Commercial version of Project64

[nanobyte]

Hello,

I have just discovered Project 64. I converted to a PC gamer a long time ago - after I sold my Dreamcast. But today I read Gamespot.com's Goldeneye 64 review and suddenly remembered the incredibly fun, good old days!

I've just played for several hours and am totally addicted - I use a PS2 gamepad connected using a USB adapter.

I would like to thank the programmers of Project 64. I totally appreciate all the effort that went into it. You've must have spent thousands of hours developing it.

I read that you lack motivation to develop (i.e. track down bugs) the emulator any further and encourage everyone to donate.

Donations usually do not work very well :-/ What about making it a commercial emulator instead?

I bet virtually everyone in the forum (after all, most here are probably die hard fans) would totally be willing to spend EUR 14.95 - 19.99 for the emulator - if it was stable and the missing features (e.g. net play) were implemented.

After all, so much crap these days costs much more and does much less. I don't know how many hours you usually play, but if you divide the cost for the emulator by the hours of fun you have every day, every week, every month and year, it would be extremely cheap.

Would there be any legal issues? What about the BIOS that seems to be embedded in PJ64? Has that been totally reverse-engineered as well?

I know Nintendo plans to release many successful old games - hopefully among them Goldeneye - for download for the Revolution, so maybe they could make legal troube :/

After all, you don't want people downloading N64 roms of the web and playing them for free if you offer them for a download fee ...

Still, I think many people spending small amounts of money is much better than only a handful spending larger sums.

[Agozer]

All commercial emulators have failed and/or got sued. You don't want Project64 to go under, do you?

Now if I understood this the wrong way and you meant that Project64 should be made "shareware" with a fee that a user must pay to get the full featured emulator, I am also against that.

You pay money to get a full-featured emulator, and if you don't pay you get a crippled version.... yet you pay nothing to get the games, since most people get their roms illegally anyway.

[squall_leonhart]

the creators of project 64 are not allowed to make a financial gain out of emulating 64 cartridges... something about intellectual propertie laws or something...

[axcc123]

Hello,

I have just discovered Project 64. I converted to a PC gamer a long time ago - after I sold my Dreamcast. But today I read Gamespot.com's Goldeneye 64 review and suddenly remembered the incredibly fun, good old days!

I've just played for several hours and am totally addicted - I use a PS2 gamepad connected using a USB adapter.

I would like to thank the programmers of Project 64. I totally appreciate all the effort that went into it. You've must have spent thousands of hours developing it.

I read that you lack motivation to develop (i.e. track down bugs) the emulator any further and encourage everyone to donate.

Donations usually do not work very well :-/ What about making it a commercial emulator instead?

I bet virtually everyone in the forum (after all, most here are probably die hard fans) would totally be willing to spend EUR 14.95 - 19.99 for the emulator - if it was stable and the missing features (e.g. net play) were implemented.

After all, so much crap these days costs much more and does much less. I don't know how many hours you usually play, but if you divide the cost for the emulator by the hours of fun you have every day, every week, every month and year, it would be extremely cheap.

Would there be any legal issues? What about the BIOS that seems to be embedded in PJ64? Has that been totally reverse-engineered as well?

I know Nintendo plans to release many successful old games - hopefully among them Goldeneye - for download for the Revolution, so maybe they could make legal troube :/

After all, you don't want people downloading N64 roms of the web and playing them for free if you offer them for a download fee ...

