mar00n Posted April 8, 2014 Share Posted April 8, 2014 Good afternoon Ladies and Gents, Just wanted to hear peoples thoughts on what's next for N64 emulation. For me the N64 is still my favorite console of all time and I have been emulating it's games since I got my first PC with a 3d graphics card in 2002. I'm honestly gutted that it has not really improved in 12 years. By now I would have hoped for 100% compatibility. What do you think will happen from now? Will it improve? Is it dead? Thoughts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrillCaz Posted April 8, 2014 Share Posted April 8, 2014 The N64 is also my favorite console of all time. The reason N64 emulation ceased to progress is because the devs became uninterested after emulating the popular games, and were too bone-headed to become open source. However, Project 64 just recently became open source, so hopefully we'll see some major improvements in the near future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Styphelus Posted April 10, 2014 Share Posted April 10, 2014 N64 emulation is a pain! Way too many glitches and games that just won't play. I have 2 emulators setup (Project 64 and 1964) and there are way too many games that are glitchy or won't run at all. Even games that are supposedly compatible with the latest project 64 refuse to run (Fifa 99, HHL 99 are a few examples). I was trying to set each game to run and setup properly but gave up. I changed the XML file to have only games that run properly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mar00n Posted April 10, 2014 Author Share Posted April 10, 2014 The big one for me is Rogue Squadron, to play that on the big screen with AA on and 1080p with my n64 pad would be amazing Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Styphelus Posted April 10, 2014 Share Posted April 10, 2014 You can play the PC version. Check out this thread: http://www.wsgf.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=24413 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mar00n Posted April 10, 2014 Author Share Posted April 10, 2014 I forgot about the PC version! Going to add this when I figure out how to add pc games . Thanks mate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gigapig Posted April 10, 2014 Share Posted April 10, 2014 I forgot about the PC version! Going to add this when I figure out how to add pc games . Thanks mate Then you need my handy PC Games video tutorial Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mar00n Posted April 10, 2014 Author Share Posted April 10, 2014 I must learn to bother reading people's signatures. You've got a bloody gold mine there Gigapig lad! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zerojay Posted April 10, 2014 Share Posted April 10, 2014 The N64 is also my favorite console of all time. The reason N64 emulation ceased to progress is because the devs became uninterested after emulating the popular games, and were too bone-headed to become open source. This is all wrong. The reason why N64 progress has been stalled is because of the initial rush to emulate it as fast as possible. Instead of actually emulating the console, they emulated it at a high level. Instead of actually emulating the console properly, they fake it by pushing out what all the various functions are expected to push out. This is known as HLE - high level emulation. They did it this way because there was no way for them to emulate the N64 at a low level at the speeds PCs were at when the N64 started getting emulated. That rush to get it all working *now* has permanently damaged our ability to get it done properly because almost everyone that was working on it moved on when it got hard, things get lost, etc... Low level emulation of the N64 - at a bus or cycle level just like bsnes for SNES games - is a long ways off. CEN64 is an attempt to make it happen. Also, the N64 support included in MESS is similarly at a low level. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DamnedRegistrations Posted April 10, 2014 Share Posted April 10, 2014 I take it you guys don't know about Cen64? http://emulation-general.wikia.com/wiki/CEN64 http://www.emucr.com/search/label/Cen64?&max-results=12 http://www.cen64.com/ It's coming along rather nicely but it'll be some time before it's optimized well and can replace Project 64. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dark13 Posted April 11, 2014 Share Posted April 11, 2014 This is all wrong. The reason why N64 progress has been stalled is because of the initial rush to emulate it as fast as possible. Instead of actually emulating the console, they emulated it at a high level. Instead of actually emulating the console properly, they fake it by pushing out what all the various functions are expected to push out. This is known as HLE - high level emulation. They did it this way because there was no way for them to emulate the N64 at a low level at the speeds PCs were at when the N64 started getting emulated. That rush to get it all working *now* has permanently damaged our ability to get it done properly because almost everyone that was working on it moved on when it got hard, things get lost, etc... Low level emulation of the N64 - at a bus or cycle level just like bsnes for SNES games - is a long ways off. CEN64 is an attempt to make