[$threadinfo[title]]

[fORTE9k]

Just wondering wat sort of system ull need to run this puppy at full speed when the emulator is complete and fully capable of running commerical games.


:baaa:

[CpU MasteR]

Originally posted by fORTE9k
Just wondering wat sort of system ull need to run this puppy at full speed when the emulator is complete and fully capable of running commerical games.


:baaa:

Its hard to say right now the syst6em requirements for this emulator. It will all depend on the speed of emulation and the hardware, but since it doesnt run commercial games yet, you willl have to wait.

:emutalk:

[WhtDrgnGG42]

Its hard to say right now the syst6em requirements for this emulator. It will all depend on the speed of emulation and the hardware, but since it doesnt run commercial games yet, you willl have to wait.

:emutalk:
Just think about it, the original playstation emulators required that your cpu be about 2.7X faster than the PSX's, so if the PS2 is 333MHZ, that would make the computer be around 850+Mhz.

[Trotterwatch]

I don't really think you can make an accurate judgement on needed system specs by doing some standardised multiplication of the main CPU speed.

I think it is fairly safe to say that the PS2 will need a lot more than 850mhz to run well.

[Lillymon]

ePSXe 1.5.2 and my old Pentium III 450Mhz (PlayStation CPU x 13.5)

OK for most games, but slowed down in places and absolutely choked up on framebuffer effects. Even with newer plugins, I doubt total full speed would be possible.

You're saying 2.7 times faster would be OK? You're crazy.

[Flash]

ePSXe 1.5.2 and my old Pentium III 450Mhz (PlayStation CPU x 13.5)

OK for most games, but slowed down in places and absolutely choked up on framebuffer effects. Even with newer plugins, I doubt total full speed would be possible.

You're saying 2.7 times faster would be OK? You're crazy.

And it's not a good idea to compare only cpu clock when talking about waaaaay different architectures. 33Mhz R3000 = ~75Mhz 486.
Same thing with w/ PS2 ... and computer is not only cpu.
Slower 3DO requires a lot more CPU horsepower than waaay faster Ultra64 arcade system or even Nintendo64.
Saturn emulation also requires three times faster cpu than PSX or N64 emulation.

I think 4-5 Ghz "traditional" :-) x86 or 3Ghz A64 (but only in case of AMD64-native emulator) will be enough for PS2 w/ sound @60 fps, of course with good video card and lots of HLE :)
Simplier 2D games can be emulated w/o sound at 70-90% speed even on my old machine but it will require tons of HLE - low compatibility, tons of bugs.

[WhtDrgnGG42]

The reason that I said that is that I am working on an emulator right now, I am having a little problems with the sound, but the video is excellent, and I am using it on a 950Mhz. AMD Duron CPU. I haven't ran into a game being incompatable with the emulator yet, I am only having problems with the sound emulation. By the way things look, I am looking at a Dec 04 release for it. Also, I was running epsxe on a 333Mhz. computer with no problems.

*hint* It will be shareware, the only problem is that I will require you to find your own bios file.


The computer that is running this Emulator right now:

AMD 950 Mhz. CPU
128MB SDRAM@133Mhz Bus speed.
4X AGP GeForce 4 MX video
Cobra CMI8738/C3DX PCI Sound
LG 48X DVD ROM.
Gravis Gamepad XP-Pro.

[Trotterwatch]

Some proof would be nice, as it stands I don't believe you at all :)

[WhtDrgnGG42]

Some proof would be nice, as it stands I don't believe you at all :)

I will let you know then when Beta testing is starting, since those who are sceptics make better testers than those who truely believe, because you will be looking for errors in the program, others will be just be playing games just to play them.


I would have it working a little sooner, but right now I am having to work two jobs, just to pay the bills.

The sound problem that I am having is that when anytype of bright white light shows up on screen, the sound make a loud staticy sound, just like a scratched CD does when you try to play it.

[Trotterwatch]

Out of interest, if I may - what are your programming credentials? How are you emulating a complex system such as the PS2, on such low range hardware, and achieving a high compatability rate?

Forgive my sceptism, but I have seen these types of claims made so many times before, and never once have they been true.

I may add, I don't mind being proved wrong, and should I be - I will most humbly apologise.

