The State of N64 Emulation

[RatTrap]

for a controller to be fully LLE emulated.. it would require for you to actually emulating the control in software.. and then making the buttons you press on a PC controller register in the emulated software controller.. unless your doing that.. it's not LLE.. it's more like wraping the controller.. you could say that that is a form of HLE.. i dunno.. i'm not sure what ZSNES does about this or epsxe eather.. that's something i'm gonna agree on.. you might be more informed on those emulators than me since i rarelly hang in #zsnes and #epsxe.. but i have been there latelly asking questions and ppl in there have concluded to me that both emulators are very close.. but none is there just yet.. your still saying that these emulators are 100% LLE.. when they in fact aren't.. you said so yourself when you talked about the patches.. and so.. i find the discussion to be just funny .. 100%LLE my ass.. maybe soon.. but still not there yet.. and even then.. nobody without a Blue Gene in his house will be able run demos on the thing..

 

[zorbid]

Wouldn't real LLE need to reproduce in software the exact behaviour of every transistor in every chip involved in the circuit that composes the system? Reproduce voltages, clock speeds, and so on...

There wouldn't be any timing problem, then, wouldn't there .

 

[Reznor007]

for a controller to be fully LLE emulated.. it would require for you to actually emulating the control in software.. and then making the buttons you press on a PC controller register in the emulated software controller.. unless your doing that.. it's not LLE.. it's more like wraping the controller.. you could say that that is a form of HLE.. i dunno.. i'm not sure what ZSNES does about this or epsxe eather.. that's something i'm gonna agree on.. you might be more informed on those emulators than me since i rarelly hang in #zsnes and #epsxe.. but i have been there latelly asking questions and ppl in there have concluded to me that both emulators are very close.. but none is there just yet.. your still saying that these emulators are 100% LLE.. when they in fact aren't.. you said so yourself when you talked about the patches.. and so.. i find the discussion to be just funny .. 100%LLE my ass.. maybe soon.. but still not there yet.. and even then.. nobody without a Blue Gene in his house will be able run demos on the thing..

They are LLE, but that doesn't mean they are 100% perfect. They have bugs. And LLE does not mean circuit level emulation. For complete register level emulation, it's not that demanding(for those systems).

 

[Reznor007]

Wouldn't real LLE need to reproduce in software the exact behaviour of every transistor in every chip involved in the circuit that composes the system? Reproduce voltages, clock speeds, and so on...

There wouldn't be any timing problem, then, wouldn't there .

That would be nice someday However, I doubt that will happen for quite some time, especially with some custom CPU's that aren't documented, and are only emulated at register level(many in MAME are like this.

 

[straight]

The best way to play games is on the real system.

Except for...high res graphics, fully configurable controls, mouse support, ability to save anywhere (I can't imagine having the patience to finish a game like Banjo if I had to start over every time I screwed up...kids these days...):teehee:

 

[RatTrap]

straight.. well yeah.. if you where gonna go LLE really and wanted to "preserve" the machines/games.. like the MAME ppl talk about so much.. you would have to take all of those away too.. the emulator would be a 100% LLE emulator from my perspectiv then.. but untill then it can't really be.. cycle exact maybe.. but more than that i dunno..

eather way.. i think the idea is stupid.. coz the machines exist and sure we wanna preserve them but believe me they would be way more apreciated in a museum then running around on the net as a piece of software.. ppl don't apreciate the work.. and that IS how it is today.. why do you think so many authors dread release dates?.. you'll have 50k noobs asking for betas roms and what not.. how is that preserving the machine?.. well maybe the games.. but what your doing really is preserving the memory.. so if that is what you want to preserve.. believe me.. a "rom-player"-emulator will do just fine..

how ever you see it.. the consoles/games are best preserved in their original cases.. by TRUE collectors.. ppl that actually care about the things.. i say screw the hobbist who is just gonna preserve the game/console untill he runs out of space for the pron his downloading and ends up deleting the thing anyways..

ok maybe that was long.. but you have to agree that the point of view might be pretty realistic when it comes to how the end users these days -use- the emulation ppl/scene.. i myself only play galaga or stuff like that now adays.. i've allways been a real retro gamer.. i don't have any n64 games on my HD and so i can't really say i'm a n64fan really.. so maybe i should just pack up and leave ..