Still, I think many people spending small amounts of money is much better than only a handful spending larger sums.
are you nuts the legal issues alone would kill the emulator:bouncy:

[Smiff]

i think it's the motivation we want, and encouragement for development (especially for zilmar)... no one is trying to really make money on it. it would just get warezed anyway and be a sad end to the project. imho.
the finished 1.7 if/when that happens (i say "if" only because it's a long and difficult road) will be completely free and uncrippled just like 1.6. (don't know yet if the source will be released). so thanks for saying you think it's worth buying but that's never been a possibility, partly for the reasons above.

so far, the people who have donated have been great at giving feedback and everything, but honestly, do only ~200 people want another major release? if i was zilmar looking at the numbers so far... comparing how many users we have vs how many have donated.. well he has, and it's disappointing. not disappointing enough to give up, but disappointing nonetheless. it's really about our time not the product.. remember all this is hard work and often tedious, even little things take so much longer to get right than you'd believe. to everyone reading: if you do want a next version, please do show it. you will make a difference.


technical stuff:
there is no bios with the n64, boot code is in the rom, nintendo have patents on that maybe they could have some case, the biggest issue is fair use, the media problem. zilmar and jabo have never had access to n64 documentation so the reverse enginerring is probably safe. it's occured to me that Revolution could make them see us as competition. but we've never been contacted by nintendo. and not selling the product is part of staying safe. hopefully, i'm not a lawyer..


the donation amount we ask is less than the amount you suggest selling it for, btw. but some people are very generous and give more, that's really nice.

[elektrixxx]

I hear that Goldeneye & some other Rare(ware) titles won't be downloadable for the Revolution because it is property of Microsoft now.

[synch]

I'll just (and maybe will be a bit off-topic) comment about the "show interest" question Smiff mentioned:

Being a developer myself (coded an emulator, lots of graphics oriented apps, and working as a coder professionally), and understanding how much effort and time usually a coder puts in a hobby project, I understand how dissapointed they could be from the "little" response they got from the donations... But, presuming they still enjoy pj64 as their main hobby in their (surely little) spare time, that won't be that much influenced by the donations (as good as donations are, to get better equipment to develop, or to get some random hardware to achieve better emulation), but being on emulating the real thing as perfect as they can.

The whole point is: I love their work, I find it impressive (knowing how an emulator works internally, and how much effort is in the app), but I understand that, even if receiving lots of donations they just stopped development, or if, the other way, not receiving lots of them, they would keep developing the app. It's all about investing your free time in something you like.

If I could donate, I would, but my economy is too fragile right now to do such a thing. All I could donate, is my coding time (meaning a proper opengl graphic plugin or whatever). I know this sounds like an excuse, but it's all I can offer.

Kudos

(if improper, or too much off-topic, just delete it :))

[axcc123]

I'll just (and maybe will be a bit off-topic) comment about the "show interest" question Smiff mentioned:

Being a developer myself (coded an emulator, lots of graphics oriented apps, and working as a coder professionally), and understanding how much effort and time usually a coder puts in a hobby project, I understand how dissapointed they could be from the "little" response they got from the donations... But, presuming they still enjoy pj64 as their main hobby in their (surely little) spare time, that won't be that much influenced by the donations (as good as donations are, to get better equipment to develop, or to get some random hardware to achieve better emulation), but being on emulating the real thing as perfect as they can.

The whole point is: I love their work, I find it impressive (knowing how an emulator works internally, and how much effort is in the app), but I understand that, even if receiving lots of donations they just stopped development, or if, the other way, not receiving lots of them, they would keep developing the app. It's all about investing your free time in something you like.

If I could donate, I would, but my economy is too fragile right now to do such a thing. All I could donate, is my coding time (meaning a proper opengl graphic plugin or whatever). I know this sounds like an excuse, but it's all I can offer.

Kudos

(if improper, or too much off-topic, just delete it :))

i agree 1001% :bouncy:

[zilmar]

only thing I could think of that I would get another developer to look at is the intergations of mantis (bug tracking) in with joomla (web site). This is of course basicly all php coding with some sql. I have some idea's on how I would do it, but I would prefer to work on the emulator these days then the site. Now what I really would love is to get enougth money from doing emulation that I could work part time on emulation like 6 months of the year and doing contracting the rest of the year, but that is still a long way off before that would be possible

[nanobyte]

>I hear that Goldeneye & some other Rare(ware) titles won't be downloadable for the Revolution because it is property of >Microsoft now.