[WhtDrgnGG42]

Out of interest, if I may - what are your programming credentials? How are you emulating a complex system such as the PS2, on such low range hardware, and achieving a high compatability rate?

Forgive my sceptism, but I have seen these types of claims made so many times before, and never once have they been true.

I may add, I don't mind being proved wrong, and should I be - I will most humbly apologise.

That is okay, the problem that most programers make is that they will try to make you purchase more RAM or maybe a new CPU just to think that you need that to play there little program. I have been programing since 1989, when I started to learn GW-Basic and Q-Basic. Then I went on to learn PASCAL and Borland's C++. Now I am contributing to a lot of current US games that are being released on the market. I have wroten over 1,800 scripts for use with Neverwinter Nights, I have helped out Square-Enix on the FFX-2, and FFXI US releases. I have helped Commodore create their first self bootable OS, it runs like DOS, but without using a floppy every time you start your comptuer. I also have rewriten several games so that they woun't use up so much memory or even your CPU resources. Most of the games today, can have minimal changes in the coding, and they will run under a low-end machine. Unlike most emulators that only emulate the memory locations, mine will only run under DOS mode, and it converts PS2 memory locations into the accual computer memory locations.


p.s. If you want, I am almost always on the different messaging services when I am home. I also am instantly alerted to when I recieve E-Mails.

[Trotterwatch]

Under DOS mode? Doesn't that mean no access to APIs such as OpenGL and DirectX.

Regardless, I am not the one to be able to assess whether these claims are true or not. My instinct and knowledge indicates the latter, but I'm not a leading authority on these matters :)

[WhtDrgnGG42]

Under DOS mode? Doesn't that mean no access to APIs such as OpenGL and DirectX.

Regardless, I am not the one to be able to assess whether these claims are true or not. My instinct and knowledge indicates the latter, but I'm not a leading authority on these matters :)

Under DOS mode, you free up a lot of resources that windows uses, most of which are used by the PSOne and PS2. In my program, I used a little bit of an older program that I used in college, when I recieved my first associates degree, and made it create a pure environment that OpenGL will work under DOS mode. Also, the OpenGL web-site has a source code that you can edit to make any opengl program run under pure DOS mode. This also allows the EMU to run a lot smoother and the mainly used resource FFFFFF...Which a lot of people get errors under, to be free. Windows uses it to make the mouse cursor refresh at 85Mhz, you really only need it to refresh on a 45Mhz speed, like in Windows 95. But in 98SE Microsoft upped the mouse refresh rate because they said that people were complaining that it wasn't moving smooth enough. THe problem with that is a lot of OpenGL games use that resource, and I decided to run under DOS mode to keep this video card resource open. Plus there are a few things that I can do under DOS mode that I don't yet know how to do under Windows. Like creating GUI's, the windows resource locations are different than DOS, and I didn't want to learn the WIndows style of programing GUI's just to make one EMU.

[ShadowPrince]

Thank you for entertaining posts, WhtDrgnGG42 :)
I especially liked this one :

Most of the games today, can have minimal changes in the coding, and they will run under a low-end machine. Unlike most emulators that only emulate the memory locations, mine will only run under DOS mode, and it converts PS2 memory locations into the accual computer memory locations.


I look forward for Dec 04 release , LOL.

[mightyrocket]

It's impossible to run the consoles of this generation under dos. The N64 is possible because it makes use of a chip similar to the voodoo2 and nearly all effects can be emulated with the dos-3dfx api, but the next gen-consoles are all making use of effects which can't be emulated with the default 3dfx, at least the most effects, so you need a software-renderer like VESA, and that will decrease the performance too much. To get enough memory to load a game, you'll require EMS, and that will also slow it down too much, so forget a PS2-dos emulator!

[Lillymon]

This is one of the least impressive fakes I have seen. Programming under DOS is nearly always harder than programming under Windows (according to your 'experience', your DOS programming days should be long over by now). It's not always faster too.

Your 'emulator' is a hoax. The fact that you'll be asking for real cash soon makes it even less believable. I'll be staying with PCSX2, neutrinoSX2 and the other more believable emulator.

