Hacking Saturn, Dreamcast, or MAME emulator?

[Tariq909]

Any chance of this happening?

 

[bennydigital]

right after the PS3 and XBOX 360 emulators.

 

[lagman]

No, no, yes.

 

[WildWon]

MAME maybe. But it'll start with all the oldschool games (pac-man, donkey kong, frogger) then SLOWLY move forward. But thats a ways off yet as well.

lol saturn and DC... i'm doing with never.

 

[Smuff]

Seeing as the PC emulation of both the Saturn and the DC are so poor (unless some great leas have been made recently that I'm not aware of) I'd have to say "NO"

/me hugs my beloved Saturn, and apologises for neglecting it since I got my Wii & 360

 

[teq]

You probably should've posted this in the "General Chat" forum.


The Saturn is a special console, as it actually has two 32bit processors in it.

Thus, the interpreter is hard to write for. Dual core processors barely became standard a year ago and Saturn emulation has taken off since then. The Wii's processor might be up to the task, but it will take some serious thread optimization.

The Dreamcast, however, is very similar to the GC/Wii in a lot of aspects, so it might actually be easier to emulate than the Saturn.


Oh, and for the record... if it isn't being worked on now, it probably never will.

Usually the only projects that survive are ones that are started at the beginning of the life of a console, when the system is still prevalent. Seeing as how Nintendo typically has a 5 year span with each console(I'm betting 4 with the Wii), you're going to see less homebrew over a longer span than say, a PS2.

 

[mattlouf]

http://wiibrew.org/index.php?title=Homebrew_apps#Emulators

• AtaWii Atari ST Emulator
• FCE Ultra Wii NES Emulator
• Genesis Plus Genesis / Megadrive Emulator
• Hugo-wii Turbo Grafix 16 / PC Engine Emulator
• RIN Wii Gameboy (Color) Emulator
• ScummVM Emulator for ScummVM games
• SDL MAME Arcade Games Emulator
• SMSPlus Sega Master System / Game Gear Emulator
• Snes9X Wii SNES Emulator
• Trojan Wii Trojan LCD Game Simulator
• Visual Boy Advance Gameboy/Color/Advance Emulator (req. SDGecko)

 

[Arakon]

there is no way wii could ever emulate saturn or DC. it simply doesn't have the power.

 

[samsam12]

a sega saturn emulator is being worked on. dreamcast, no

 

[teq]

there is no way wii could ever emulate saturn or DC. it simply doesn't have the power.

Uh.... do a little more reading, please.


The Dreamcast and the Wii are about as similar as you could possibly get, when it comes to architecture and even some of the APIs used.

Dreamcast:

CPU - 200MHz RISC SH-4(the SH-1 and SH-2 were used in the Saturn, so the DC only has an expanded instruction set and beefed up clock speed)
GPU - 100MHz PowerVR2 5mp/s peak(instruction set similar to Geforce 1) 8MB of 100Mhz SDRAM
Memory - 16MB of 100Mhz SDRAM


Wii:

CPU - 730Mhz Power-PC w/ Extended RISC Instruction Set
GPU - 240Mhz custom ATI comparable to Radeon 9000 series w/ 3MB of cache.
Memory - 24MB low latency ram built into the GPU itself, 64MB DDR3 system accessible ram(I'm going to guess it's clocked at 266Mhz)


Technically, the Wii is capable of outperforming both the PS2 and the XBOX when it comes to raw output. The GPU, however, is lacking certain instructions that could make it render faster.

You also have to consider that a 700MHz RISC processor is the equivalent of a 1.2GHz CISC processor.

 

[samsam12]

Usually the only projects that survive are ones that are started at the beginning of the life of a console, when the system is still prevalent. Seeing as how Nintendo typically has a 5 year span with each console(I'm betting 4 with the Wii), you're going to see less homebrew over a longer span than say, a PS2.

4 with the wii!!!!!!??????? WTF!! with its growing user base and all of its casual games, the wiis life span will be AT LEAST 6-7 Years!

 

[CockroachMan]

I think the Wii has enough power to emulate a Saturn.
But since the emulation of the system on the PC is still kinda poor.. I doubt we'll see this happening..

As for the DC, I don't think it's possible..

 

[teq]

Usually the only projects that survive are ones that are started at the beginning of the life of a console, when the system is still prevalent. Seeing as how Nintendo typically has a 5 year span with each console(I'm betting 4 with the Wii), you're going to see less homebrew over a longer span than say, a PS2.