That would be aweful :/ Let's hope that's not the case. I would be horrible if Goldeneye was trapped in M$'s license prison and never saw daylight again ...

[gendoikari4]

I think part of the problem is the cost; when I descovered that one could donate to use version 1.7 I told myself that I would do it if it were any less than $15, but it wasn't so I didn't. Of course, it is worth more than $15, but if I were offered the bigest building in LA for 2 million, I would still have to say no.

[laynlow]

I think part of the problem is the cost; when I descovered that one could donate to use version 1.7 I told myself that I would do it if it were any less than $15, but it wasn't so I didn't. Of course, it is worth more than $15, but if I were offered the bigest building in LA for 2 million, I would still have to say no.
damn you're a penny pincher. What's another $5.00 for all the hard work these guys have done to get pj 64 to work they way it does today?

[revl8er]

Basically the problem with making this emulator commercial would be legal issues. Just as you remember the PSX emulator Bleem, and the issues it had. Also the emulator would most likely be cracked in about a week or two so even if it went commercial for the full version then people would still have it without paying. Basically what you have to realize is that this emulator isn't a way for them to make money, it's a hobby AFIK.


damn you're a penny pincher. What's another $5.00 for all the hard work these guys have done to get pj 64 to work they way it does today?

We all know the work they put into it, but not everybody can donate $20. Some people have other things they have to pay, or just plain don't work.

[Ballard]

I'm just very curious as to how accurate Nintendo's "backwards compatibility" emulation will be with the Revolution. Being someone who knows a thing or three about the "overhead" of emulation chips in software, it makes me wonder if Nintendo is so hardcore about their stand on emulation, but is willing to develop "cycle-accurate" emulation like NEStopia and BSNES for the Revolution. If they really care about their former (out of production) consoles, they will make them run as precisely and accurately as possible, including the N64 emulation. I'm sure the Revolution will be powerful, but we'll see how good their emulations are.

[Ballard]

Basically what you have to realize is that this emulator isn't a way for them to make money, it's a hobby AFIK.

It's also a documentation/preservation tool, in the event the physical software and hardware no longer functions.

;)

[arnalion]

I'm just very curious as to how accurate Nintendo's "backwards compatibility" emulation will be with the Revolution. Being someone who knows a thing or three about the "overhead" of emulation chips in software, it makes me wonder if Nintendo is so hardcore about their stand on emulation, but is willing to develop "cycle-accurate" emulation like NEStopia and BSNES for the Revolution. If they really care about their former (out of production) consoles, they will make them run as precisely and accurately as possible, including the N64 emulation. I'm sure the Revolution will be powerful, but we'll see how good their emulations are.

Gamecube emulates for example zelda - ocarina of time in zelda collectors edition. I don't think emulating the games would be a problem for Nintendo when they're sitting on the code for everything :P

[Doomulation]

It isn't about reverse engineering. The zelda emulated games, for example, was not flawless, as I was told.
The problem lies in the challenge to create a product that works on the machine, without limitations, to imitate the games to its near perfectness.
Again, note, that no emulator is 100% accurate, and neither will nintendo's be, I bet. They will make it good, probably, but not perfect.

[Ballard]

Gamecube emulates for example zelda - ocarina of time in zelda collectors edition. I don't think emulating the games would be a problem for Nintendo when they're sitting on the code for everything :P

Remember, just because you have the specs, BIOS and all the available info on the hardware, that does not mean your programmers are as talented as say, Nicola Salmoria, Aaron Giles, Razoola or byuu. Project 64 is not a 100% accurate emulator, nor are most others like ZSNES, Gens or NeoRageX. The opcode order that the real-time processors demand MUST be executed in the order it says...otherwise it's merely a hack of it's real operation.

Here's a description of the difference in "Lameulators" and those with cycle-accurate coding:

http://byuu.cinnamonpirate.com/?page=bsnes

Just because you have uncorrupted and exact ROM files, does not mean the software coded to run it, is doing it properly. I have my original Sonic CD and several others, but I've yet to find an emulator that can run them perfectly with no bugs or weird blurriness in how the layers and sprites are drawn and move. Imagine the difficulty in making a more advanced piece of hardware like the N64 "cycle-accurate".