 

[Reznor007]

straight.. well yeah.. if you where gonna go LLE really and wanted to "preserve" the machines/games.. like the MAME ppl talk about so much.. you would have to take all of those away too.. the emulator would be a 100% LLE emulator from my perspectiv then.. but untill then it can't really be.. cycle exact maybe.. but more than that i dunno..

eather way.. i think the idea is stupid.. coz the machines exist and sure we wanna preserve them but believe me they would be way more apreciated in a museum then running around on the net as a piece of software.. ppl don't apreciate the work.. and that IS how it is today.. why do you think so many authors dread release dates?.. you'll have 50k noobs asking for betas roms and what not.. how is that preserving the machine?.. well maybe the games.. but what your doing really is preserving the memory.. so if that is what you want to preserve.. believe me.. a "rom-player"-emulator will do just fine..

how ever you see it.. the consoles/games are best preserved in their original cases.. by TRUE collectors.. ppl that actually care about the things.. i say screw the hobbist who is just gonna preserve the game/console untill he runs out of space for the pron his downloading and ends up deleting the thing anyways..

ok maybe that was long.. but you have to agree that the point of view might be pretty realistic when it comes to how the end users these days -use- the emulation ppl/scene.. i myself only play galaga or stuff like that now adays.. i've allways been a real retro gamer.. i don't have any n64 games on my HD and so i can't really say i'm a n64fan really.. so maybe i should just pack up and leave ..

Yeah, I'm sure about 90% of anyone that downloads an emulator is the "free games dudE!!!!!" type. However, there are a alot who are in it for merely technical reasons. I personally like the technical aspects of getting things to work and such.

To me, Steel Talons and Race Drivin in MAME are more impressive than any N64 emulator, simply because those games are a mess of about 6-8 CPU's, compared to N64 which is a MIPS CPU with MIPS based coprocessor(and it's easy to emulate MIPS CPU's...Aaron Giles added cycle accurate KI/KI2 to MAME simply because it was easy to add R4600 to the R3000 core he wrote).

And yes, having the original is always better, but as time goes on, more and more systems die or get thrown away. I myself own 4 arcade boards even though I've had those games in MAME for about 2 years before I got the real things.

As for ROM begging losers/why isn't this game perfect lamers, the MAME people simply ignore it/make fun of them. Surely you can imagine how many lamers will come about once KI1/2 are available in MAME, but will require more than 3GHz, and will get tons of whiny posts.

 

[CanSee]

I guess my only interest in emulating is the tweeking mainly and of course playing some unique games that I wasn´t able to play due to exclusivity (Zelda 5&6, Perfect Dark, the non-screwed-up version of Resident Evil 2, etc.) If it was only for the games, I´d rather play Q3A which looks like games on a Dreamcast and needs less power than GoldenEye emulated... (Sad fact, btw)

Dreamcast games´re gonna swallow 2 Ghz, jeez !

 

[sk8bloke22]

actually theres plenty of games that still dont work, have issues, etc. that indiana jones game for example, and i think there were a few more.

 

[Flash]

I've never seen perfect emulator with 100% compatibility .


And preservation of hardware is absolutely impossible through software only emulation.

You can play/work with software on emulators (it's their main purpose after all), but hardware... for example you can run Mac program on Mac emulator , but you can't plug a NuBus card into your PC. Of course you can make NuBus controller for PC, but anyway, it's emulator with controller for PC(software-hardware emulator), not a real Mac.


MAME is slow unoptimized beast. And it's not always BEST emulator for that system. Some games have glithches in MAME and works perfectly in other emulators.

It's MAME - Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator Not the PEAGE - Perfect Every Arcade Game Emulator.


Taito F3 games works waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay faster in RAINE there's no difference in GFX/sound/controls etc with MAME.

So if some software works faster and without any bugs on one emulator and much slower on other i'll choose first, no matter if it's LLE, HLE or Macaroni-driven fusion emulation

 

[Slougi]

i beg to differ:

both linux and mac n64 emulation is lagging behind that of windows. this seems odd as most other consoles are emulated equally as well over many diffrent platforms.

Agreed. N64 emulation is by no means complete yet.

 

[Reznor007]

I've never seen perfect emulator with 100% compatibility .


And preservation of hardware is absolutely impossible through software only emulation.

You can play/work with software on emulators (it's their main purpose after all), but hardware... for example you can run Mac program on Mac emulator , but you can't plug a NuBus card into your PC. Of course you can make NuBus controller for PC, but anyway, it's emulator with controller for PC(software-hardware emulator), not a real Mac.


MAME is slow unoptimized beast. And it's not always BEST emulator for that system. Some games have glithches in MAME and works perfectly in other emulators.

It's MAME - Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator Not the PEAGE - Perfect Every Arcade Game Emulator.


Taito F3 games works waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay faster in RAINE there's no difference in GFX/sound/controls etc with MAME.

So if some software works faster and without any bugs on one emulator and much slower on other i'll choose first, no matter if it's LLE, HLE or Macaroni-driven fusion emulation

RAINE is a hack. Many games that are in RAINE but not MAME(there are few if any left that are) are not added because the only way RAINE got them working is a hack. RAINE is about playing free games, MAME is about preservation and accuracy.

And of course you can't plug actual hardware into software <_< However, you can do a software implementation of that hardware.

