64 bit processors

[Kaoss626]

Will the advent of 64 bit processing make a difference in the emulation of 64 bit consoles like the N64? I could be mistaken, but aren't the current N64 emulators hampered by having to push code for a 64 bit processor (in the console) through a 32 bit core. currently Athlon64 is here, Opteron is on the way and Intel is working on one releasing one. (I really don't know Mac but I'm thinking they have one to) Is now the time to be reconsidering how N64 emulation is done?

[Allnatural]

We've been through this before.

http://www.emutalk.net/showthread.php?t=11472&highlight=64-bit

[Stezo2k]

good point, i recon 64 bit will make a fairly big difference in n64 emulation if optimised enough, though processors these days can emulate n64 full speed anyway

[schibo]

good point, i recon 64 bit will make a fairly big difference in n64 emulation if optimised enough, though processors these days can emulate n64 full speed anyway

Most N64 games are optimized for 32bit..IMO, thus this would not yield a significant improvement for most games..(at least in my 32bit core) :)....More registers, however, that would help.

[Stezo2k]

ah ok fair play, how come processors these days have took so long to grow to 64bit? i mean ps2 etc is 128bit yeah?

[Allnatural]

ah ok fair play, how come processors these days have took so long to grow to 64bit? i mean ps2 etc is 128bit yeah?
Do you want to throw away an entire library of software to make the jump to 64-bit? Of course, this isn't necessary with the Athlon64's x86-64 architecture, but you get the point. Software must be written for the hardware (or emulated). AMD is hoping to ease the transistion.

By the way, when speaking of the game consoles, the number of bits is often used ambiguously. After all, to the mindless masses, bigger simply means better. If you're talking about just the CPU in each of the new consoles, the PS2 is 128-bit, the Gamecube is 64-bit, and the XBOX is 32-bit.

[schibo]

Do you want to throw away an entire library of software to make the jump to 64-bit? Of course, this isn't necessary with the Athlon64's x86-64 architecture, but you get the point. Software must be written for the hardware (or emulated). AMD is hoping to ease the transistion.

This is actually becoming less and less of an issue with a new approach to application design. The future of code is intermediate (or managed) code. Applications are compiled to a non-hardware (or non-platform) specific intermediate language--and then a platform-specific just-in-time compiler will compile it to optimized native code as the program runs. This is very much like what Java already does, or a specialized dynarec specific to an emulator. So yes, it is very similar to emulation.

[Tagrineth]

By the way, when speaking of the game consoles, the number of bits is often used ambiguously. After all, to the mindless masses, bigger simply means better. If you're talking about just the CPU in each of the new consoles, the PS2 is 128-bit, the Gamecube is 64-bit, and the XBOX is 32-bit.

Actually, GameCube is 32-bit but does two operations per clock, Xbox can be up to like 80-bit and possibly higher with SSE floating-point ops, and PS2 only does 128-bit integer, and very slowly at that - fp is 64-bit. :flowers:

[Stezo2k]

Do you want to throw away an entire library of software to make the jump to 64-bit? Of course, this isn't necessary with the Athlon64's x86-64 architecture, but you get the point. Software must be written for the hardware (or emulated). AMD is hoping to ease the transistion.

By the way, when speaking of the game consoles, the number of bits is often used ambiguously. After all, to the mindless masses, bigger simply means better. If you're talking about just the CPU in each of the new consoles, the PS2 is 128-bit, the Gamecube is 64-bit, and the XBOX is 32-bit.

thanks for the info mate, spose your right about software, AMD could of done 128 bit though, i'm sure it wouldnt be too hard to support 32bit apps, imagine the speed increase though from 32 bit :) would of beaten the p4 extreme instead of basically drawing in benchmarks, oh well 64 bit is still pretty great, my next system will be 64bit.