[Flash]

It's impossible to run the consoles of this generation under dos. The N64 is possible because it makes use of a chip similar to the voodoo2 and nearly all effects can be emulated with the dos-3dfx api, but the next gen-consoles are all making use of effects which can't be emulated with the default 3dfx, at least the most effects
1) N64's gfx chip is waaay simplier than voodoo2, if it was v2, n64 gfx
would be like a dreamcast maybe a bit simplier (lack of memory and cpu power), because V2 can run HOTD2 and Crazy Taxi :)
2) anyway there's no Glide3x.ovl (yet...) and voodoo3+ doesn't work very well w/ DOS glide2x... There's also a masochist way of direct hardware programming (write your own API :) )

so you need a software-renderer like VESA, and that will decrease the performance too much. To get enough memory to load a game, you'll require EMS, and that will also slow it down too much, so forget a PS2-dos emulator!

VESA is not a renderer at all :)
and EMS is antique thing from the time of XT dinosaurs... Since 386 XMS is used instead...

Anyway better way to give all system resources to emulator
is to use minimal linux system or QNX

[Flash]

This is one of the least impressive fakes I have seen. Programming under DOS is nearly always harder than programming under Windows (according to your 'experience', your DOS programming days should be long over by now). It's not always faster too.
Disk access is many times faster in win32 or *nix systems.


Your 'emulator' is a hoax.

Our worst Nightmare... :D LOL !
The fact that you'll be asking for real cash soon makes it even less believable. I'll be staying with PCSX2, neutrinoSX2 and the other more believable emulator.[/QUOTE]

[WhtDrgnGG42]

Disk access is many times faster in win32 or *nix systems.


Our worst Nightmare... :D LOL !
The fact that you'll be asking for real cash soon makes it even less believable. I'll be staying with PCSX2, neutrinoSX2 and the other more believable emulator.[/QUOTE]


I never said that i was asking for cash, but under DOS, you can still use the windows programs, you just have to change the way things look, if you look on the internet, you will find that DOS mode is very capible of things that windows uses, but the only problem is no DX. But I am able to use OpenGL, as they have DOS support resourse codes. Also, I am turning the EMU over to a buddy of mine, as he has more time to make the EMU. I will later post a link to his site once he has it updated with the news on the EMu.

[Lillymon]

I never said that i was asking for cash.*hint* It will be shareware, the only problem is that I will require you to find your own bios file.
Ring a bell?

Under DOS, you can still use the windows programs, you just have to change the way things look, if you look on the internet, you will find that DOS mode is very capible of things that windows uses, but the only problem is no DX.

Nope. Sorry. DOS lacks a lot of stuff Windows has. That's why everyone started moving to Windows for everything as soon as Windows 95 came out.

I can't tell you exactly what DOS lacks, but a good programmer around here should be able to help

But I am able to use OpenGL, as they have DOS support resourse codes. Also, I am turning the EMU over to a buddy of mine, as he has more time to make the EMU. I will later post a link to his site once he has it updated with the news on the EMU.

Oh, so now we've got two geniuses who can do the impossible and program a PS2 emulator that can run extremely fast on a low-end PC and do all of this under DOS no less!!!

Dude, I proved you wrong. Quit with this hoax and stop embaressing yourself.

[aprentice]

Also, I am turning the EMU over to a buddy of mine

Typical 'im in the hot seat, lemme fabricate an invisible buddy and transfer all questions over to NULL', this guy is full of it, lets hope he
quits the scene, we don't need scum like him around here.

[RJARRRPCGP]

But, another problem *will* exist:

DOS *cannot* use UDMA, thus hard disk drive data transfers *will* be limited to 16 MB/s.

Thus, it is recommended to write games for Windows or Linux.

[dcook32p]

If a program author develops software in entirely ANSI C99 or C++98 compliant code then it will easily be ported between operating systems - even between 32-bit Microsoft Windows and the various versions of DOS.

However, most programs developed for 32-bit Microsoft Windows require the use of the Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFCs) and Component Object Model + (COM+). These use non-standard libraries and routines developed by Microsoft. Component Object Model (COM) is a standard developed by <a href="http://www.opengroup.org">The Open Group</a> [opengroup.org]. A standard library for C++ should be added into the 2003 version of the specification due out shortly.

I see a couple of things, however, that make this emulator a complete hoax.

