Commercial version of Project64

[Ballard]

Don't you think that Nintendo have talanted coders? They have already succeded to emulate some nes, snes, n64 games on the cube. Is there many bugs in Zelda CE (ain't got it...)? I think they will work pretty hard on the emulating because it's one of the things that makes revolution interesting to buy. They're sitting on the code and it will probably give them "handicap" . This is just my opinion

Having the code has nothing to do with understanding exactly how to make software run exactly like the intended hardware. Maybe they've got guys as talented as the aformentioned MAME and BSNES guys... I hope they do, if they want us to take them seriously on their criticisms of non-official emus. Once again, there is a shortcut, speed-hacked, cheesulater way to do it and then there's the right way to do it, hense the need for BSNES to have a 2.2 Ghz processor to run at speed. Will the Revolution have the horsepower to run a N64 or Gamecube emulator that is in fact cycle-accurate and "real" synced? That's the question. Most gamers would not readily see the difference between the NeoRage version of Metal Slug and the current MAME version, but the fact that the latter operates exactly like the real board (thus requireing more CPU power) makes the MAME experience more "authentic". That seems to be the aim for Nintendo... now let's see if it's FO REALZZZ.

 

[revl8er]

It's also a documentation/preservation tool, in the event the physical software and hardware no longer functions.

I would consider it more of a documentation than a preservation tool. You really can't have it for preservation unless you make the roms yourself.

 

[deftonesmx17]

As you are talking about all this emulation stuff, who is to say Nintendo can't take the $ony way of doing this and just have a chipset that is like the system and place it in there. The PS2 had nothing but a "PSX" chip(I/O Processor: CPU Core: Original PlayStation CPU (MIPS R3000A clocked at 33.8688 MHz or 37.5 MHz)) in it that ran the PSX games. Why would Nintendo even need to make an emulator for the old systems in the Revolution? The only reason the Xbox 360 has to do emulation is due to M$ not wanting to pay Nvidia and Intel royalties for placing a chipset that "is" the original xbox in the 360. Thats what you get for having other companies design your console, they were smart with the 360 this time as they jointly designed the GPU with ATI and etc.

 

[Ballard]

As you are talking about all this emulation stuff, who is to say Nintendo can't take the $ony way of doing this and just have a chipset that is like the system and place it in there. The PS2 had nothing but a "PSX" chip(I/O Processor: CPU Core: Original PlayStation CPU (MIPS R3000A clocked at 33.8688 MHz or 37.5 MHz)) in it that ran the PSX games. Why would Nintendo even need to make an emulator for the old systems in the Revolution? The only reason the Xbox 360 has to do emulation is due to M$ not wanting to pay Nvidia and Intel royalties for placing a chipset that "is" the original xbox in the 360. Thats what you get for having other companies design your console, they were smart with the 360 this time as they jointly designed the GPU with ATI and etc.

They would need... a 6502 NES processor with a triangular/square wave audio chip, 65sc802+Sony sound DSP/wavetable APU + the GPU chip .... plus the N64 chips... PLUS the Gamecube chips, etc... that would be rediculous.

The whole point of emulating hardware in software, is because the native chips aren't present and a generic, multipurpose chip (a la Pentium) cannot by itself run SNES games or whatever.

 

[arnalion]

I don't think they will emulate the gamecube games...
Well maybe it's better to wait and see

 

[deftonesmx17]

They would need... a 6502 NES processor with a triangular/square wave audio chip, 65sc802+Sony sound DSP/wavetable APU + the GPU chip .... plus the N64 chips... PLUS the Gamecube chips, etc... that would be rediculous.

But if their goal is perfect playability of the old games, there is no other way. Its not that ridiculous in reality(what would be ridiculous is having to code an emulator that will make every game function perfectly, as we can all see with the xbox 360, emulation of hardware through software is the real ridiculous option). Again, $ony just placed a "PSX" in the PS2 and what was the result, 97% perfect compatibility and I'm sure it will be the same for the PS3 and its BC.

Back to the subject at hand, Nes, Snes, and N64 chips would be very small in size, considering they are very old tech and as time passes you can create smaller and smaller chips.

 

[Clements]

Adding all the various chips for the older systems would bloat the price up considerably, as many discontinued CPUs would all need to be manufactured in volume. It's basically a very bad idea.

 

[squall_leonhart]

I don't think they will emulate the gamecube games...
Well maybe it's better to wait and see

the Hollywood chip is being developed to be compatible with the Gamecube video chip

 

[deftonesmx17]

Adding all the various chips for the older systems would bloat the price up considerably, as many discontinued CPUs would all need to be manufactured in volume. It's basically a very bad idea.

Oh yeah because a 3.58Mhz SNES CPU would cost a fortune and be hard as hell to manufacture with todays technology

 

[Clements]

Oh yeah because a 3.58Mhz SNES CPU would cost a fortune and be hard as hell to manufacture with todays technology

We're talking more than one chip being manufatured here. The NES had at least three, Snes had about five not including custom chips such as DSP-1/SuperFX/SA-1, the N64 had two main co-processors as well. So you have over 10 CPUs here to include, which are incredibly expensive to have manufactured in volume along with all the Revolution hardware. If you think otherwise, you are wrong.

