Gamecube emulation is making some good progress

[tommy]

Maybe some of you do not know but the GC emulator Dolphin is making some good progress.

Pretty much every game does not go far in game and the one's that do run very slowly

Here are a few screen shots of a few games that start and run somewhat and i must say they look as good or better as the original console does. I'd give them a year or maybe two and this emulator will be as usable as the N64 emulator project 64 is.

[Howard_Casto]

I don't mean to sound negative, but dolphin hasn't been updated since 2004 (save a minor update that didn't have much to do with emulation.).  So the progress thus far is nothing as gamecube emulation, much like xbox emulation, is at a complete stand-still. 

The processing power of the last generation of consoles rivals a 1 gighertz pc in terms of hardware power.  Since we are just now getting processors larger than 4 gigs, the highest end pc you could get your hands on would run dolphin at about 10-12 fps.  So give it a few years and our computers will STILL be too slow to run dolphin.  And that is, of course assuming that various emulation issues would be fixed in the meantime, which they won't be, because dolphin is pretty much dead.

Why?  It's real simple... there's no need for a gamecube emulator because the wii is a gamecube emulator.  When a console becomes scarce is when emulator devs start getting serious. 

[tommy]

It's not that todays pc's are too slow to run a good gamecube emulator well, it's that they have not found a better way to code their emulator to suit todays processors yet.

The gamecube processor is way below my amd 64 2.6ghz speed, it's in the way they are coding the emulator why it's not working out well yet, all parts have to work together properly as im sure you know.

They have released a new dolphin version by the way.

[Organic Jerk]

Why?  It's real simple... there's no need for a gamecube emulator because the wii is a gamecube emulator.  When a console becomes scarce is when emulator devs start getting serious. 

How does that explain PS1 emulation then?  Ultimately PS1 games have been perfectly playable on the PS2 for years after the original's commercial death, and the PS1 emulation scene thrived....

I think architecture has alot to do with it... the more complicated the architecture, the harder it is to reverse engineer it...  The PS1/N64 era was the end of relative simplicity... from then on you're ideally running full scale computer emulators within other computers... which is fine if the development revenue is high and there is a good team of experienced industry programmers.... but it's rather difficult (understandably) for the lone indie coder...

[hypernova]

How does that explain PS1 emulation then?  Ultimately PS1 games have been perfectly playable on the PS2 for years after the original's commercial death, and the PS1 emulation scene thrived....

Because it was a workaround to forking out the money to buy the actual consoles.  GC games don't work on a pc, correct?

[Howard_Casto]

Well the problem with that argument is that you think people actually want backwards compatability on a console.  The gamecube is a special case because... well the gamecube wasn't that popular and thus there are still a ton of gems out there, undiscovered by the masses. 

Also the fact that the ps2 played ps1 games is irrelevant.......  see the ps1 was a pitiful machine hardware-wize and barely had a processor bigger than the snes.  This made for easy emulation, so easy that commerical emulators were available for the ps1.  Also you forget that the ps1 was sorta dead on the vine for the last year or so... there was a bit of a lull between the ps2 and ps1.

Consoles have gotten exponentially more powerful (because pc parts are getting cheaper) but pcs are at a stand-still right now. 

Also the whole "gamecubes are waaay slower than the pc" is irrelevant as well.  They have to be so slow that it's a joke to even worry about the resources before good speeds can be reached.  Just as an example, snes emulators start to choke on a pc slower than around 400-500 mhz.  The snes only has a 50mhz chip so the pc that barely runs it has 10 times the power!!  And the snes is oooold too, and thus there has been a lot of time spent on optimizing the emulators.  The gamecube has a 500-600mhz chip.  When we get 6 gig processors is when we will see reliable emulation. 


For those that say... "well console x has a good emulator, and it's about as fast as my pc" well then that console has very pc-like architecture, and thus a lot of things can be done at the hardware level.
Remember, the gamecube is basically a mac, so a low level translator isn't an option.. a lot of stuff has to be done in pure software mode. 

[Organic Jerk]

Well the problem with that argument is that you think people actually want backwards compatability on a console.  The gamecube is a special case because... well the gamecube wasn't that popular and thus there are still a ton of gems out there, undiscovered by the masses. 

