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N64 Emulation future Prospects

grufty

New member
Hello there, I wanted to make a general discussion on the future of N64 emulation. It would be good to see what people would like to see and what developers think to be possible. So what one thing would everyone like to see intergrated into n64 emulators, any particular new feature anyone is hoping for.

I personally would like to see game optimised emulators. I know that for instance in project 64 the rdb file optimises some options for the running of a game but wouldn't it be nice to be able to download highly specific game emulators. I am thinking along the lines of Bleem!, a terriffic program which when developed for dreamcast was game specific. Are problems inherent in perfect Dark such as the lens effect ever going to be solved? There were a lot of poor games released on the N64 which no-one really cares whether they are emulated or not, I know more choice is a good thing but it's just a matter of opinion.

My N64 had a lot of good games stufed into its slot, wouldn't it be nice if by next year extremely optimised emulators for

goldeneye
perfect dark
mario
mario kart

existed? I know that Mario is damn near perfected, as seen first on UltraHLE, what happened since back in the day? When it comes to a choice between 10's of poorly emulated games and one perfectly emulated game, what would you choose...i know what my choice would be!
 

Dabba_Deh

The Sultan
AFAIK, the new build of Nemu (Author's private build) has greatly improved Perfect Dark. This is based on screen shots. As for the lens effect, I don't remember any shots of the lens effects. But, Nemu might be the only thing to fix that...whenever the authors feel like releasing it. Having optimised emulators would be a very good thing to see. Imagine playing a game like Perfect Dark, without any errors, and without having to buy a 64! That would be damn sweet. Hopefully, some emulators like this will surface in the future.
 

Slougi

New member
Heh, as soon as some plugin has the lens efects they work, I don't see why we should need a whole new emu for that.
 

Doomulation

?????????????????????????
I don't think emulators would be optimized for special games. They put the work on getting more games to work.
 

pj64er

PJ64 Lubba
afaik, the lense effects use the frame buffer (copy dlist turns on motion blurr, sorta see the lense of the alien rocket launcher). Before the frame buffer emulation problem can be solved, ie work fast (authors mention something about diff between pc and n64 architecture), the lense effects will not work.
 

zorbid

New member
In the N64, The CPU can directly read the frame buffer, and work on it, because the ram is shared between the cpu and the gpu.

Because of (or thanks to, it depends how you see it) the hle, In a PC, the n64 gfx are created by the gfx card.
If some work is needed on the frame (after it has been created by the gfx card), it must be sent from the gfx card to the main ram, and then the CPU can process it. Sending data from the gfx ram to the main ram is slow on current PC.

A faster CPU (that will allow lle at good speed), or a faster gfx ram reading process would solve this. The best is yet to come :)
 

Smiff

Emutalk Member
lle doesn't help, you are still using the graphics card as the rasterizer, you've still got to copy the frame from graphics card ram to system ram. Unless you code a software rasterizer, that would be staggeringly slow (like 10Ghz+ or something needed)
 

Slougi

New member
About framebuffer emulation, would it not be possible to copy it over just every 30 frames or something? As far as I know it is not dependant on having the exact same data that is curently being processed.
 

zorbid

New member
Unless you code a software rasterizer.
That was included in what I meant by lle, ie do everything in the CPU. :)

Copy 1/30 frames is ok for some effects, but not for the spycam in PD (every frame must be processed), or any kind of motion blur.
 

Allnatural

New member
Moderator
zorbid said:
That was included in what I meant by lle, ie do everything in the CPU. :)

Copy 1/30 frames is ok for some effects, but not for the spycam in PD (every frame must be processed), or any kind of motion blur.
LLE is not the same as software rasterizing. Look at PSX emulation. All PSX emulators are LLE because the architecture doesn't lend itself well to HLE, but you still have hardware plugins which will process the graphics via OGL, D3D, and Glide.

LLE and HLE refer to how the hardware is emulated (register level vs API level), not how the graphics are processed.
 

Smiff

Emutalk Member
I realise i worded that badly, i should have written "Unless you code a software rasterizer WHICH would be staggeringly slow (like 10Ghz+ or something needed)... i.e. slower than what you have now... the only solution i can see is faster PC architecture, or running the whole emu on the graphics card, lol.
 

zilmar

Emulator Developer
Moderator
now if you could make direct X use a specific memory location for its buffers instead of it allocating them .. then you might be able to intergrate cfb a lot more easily at a decent frame rate .. other then you would be force to a 320x240 screen res for most games.
 

conkerman

conkerman
Smiff said:
I realise i worded that badly, i should have written "Unless you code a software rasterizer WHICH would be staggeringly slow (like 10Ghz+ or something needed)... i.e. slower than what you have now... the only solution i can see is faster PC architecture, or running the whole emu on the graphics card, lol.

iirc, i tried nemu once on a computer without a graphics card in a mode like this. it played mario64, but after 2 minutes, when it finally displayed mario's head, i stopped it because it was too slow
 

Smiff

Emutalk Member
the specific bit that needs to be faster is of course the bus between the video card and system memory... agp is a little step in the right direction... before anyone says anything, no you can't run a program in video card memory. i'm pretty sure.
 

Corak

Nintendo gamer
Smiff said:
the specific bit that needs to be faster is of course the bus between the video card and system memory... agp is a little step in the right direction... before anyone says anything, no you can't run a program in video card memory. i'm pretty sure.

Actually I think you can somehow. :)
I know that this software ftp://ftp.heise.de/pub/ct/ctsi/ctramtst.zip
loads itself into the video ram to test the complete system memory for errors.
 

CyDEtrakD

New member
ayo,
is it just me or do u dream about an opengl plugin that has good compatibility and utilizes the geforce card to the fullest.. i really dont like direct3d anymore now that i see how fast opengl runs on geforce cards.. direct3d use to be ill back in the day when i had my voodoo card but everything i run using direct3d is slow compared to what i could run in using opengl.. i know its not just me that wants this plugin.. speak up geforce users and who knows some kat might see the demand and code one.

one,
cydetrakd
 

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