Nintendo wants the revolution to be cheap.

 

[Toasty]

Oh yeah because a 3.58Mhz SNES CPU would cost a fortune and be hard as hell to manufacture with todays technology

Just because a chip is old and obsolete does not mean it is inexpensive to manufacture.

 

[Ballard]

But if their goal is perfect playability of the old games, there is no other way. Its not that ridiculous in reality(what would be ridiculous is having to code an emulator that will make every game function perfectly, as we can all see with the xbox 360, emulation of hardware through software is the real ridiculous option). Again, $ony just placed a "PSX" in the PS2 and what was the result, 97% perfect compatibility and I'm sure it will be the same for the PS3 and its BC.

Back to the subject at hand, Nes, Snes, and N64 chips would be very small in size, considering they are very old tech and as time passes you can create smaller and smaller chips.

Ever heard of MAME? It emulates dozens of CPUs and many permutations of them in tandem, dozens of BIOSes and nearly 5000 individual game drivers.

To think it's inconcievable is preposterous.

Someday there may be operating systems and subsequent hardware that will make emulation more efficient both for the programmer and gamer. It does seem very bloated and backwards now, but as we learn more about emulation, and the great minds behind it keep getting better, the "floating optimization point" of multi-hardware emulation will be child's play.

Hopefully.:bouncy:

 

[arnalion]

the Hollywood chip is being developed to be compatible with the Gamecube video chip

Okay

 

[edgeblade69]

I hear that Goldeneye & some other Rare(ware) titles won't be downloadable for the Revolution because it is property of Microsoft now.

Actually Goldeneye and other 007 titles are owned by EA now. They're the ones who publish/develop the latest 007 games anyways. They did make a pseudo-sequel to Goldeneye called Goldeneye: Rogue Agent. EA might release their games for the Virtual Console, especially if they can charge a fee.

 

[AlphaWhelp]

Ever heard of MAME? It emulates dozens of CPUs and many permutations of them in tandem, dozens of BIOSes and nearly 5000 individual game drivers.

That's not quite how MAME works. Many arcade games were created by the same company, and so it was the same general system, with different roms. For example, MAME currently does not support CPS-3, this means any game built on it will simply not work. Games such as street fighter 3 (any of them), Marvel vs Capcom 2 (I think), and so on aren't emulated (on MAME. You can get them for other systems just fine).

Hence, MAME only emulates a handful of systems (And most of them not even very well, at that). Granted, it's still more than the small amount of systems nintendo wants to emulate, but far less than you're talking them out to be.

Additionally, while we don't know how long development on the revolution has been going on for prior to the initial announcement, it's safe to say that MAME has been going on for longer. Bottom line, Nintendo is new at this, MAME isn't. You can't say that they'll be able to do it well, or as good as MAME.

EDIT: err, additional comment here. The only real multi-purpose chip is technology currently only in the hands of the military. Or at least, I have not heard of any commercial uses of them. They're way too expensive. They either need separate chips, literally combining several older systems into one circuitboard (which isn't emulation at all), or they need to write some code to emulate the older systems.

ANOTHER EDIT: actually, I was wrong. Turns out they are used in certain high tech medical equipment and research as well. Maybe I'll break into NASA and run Dolphin there, see if I can get 60 FPS

 

[Ballard]

I sort of agree AlphaWhelp.

A Motorolla 68000 might seem like they should all function the same, but since it was the most popular 16 bit chip in the 80's into the 90's there were many permutations of that chip, many clock speeds and custom organizations of the data registers, not to mention the many BIOSes that are required. I count 121 different CPUs in MAME that it recognises. To assume only a couple systems are emulated is rediculous.

Anyway, Nintendo only has 4 non-portable systems to emulate for the Revolution. I think they can pull it off, without actually haveing the chips present.

 

[deftonesmx17]

We're talking more than one chip being manufatured here. The NES had at least three, Snes had about five not including custom chips such as DSP-1/SuperFX/SA-1, the N64 had two main co-processors as well. So you have over 10 CPUs here to include, which are incredibly expensive to have manufactured in volume along with all the Revolution hardware. If you think otherwise, you are wrong.

Nintendo wants the revolution to be cheap.

The PS2 had a single chip in it for hardware PSX usage.
The PSX also consisted of multiple processors(R3000, GPU, and SPU), but was reduced to a single chip that resided in the PS2.
Heck, the r3000 alone had multiple engines within it(GTE and DDE).
All that was reduced to a single small chip that did not bloat the price of the PS2.

Now anyone with PS2 knowledge can tell you that the PS2 has many processing units. All of which will probably be reduced to a single chip within the PS3 for BC.

If $ony has no problems reducing old systems to a single chip, there is no reason why Nintendo could not reduce the NES, SNES, and N64 to sinlge chips respectivly.

I still stand by my example of the xbox 360 and its full software emulation BC. Almost six months after the release and only Halo 2 has 100% BC and works flawlessly. Lets also not forget that the xbox and xbox 360 are both based on modified directx. We are talking about both systems having a very similar API. I am also talking here about a company that has all knowledge of both systems. I am also talking about a software developer, as that is what M$ is based on. If the worlds largest software developer is having problems with software emulation of one system, how do you think nintendo is going to pull off software emulation of multiple systems?