Also the fact that the ps2 played ps1 games is irrelevant.......  see the ps1 was a pitiful machine hardware-wize and barely had a processor bigger than the snes.  This made for easy emulation, so easy that commerical emulators were available for the ps1.  Also you forget that the ps1 was sorta dead on the vine for the last year or so... there was a bit of a lull between the ps2 and ps1.

I do remember there being a bit of a dull point between the PS1 and 2, so you've got a point there, but now I don't get why you say people wouldn't care about PS1 games on a PS2, but would care about Gamecube games on a Wii.  You say the gamecube has a ton of games that haven't been discovered.... so then that would say there's a lack of demand on the part of the people... no?  Why does a lack of demand make the Gamecube a special case?  What you're essentially telling me is that backwards compatability is GOOD for the Wii because the Gamecube and it's games weren't really in demand.  In effect that would be a case AGAINST backwards support.

(I should state that I do believe backwards compatability is a good thing all around, wherever possible. )

Just as an example, snes emulators start to choke ...

Well all of this is fairly obvious... You're ultimately restating and reiterating on what I said about architecture.  I meant in both  hardware and software terms.  I have no delusions about the complicated nature of an emulator and I was only responding to the one thing I quoted.  Ultimately we agree on this.  I'm not exactly sure about demand, as I lost interest in Nintendo as a company since the SNES, but what I said and what I believe is that the progressively complicated architecture is making it harder and harder to "effectively" reverse engineer it.  This takes PC progress into consideration.

[shmokes]

Also, I hesitate to say, "Well, Gamecube had a 600 Mhz processor so we will need a 6 Ghz processor to emulate it."  Mhz isn't everything, of course.  A 2.2 Ghz Core Duo, for example, will absolutely run circles around a 3 Ghz Pentium 4.  And I'm not just talking about stuff that's meant to take advantage of multiple processors.  I'm talking about standard 32-bit code that was written before Core Duo ever hit the market.  I'm willing to go with a processor needing to be 10 times as powerful, but that is not measured in Mhz alone.  Considering the exponential nature of processor speed gains (Moore's Law), PC's processors become well over ten times faster than they were at any given point every six years.  With that in mind, since the Gamecube was not more powerful than a high-end PC when it was released, we should be nearing that magical "10X as powerful point" right about now.

[Hoagie_one]

just need more optimized code, IMO.

[ChadTower]

I want backwards compatibility in my consoles.  This is relevant.

[northerngames]

won't be for year's to come:

A: processor's are not availible to the public in the strengh of 8-10gig yet
B: would need around at least 4-5 gig ram
C: when it does come out it will not be affordible for years after the realease of such strengh lol.

there a mame game's from 1995 & prior that still cannot even be played today without being choppy with a public pc made today so ps2 GC xbox will not be availbile for years also in a emulator "ALL" the information of the game contents like sounds maps files etc. all has to be written and stored on something in order for the pc to even read/emulate it.

[shmokes]

And there's our random post from the resident expert who pulls nonsense numbers out of thin air.  Just WTF are they going to be loading into all that RAM?  An entire Gamecube disc only holds about 1.5 GB of data.

[northerngames]

ram gives much improvment when it comes to the speed and choppyness like killer instinct or mk on a 128mb ram then try it on a 512mb and see the difference kinda like xbox wont play some unless it has the 128mb ram upgrade etc.

it may work but it would not run normal speed and way to slow to be worth it.

[tommy]

Who the hell is talking about Mame?

The gamecube CAN be emulated well on todays comps if they optimize it for todays comps.

It's funny if you read the FAQ for the Dolphin emulator, they say with the techniques they use todays comps can't Handel the emulator. As if todays comps are the problem, that's wrong, the techniques they use are bad.

Dreamcast games are at full speed on todays comps and that platform is not much more advanced than the GC, it's how it's done is the problem. They are blaming todays comps when they need to look at themself for a fix.

[northerngames]

I was just using it is an example like wargods it is nowhere near the size of a GC game and it still runs very choppy with top of the line pc's but it is fully emulated and working but the pc's still do not have enough umph to run it at normal speed and that one is over 12 years old already I know mame had nothing to do with the gamecube but I was using it is a example of how pc's will not emulate any of the newer console's till they get alot stronger some may emulate something partaily but nothing will be emulated at full working speed for some time still.