Yeah i was on about console processors mate

[Tagrineth]

thanks for the info mate, spose your right about software, AMD could of done 128 bit though, i'm sure it wouldnt be too hard to support 32bit apps, imagine the speed increase though from 32 bit :) would of beaten the p4 extreme instead of basically drawing in benchmarks, oh well 64 bit is still pretty great, my next system will be 64bit.

Yeah i was on about console processors mate

Bullshxt. AMD could NOT have done 128-bit. Do you realise how huge a 128-bit CPU is?

[GogoTheMimic]

Didn't Intel come out with a 64 bit CPU a few years back but then it flopped?

[scotty]

128-bit CPU, Itll never happen for another few more years.

Remember PS2 is only for games, CDs and DVDs. PC's have to go on the internet, explores around the net, many things are on there and it needs more memory than a PS2 or any console. PC hold much memory on its computer, where it has to remember ALL your ROMS on your computer when you install them, other files like MSN, ICQ. These slow down processing seeds of a computer. Consoles dont have all this in memory.

[Shin_Gouki]

@Stezo2k

some ideas:
1.
IMO there some IMPORTANT terms missed, like RISC and CISC...
PC CPUs are mostly CISC (well P4 is kinda hybrid...)
Console CPUs are mostly RISC CPUs of course it´s not THAT easy to design them but at least the console HW is constructed BEFORE console SW comes into play...
if you want to create a "PC compatible" 128 bit CPU... that would be the reverse principle(cause you want to run ALL "old2 SW on your "new" CPU, otherwise nobody would buy it ^^ ), and MUCH more than the double amount of complexity would be needed...
2.
the console creatores design also the rest HW of the console
AMD or Intel can barely do that, the PC doesn´t consits only of the CPU !!!
3.
"some" Computerexperts (i think they were from AMD), checked how often data types with MORE than 32 bit were used and i think it was LESS THAN 8 % !!!!!
4.
if you have your 128 bit long registers...it is NOT THAT easy
if you not want to do some stuff only in byte size, so in the end with 32 bit SW your 64bit/128bit HW runs SLOWER, although it has larger registers...
that means if you doesn´t have "clever" register management most old SW will run max. at same speed as 32 bit CPU, and "clever" register management IS NOT TRIVIAL do develop(aside from creating a 128bit PC CPU in general of COURSE )! :getlost:

5. grater values in PC terms does not always mean faster "computing"
blame me if you want, but i think you have no idea ;)
wbr Shin Gouki

[Flash]

128-bit CPU, Itll never happen for another few more years.
128-bit CPU for PC ? Well, maybe, but i saw 2048-bit CPUs and controllers.
But it's not for any kind of personal computers :)

[Stezo2k]

@Stezo2k

some ideas:
1.
IMO there some IMPORTANT terms missed, like RISC and CISC...
PC CPUs are mostly CISC (well P4 is kinda hybrid...)
Console CPUs are mostly RISC CPUs of course it´s not THAT easy to design them but at least the console HW is constructed BEFORE console SW comes into play...
if you want to create a "PC compatible" 128 bit CPU... that would be the reverse principle(cause you want to run ALL "old2 SW on your "new" CPU, otherwise nobody would buy it ^^ ), and MUCH more than the double amount of complexity would be needed...
2.
the console creatores design also the rest HW of the console
AMD or Intel can barely do that, the PC doesn´t consits only of the CPU !!!
3.
"some" Computerexperts (i think they were from AMD), checked how often data types with MORE than 32 bit were used and i think it was LESS THAN 8 % !!!!!
4.
if you have your 128 bit long registers...it is NOT THAT easy
if you not want to do some stuff only in byte size, so in the end with 32 bit SW your 64bit/128bit HW runs SLOWER, although it has larger registers...
that means if you doesn´t have "clever" register management most old SW will run max. at same speed as 32 bit CPU, and "clever" register management IS NOT TRIVIAL do develop(aside from creating a 128bit PC CPU in general of COURSE )! :getlost:

