Console and software emulation: does perfection exist?

[Simon82]

I was thinking some time ago: we see so many excellent emulators of so different architecture that one thing I'd like to know. In your opinion with which software someone has reach the perfect emulation of an hardware in all different aspect of the architecture? When 100% and plus of software has been perfectly emulated on a different platform without tricks to help performance at disadvantage of real architecture emulation?

Imho also old generation console are not fully perfectly emulated.

Bye

 

[ERP]

I was thinking some time ago: we see so many excellent emulators of so different architecture that one thing I'd like to know. In your opinion with which software someone has reach the perfect emulation of an hardware in all different aspect of the architecture? When 100% and plus of software has been perfectly emulated on a different platform without tricks to help performance at disadvantage of real architecture emulation?

Imho also old generation console are not fully perfectly emulated.

Bye

The Spectrum emulators are damn good.

 

[Simon82]

The Spectrum emulators are damn good.

But can you tell absolutely that one of that emulators, take 100% of architecture on software emulating 100% of the staff existing?

 

[aselto]

N64 emulation is really good right now. At least on my PC I have no problems with Perfect Dark, Banjo Kazooie and Ocarina of Time (i played them recently). It's even better than playing original versions as I can play with AAx4 and AFx16 turned on and no framerate issues. Controls? 360 wired controller is doing just fine

 

[Reznor007]

N64 emulation is really good right now. At least on my PC I have no problems with Perfect Dark, Banjo Kazooie and Ocarina of Time (i played them recently). It's even better than playing original versions as I can play with AAx4 and AFx16 turned on and no framerate issues. Controls? 360 wired controller is doing just fine

N64 emulation is still extremely hacky for the most part. The only emulator to really attempt emulating the coprocessor is MAME.

 

[rounin]

I think Playstation emulation is at least near perfect. But then again, this usually only happens when the machine being generated is around 10+ years old.

 

[Rolf N]

I was thinking some time ago: we see so many excellent emulators of so different architecture that one thing I'd like to know. In your opinion with which software someone has reach the perfect emulation of an hardware in all different aspect of the architecture? When 100% and plus of software has been perfectly emulated on a different platform without tricks to help performance at disadvantage of real architecture emulation?

Imho also old generation console are not fully perfectly emulated.

Bye

It gets progressively easier as the power of the host sytem increases. But you need a lot of performance to emulate any system exactly. N64 emulators don't even attempt to do this yet. We may be getting there some day.
For some of the older consoles I suspect it's more a lack of exact specifications/procuring documentation that holds the unofficial projects back.

You might want to watch what Nintendo is doing on the VC. I think they may be emulating the SNES better than anyone else, including the often problematic sound chip. The 1up crew has said that they have been very pleased with the sound in F-Zero and they do mini-reviews every week (when a new batch of VC games comes out). If that turns into an actual it trend it might support that you could actually emulate many of the older machines well if you just had exact specifications.

 

[ERP]

But can you tell absolutely that one of that emulators, take 100% of architecture on software emulating 100% of the staff existing?

The reason that Spectrum emulators are so good (I know of no game that won't run) is partly because of the power differential, but mostly because the spectrum hardware is extremely simple and well documented.

Whats holding back emulators for most older systems is a lack of good, accurate documentation.

 

[hey69]

so whats the state of Saturn emulation?anybody have hands on experience

 

[bloodbob]

Whats holding back emulators for most older systems is a lack of good, accurate documentation.

Which is kind of done on purpose to stop emulation

 

[Iron Tiger]

It gets progressively easier as the power of the host sytem increases. But you need a lot of performance to emulate any system exactly. N64 emulators don't even attempt to do this yet. We may be getting there some day.
For some of the older consoles I suspect it's more a lack of exact specifications/procuring documentation that holds the unofficial projects back.

You might want to watch what Nintendo is doing on the VC. I think they may be emulating the SNES better than anyone else, including the often problematic sound chip. The 1up crew has said that they have been very pleased with the sound in F-Zero and they do mini-reviews every week (when a new batch of VC games comes out). If that turns into an actual it trend it might support that you could actually emulate many of the older machines well if you just had exact specifications.