4 with the wii!!!!!!??????? WTF!! with its growing user base and all of its casual games, the wiis life span will be AT LEAST 6-7 Years!

The growing userbase isn't going to offset the fact that Nintendo has been a sinking ship for a while now.

Virtual Console titles and DS sales are keeping them afloat, but it's been almost two years since the Wii's release and you still can't go into a store and find one on the shelf. Two years into a console release is a significant amount of time. Just look back and see what the Gamecube had to offer in 2003.

The only two consoles to have a significant lifespan are the PSX and the PS2... I'm not even a fan of Sony, but it's the truth. The PSX came out in 1995 and it still had games released for it up until 2005. That's a 10 year span.

The PS2, on the other hand, is a marvel in itself. It came out in 2000 and is staying strong even now.

I am under the impression that for as long as the Wii is around, the PS2 will receive ports of most third party Wii games, as they're somewhat similar to code for.

 

[Beware]

It WILL NOT HAPPEN! MAME has been done, but DC and Saturn will NEVER happen. Whomever said the Wii was similar to the DC, that does NOT matter. A system must be much MORE powerful than the system it is trying to emulate in order to get any kind of decent emulation. And a Saturn emulator will not happen because it is so jam-packed with processors and different chips it's nearly impossible to get decent Saturn emulation on the PC without at least a 2.4 GHz CPU.

 

[phaerun]

I really fail to understand you teq

If nintendo is sinking ship, what can you say about sony with ps3 ? Nintendo are producing a console that does not cost that much to produce and selling a ton of units. On the other hand ps3 is costing way more to sony and they are not selling as much (mainly imo because 1.5 yrs after the release the games still sucked and there are too few worth mentioning titles).

Plus in Nintendo they have found where money comes from. Look how much they are making from casual gamers and from stuff like wii fit.

As for PS2 , the fact that is so cheap to buy and has a ton of games keeps it going but the console is showing its age.

And frankly i believe this wii units shortage is artificial to some extend.

 

[teq]

It WILL NOT HAPPEN! MAME has been done, but DC and Saturn will NEVER happen. Whomever said the Wii was similar to the DC, that does NOT matter. A system must be much MORE powerful than the system it is trying to emulate in order to get any kind of decent emulation. And a Saturn emulator will not happen because it is so jam-packed with processors and different chips it's nearly impossible to get decent Saturn emulation on the PC without at least a 2.4 GHz CPU.

Obviously you have no concept of programming or CPU architectures, whatsoever.


The processors used in the Saturn, DC, and Wii are all RISC based. PCs are based on x86, which is CISC.

When you run an emulator, you're either interpreting the CPU instructions or recompiling them. Recompiling usually provides less errors, but is slower. That's why most emulators default to an Interpreter, which requires a processor with fast streaming capability(ie high clock speeds and throughput).


Emulating RISC hardware on RISC hardware is rediculously FAST and efficient, because there is no middleman slowing things down.

 

[jinxvorheeze]

There's a Saturn Emulator being worked on for PSP... if it can run one then the Wii can. Just a matter of time. Patience is key

 

[teq]

I really fail to understand you teq

If nintendo is sinking ship, what can you say about sony with ps3 ? Nintendo are producing a console that does not cost that much to produce and selling a ton of units. On the other hand ps3 is costing way more to sony and they are not selling as much (mainly imo because 1.5 yrs after the release the games still sucked and there are too few worth mentioning titles).

Plus in Nintendo they have found where money comes from. Look how much they are making from casual gamers and from stuff like wii fit.

As for PS2 , the fact that is so cheap to buy and has a ton of games keeps it going but the console is showing its age.

And frankly i believe this wii units shortage is artificial to some extend.

Actually, the Wii shortage is very realistic. The processor fabrication is what's holding it back. Nintendo is also trying to phase out 90nm units for 65nm units(thus being able to produce more dies per wafer).

Why does everyone insist on comparing other companies when we're talking about one specific company?

Nintendo can cease to exist, despite the fact that it's competing with two other companies. The economy is horrible... and it's not going to take Sony or Microsoft to have Nintendo fail. The same can be said about the other two companies.

However, go back to my post and read it over again.

My 4 year lifespan of the Wii is based on the fact that it has nothing to compete with, but itself and possibly the PS2 on some levels.

 

[Tariq909]

I hope one comes out soon. lol. I just want to be able to play my Marvel Vs Capcom.

 

[teq]

I hope one comes out soon. lol. I just want to be able to play my Marvel Vs Capcom.

Uh.... read again..... MAME has been done.