so. how hard is it to emulate PS4, X1. considering that both are x86. technically. you don't need to emulate it if you change things around and make the game work in a PC frame work. but thats difficult because you'd have to do it for every single game. so my question is how hard is it to emulate x86 on an x86 or 64 bit whatever you want to call it. PC.
How hard is it to emulate PS4,X1?
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TheWretched
Regular
Probably as hard as the original Xbox... and there's not a single functioning emulator out there at the moment.
but there's a crack that make Halo xbox runs on PC right?
or my memory playing tricks at me
or my memory playing tricks at me
betternatethanlever
Newcomer
That's not true at all. There are currently 3 emulators out of which one can play actual Xbox games.
If I remember correctly, the complexity and the lack of documentation on the Nvidia GPU was a factor to the stagnant progress. These consoles have GCN GPUs, they're well documented.
Betanumerical
Veteran
But is the OS / Driver / API well documented outside of the NDA'd developer docs?. This all cause lots of problems.
TheWretched
Regular
I have tried to find any info on that and besides XQEMU, there's virtually no development on the other emulators (Cxbx and Dxbx both had their latest updates 1+ yrs ago and neither of them play games, really... Cxbx apparently has Turok "playable", but that's it.)
XQEMU has some stuff working, but even their own status updates states "very little actually works". So that's that.
Compare that to Dolphin or PCSX2, and we're in completely different leagues of emulation.
Not that I know any better... but simplistically, shouldn't a high level emulation of the original Xbox work rather well? Using QEMU as the base seems like it does (assuming it does use kqemu). I mean, the CPU should virtually run "as is". GPU not so much.
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betternatethanlever
Newcomer
That is obvious. But I can certainly see PS4/Xbox One emulation becoming a reality sooner than say Xbox 360's emulation.
So you acknowledge that there is in fact a functioning emulator? Granted, it's not fully-functional, nowhere close to what Dolphin is capable of today, but it's still chugging along. CXBX and DXBX are probably not being worked on. This blogpost suggests that the projects have either been merged or the current developer is responsible for both.
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If people can [for now badly] emulate PS3 games on PC, then everything is possible. 
https://www.youtube.com/user/thestalker01/videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/thestalker01/videos
Apparently the new Xbox One APU has an ARM module embedded in it , right between the two cpu clusters, and this provides additional layer of security which will not only helps thwart piracy/modchipping but may make emulation documentation even harder and thwart Xbox One emulation projects.
hmmm source? that's sound quite interesting, given an ARM chip has likely a trustzone in it (why would you want it, otherwise).
Problem of TZ is, its not in the CPU itself, so everything'd look like a mess there.
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If people can [for now badly] emulate PS3 games on PC, then everything is possible.
emulation of CPU isnt a problem, speed excluded.
XB was a mess, because of fk M$ habit of inlining their graphic DX alike support.
Hacking of platforms which makes use of libraries doesnt require you to hack inside the executable to extract & emulate the code, which is feasible of course but quite annoying.
never heard of that, and since there is no working (with a game playable near the way it did in the original console, like it happens with the PS2 and Gamecube) Xbox Emulator, I think you are confusing with something else, perhaps that hack that allowed the Halo 2 PC port to run on Windows XP, because the game originally required Windows Vista to run.
MAME has very very preliminary support for Xbox emulation. Well, not Xbox itself, but the Xbox based Chihiro hardware that ran Outrun2 arcade. Mostly get boot screen and some 2D logo/s and stuff, and at a very slow speed, but it's a start.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq5ecsB8nYo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kq5ecsB8nYo
There was an XBox emulator released many years ago called Xeon that only played Halo.
As for how hard...the problem may lie more in lack of interest in the games.
Most of those games required xbl to work online and most PS3, x360 and xbox1 games were ported to pc.
PS4! And xbone are also in the same boat with most having pc ports...why would someone waste their time working on an emulator?
Most of those games required xbl to work online and most PS3, x360 and xbox1 games were ported to pc.
PS4! And xbone are also in the same boat with most having pc ports...why would someone waste their time working on an emulator?
Rurouni
Veteran
For me, emulator is about playing old games. Two generation ahead, I would like to have a PS4/X1 emu. But with more online component added even for single player games, I'm not sure PS4/X1 emu worth the time to make it. And the fact that a lot of console only devs also making PC version of their games, the worth of PS4/X1 emu is mostly for their exclusive. And if we're talking about exclusive, I rather have WII U emulator than PS4/X1 emu.
This thread is for discussing how feasible it is; not whether or not people should create emulators.
Again, not the thread for it.
It's a curious question, because in hardware terms, an AMD APU should be right there to execute the same codebase. It'd come down to SDK and libraries I suppose, although various Windows or whatever overheads would likely require a bit faster APU to emulate. You'd also want the same BW, so ~200 GB/s for XB1 for an ideal emulation, which isn't happening any time soon. Maybe when we get fast, stacked RAM on an APU, it'll be possible.
shredenvain
Regular
This thread is for discussing how feasible it is; not whether or not people should create emulators.
Again, not the thread for it.
It's a curious question, because in hardware terms, an AMD APU should be right there to execute the same codebase. It'd come down to SDK and libraries I suppose, although various Windows or whatever overheads would likely require a bit faster APU to emulate. You'd also want the same BW, so ~200 GB/s for XB1 for an ideal emulation, which isn't happening any time soon. Maybe when we get fast, stacked RAM on an APU, it'll be possible.
Your right an Amd Apu with 8 cores at a higher clock and 1000 or so shaders could do a decnt job at emulation. I wonder when we can expect a product like this to be released?
A working emulation may well end up being (or trying to be) blocked by copyright acts. It's one thing to emulate an outdated machine, but another entirely to emulate an existing product on a fully programmable, hackable, pirateable platform. For one thing, use of the OS would be a copyright violation (compare to Amiga Emulators that required you to copy the OS from you hardware to use). There'd also be security hacks required to get software to run.
So I'm not sure a consideration of when is relevant. We should stick to 'can it'.
So I'm not sure a consideration of when is relevant. We should stick to 'can it'.
TheWretched
Regular
With Amiga you don't need the OS per se, but the Kickrom...
Otoh, it was the case for PS1 emulation to require the Bios... but by now, a lot of emulators started emulating the api calls and emulate them directly, instead of going through the bios (which ends up being buggier, but it's still WIP).
The copyright... "problem" isn't that black and white, though. I can see that it's problematic if we suddenly get back to Bleem or UltraHLE times, where current PCs were actually able to run current console games. But I can't see that happen anymore. Even with consoles that are, in fact, pcs. The emulating the OS calls will be such a big undertaking in itself, that cracking the encryption seems like an easy task (I assume that we don't get a firmware dump any time soon... because after that... an approach with a virtual machine might actually make this pretty easy... and I am really talking out of my ass right now, so I should stop^^)
Otoh, it was the case for PS1 emulation to require the Bios... but by now, a lot of emulators started emulating the api calls and emulate them directly, instead of going through the bios (which ends up being buggier, but it's still WIP).
The copyright... "problem" isn't that black and white, though. I can see that it's problematic if we suddenly get back to Bleem or UltraHLE times, where current PCs were actually able to run current console games. But I can't see that happen anymore. Even with consoles that are, in fact, pcs. The emulating the OS calls will be such a big undertaking in itself, that cracking the encryption seems like an easy task (I assume that we don't get a firmware dump any time soon... because after that... an approach with a virtual machine might actually make this pretty easy... and I am really talking out of my ass right now, so I should stop^^)
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