That's my point. Nintendo better have some talented coders and guys who understand not only the hardware, but how software can emulate it perfectly.

:sombrero:

[ShadowFX]

I am still really willing to donate but I'm waiting until another method of payment is offered, like a banktransfer or along those lines. Just can't go with Paypal atm :(

[arnalion]

Remember, just because you have the specs, BIOS and all the available info on the hardware, that does not mean your programmers are as talented as say, Nicola Salmoria, Aaron Giles, Razoola or byuu. Project 64 is not a 100% accurate emulator, nor are most others like ZSNES, Gens or NeoRageX. The opcode order that the real-time processors demand MUST be executed in the order it says...otherwise it's merely a hack of it's real operation.

Here's a description of the difference in "Lameulators" and those with cycle-accurate coding:

http://byuu.cinnamonpirate.com/?page=bsnes

Just because you have uncorrupted and exact ROM files, does not mean the software coded to run it, is doing it properly. I have my original Sonic CD and several others, but I've yet to find an emulator that can run them perfectly with no bugs or weird blurriness in how the layers and sprites are drawn and move. Imagine the difficulty in making a more advanced piece of hardware like the N64 "cycle-accurate".

That's my point. Nintendo better have some talented coders and guys who understand not only the hardware, but how software can emulate it perfectly.

:sombrero:

Don't you think that Nintendo have talanted coders? They have already succeded to emulate some nes, snes, n64 games on the cube. Is there many bugs in Zelda CE (ain't got it...)? I think they will work pretty hard on the emulating because it's one of the things that makes revolution interesting to buy. They're sitting on the code and it will probably give them "handicap" :P. This is just my opinion

[Ballard]

Don't you think that Nintendo have talanted coders? They have already succeded to emulate some nes, snes, n64 games on the cube. Is there many bugs in Zelda CE (ain't got it...)? I think they will work pretty hard on the emulating because it's one of the things that makes revolution interesting to buy. They're sitting on the code and it will probably give them "handicap" :P. This is just my opinion

Having the code has nothing to do with understanding exactly how to make software run exactly like the intended hardware. Maybe they've got guys as talented as the aformentioned MAME and BSNES guys... I hope they do, if they want us to take them seriously on their criticisms of non-official emus. Once again, there is a shortcut, speed-hacked, cheesulater way to do it and then there's the right way to do it, hense the need for BSNES to have a 2.2 Ghz processor to run at speed. Will the Revolution have the horsepower to run a N64 or Gamecube emulator that is in fact cycle-accurate and "real" synced? That's the question. Most gamers would not readily see the difference between the NeoRage version of Metal Slug and the current MAME version, but the fact that the latter operates exactly like the real board (thus requireing more CPU power) makes the MAME experience more "authentic". That seems to be the aim for Nintendo... now let's see if it's FO REALZZZ.

[revl8er]

It's also a documentation/preservation tool, in the event the physical software and hardware no longer functions.

;)

I would consider it more of a documentation than a preservation tool. You really can't have it for preservation unless you make the roms yourself.

[deftonesmx17]

As you are talking about all this emulation stuff, who is to say Nintendo can't take the $ony way of doing this and just have a chipset that is like the system and place it in there. The PS2 had nothing but a "PSX" chip(I/O Processor: CPU Core: Original PlayStation CPU (MIPS R3000A clocked at 33.8688 MHz or 37.5 MHz)) in it that ran the PSX games. Why would Nintendo even need to make an emulator for the old systems in the Revolution? The only reason the Xbox 360 has to do emulation is due to M$ not wanting to pay Nvidia and Intel royalties for placing a chipset that "is" the original xbox in the 360. Thats what you get for having other companies design your console, they were smart with the 360 this time as they jointly designed the GPU with ATI and etc.

