was a norm of 1.5 or so ghz dual core, and this year it's about 1.5 ghz quad core.

 

[Rydian]

Emulators can use multiple cores, but they're more restricted than normal games. While normal games have various threads like "AI" and "sound" and "physics" that, in a mature+modern engine can be split onto different threads, when emulating a system you don't have control over concepts like that since the emulator is controlling the virtual hardware itself... so you end up with threads like "main processor" and "gpu" and "sound chip", and when dealing with things like that which communicate on a hardware level directly and with perfect timing, it's very hard to split them onto different threads while letting them communicate properly, which is one reason emulators rarely go that route.

That, and in most circumstances you won't get a noticeable benefit past two threads anyways, since there's usually only one or two performance-critical threads.

 

[TripleSMoon]

Thank you for clarifying, Rydian.

 

[Dingoo-fan 32]

It will take much more time for a CG/Wii emulation. ARM architecture is still 32bit... =P

 

[Rydian]

Er, what?

 

[TripleSMoon]

Er, what?

"Er, what" to me, or to Dingoo?

 

[Rydian]

To Dingoo. There's a common myth that 64-bit is like, twice as fast as 32-bit or something for general tasks, and I'm curious if he's erroneously referring to that, or if there's some real benefit specific to the ARM architecture I'm unfamiliar with (I'm far from an expert when it comes to mobile devices as it is now).

 

[Pleng]

Isn't nullDC the name of a Dreamcast emulator?

I just heard that the developer or whatever of that and some n64 emulator was working on a gamecube one; not sure myself.

I highly doubt we'll be seeing something like that on a smartphone for quite a while.

NullDC is the name of a Dreamcast emulator. The author was working on brining a version, minus MMU support (so basically no games that made use of WinCE libraries then), to Android and the Pandora console. As far as I'm aware the author is no longer actively developing the emulator or any of its ports, and I would be extremely suprised if he's moved on to GameCube emulation.

 

[Zerousen]

Isn't nullDC the name of a Dreamcast emulator?

I just heard that the developer or whatever of that and some n64 emulator was working on a gamecube one; not sure myself.

I highly doubt we'll be seeing something like that on a smartphone for quite a while.

NullDC is the name of a Dreamcast emulator. The author was working on brining a version, minus MMU support (so basically no games that made use of WinCE libraries then), to Android and the Pandora console. As far as I'm aware the author is no longer actively developing the emulator or any of its ports, and I would be extremely suprised if he's moved on to GameCube emulation.

I believe there was 2 DS emulators as well, but it's buggy and still has plenty of issues. I can't seem to get any roms running on my phone at all.

 

[Coltonamore]

Wher talking about phones but what about tablets aren't they gonna replace computers with tablets a guy at best buy said that and are tablets better for stuff like gamecube and the n64 and the psx or even gta 3 I mean yeah get what I'm saying

 

[Rydian]

He had no idea what he's talking about. The standard desktop is much more powerful than the best tablet out there.

 

[TripleSMoon]

He had no idea what he's talking about. The standard desktop is much more powerful than the best tablet out there.

One of the big problems with emulating consoles from the 6th (and sometimes even 5th) generation onward on smartphones and tablets is not just RAM, but the lack of FREE RAM. Remember, your Android/iPhone or GalaxyTab/iPad has the be running MANY different processes simultaneously with the emulator. Even if you're not using them, apps for things such as the dialer, signal, and text messaging need to be running all the time, and apps such as the home launcher need to be ready to open on demand if you exit the emulator, or if it crashes. Things like that eat up way more RAM than you'd think, and it limits the resources the emulator can use to run effectively. I think this is one of the reasons why the Pandora can match devices with much more powerful hardware for emulation, because it can devote just about ALL its resources to the emulator at hand, simply because that's what its designed to do.