it happen. Also, the N64 support included in MESS is similarly at a low level. Uhm... the same happened with ps1 but ps1 emulation is not plagued by glitches, missing textures and plugin madness as n64. Moreover higan (ex bnes) is probably the only low-level emulator on the scene excluding mame and mess (don't know if all systems are low-level). Emulating at low-level means emulating each chip contained in hardware to run softwares, most emulators take "shorcuts" so software can run without a 100% emulation of hardware. To see the difference in terms of power... well, just compare something like tekken in mame and epsxe. In mame you need A LOT more power. Even dolphin's LLE sound plugin is a tough strain for a cpu while higan's accuracy.exe need a corei5 to run 100%, even the lowest accuracy .exe slowdown at 45fps on my q6600 during yoshi's island ending (lots of sprites). Considering how cpu power has NOT improved in last 4 years (a 2700k is basically as powerful as a 4670k and intel's next step is not that better) LLE is NOT a good way to go I guess. We're not jumping from 100hmz cpu to 200hmz cpu in 12 months like we did in the past; if an emulators runs at 50% today chances are it will take ages to reach 100% relying only in cpu's enhanced raw power over years. Consider even JIT based emulators (basically it permit x86 cpu to directly run code written for different cpu) breaks timings... infact in winuae a lot of games does not work when using jit. I think the correct way looking at today's technology is long and painful... HLE with all hacking you can trow in and per-game fixes. Other ways has already been tried without significant results (AVX, openCL, multithreading, etc). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrillCaz Posted April 11, 2014 Share Posted April 11, 2014 This is all wrong. The reason why N64 progress has been stalled is because of the initial rush to emulate it as fast as possible. Instead of actually emulating the console, they emulated it at a high level. Instead of actually emulating the console properly, they fake it by pushing out what all the various functions are expected to push out. This is known as HLE - high level emulation. They did it this way because there was no way for them to emulate the N64 at a low level at the speeds PCs were at when the N64 started getting emulated. That rush to get it all working *now* has permanently damaged our ability to get it done properly because almost everyone that was working on it moved on when it got hard, things get lost, etc... Low level emulation of the N64 - at a bus or cycle level just like bsnes for SNES games - is a long ways off. CEN64 is an attempt to make it happen. Also, the N64 support included in MESS is similarly at a low level. Dolphin, the Gamecube/Wii emulator was first released in 2003; Project 64, the Nintendo 64 emulator, was first released in 2005... Initial rush has little to nothing to do with it. You basically just reiterated what I said but added information about HLE and LLE. As I said, the devs lost interest after emulating the most popular games and refused to go open source, that's why N64 emulation is in the state it's in today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zerojay Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 Uhm... the same happened with ps1 but ps1 emulation is not plagued by glitches, missing textures and plugin madness as n64. Wrong. The first decent PS1 emulator wasn't rushed and was developed for over 8 months before announcement and it was done the best way they were able to, not using UltraHLE style tactics. I think the correct way looking at today's technology is long and painful... HLE with all hacking you can trow in and per-game fixes. That's not emulation and that's exactly how we end up in this N64 type mess, which is why emulator authors are NOT going that route anymore, such as the PS3 emulator rpcs3. Other ways has already been tried without significant results (AVX, openCL, multithreading, etc). PCSX2 would like a word with you. So incredibly wrong. Dolphin, the Gamecube/Wii emulator was first released in 2003; Project 64, the Nintendo 64 emulator, was first released in 2005... Initial rush has little to nothing to do with it. *facepalm* The damage was done long before Project64 was a single line of code, back when UltraHLE was released in 1999. Everything shitty about emulating the N64 comes directly from the rush to get games running by warez kiddies. Probably way way before your time. If you guys are going to call me wrong, at least know your history first. And hey, you can always Google for the opinions of some of the main people behind the N64 scene to find what they say about it. Particularly interesting are those from the main person responsible for the low level emulation done in MESS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrillCaz Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 *facepalm* The damage was done long before Project64 was a single line of code, back when UltraHLE was released in 1999. Everything shitty about emulating the N64 comes directly from the rush to get games running by warez kiddies. Probably way way before your time.If you guys are going to call me wrong, at least know your history first. And hey, you can always Google for the opinions of some of the main people behind the N64 scene to find what they say about it. Particularly interesting are those from the main person responsible for the low level emulation done in MESS. You, sir, seem to be confused, or just simply know not what you speak of... UltraHLE and Project 64 are completely different emulators created by different developers compiled of different code. