PSP News - Public Discussion - Emulation

[wraggster]

The PSP and what can be emulated on it is a topic of discussion thats always being debated around the PSP Homebrew Community.

Last weeks release of a DS Emulator for the PSP brought out a lot of strong comments from people on all sides, some that say a DS Emulator will never be at a decent speed and unplayable etc etc.

I myself agree that a DS Emulator will most likely never be playable but then i thought lets look at specs and in particular specs for the Nintendo 64 which is being emulated on the PSP

Firstly heres the N64 Specs:


Co-Processor:
Custom 64-bit MIPS RISC "Reality Immersion" RCP (62.5 MHz)
Built-in Audio/Video Vector Processor (RSP)
RCP Benchmarks
Over half a billion (500,000,000) operations/sec

Memory:
4 Megabytes (36 megabits) total RAM
Rambus DRAM subsystem
Transfers up to 562.5 MBytes/sec
Custom 9-bit Rambus Bus (to the DRAM)
Runs at 500 MHz max
Internal data bus to the RCP is 128-bit

Now heres the Nintendo DS Specs:


Main CPU: ARM 9, 67 MHz
Secondary CPU: ARM 7, 33 MHz

Memory: 4 MB main RAM, 656 kB VRAM

Sound: ARM 7, 33 MHz
16 simultaneous channels
stereo sound

Graphical prestations/effects:
ARM 9
dual 256x192 screen resolution
solid 60fps
120,000 polygons per second with all hardware effects @ 60 fps (expect game benchmarks to be a little less.)
262,144 colors
4 million vertices/second
30 million pixels/second fillrate
Cel-shading
Hardware fog
no bilinear filtering This really sucks...

When you look at the systems there doesnt seem to be a mass of difference between them, now with N64 Emulation on PSP at a playable or nearly playable state then will we see DS games at a much more playable condition than the 4FPS releases at the moment, of course any such emulator needs to be written for that console.

So is a decent DS Emulator a possibility or not, my answer would be no but in the world of emulation we are always amazed by the breakthroughs that happen. Im sure the coders who know the N64 and DS Hardware will be able to dissect the difference in specs in a way i cant but its nice to dream eh ?

[DPyro]

The problem lies in the CPU. Both N64 and PSP are MIPS based, while the DS is using two ARM processors which is totally different.

[Sterist]

yup, what he ^ said

as either zx-81 or exophase (forgot which) stated before in their GBA emulators , the ARM cpu is quite difficult to emulate

edit: and one ARM alone is a big deal

[hounddog]

if it proofs that DS emulator will never be full speed at least we got to see what its like

[Buddy4point0]

my opinion is, if u can make a ds emulator, great. BUT i will never use it because most ds games are crappy remakes of n64 games with weird controls.

[kiariki]

My opinion on this is that its silly to make an emulator for a system that can be bought in just about any store that sells hardware. I understand a computer emulating a current system in order to play-test the homebrew (or commercial project, since I bet commercial devs like Nintendo use their own version of a test emulator to try their games out... I'm not sure, but I'd bet on it!)

My 2 cents. :)


my opinion is, if u can make a ds emulator, great. BUT i will never use it because most ds games are crappy remakes of n64 games with weird controls.

Do you really feel that way? The only remakes I know of are Super Mario 64 DS and Diddy Kong Racing DS. The rest of the DS games are in no way remakes of any N64 games.

Phoenix Wright 1 & 2 are remakes of GBA Phoenix Wright games... I can't think of any more remakes on the DS...

I've enjoyed many of the DS's games, mainly Mario Kart DS (not a remake by any means!), Castlevania DoS, and Rocket Slime... But I will not argue your dislike for the DS... Whether you like it or not is up to you, I'm only arguing that the games aren't terrible (Except Pokemon Dash and Yoshi Touch n' Go...)- you just don't like them! :) ?

[Broadus]

DS emulators hardly even run on the PC. N64 emulators, however, run super-full-speed.

[kiariki]

DS emulators hardly even run on the PC. N64 emulators, however, run super-full-speed.

There's been +-10 full years of N64 emulation and only around 2 of DS emulation. It'll take a while. Personally, I think it'd be a good idea if they aren't made usable to play on until the DS itself dies out and something else replaces it... : (

[On The Rise]

my opinion is, if u can make a ds emulator, great. BUT i will never use it because most ds games are crappy remakes of n64 games with weird controls.

Shows how little you know about the ds.

[`The0n3]

2 processors = no

[Cokemusic]

I could care less if the PSP was able to emulate the DS although I could flame my bro for buying a DS if full speed DS emulation was possible.

The DS doesn't apear to have any games that grab my interest at all , them most viable title for the DS (pokemon diamond) is a 3d game with pretty much 2d gameplay .

