Could the Dreamcast Emulate the GP32?

[wraggster]

I know the answer is probably no, but id like to ask anyway.

[MetaFox]

[quote author=Wraggster link=board=Dev;num=1086120644;start=0#0 date=06/01/04 at 22:10:44]I know the answer is probably no, but id like to ask anyway.[/quote]Yes.

Though as a straight port from PC C code as most people would probably do, it wouldn't end up being anywhere near playable.

Though, as Bleemcast has shown us, if someone was quite familiar with assembly language, and studied the SH4 platform enough to make heavily optimized SH4 assembly code, then it shouldn't be a problem.

No one that I'm aware of who is currently active in the dreamcast development community is at that level, however.

The GP32 is an easier beast to emulate than the Playstation, so one might even get away with having full speed emulation through SH4 ASM code that isn't as well written and optimized, or even through heavily optimized C code (though I doubt that).

Optimized Assembly code will always beat optimized C code, as it is as close to directly talking with the CPU as possible (Assembly language is sent through an assembler, which translates it to machine code [0s and 1s]). C code is sent into a compiler, which basically translates it into assembly, then into machine code. So, the assembly programmer doesn't have that extra step.

The way to get the most speed, of course would be writing directly in machine code - but that is tedious and long - and hard to spot errors. Plus, no human being that I'm aware of has the patience to translate an entire program into 0s and 1s. :P

[wraggster]

The homebrew scene on the GP32 is like ours and theres so much quality, to marry both scenes would be brilliant

[16Bits]

The way to get the most speed, of course would be writing directly in machine code - but that is tedious and long - and hard to spot errors.

actually no, assembly are simply a mnemonic representation of machine code, so there would be no gain in speed by writing directly in machine code, it would however, as you stated, be much harder to read.

as for the gp32, from what I remember it can be clocked at anything between 22mhz - 133.5mhz, however, again unless I remember incorrectly the bios defaulted it at 67mhz or something like that, which is in my opinion far to fast for the dreamcast to emulate in anything near full speed, then again I'm making an estimate here based upon my meagre knowledge of the dc.

[Christuserloeser]

A GP32 emulator for DC... That would be a thing *8)

Possible it would be (Bleem!cast proves it somewhat), will take some time until someone actually attempts it...

[quzar]

its funny i was actually thinking about this earlier today hehe.

[BlackAura]

It'd be tricky. The thing has a processor that runs between 60MHz and 130MHz, depending on the program running. Emulating a 130MHz CPU on a 200MHz CPU is going to be very difficult, no matter how good you are.

[tyrell]

What about sending GP32 ARM9 code directly to the DC sound cpu (ARM7) & execute it ? Maybe by first modifying it a little bit before sending it ?

[Propeller]

ARM7 of the Dreamcast's AICA is 25Mhz.
SH4 of the Dreamcast is 200 Mhz.
ARM9 of the GP32 is 40-200 Mhz.

Mostly all of the decent free software (emulators) for the GP32 usually overclock the system to 133-166 Mhz. So, there's not enough cpu cycles to do a perfect emulation.

Plus, ARM9 has got some "enhanced" asm instructions that cannot be executed on ARM7 of the AICA, so, you'd have to emulate the full set.

I think there's not even a chance to see the DC emulating the GP32.

Propeller

[Christuserloeser]

There was a discussion about the ARM on the last two pages over here

[quote author=quzar link=board=dcemu;num=1082494155;start=105#116 date=05/17/04 at 23:50:39]it is 24mhz on its own, but is overclockable up to 99 (or 100?) but nobody knows if it can actually go up to that speed.[/quote]

...add some decent auto frameskip and you'll come very close *8)

Not to forget the SH4 and the additional PowerVR with its own 8MB RAM...


Chris