[Ballard]

As you are talking about all this emulation stuff, who is to say Nintendo can't take the $ony way of doing this and just have a chipset that is like the system and place it in there. The PS2 had nothing but a "PSX" chip(I/O Processor: CPU Core: Original PlayStation CPU (MIPS R3000A clocked at 33.8688 MHz or 37.5 MHz)) in it that ran the PSX games. Why would Nintendo even need to make an emulator for the old systems in the Revolution? The only reason the Xbox 360 has to do emulation is due to M$ not wanting to pay Nvidia and Intel royalties for placing a chipset that "is" the original xbox in the 360. Thats what you get for having other companies design your console, they were smart with the 360 this time as they jointly designed the GPU with ATI and etc.

They would need... a 6502 NES processor with a triangular/square wave audio chip, 65sc802+Sony sound DSP/wavetable APU + the GPU chip .... plus the N64 chips... PLUS the Gamecube chips, etc... that would be rediculous.

The whole point of emulating hardware in software, is because the native chips aren't present and a generic, multipurpose chip (a la Pentium) cannot by itself run SNES games or whatever.

[arnalion]

I don't think they will emulate the gamecube games...
Well maybe it's better to wait and see :P

[deftonesmx17]

They would need... a 6502 NES processor with a triangular/square wave audio chip, 65sc802+Sony sound DSP/wavetable APU + the GPU chip .... plus the N64 chips... PLUS the Gamecube chips, etc... that would be rediculous.
But if their goal is perfect playability of the old games, there is no other way. Its not that ridiculous in reality(what would be ridiculous is having to code an emulator that will make every game function perfectly, as we can all see with the xbox 360, emulation of hardware through software is the real ridiculous option). Again, $ony just placed a "PSX" in the PS2 and what was the result, 97% perfect compatibility and I'm sure it will be the same for the PS3 and its BC.

Back to the subject at hand, Nes, Snes, and N64 chips would be very small in size, considering they are very old tech and as time passes you can create smaller and smaller chips.

[Clements]

Adding all the various chips for the older systems would bloat the price up considerably, as many discontinued CPUs would all need to be manufactured in volume. It's basically a very bad idea.

[squall_leonhart]

I don't think they will emulate the gamecube games...
Well maybe it's better to wait and see :P
the Hollywood chip is being developed to be compatible with the Gamecube video chip

[deftonesmx17]

Adding all the various chips for the older systems would bloat the price up considerably, as many discontinued CPUs would all need to be manufactured in volume. It's basically a very bad idea.
Oh yeah because a 3.58Mhz SNES CPU would cost a fortune and be hard as hell to manufacture with todays technology :rolleyes:

[Clements]

Oh yeah because a 3.58Mhz SNES CPU would cost a fortune and be hard as hell to manufacture with todays technology :rolleyes:

We're talking more than one chip being manufatured here. The NES had at least three, Snes had about five not including custom chips such as DSP-1/SuperFX/SA-1, the N64 had two main co-processors as well. So you have over 10 CPUs here to include, which are incredibly expensive to have manufactured in volume along with all the Revolution hardware. If you think otherwise, you are wrong.

Nintendo wants the revolution to be cheap.

[Toasty]

Oh yeah because a 3.58Mhz SNES CPU would cost a fortune and be hard as hell to manufacture with todays technology :rolleyes:
Just because a chip is old and obsolete does not mean it is inexpensive to manufacture.

[Ballard]

But if their goal is perfect playability of the old games, there is no other way. Its not that ridiculous in reality(what would be ridiculous is having to code an emulator that will make every game function perfectly, as we can all see with the xbox 360, emulation of hardware through software is the real ridiculous option). Again, $ony just placed a "PSX" in the PS2 and what was the result, 97% perfect compatibility and I'm sure it will be the same for the PS3 and its BC.

Back to the subject at hand, Nes, Snes, and N64 chips would be very small in size, considering they are very old tech and as time passes you can create smaller and smaller chips.