Oh and back to the cost thing you keep bringing up. Do you think its not incredibly expensive to pay the programmers to code the emulators? And unlike the manufacturing of chips, the cost to pay the programmers does not reduce over time like the cost to manufacture chips does................

Back to software emulation, SNES emulators have been in coding for how many years now and they are still not fully complete(wont play every game).

 

[Clements]

The PS2 had a single chip in it for hardware PSX usage.
The PSX also consisted of multiple processors(R3000, GPU, and SPU), but was reduced to a single chip that resided in the PS2.
Heck, the r3000 alone had multiple engines within it(GTE and DDE).
All that was reduced to a single small chip that did not bloat the price of the PS2.

The PS2 remains more expensive than GC (a much more powerful system overall), even when the GC launched when it was at it's most expensive. It certainly increased costs of the PS2 among other things.

If $ony has no problems reducing old systems to a single chip, there is no reason why Nintendo could not reduce the NES, SNES, and N64 to sinlge chips respectivly.

Last time I heard, Sony are DROPPING the PSX processor for PS3 in favour of software emulation to reduce costs. Only the PS2 chip is to be included. So, if including many coprocessors is cheap, then why are they dropping the PSX chip?

Oh and back to the cost thing you keep bringing up. Do you think its not incredibly expensive to pay the programmers to code the emulators? And unlike the manufacturing of chips, the cost to pay the programmers does not reduce over time like the cost to manufacture chips does................

Fabbing multiple new coprocessors for each system is NOT cost effective compared to a software emulator, takes extra development time (the emulators have been written already, the chips have not been designed), complicates the architecture, increases cost per unit, could result in yield problems if the manufacture of one coprocessor drops - all sorts. A complicated system with a lot of co-processors (such as PS2, Saturn etc) are expensive to manufacture relative to a simpler system. That is basic economics - and why the simple architecture of the Gamecube made it much cheaper than the competition. Nintendo has to rely on outside fabs to manufacture all the chips, which is somewhat out of their control.

I am also talking about a software developer, as that is what M$ is based on. If the worlds largest software developer is having problems with software emulation of one system, how do you think nintendo is going to pull off software emulation of multiple systems?

Nintendo have already developed successful emulators for NES/SNES/N64 for Gamecube, so these things have already been done with great success - not to mention the developmental emulators seen in official SDKs showing that they use emulators on a frequent basis. Modifying them for Revolution would be trivial (since their architectures are similar) and therefore cost effective.

Back to software emulation, SNES emulators have been in coding for how many years now and they are still not fully complete(wont play every game).

Irrelevant, since Nintendo don't need to reverse engineer a single thing, and have many more developers.

 

[deftonesmx17]

Nintendo have already developed successful emulators for NES/SNES/N64 for Gamecube, so these things have already been done with great success

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda:_Collector's_Edition
These games are not actually ported in the traditional sense, but rather the (slightly altered) ROMs of the original games are run via emulators; this has been proven by the ROM dumping community, who have been able to extract authentic ROMs of all these games from the disc, and they can even be booted on their original consoles with a copier or flash-cart (depending on the console).

Because they are only emulated (rather than altered for the new console) there are some problems, most notably some of the music in Majora's Mask is said to be inaccurate. Many have also complained that Majora's Mask unexpectedly crashes, freezes occasionally, again, caused by the inaccuracies of Nintendo's emulator, and may even erase the save file or not save the file at all. There are similar faults in the Ocarina of Time emulated edition, including (reportedly) lack of lens flares when looking at the sun. But despite these concerns it was still received very well by fans of the series.

These flaws do not affect the games themselves however; when run under fanmade emulators the games run far more accurately than under Nintendo's; the fanmade emulators had various bug and compatibility fixes made to them over several years, whereas Nintendo's emulator is seen by some as have being made very quickly.

That said, Nintendo couldnt even give 100% emulation for single games they intended on emulating, let alone every game made for those systems.

 

[Clements]

however; when run under fanmade emulators the games run far more accurately than under Nintendo's

Disagree. I have finished OoT with the Collectors Disk and experienced almost no issues apart from the Lens flare issue (which even PJ64 can't do correctly either as the flare passes through solid objects). The game is certainly emulated better than with PJ64 1.6 + Jabo's D3D8 on a system with a graphics card with pixel shaders. Majora's Mask has numerous problems with fan-made emulators still, including day transistions and framebuffer performance, which do not affect Nintendo's emulator.

Emulation of a different architecture can be difficult, yet we see very few issues, despite the fact that the N64 is quite a powerful system relative to the GC.

That said, Nintendo couldnt even give 100% emulation for single games they intended on emulating, let alone every game made for those systems.

These were for free bonus disks for a relatively slower system (GC), and development on emulators will continue and improve as more games are made compatible with it. I see no evidence of the contrary. Only the popular games need be emulated correctly to satisfy the consumers, rather than a bit-perfect emulator.