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zerojay Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 You, sir, seem to be confused, or just simply know not what you speak of... UltraHLE and Project 64 are completely different emulators created by different developers compiled of different code. *facepalm* I'm very very well aware they are completely different emulators with completely different code. You just weren't around back in the day so you don't understand how the choices made back in the UltraHLE days continue to ripple through our N64 emulators today and is the real reason for our current problems. Clearly, you didn't understand what was said above, so I'm not going to bother educating you further as it's a lost cause. As I said, don't take my word for it. Look up the big names in N64 emulation and you'll see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrillCaz Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 *facepalm*I'm very very well aware they are completely different emulators with completely different code. You just weren't around back in the day so you don't understand how the choices made back in the UltraHLE days continue to ripple through our N64 emulators today and is the real reason for our current problems. Clearly, you didn't understand what was said above, so I'm not going to bother educating you further as it's a lost cause. As I said, don't take my word for it. Look up the big names in N64 emulation and you'll see. UltraHLE has absolutely nothing to do with my initial comment which you blatantly claimed to be false. The devs did indeed lose interest. The devs did indeed refuse to become open source. That did indeed halt N64 emulation progress. UltraHLE is not the reason N64 emulators today use HLE. N64 emulators use HLE because it's more practical. If every emulator completely used LLE, this forum/Hyperspin would not exist because little to no games would run at a decent speed. I think you're trying too hard to be correct by spurring false assertions and claiming that it's "before my time." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zerojay Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 WHOOOOOSH. Stay free. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrillCaz Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 Good day, sir. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dougan78 Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 I have more ram than you guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KrillCaz Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 I have more ram than you guys. O rly? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DamnedRegistrations Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 lol funny topic. You guys ignored my post where I pointed out the existence of Cen64 and continued to argue about the poor state of N64 emulation. Obviously won't be the case for too long and we will have a great, cycle accurate N64 emu in due time. No need for all the bickering. Everyone knows Project 64 has always been problematic. Also, did someone say a 2700k is as powerful as a 4670k? You do realize that a stock speed 4670k can run Dolphin 10-30% faster (depending on game) than Sandy and Ivy Bridge even overclocked don't you? While Haswell isn't generally a huge leap in overall performance, it certainly is when it comes to emulation thanks to newer SSE code. This can also be applied to PCSX2 and other software that take advantage of this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gigapig Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 It's good to have a healthy debate, but there's no point anyone getting upset about emulation. Yes N64 emulation still and always has had it's problems, but it is emulated, hopefuly cen64 will be the answer. And my signature is much bigger than everyone else's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rfancella Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 It's good to have a healthy debate, but there's no point anyone getting upset about emulation. Yes N64 emulation still and always has had it's problems, but it is emulated, hopefuly cen64 will be the answer.And my signature is much bigger than everyone else's LOL... A big sig for a big guy! Thanks, Ron Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gigapig Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 LOL... A big sig for a big guy!Thanks, Ron Are you saying I'm fat? you've seen me in my mankini, did it look stretched in anyway? :eek: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zerojay Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 lol funny topic. You guys ignored my post where I pointed out the existence of Cen64 and continued to argue about the poor state of N64 emulation. Uh, I mentioned it before you did...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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