Ever heard of MAME? It emulates dozens of CPUs and many permutations of them in tandem, dozens of BIOSes and nearly 5000 individual game drivers.

To think it's inconcievable is preposterous.

Someday there may be operating systems and subsequent hardware that will make emulation more efficient both for the programmer and gamer. It does seem very bloated and backwards now, but as we learn more about emulation, and the great minds behind it keep getting better, the "floating optimization point" of multi-hardware emulation will be child's play.

Hopefully.:bouncy:

[arnalion]

the Hollywood chip is being developed to be compatible with the Gamecube video chip

Okay

[edgeblade69]

I hear that Goldeneye & some other Rare(ware) titles won't be downloadable for the Revolution because it is property of Microsoft now.

Actually Goldeneye and other 007 titles are owned by EA now. They're the ones who publish/develop the latest 007 games anyways. They did make a pseudo-sequel to Goldeneye called Goldeneye: Rogue Agent. EA might release their games for the Virtual Console, especially if they can charge a fee.

[AlphaWhelp]

Ever heard of MAME? It emulates dozens of CPUs and many permutations of them in tandem, dozens of BIOSes and nearly 5000 individual game drivers.

That's not quite how MAME works. Many arcade games were created by the same company, and so it was the same general system, with different roms. For example, MAME currently does not support CPS-3, this means any game built on it will simply not work. Games such as street fighter 3 (any of them), Marvel vs Capcom 2 (I think), and so on aren't emulated (on MAME. You can get them for other systems just fine).

Hence, MAME only emulates a handful of systems (And most of them not even very well, at that). Granted, it's still more than the small amount of systems nintendo wants to emulate, but far less than you're talking them out to be.

Additionally, while we don't know how long development on the revolution has been going on for prior to the initial announcement, it's safe to say that MAME has been going on for longer. Bottom line, Nintendo is new at this, MAME isn't. You can't say that they'll be able to do it well, or as good as MAME.

EDIT: err, additional comment here. The only real multi-purpose chip is technology currently only in the hands of the military. Or at least, I have not heard of any commercial uses of them. They're way too expensive. They either need separate chips, literally combining several older systems into one circuitboard (which isn't emulation at all), or they need to write some code to emulate the older systems.

ANOTHER EDIT: actually, I was wrong. Turns out they are used in certain high tech medical equipment and research as well. :) Maybe I'll break into NASA and run Dolphin there, see if I can get 60 FPS :)

[Ballard]

I sort of agree AlphaWhelp.

A Motorolla 68000 might seem like they should all function the same, but since it was the most popular 16 bit chip in the 80's into the 90's there were many permutations of that chip, many clock speeds and custom organizations of the data registers, not to mention the many BIOSes that are required. I count 121 different CPUs in MAME that it recognises. To assume only a couple systems are emulated is rediculous.

Anyway, Nintendo only has 4 non-portable systems to emulate for the Revolution. I think they can pull it off, without actually haveing the chips present.

[deftonesmx17]

We're talking more than one chip being manufatured here. The NES had at least three, Snes had about five not including custom chips such as DSP-1/SuperFX/SA-1, the N64 had two main co-processors as well. So you have over 10 CPUs here to include, which are incredibly expensive to have manufactured in volume along with all the Revolution hardware. If you think otherwise, you are wrong.

Nintendo wants the revolution to be cheap.
The PS2 had a single chip in it for hardware PSX usage.
The PSX also consisted of multiple processors(R3000, GPU, and SPU), but was reduced to a single chip that resided in the PS2.
Heck, the r3000 alone had multiple engines within it(GTE and DDE).
All that was reduced to a single small chip that did not bloat the price of the PS2.

Now anyone with PS2 knowledge can tell you that the PS2 has many processing units. All of which will probably be reduced to a single chip within the PS3 for BC.

If $ony has no problems reducing old systems to a single chip, there is no reason why Nintendo could not reduce the NES, SNES, and N64 to sinlge chips respectivly.