5. grater values in PC terms does not always mean faster "computing"
blame me if you want, but i think you have no idea ;)
wbr Shin Gouki


wow you know a lot mate, i'll stick with your fairly big explanation, 128bit seems fast enough in theory, but doesnt look like it, i figured that if the ps2 could do it the pc could do it, thats not just the case though, i forgot to mention the whole hardware would be effected drastically, not to mention hardware

[Shin_Gouki]

^^ i think you got the main idea (at least i hope so) ;)
wbr Shin Gouki

[Tagrineth]

PS2 is not 128-bit! Floating point operations on the entire Emotion Engine max at 64-bit... and only the central portion, the r5900i, can do 128-bit integer, and it's REALLY SLOW...

And FYI, with SSE extensions P3 and P4 go much higher than 32-bit precision in the FPU.

[new_profile]

Hi,
Few weeks ago, I read an article from ZD labs where they state that there is no reason to move to AMD 64 bits architecture as it is just an extension to the x86 one. They mention that an AMD 64 bits is just a rival for the P4 @3.2 MHz.
May be should we expect the new Intel Processor P5 (Prescott).
However, my question is could we expect a great enhancement over N64 emulation on intel Itanium 2 architecture (Someone mention that may be we need more registers to improve performance as the the It2 has more than 128 registers) ? ( Yes, Itanium 2 are not made for PCs but for servers, but we can dream)

Thank you.

[Shin_Gouki]

you know even it sounds weird, but 64 bit is NOT equal 64 bit.. at least concerning
technology, Intel 64 bit technology is EPIC(Register configuration, general layout ),
AMD´s technology is AMD 64 (IMO ^^°)

( of course if you want to have precise information just search the net a little and you will find tons, some keyword you might find here)
and of COURSE theses technologys are INCOMPATIBLE...
no Itanium 2 its not EVEN compatible to most OS´s people using here(not to mention the freaks that use some 64 bit EPIC capable linux, unix ;) or even Windows O_O )
so emulation is not that easy, beside the price of the Itanium 2 O_O
EPIC sounds cool in theorie , but before "WE" desktop users will have some OS or even other software.. err... i don´t think so
wbr Shin Gouki

[Reznor007]

Actually, GameCube is 32-bit but does two operations per clock, Xbox can be up to like 80-bit and possibly higher with SSE floating-point ops, and PS2 only does 128-bit integer, and very slowly at that - fp is 64-bit. :flowers:

Gamecube has 64bit floating point though.

[Reznor007]

128-bit CPU, Itll never happen for another few more years.

Remember PS2 is only for games, CDs and DVDs. PC's have to go on the internet, explores around the net, many things are on there and it needs more memory than a PS2 or any console. PC hold much memory on its computer, where it has to remember ALL your ROMS on your computer when you install them, other files like MSN, ICQ. These slow down processing seeds of a computer. Consoles dont have all this in memory.

Storage space has nothing to do with processing power. You do know that a 128bit CPU can support MUCH more memory than a 32bit one right? I'm talking about RAM, not hard drive space. Also, PC's don't store everything in memory at once, it just loads what you are using off the hard drive into RAM.

[scotty]

yes you are right, a 128-bit processor can do more as opposed to a 32-bit processor. I meant RAM as well back there, not Hard Drive Space.

[Stezo2k]

P4 @3.2 MHz.

think you meant ghz there mate :)

[Xade]

More than likely.

Personally, for the forseeable future I don't see the point in going above 32bit. Admittedly it's a step in the right direction, but really the vast majority of that functionality potential will not be fulfilled for a long time.

Perhaps Longhorn will speed things up, but I'm betting we'll be in the age of 32bit for a while to come.

I bought my PC (specs below) this summer, despite all this 64bit malarky, a) because of the prices involved and b) because I thought it a waste of time to hold out for a technology that won't even be beneficial to me. As with all computer-related stuff, you can wait forever... there'll always be something new around the corner. Life's too short. Besides, I can't see my PC getting dated anytime soon :cool: .