As for compatibility, MAME emulates SEVERAL different pieces of hardware, some of which are next to perfect, others with fairly big flaws. For example, the Pac-Man hardware is near perfect emulated, essentially any game that ran on a Pacman board will run fine in MAME. Capcom CPS1 hardware is near perfect. System21 is far from perfect. It all depends on what driver you are talking about.

There is a reason MAME is slower than other emulators that run the same games. MAME emulates the hardware as accurately as possible, others go for speed. Therefore, MAME emulates ad preserves the hardware, while others are there for playing games.

 

[Lillymon]

RAINE is a hack. Many games that are in RAINE but not MAME(there are few if any left that are) are not added because the only way RAINE got them working is a hack. RAINE is about playing free games, MAME is about preservation and accuracy.

Nope. Can't figure out how that makes sense.

As for compatibility, MAME emulates SEVERAL different pieces of hardware, some of which are next to perfect, others with fairly big flaws. For example, the Pac-Man hardware is near perfect emulated, essentially any game that ran on a Pacman board will run fine in MAME. Capcom CPS1 hardware is near perfect. System21 is far from perfect. It all depends on what driver you are talking about.

Right then. We'll start with the Taito F3. Why is it so much slower in MAME?

There is a reason MAME is slower than other emulators that run the same games. MAME emulates the hardware as accurately as possible, others go for speed. Therefore, MAME emulates ad preserves the hardware, while others are there for playing games.

There's also the fact that MAME is friggin' huge and slowing down like an overweight tortoise with every new release.

 

[Reznor007]

Nope. Can't figure out how that makes sense.



Right then. We'll start with the Taito F3. Why is it so much slower in MAME?



There's also the fact that MAME is friggin' huge and slowing down like an overweight tortoise with every new release.

Well, going by MAME's software version of hardware, you can see how it worked, and possibly build hardware based on what MAME does to make a hardware version.

F3, well, I know that the alpha blends are more accurate in MAME, and the ES5505/6 sound chip doesn't use hacks like it does in RAINE for one.

And just because more games are added, doesn't make it slower. The only thing that makes it slower is the fact that as newer versions are released, the code gets more accurate.

 

[Flash]

Well, going by MAME's software version of hardware, you can see how it worked, and possibly build hardware based on what MAME does to make a hardware version.

Really ? So it's possible to grab soldering iron and make arcade machine using MAME sources, not a hardware diagrams ?

Please make Ultra64 board for me, but without using original schematics
(anyway it's very hard to find) and PCB . I'll give you $200K for that if it will be
exact copy of original hardware.

Even if you are real hardware guru, you can make only some kind of clone, very far from original. It will be not an U64 board but something U64 compatible.

To make real hardware you need at least high resolution PCB shots, and it will be real pain in the ass, because most of modern PCBs are multilayered.

 

[Zuzma]

I highly doubt any one could build a working PCB out of an emulator source. You would have to have a good understanding of programming, electronics, and microprocessors. By the way no one in there right mind would want to build a PCB by looking at the original unless they were trying to make a schematic of it because one doesn't already exsist. You would be better of just building it with an already made schematic that is nicely layed out and color coded. Also why does every one seem to throw around LLE and HLE?? There almost like anoying catch phrases. Get with the program...they either hacked it to get it to work or they didn't. Hmm anyway most emulators use little hacks to get stuff working, even nes emulators do. The only exception I could think of would be mame. As for n64 emulation it's horribly inaccurate..the n64's texture filtering doesn't even look like it's supposed to since they are using the computers graphic card to draw everything to the screen. Of coarse like other people said n64 emulation wouldn't be playable at all if you did strait emulation. The only thing thats good about emulation is it gives me a chance to play afew odd games that I could never get to play like some one said afew posts back.

 

[ScottJC]

hm, lets start a new emulator, 100% LLE Cheese, lets emulate cheese down to the subatomic level, then we can start emulating macironi.

 

[Slougi]

hm, lets start a new emulator, 100% LLE Cheese, lets emulate cheese down to the subatomic level, then we can start emulating macironi.

Hey, count me in! We need a beowulf cluster of those! Erm wait. That won't work

 

[Zuzma]

hm, lets start a new emulator, 100% LLE Cheese, lets emulate cheese down to the subatomic level, then we can start emulating macironi.

Ah i think we need the whole mame team for this one. It might take 246 years to emulate but one day we will succeed.

 

[Reznor007]

Really ? So it's possible to grab soldering iron and make arcade machine using MAME sources, not a hardware diagrams ?

Please make Ultra64 board for me, but without using original schematics
(anyway it's very hard to find) and PCB . I'll give you $200K for that if it will be
exact copy of original hardware.

Even if you are real hardware guru, you can make only some kind of clone, very far from original. It will be not an U64 board but something U64 compatible.

To make real hardware you need at least high resolution PCB shots, and it will be real pain in the ass, because most of modern PCBs are multilayered.

I didn't say it would be identical to the original, but you could get something working

And Ultra64 acade boards are not rare. I've seen 10 on ebay in the last 2 weeks.