I still stand by my example of the xbox 360 and its full software emulation BC. Almost six months after the release and only Halo 2 has 100% BC and works flawlessly. Lets also not forget that the xbox and xbox 360 are both based on modified directx. We are talking about both systems having a very similar API. I am also talking here about a company that has all knowledge of both systems. I am also talking about a software developer, as that is what M$ is based on. If the worlds largest software developer is having problems with software emulation of one system, how do you think nintendo is going to pull off software emulation of multiple systems?

Oh and back to the cost thing you keep bringing up. Do you think its not incredibly expensive to pay the programmers to code the emulators? And unlike the manufacturing of chips, the cost to pay the programmers does not reduce over time like the cost to manufacture chips does................

Back to software emulation, SNES emulators have been in coding for how many years now and they are still not fully complete(wont play every game).

[Clements]

The PS2 had a single chip in it for hardware PSX usage.
The PSX also consisted of multiple processors(R3000, GPU, and SPU), but was reduced to a single chip that resided in the PS2.
Heck, the r3000 alone had multiple engines within it(GTE and DDE).
All that was reduced to a single small chip that did not bloat the price of the PS2.

The PS2 remains more expensive than GC (a much more powerful system overall), even when the GC launched when it was at it's most expensive. It certainly increased costs of the PS2 among other things.


If $ony has no problems reducing old systems to a single chip, there is no reason why Nintendo could not reduce the NES, SNES, and N64 to sinlge chips respectivly.

Last time I heard, Sony are DROPPING the PSX processor for PS3 in favour of software emulation to reduce costs. Only the PS2 chip is to be included. So, if including many coprocessors is cheap, then why are they dropping the PSX chip?


Oh and back to the cost thing you keep bringing up. Do you think its not incredibly expensive to pay the programmers to code the emulators? And unlike the manufacturing of chips, the cost to pay the programmers does not reduce over time like the cost to manufacture chips does................

Fabbing multiple new coprocessors for each system is NOT cost effective compared to a software emulator, takes extra development time (the emulators have been written already, the chips have not been designed), complicates the architecture, increases cost per unit, could result in yield problems if the manufacture of one coprocessor drops - all sorts. A complicated system with a lot of co-processors (such as PS2, Saturn etc) are expensive to manufacture relative to a simpler system. That is basic economics - and why the simple architecture of the Gamecube made it much cheaper than the competition. Nintendo has to rely on outside fabs to manufacture all the chips, which is somewhat out of their control.


I am also talking about a software developer, as that is what M$ is based on. If the worlds largest software developer is having problems with software emulation of one system, how do you think nintendo is going to pull off software emulation of multiple systems?

Nintendo have already developed successful emulators for NES/SNES/N64 for Gamecube, so these things have already been done with great success - not to mention the developmental emulators seen in official SDKs showing that they use emulators on a frequent basis. Modifying them for Revolution would be trivial (since their architectures are similar) and therefore cost effective.


Back to software emulation, SNES emulators have been in coding for how many years now and they are still not fully complete(wont play every game).

Irrelevant, since Nintendo don't need to reverse engineer a single thing, and have many more developers.

[deftonesmx17]

Nintendo have already developed successful emulators for NES/SNES/N64 for Gamecube, so these things have already been done with great success


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda%3A_Collector%27s_Edi tion
These games are not actually ported in the traditional sense, but rather the (slightly altered) ROMs of the original games are run via emulators; this has been proven by the ROM dumping community, who have been able to extract authentic ROMs of all these games from the disc, and they can even be booted on their original consoles with a copier or flash-cart (depending on the console).

Because they are only emulated (rather than altered for the new console) there are some problems, most notably some of the music in Majora's Mask is said to be inaccurate. Many have also complained that Majora's Mask unexpectedly crashes, freezes occasionally, again, caused by the inaccuracies of Nintendo's emulator, and may even erase the save file or not save the file at all. There are similar faults in the Ocarina of Time emulated edition, including (reportedly) lack of lens flares when looking at the sun. But despite these concerns it was still received very well by fans of the series.

