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Arcade hardware question
Spaz Monkey:
From my understanding, you have a specific piece of hardware doing a specific job. Would you use a house hold vacuum to rake up leaves? Yes you could, but using a shop vac as a blower might be better. Same thing but with a computer (Word, Excel, Powerpoint) vs dedicated game board. In addition, you have everything standardized (sp?). I can't take my video card and go to your house and you'll have the same hardware. I also remember something about a RISC processor vs some other type of processor on the video games vs computer.
u_rebelscum:
Just minor points, otherwise good inof MonMotha
--- Quote from: MonMotha on October 16, 2007, 07:37:36 pm ---The big culprit in the case of Blitz/Gauntlet Legends is the video hardware....
--- End quote ---
I'd say "A big culprit". Mame is able to emulate this chip surprisingly well (especially with all the stuff you posted), and disabling the emulation of the video in this game only gives you IIRC ~10-20% speed increase. IOW, emulating the video chip is accounting for only 10 to 20% of the work emulating.
And even without the video, no PC is fast enough to emulate the rest of the hardware in mame ATM.
--- Quote ---...The graphics device in Blitz is clocked at (IIRC) 200MHz
--- End quote ---
That's the main CPU. The video CPU is running at 90 MHz, from comments in scr/mame/video/voodoo.c. (I was wrong too and assumed 16 MHz.)
So to update my estimate: 200 (CPU) + 16 (DSP) + 90 (voodoo) + 18 (same guess at everything else) = 324 "MHz". With an even more generous factor (then my prior post) of 31x, you get about 10 GHz.
--- Quote from: HooPZ on October 16, 2007, 10:39:53 pm ---Thanks guys for the answers.
--- End quote ---
Welcome. :)
--- Quote ---...While I appreciate the offer to look at the source code, my last programming class was in 1986 and I'm not really able to understand any programming now.... While I can understand the analogies, I don't have the frame of reference to understand more than a basic concept....
--- End quote ---
You don't have to understand everything to get the the general idea. I don't know much more than the generalities of emulating, and some more on inputs.
Try looking at an easy CPU like the z80 and reading the comments, and check how many lines of C code it takes to emulate one assembly command. Say, line 700 in scr/emu/cpu/z80/z80.c file for a jump conditional: five lines in C to execute one in z80's assembly.
Hoopz:
--- Quote from: u_rebelscum on October 17, 2007, 04:07:27 pm ---Try looking at an easy CPU like the z80 and reading the comments, and check how many lines of C code it takes to emulate one assembly command. Say, line 700 in scr/emu/cpu/z80/z80.c file for a jump conditional: five lines in C to execute one in z80's assembly.
--- End quote ---
Ah, that helps. Any if an easy CPU takes 5 lines, a more advanced one will take X.
Gotcha! :)
ark_ader:
I think the main issue is optimization of the main core. Cure that and there will be no more excuses. If the MAME Devs fixed half of the mess in the main build like getting the duff code out and improving frame rates, and concentrate less on incorporating new games, which demand more from our hardware, we would see some progress.
But with so many contributors to the project, the above suggestion would be difficult to accomplish without a stop work order. I don't think the hardware has anything to do with it today. You could come up with that argument 5 years ago, but with better coding skills and a better understanding on how the target platform works and whats out there, would see a major improvement.
Like the previous poster said about it being years since he coded, I too am in that bracket, but even C was harder to implement than Assembler back in the day. With all the libraries and toolkits available the mere suggestion of coding woes is just an excuse.
I like the comment about non standarisation of hardware, but vanilla Windows can operate in plain old VGA in just about any graphics card out there. :laugh2:
More excuses.
I'm just glad Aaron Giles is leading the project, and he is doing a great job. :applaud:
u_rebelscum:
Ark_ader, please learn more about emulation before bashing those who do it.
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