Unless these guys are running the original console alongside the emulated one, I'd have to take any claims of "perfection" with a grain of salt. When I loaded up Street Fighter II and Super Castlevania IV on the VC, it sent shivers up my spine because it sounded, looked, and felt so much like the games as I remembered playing them on the SNES so long ago. Of course, my memories would have to be extremely rose colored since I didn't have the sound system or 57" RP CRT HDTV back then that I have today.

 

[Acert93]

Perfect emulation... just makes me think of how some games don't even work on new revisions of the same hardware! (e.g. PS2 Slim). Now off to patch all my PC games :|

 

[Reznor007]

so whats the state of Saturn emulation?anybody have hands on experience

MAME supports STV(Saturn arcade system) pretty well. Most games work. MESS, which is MAME's sister project for home consoles/computers has a WIP Saturn driver using the same code, but the CD system hasn't been added to it yet, so compatibility is unknown.

I think Playstation emulation is at least near perfect. But then again, this usually only happens when the machine being generated is around 10+ years old.

Not even close on PS1 actually. The timing in the CPU is very hard to nail down. Here's the main MAME PS1 dev's website for some in depth work. http://smf.mameworld.info/

And I think this is the most accurate SNES emu... http://byuu.cinnamonpirate.com/?page=bsnes_news

 

["Nerve-Damage"]

Not to get way off topic…

Is it a fair statement to say…the PS3 can handle Xbox game emulation? Hypothetically, taking into consideration that one day the RSX maybe accessible by the general homebrew app public.

 

[ERP]

Given MS somehow manage it on 360 I would guess it's feasible.
Although MS may use techniques like runtime recompilation which client apps can't.

 

[ector]

Given MS somehow manage it on 360 I would guess it's feasible.
Although MS may use techniques like runtime recompilation which client apps can't.

Eh huh what? User mode programs can easily grab some memory, mark it as executable, and start writing code into it... that's what all dynamically recompiling emulators on PC are doing, and this can be done both under Linux and Windows.

 

[ERP]

But MS and Sony don't let you mark a block as executable (part of there security). Although it's possible that Sony believe linux is well enough contained that they allow it there.

 

[Arwin]

Atari ST emulation is excellent. Just about everything works, and programs like STeem improve on the original system in several ways too (like automatic state saving, scaling the app in a window or full screen, and fast forwarding the app - e.g. let it run at several times the original speed to run past loading screens or long-winded non-skippable intros).

Heartily recommended. As an extra bonus, the OS is freely available (in the PD) and you can get all kinds of applications and games anywhere. For instance a lot of SNES games were available on Atari ST also, and often better and/or with mouse and keyboard support (think Civilisation, Populous II, Sim City, lots of Sierra On-Line games, etc.)

 

[ector]

Linux on PS3 is running under a hypervisor, so that's no security breach whatsoever.

If it couldn't mark memory executable, how is it loading ELFs in the first place?
True, ELF loading is done in the kernel, but even if for some bizarro reason somehow user mode programs weren't allowed to mark pages executable, a kernel module could be written and loaded that allow it, or the kernel could simply be modified. So of course it can do it.

Whether full Xbox emulation would be feasible on the PS3 is debatable though. A single "1.5 ghz" PowerPC might not be fast enough to simultaneously emulate the x86 while decoding and executing Nvidia push buffers. I'd expect them to use one of the additional cores to do that on the Xbox 360. I've had success almost doubling the speed of Dolphin (a GC emu for the PC) by letting the second core decode and execute Gamecube display lists asynchronously.

In any case, it would be an absolutely prohibitive amount of work, and in addition, emulating a full GF3+ on the SPE:s is certainly not a trivial task....

EDIT: Well, of course, possibly an SPE could be used for (partial?) pushbuffer decoding, eliminating that problem.

 

[ERP]

Atari ST emulation is excellent. Just about everything works, and programs like STeem improve on the original system in several ways too (like automatic state saving, scaling the app in a window or full screen, and fast forwarding the app - e.g. let it run at several times the original speed to run past loading screens or long-winded non-skippable intros).

Heartily recommended. As an extra bonus, the OS is freely available (in the PD) and you can get all kinds of applications and games anywhere. For instance a lot of SNES games were available on Atari ST also, and often better and/or with mouse and keyboard support (think Civilisation, Populous II, Sim City, lots of Sierra On-Line games, etc.)

Last I looked ST emulation although excellent didn't run a number of demos, because the common video tricks require writing to video registers at very precise points in a frame. Is this still the case?