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Accuracy takes power: one man’s 3GHz quest to build a perfect SNES emulator

arstechnica.com

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Re: Accuracy takes power: one man’s 3GHz quest to build a perfect SNES emulator

#21

Post by factorial »

gouranga wrote: post #14
Wilduck wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that buying an SNES becomes decreasingly viable as time goes on while using an FGPA becomes increasingly viable. I don't know if we've reached the point where the balance shifts yet, but presumably we will at some point.

Also, the medium on which the software is delivered is not the problem either. It's just information after all. The problem is accurately emulating the software in software which is easier achieved by emulating the harware in hardware :)

The SNES is now close to 25 years old, and the older the hardware gets, the more serious the issue of "bit rot" will become. Among NES collectors, it's not rare to find people lamenting not being able to play their original cartridges anymore. Those cartridges don't last forever. Thus, emulation serves an important archival purpose, and without it, those games may be lost forever.

Re: Accuracy takes power: one man’s 3GHz quest to build a perfect SNES emulator

#22

Post by DanBC »

duxup wrote: post #15
evan_ wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you're going to add hardware you might as well just get a real SNES from eBay and use a memory cart.

How about a SNES card for my PC with all the hardware on it? ;)

Have you heard of the "Amstrad Mega PC"? An Amstrad 'ibm compatible' with a Sega Mega Drive (US: Genesis) built in.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_Mega_PC)

£999 in 1993 is ridiculously expensive.

Re: Accuracy takes power: one man’s 3GHz quest to build a perfect SNES emulator

#23

Post by neverm0re »

What I find interesting is that most attention is being spent on BSNES when the subject of cycle accuracy and proper emulation of hardware comes up, like this is a new or novel discovery. BSNES is hardly the first to aim for this sort of goal, nor is its efforts as close to complete as the efforts spent by others. The NES scene in particular is now down to the level of breaking out scopes to measure response times on real NES hardware to get the sort of information they need to further push their level of accuracy up. Even 'obscure' systems like the MSX have had this sort of cycle-accurate push in emulation.

It's no longer the 90s and people shouldn't even have to mention NESticle existed in an article unless they're that out of touch with trends of the last decade.

Re: Accuracy takes power: one man’s 3GHz quest to build a perfect SNES emulator

#24

Post by joshAg »

gouranga wrote: post #4

Perhaps we should start using CardBus and PCI-E based FPGA cards and go for hardware simulation rather than software emulation? Performance is far easier to achieve there. The devices aren't exactly expensive either.

I think the fact that the SNES hardware is proprietary would make it very tough to catch all the corner cases (since we'd be reduced to tons of test and check cycles or using SEMs to examine the chip).

Plus, many cartridges has supplementary chips, so the fpga would also have to include all the different chips used, and all these are proprietary as well.

Re: Accuracy takes power: one man’s 3GHz quest to build a perfect SNES emulator

#27

Post by artmageddon »

formic_ wrote: post #26

I think the author is wrong It doesn't take a 3000mhz machine to emulate a ricoh 5a22 Look how Nintendo has virtual consoles working on a 730 MHz power PC - the wii

I don't think you're understanding the point of the article. Yes, emulators have been around for quite a long time, but none of them are perfect, which is the purpose of this guy's undertaking to create this emulator requiring a 3GHz CPU.

The Wii isn't going to be around forever: those will start to fail in a number of years. In addition, not every single NES game is available on the Wii virtual console, anyway.

Re: Accuracy takes power: one man’s 3GHz quest to build a perfect SNES emulator

#28

Post by JonnieCache »

artmageddon wrote: post #27
formic_ wrote: post #26

I think the author is wrong It doesn't take a 3000mhz machine to emulate a ricoh 5a22 Look how Nintendo has virtual consoles working on a 730 MHz power PC - the wii

I don't think you're understanding the point of the article. Yes, emulators have been around for quite a long time, but none of them are perfect , which is the purpose of this guy's undertaking to create this emulator requiring a 3GHz CPU. The Wii isn't going to be around forever: those will start to fail in a number of years. In addition, not every single NES game is available on the Wii virtual console, anyway.

The emulators on the wii virtual console are not accurate at all, not in the way that byuu is talking about. Also the games get heavily patched for that purpose, as well as the emulator being patched per-game.

Re: Accuracy takes power: one man’s 3GHz quest to build a perfect SNES emulator

#29

Post by artmageddon »

JonnieCache wrote: post #28
artmageddon wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you're understanding the point of the article. Yes, emulators have been around for quite a long time, but none of them are perfect , which is the purpose of this guy's undertaking to create this emulator requiring a 3GHz CPU. The Wii isn't going to be around forever: those will start to fail in a number of years. In addition, not every single NES game is available on the Wii virtual console, anyway.

The emulators on the wii virtual console are not accurate at all, not in the way that byuu is talking about. Also the games get heavily patched for that purpose, as well as the emulator being patched per-game.

I think I may have only bought the Donkey Kong Country series of games for the Wii VC. It worked well enough, but I imagine that there were indeed issues with the emulation on the Wii. I didn't do any research on it so I couldn't comment on that either.

The one thing I realized after the last few years is that you can't count on game companies to do backwards compatibility forever. Microsoft (understandably) gave up on patching the 360 over and over again to expand the original Xbox library of playable games on the 360, and Sony stopped selling the PS3 models that had the PS2 hardware directly on-board(not to mention "Other OS" support, but I digress).

Re: Accuracy takes power: one man’s 3GHz quest to build a perfect SNES emulator

#30

Post by Keyframe »

DanBC wrote: post #22
duxup wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about a SNES card for my PC with all the hardware on it? ;)

Have you heard of the "Amstrad Mega PC"? An Amstrad 'ibm compatible' with a Sega Mega Drive (US: Genesis) built in. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_Mega_PC ) £999 in 1993 is ridiculously expensive.

Creative Labs made a 3DO like that back then http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3DO_Blaster
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