[Samstag]

I was just using it is an example like wargods it is nowhere near the size of a GC game and it still runs very choppy with top of the line pc's but it is fully emulated and working but the pc's still do not have enough umph to run it at normal speed and that one is over 12 years old already I know mame had nothing to do with the gamecube but I was using it is a example of how pc's will not emulate any of the newer console's till they get alot stronger some may emulate something partaily but nothing will be emulated at full working speed for some time still.

What a sentence!  If we could only harness that power, a GC emulator is in reach!

[sphetr2]

What a sentence!  If we could only harness that power, a GC emulator is in reach!

Ha ha yeah, it's funny that he actually bothered to put a period there too.

Back on topic, I'm thinking it's a combination of both problems (not that I would actually know, just speculating) in that the code needs to be optimized (code is usually sloppy when first written, from rushing and stuff I guess), but it definitely would not hurt to have faster PCs, as it lightens the load on the coders.

[shmokes]

MAME is a bad example cos it emulates the whole hardware platform on the PC's CPU and doesn't take advantage of the 3D processor on your videocard.

[Howard_Casto]

Dreamcast games are at full speed on todays comps and that platform is not much more advanced than the GC, it's how it's done is the problem. They are blaming todays comps when they need to look at themself for a fix.

The gc is literally three times as powerful as the dc, so nope that isn't true.  The dc also had a commercial emulator released (bleemcast) which helped a great deal.  It's also rather arrogant of you to just say that the gc eus folks are wrong.  Do you know how to make a faster gc emulator?  Didn't think so.

Schmokes is wrong on his magic number though.....  gc used very specialized processors AND they are mac-based.  600mhz is the raw mhz speed of the gc but compared to the average pc processor it is considerably faster.  I'm not an expert on the gc harware, but I would guestimate it's around 1.5-1.7 gigs equivelent?  Our computers are barely double that right now and processor mhz doubling has slowed down a ton lately.  We are in for a wait of at least 4 years, mark my words.  That is unless somebody totally hacks up the emulator putting in "fake" rendering functions, like has been done for the n64....  sure the n64 emulators run fast, but they sure are glitchy.  Either that or you have to deal with swapping the 30 or so plugins for each individual game.  Still, I think it'd be on the slow side if with that sort of help.

[Howard_Casto]

MAME is a bad example cos it emulates the whole hardware platform on the PC's CPU and doesn't take advantage of the 3D processor on your videocard.

Actually it's a good example.... most emulators especially 3d ones, that do not emulate the whole platform in software mode are glitchy.  There are rare exceptions (like zinc) but generally when you go the "lets fake it" route you have glitchy rendering and or 30 or so random plugins you have to swap out depending upon the game.

[btp2k2]

uh, sorry...but if I recall...Bleemcast was NOT a dreamcast emulator, but a commercial PS1 emulator FOR the DC.

It's intent was not to emulate Dreamcast, but to emulate another console on the Dreamcast.

[tommy]

The Dolphin team is soon to release a 64bit build that can see faster speeds also with dual processors running... so yes, it can be done and will run on todays comps just fine. (not perfect, but fine)

[tommy]

Dreamcast games are at full speed on todays comps and that platform is not much more advanced than the GC, it's how it's done is the problem. They are blaming todays comps when they need to look at themself for a fix.

  It's also rather arrogant of you to just say that the gc eus folks are wrong.  Do you know how to make a faster gc emulator?  Didn't think so.

Turns out it was not arrogance but fact.

Also, do you always ask questions and answer them all by yourself?

[btp2k2]

 

[shmokes]

I'm not going to comment on the speeding up or slowing down of the rate at which processor speed is increasing, except to point out that in the 40 or so years since Moore made the statement it has never failed to be true, so even if the rate is slowing down, it isn't slowing down enough to discredit my magic number.  All I'm saying is that if a computer needs to be only ten times faster than the one it is emulating, we should be reaching that point according to how much time has elapsed since Gamecube's release and the exponential nature of CPU improvements.  Maybe the architecture of the Gamecube will mean that an x86 processor will need to be fifteen or twenty times faster in order to usably emulate it, but, nevertheless, computer processors should be hitting or exceeding that 10x number right about now.

[ChadTower]

The bottom range of specs being enough is dependent on the quality of the emulator and its methods.  Better piece of software - less specs needed.  Software that is inefficient/buggy/immature needs more horsepower to cover the sins of the developers.