Hardest Game to Emulate

[Mrephunk]

I see a lot of replies to people asking about computer hardware that say "This setup will emulate (insert percentage) of the games out there" what I want to know is what are the games, or game which is the hardest to emulate and what specs you would need to run it 100%

[mrchrister]

thats a tough question to answer...i would rather say its emulators instead of games that need certain hardware specs!
the emulator that runs a lot of games properly but needs really powerful hardware is pcsx2. You'll need at least dual core and a powerful gfx!
gamecube is also emulated very well with dolphin. but for that it also needs a powerful gfx card and processor. dolphin runs ok though on my 2,6 Ghz Dual Core AMD, with a 2005 mobo and 2gb of ram. Gfx card is a 7600GT.
With this setup I can emulate almost everything except psx2!

[newmanfamilyvlogs]

thats a tough question to answer...i would rather say its emulators instead of games that need certain hardware specs!

With mame this is a little different of a question since mame is essentially many emulators rolled into one. Some of those emulators are incomplete or inefficient. The classic example would be Gauntlet Legends. It requires a fast/modern cpu to approach running 100% because various elements of its emulation are not done as efficiently as they could be, and other sections are not fully accurate, causing emulator crashes (there exists a bug where the game crashes while going up some specific staircase).

It just easier from a conversation standpoint to refer to the hardware being emulated for this game by a given game title rather than "the midway/atari vegas platform" or something.

That having been said, check out this thread:
http://forum.arcadecontrols.com/index.php?topic=72776.440

Several games were benchmarked on a heavily overclocked system. There are still some games that barely hit 100% on a 4.6ghz i5.

[Blanka]

Pong, as you need to set up complete electronics emulation .

[LeedsFan]

Pong, as you need to set up complete electronics emulation .

And Monaco GP

[alfonzotan]

Pong, as you need to set up complete electronics emulation .

And Monaco GP

Gah.  I love that game.  Still kills me that I can't play it in MAME.

[SavannahLion]

Pong, as you need to set up complete electronics emulation .

And Monaco GP

Gah.  I love that game.  Still kills me that I can't play it in MAME.

Basically any solid state non-cpu game. But I digress....

It depends on what you consider emulated wouldn't it? IIRC, someone did create PONG by emulating the circuitry and it runs, just dog slow. Then you have the VHDL/Verilog versions. Runs great on an FPGA, on an x86 eh... not so much.

[Turnarcades]

It's the age-old question. It's the complexity of the system you're emulating rather than the actual game type. We've been waiting a millenia for GTI Club because of some awkward protection. With other systems it's not just a matter of PC power - it's the emulation core of the program itself. In theory most modern top-end PC's should piss being able to play all consoles flawlessly and fast with their specs, but it's trying to do it all in software and it depends on the skills of the coders to do it the best way. Just gone back into Jaguar emulation myself and unfortunately it's not a very actively developed-for platform due to it's obscurity and complexity. For instance, Alien vs. Predator is nigh-on perfect in Project Tempest, but some much simpler 2D games aren't supported.

If you just want to test your machine's power then just try running a newer MAME game with 3D graphics that's been in MAME for a while and has a mature emulation core, like NFL Blitz or something, then test it with different frameskips to see what you get.

[GameGeezer]

I would say the hardest to emulate is 'Qwak', by Atari , c.1974. It was a discrete logic positional gun game that employed overlays, and is the singular predecessor to 'Duck Hunt', all the way to a retriever dog picking up kills and the methods used for shots ad timing. Sadly, it's absurdly rare: I've seen only a couple in my life, and not since college (so, more than 20 years ago).

Being discrete logic (i.e. it uses no CPU and all programming is done with basic transistors, ICs and other standard components; ROM in diode arrays IIRC; it's a singular-purpose computer) it needs its own entire module for MAME. Add to that its rarity (so that examining one is nearly impossible) and a positional gun, makes it IMHO the hardest title to emulate.

Feel free to disagree.  -GG

[bkenobi]

IIRC, someone did create PONG by emulating the circuitry and it runs, just dog slow.

Yes, DICE.
http://adamulation.blogspot.com/

[yotsuya]

IIRC, someone did create PONG by emulating the circuitry and it runs, just dog slow.

Yes, DICE.
http://adamulation.blogspot.com/

I tweaked and recomplied Dice to work with my Mame setup, but it runs slow. Hard to get into a game of Pong with someone when it takes 10-15 seconds for the ball to travel.

[leapinlew]

It's Galaga. Just ask my wife, she'll tell you what I told her.

This is why I HAVE to have a genuine Galaga arcade machine. It can't be played properly on my mame cabinets.

[Haze]

It's the age-old question. It's the complexity of the system you're emulating rather than the actual game type. We've been waiting a millenia for GTI Club because of some awkward protection.

GTI Club isn't protected.

You've been waiting millenia because none of the devs are good enough / have the interest to finish it.

Some guy did actually emulate it in a standalone years ago, but never released it (I had some shots of it on my old mame.net site back in the day, was full speed on my original Geforce 2 card too)

The MAME emulation is somewhat playable, but still very glitchy.

This thread is a mess anyway, I'm assuming the original poster is talking about which games are the most demanding on the host PC, not the hardest to emulate, despite the misleading title. The hardest to emulate stuff isn't emulated.

[leapinlew]

This thread is a mess anyway

It is now, thanks to all your logic and sensible post.