The PlayStation 2 uses 128-bit memory addressing. Without getting too technical, this will require the use of "banking" to translate those 128-bit addresses into 32-bit addresses (which is what the current crop of IA-32 and PowerPC processors use). MS-DOS adds an extra layer of complexity to this by being a 16-bit operating system. It is already incapable of using 32-bit addressing without special software.

Maybe I'm just not seeing it, but there is no MS-DOS related code samples listed <a href="http://www.opengl.org/developers/code/samplecode.html">here</a> [opengl.org]. This is their sample code page.

I'm sure if I actually cared I could think of some more, but overall I'd have to say this poster is some child who wants attention. Let's all ignore him.

[WhtDrgnGG42]

But, another problem *will* exist:

DOS *cannot* use UDMA, thus hard disk drive data transfers *will* be limited to 16 MB/s.

Thus, it is recommended to write games for Windows or Linux.

How about creating an OS that is almost like that of the PS2, there are about fie or six people that i know of that already have the PS2 OS code finished, you just create a second Non-DS partition on your HDD, then in your startup file, you include the dual boot=1 line, then select the Non-DOS partition, the ones that i have seen, and debated on which one to use, were pretty much the same as the PS2, but they were GUI instead of using the controller to select things. Also, I ment to put that the emulator will be "Freeware", not "Shareware".


http://EMUR2.u4l.com
this site will be up in about two or three days, and that is his site.

[Flash]

Oh, so now we've got two geniuses who can do the impossible and program a PS2 emulator that can run extremely fast on a low-end PC and do all of this under DOS no less!!!

Some comments here.

Although it's possible to write PS2 emulator for DOS and emulation of CPU and some other parts using optimized assembly can be faster than win32 because low system resources usage by OS. But...

1) We need to emulate complex GFX hardware, to do this in software
is extremely slow.
2) Only well-working 3D acceleration API is glide2x, so we can't even use all features of Voodoo2 - it will be only 12Mb fast voodoo1.
3)Even modern video cards can't do everything we need - for
example framebuffer reading - extremely slow because PC video hardware not designed for this and AGP is a bit one way bus.
5) Disk access - DMA under DOS only possible on some very old
Intel chipsets (430VX,TX etc)
6) Direct hardware usage or DOS OpenGL port... More difficult than emulator itself. And impossible w/o docs. Only well documented hardware
is 3Dfx cards ( docs, BIOS and drivers sources leaked)

So we can do not very fast emulator for V4-V5 only after a few years of insanely hard work.

So, it's definitely a hoax.


BTW I know computer capable to run PCSX2 with more than 200fps ( through PC emulator), even 150 emulator tasks at same time. Only one thing - $6900000, 450kW, 200 tons ... some sort of cheap PDA :D
:D :D :D :D




Let's close this thread,eh ?

[Paul_tulkas]

Dear WhtDrgnGG42,
i recently just read you info on making a ps2 emu

i am not gonna request but merely ask if there is a possibilty of windows version of your emu... instead of Dos

cause alot of people now of days depend on newer version of windows like xp pro... millnium me so on so on..

although running dos is genius.. but my xp doesn't allow me to. i meet req with out a prob .
i would love to beta test it.

Paul m ford is the name
video is his game
dec 21, 1981
blaine WA, 98230

currently living and breathing video games
Wild Arms 2

ADDed info..

i have experance with asherons Call beta release.... before entire open server but i did get to beta test

[Trotterwatch]

I guess you didn't read the thread where this emu was thoroughly debunked.

[pandamoan]

I guess you didn't read the thread where this emu was thoroughly debunked.

ok, i'm going to come out with it:

my ps/2 emulator is totally ready for beta testing. it only runs on casio calculator watches, and the resolution is low as a result, but it makes 99% of commercial roms "playable".

Now it would help alot if i had a real casio calculator watch for testing, so i'm going to put up a paypal button, if anyone is interested in helping.

thanks!
jamie

[Lillymon]

You're emulating the PS/2 (http://www.walshcomptech.com/ps2/images/small70.jpg)?

