Nintendo 64 emulation on Dreamcast!

[Daniel Eriksson]

from DCEmulation :

Nintendo 64 Emulation on the Dreamcast

Posted by wraggster At 10:57

Theres not many news items that would have made me post today but this is sure enough a big enough piece of news to do so.

GPF aka Troy Davis the author of the as yet unreleased GBA Emu for the Dreamcast as posted a screenshot of his port of the Nintendo 64 Emulator, Nincest64 to the Dreamcast Console.

Check out the screenshot

here

Please note that for the moment, the only thing that it can run is some small demos. It will NOT run any games! So DON'T ask for that.

 

[Alexvrb]

Ughh... this SO should not have been posted. Not like that, and I mean I know you're quoting DCE's newspost, that's mainly what I am referring to. The newspost doesn't make it obvious that it 1) Isn't out, and 2) Doesn't currently do anything but poorly run two (2) demos with glitches. Now DCE is going to be swamped with noobs thinking that they can play N64 games on DC.

I respect Troy a lot, but he should have seen this one coming, LOL...

 

[Pearl Jammzz]

It's cool that they are trying and stuff, but c'mon! they are never gunna get N64 playable on the DC. ......what's next? PS2 emulation on the DC? haha. Oh well, let em do what they wanna i guess.....

 

[racketboy]

it's right up there with the Saturn emu project.

THey are trying even thought they know a playable product is unlikely

 

[Daniel Eriksson]

Hmm, yes, I considered not to post it. Still, it only links to a thread. Most will get turned of when they see how it looks for the moment. It will probably never play any games, but it is still nice to see.

 

[Quakester2000]

Originally posted by racketboy@Aug 1, 2004 @ 03:28 PM

it's right up there with the Saturn emu project.

THey are trying even thought they know a playable product is unlikely

I heard there have been a lot of developments in the SH4 assembler area for the DC so they can get more out of it so you never know even if it doesnt run at an N64 resolution or sound quality it may be still possible.

 

[Alexvrb]

It's a port of something that is both slow and doesn't do much, even on PC. I'm not saying N64 emulation isn't possible. However, unless you see someone writing an N64 emulator for DC from scratch, I wouldn't count on anything decent. Besides, there are severe memory limitations. You'd have to add more RAM, whether internally (extremely difficult, stupid idea), make a memory "add-on" for the expansion port, or make an N64 cart interface, at which point you're better off buying an N64.

Saturn emulation is probably more likely, and I wouldn't count on that either. At least if you got a Saturn emu working at a decent speed, memory would never be an issue.

 

[Daniel Eriksson]

Well, Saturn emulation for certain games should work fine. I mean, we already got Playstation emulators running at full speed and even looking better. Look at Gran Turismo 2 running emulated on DC, with hi-res graphics and texture filtering. Looks sweet...

 

[WiseMan]

a saturn emulator would be significantly harder to produce and alot more resource greedy im sure.

as for the 64 project, the developer deserves props simply becuase there is no way i could do that myself.

what i'd like to see though is time put into projects like snes and genesis emulation. the point being is that 100% speed and sound emulation of those systems seems like an acheivable goal, unlike the 64 which from the word go it seems that its not going to result in anything worthwhile.

if i were to dream, i'd dream about cps2 emulation with arcade stick support. im talking PLAYABLE 100%. yes that would be grand...

 

[Quakester2000]

Originally posted by Alexvrb@Aug 1, 2004 @ 10:08 PM

It's a port of something that is both slow and doesn't do much, even on PC. I'm not saying N64 emulation isn't possible. However, unless you see someone writing an N64 emulator for DC from scratch, I wouldn't count on anything decent. Besides, there are severe memory limitations. You'd have to add more RAM, whether internally (extremely difficult, stupid idea), make a memory "add-on" for the expansion port, or make an N64 cart interface, at which point you're better off buying an N64.

Saturn emulation is probably more likely, and I wouldn't count on that either. At least if you got a Saturn emu working at a decent speed, memory would never be an issue.

I think N64 emulation would be much easier as there are really just 2 processors in the N64 the main CPU 93MHZ and the RCP (Sound and Graphics processor incorporated) The saturn has so many processors that getting the timing and memory configuration right would be a problem for them to run at full speed. The reason the N64 ran so fast is that its quite basic a Processor and a graphics and sound processor which can be done by the DC's PowerVR chip and Sound chip with most ease as they would support mose of the features the n64 does. The N64 and is a very uncomplex system in some respects like the PSX. As for memory constraints well then it will only be able to run games that are under 12 megabytes (4 megabytes for program) other than that a clever programmer could use the left over memory of the PowerVR chip as data can be held in graphics memory. And if a person was real smart they could map the game so that parts that need loading will load at end of each level etc. Also dont forget the N64 wasnt that powerful in graphics it could ony put 100,000 textured polygons on screen maybe even less this is because a lot of games either ran at 320x240 (outputed at 640x480) or 640x480 but were all anti aniliased and triliniar filtered etc which the Power VR 2 can do easily.

With the saturn you would have to get the 2 x vdps emulated and Sound chip and CD rom processor SH1 and 2x SH2s and also Motorola 68000 which i doubt the DC could do at full speed.

 

[Alexvrb]

You're forgetting that there are certain parts of emulating an SH2 on an SH4, even with the endian difference, that makes things a bit easier. Besides, from what I've heard of the N64 emu so far, it doesn't have nearly as much memory available as you think. You need to have RAM for the system you're emulating, as well as the program itself. He said something about being able to see the N64 logo (and no more) of some commercial game after he cut the ROM to 2MB (16 mbits). So unless someone comes in and does some serious work on the emulator, you're not going to get a whole lot out of it for some time. Further, I've heard that some of the more advanced (faster) dynarec cores eat up way too much memory for a port to the DC. However, with a Saturn emulator, you don't need to store a ROM, so you've got a lot more memory to play with.

I'd like to note that I DID say that I wouldn't count on Saturn emulation either.