These flaws do not affect the games themselves however; when run under fanmade emulators the games run far more accurately than under Nintendo's; the fanmade emulators had various bug and compatibility fixes made to them over several years, whereas Nintendo's emulator is seen by some as have being made very quickly.

That said, Nintendo couldnt even give 100% emulation for single games they intended on emulating, let alone every game made for those systems.

[Clements]

however; when run under fanmade emulators the games run far more accurately than under Nintendo's

Disagree. I have finished OoT with the Collectors Disk and experienced almost no issues apart from the Lens flare issue (which even PJ64 can't do correctly either as the flare passes through solid objects). The game is certainly emulated better than with PJ64 1.6 + Jabo's D3D8 on a system with a graphics card with pixel shaders. Majora's Mask has numerous problems with fan-made emulators still, including day transistions and framebuffer performance, which do not affect Nintendo's emulator.

Emulation of a different architecture can be difficult, yet we see very few issues, despite the fact that the N64 is quite a powerful system relative to the GC.


That said, Nintendo couldnt even give 100% emulation for single games they intended on emulating, let alone every game made for those systems.

These were for free bonus disks for a relatively slower system (GC), and development on emulators will continue and improve as more games are made compatible with it. I see no evidence of the contrary. Only the popular games need be emulated correctly to satisfy the consumers, rather than a bit-perfect emulator.

[arnalion]

Nintendo will probably optimize the emulating as much as they can before the release of the rev anyway so...

[Lillymon]

That said, Nintendo couldnt even give 100% emulation for single games they intended on emulating, let alone every game made for those systems.
There are two key things you're forgetting about here.

1) Power. The Revolution will have more processing power than the GameCube. Any good emulator author will tell you that proper emulation requires adequate processing power. The GameCube was probably borderline on this, meaning Nintendo needed to cut corners in order to get a good framerate. They won't need to do this as much (or at all) on the Revolution, which will help accuracy no end.

2) Updates. The GameCube is not the most online-able system around. Once the mini-emulator on that bonus disc was released, Nintendo couldn't really do anything about bugs they hadn't found in beta testing. The Revolution is known to be a very good online system, hence Nintendo will be able to release updates to the emulators on it. This means bugs or defects will only be a problem as long as it takes Nintendo to fix them.

I thought this debate was over anyway. Nintendo aren't going to persue the hardware route on this. They're already moving away from it in the handheld area (the DS and GameBoy Micro can't do GB/GBC games) and prescident has already been set with Microsoft's emulation of the Xbox on the Xbox 360. If Nintendo makes their emulators accurate and portable enough, they could even take them on to their eighth generation console for free as well. I doubt I'm the only one who's thought about that.

[PikaGamer9]

I have a hard-to-find controller the GRAVIS ELIMINATOR AFTERSHOCK.
That connects to a USB.

I want Project64 to have Transfer Pak support for games such as the Pokemon Stadium series.
And have microphone support for games such as Hey you, Pikachu!

[PikaGamer9]

nVidia GeForce FX is great for playing game ROMs for Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast, Sony PlayStation, Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft XBOX, Microsoft XBOX 360, Nintendo 64, Nintendo GameCube, and support for Sony PSP, and Nintendo DS, the SNES9X emulator for Super NES games works very well with nVidia for 3D Support.

[arnalion]

Hehe this thread has been offtopic almost since the start :P. The FX series was a big flop (warm, slow and high power consumption).

[AlphaWhelp]

I have a hard-to-find controller the GRAVIS ELIMINATOR AFTERSHOCK.
That connects to a USB.

I want Project64 to have Transfer Pak support for games such as the Pokemon Stadium series.
And have microphone support for games such as Hey you, Pikachu!

Project 64 already supports it. You just have to write the controller plugin that also supports it. :)

[Doomulation]

N-Rage has transfer pack support afaik