[pandamoan]

You're emulating the PS/2 (http://www.walshcomptech.com/ps2/images/small70.jpg)?

of course. my next project will be a sparc emulated on a tamogochi. i'm programming the whole thing in object oriented java ++.

after that i'm going to emulate the xbox2 on an abacus. it would help greatly if someone would donate an xbox2 for this purpose. Billy G are you listening? go ahead and mail me one and paypal me enough money to quit real life, so i can focus on xxxboxxx2ownage full time.

frankly, i just rock at an incredible level.

jamie

[Tryst]

Don't knock it. I personally believe that games would be much better if they still ran under DOS.

Hold your horses people... I'm not suggesting that we all go back to the DOS 6.2 CLI, just a seperate OS specifically for games. If windoze was programmed to run on a PC, why should an alternate "GameOS" be less efficient in it's use of hardware just because it deosn't use windoze API calls? What you are implying is that Windoze is the *only* operating system that can ever be run on a PC and everything that runs on a PC has to go through it.

Windoze is very resource hungry and insists on background tasking which slows everything else down. Many of the latest games would run on processors half the speed and require far less memory if software houses created their own games GUI and did away with the MS bug-ridden non-operating system the labelled Windows, (commonly called MS NOS by most people I know). Typically, many of the "back to desktop" crashes experienced by games players are due to NOS suddenly taking exeption to something the game has done successfully several times before.

I would eventually like to see self booting cd's with their own mini-OS specifically for games, or a "GameOS" CD that players use to start their PC before playing games. If it was easy for the novice to elect to boot from CD instead of HD, my guess is a "GameOS" would have been written by now. The biggest problem with Windows is that it hates sharing a hard disk with other OS's so dual booting from a hard disk is difficult at best.

I think anyone who has enough experience to create an emulator to fool a PC into thinking it's a console should give a "GameOS" some careful consideration, If it could dual boot, it would be supported by many of the leading hardware manufacturers and drivers would be abundant. That would negate the requirement to use Vesa and standard Soundblaster drivers that are available to DOS, giving a broader range of hardware compatibility. Software houses currently stuck with the pitiful handouts that MicroShaft offers in the way of DX support would flock to buy it if it was supported well. If royalties were payable for every game it was shipped with, the author would be on a par with Gates himself.

Food for thought...

Unfortunately, it's way above my capabilities or it would have been reality around the time of the release of Windoze 98, when many of the games were being ported to the Windoze platform and dying a horrible bug ridden death.

[pandamoan]

actually, there is a new flavor of linux out with this in mind.

it's a variation of gentoo i believe. America's Army has been out in this format for a while.

i believe they are working on several other games being "ported" the same way. for all of your listed reasons.

:D

[niterayn]

Making a PS2 emu is an enormous task under Win32/Linux and an impossible one for DOS... WhtDrgnGG42 you're so full of it I can hardly believe it... A nontechnical person should easily notice you're seeking recognition which a programmer of your supposed caliber would definitely not need (and not have time to participate in this forum either).

The general idea that windows slows down the machine because of "all the unneccessary stuff" is misguided. Yes, OS arbitration and context switching wastes some CPU cycles, but only a fraction (say less than a percent) that is decreasing with every new and faster CPU... The constant increase in CPU speed is another fact professional programmers realize - it's futile to spend a month optimizing that function in assembler instead of simply writing it in C (or revert to DOS as proposed) because in 6 months the CPU speed advance will make up for it. It's is hardware that is inexpensive and programmer's labor that isn't!

I very much recommend the following article:
http://www.arstechnica.com/cpu/2q00/ps2/ps2vspc-1.html
comparing the "spreadsheet CPUs" (i386) and "multimedia CPUs" (EE).

dcook32p:
I don't see your point... Since the emulators interpret the native CPU instructions and thus provide a virtual environment, the address translation has to be done anyway... What you're talking about (if I understand correctly) would need to be done if the alien code would be translated into native code (like JIT compilation in .NET, since I see you're familliar with Microsoft's technologies) and then executed. This would be insanely more difficult to implement and I don't think emulators work this way - at least not nSX2, I've looked at the source.

Anyway, I hope the developers of nSX2 don't give up on the project. As the i386 is unfortunately here to stay, in a couple of years when they think of new ways to make it (the CPU) faster, I'm sure nSX2 will be a perfect emu. It's made of all the right stuff - portability and open source! :)

Regards,
Matej