If I want nintendo i'll use my GC or N64 emulator on the PSP , appart from that I feel no urge to get a DS right now.

[mike03$$$]

2 processors means yes well kinda i bet if exophoase made ds emulater it could be full speed cause once you start to know the emulator the more ways you will find to make it better

[zevende]

I believe that DS emulation on the PSP has the potential to be playable, but only at about 10-15 fps. I think that sounds pretty reasonable.

[burrito]

my opinion is, if u can make a ds emulator, great. BUT i will never use it because most ds games are crappy remakes of n64 games with weird controls.
I own both a ds and psp.
PSP actually has more remakes than DS.
The psp has worse controls (FPS) than ds.

[Buddy4point0]

I own both a ds and psp.
PSP actually has more remakes than DS.
The psp has worse controls (FPS) than ds.

i was refering to the touch pad being emulated, not when its on the acual ds.

[Emeriastone]

The problem lies in the CPU. Both N64 and PSP are MIPS based, while the DS is using two ARM processors which is totally different.



You could do it but It's going to cost you an ARM and an ARM, unfortunately, the PSP has no limbs whatsoever.

[jvabbdac]

What you say about new psp with more memory !? Great, uh ? Will make any difference ?

[andwhyisit]

Maybe this emulator will run at the speeds of Daedalus r11 or r12 by the time Daedalus hits full speed.

PSMonkey seems to have a very good idea of how to do it but is too busy, Exophase would not even touch it and StrmnNrmn is working on r13.

DS emulation on the PSP may not ever be full speed but the games would be in a playable, and that's what counts for me.

To be able to play the pokémon and FF3 on the PSP would be awesome enough, even if it is slow.

If all else fails: frameskip.

[sonofsamus]

Awesome, this thread is turning into an exact clone of the last "DS on PSP" thread. Evidently we have learned nothing.

[jvabbdac]

But what about new psp with more memory !!!???

[PSmonkey]

So DS has two processors. Oh no impossible.... No wait there is a huge problem. Comercial developers are not allowed to write custom code for the arm7 (unless nintendo is letting a few devs do something nobody else is allowed to).

Most of the arm7 functions could posibly be replaced with extensive HLE leaving only the arm9 to need emulation. Sure thats still a real beefy part to handle but still realistly could be done at an fps above 30fps.

The fact a not well optimised PC emu already plays a few games at 4fps on the psp is impressive to me. I remember back when all I got was a simple n64 fire demo running at 4-8fps.

Something i'm currious about this emu is few things
1) It's strange all games run at an almost equal fps. Second there is never an issue of screen teering. I think posibly SDL is causing vsyncs
2) Going with the above part, I wonder if some speed hacks might be posible (like stoping the cpu from emulating all the cycles caused by the code waiting on a vblank to trigger)
3) Should try modding the code to use the PSP to render the framebuffer and not using a off screen buffer (could see a performance boost).

I am not saying either would result in a marginal boost but I do find it odd a simple 2D game runs at the same FPS as a more complex 2D game.

-edit-
I forgot to note, I'm a geek. Even seeing the DS run on the PSP at 4FPS was great for me. I look forward to the day i see a saturn game boot on the PSP at 1-5fps. :P

[devmas]

Hmm... Here's what I think:

The DS would be extremely difficult to emulate at full speed on the PSP, because of the two processors.

Nintendo cretated an N64 emulator for their Gamecube, and it worked at fullspeed, yes... but even still, it had some frame rate issues in games (think Majora's Mask in Zelda Collector's Edition). The Gamecube's 485 MHz CPU with its 162 MHz GPU, compare it to the PSP's 333 MHz CPU and its 166 MHz GPU. But then again, it was running in 640x480 as opposed to the N64's 320x240...

The PSP could very well do N64 emulation at full speed, but the DS has two processors: the 67 MHz ARM9, and the ARM7, the same processor used in the Game Boy Advance (GBA's ARM7 is 16.8 MHz while DS's ARM7 is 33 MHz). So, essentially, you are talking about emulating a double-speed Game Boy Advance and an N64 at the same time, for the most part.

Another thing that the second poster pointed out is that the N64's processor and the PSP's processor are similar, so emulation could be made faster.

By the way, processor speed numbers, I got from Wikipedia, even PSP ones, just to confirm everything. It seems they say N64 speed is 92.5 MHz, compared to the original post's 62.5 MHz...

[Sektor]

The ARM7 is mostly used for sound, touch and wifi. Many games would be playable without those features. It's far more important to emulate the ARM9 efficiently. Emulating some DS games at 30 FPS on a PSP is entirely feasible. The hard part is finding someone with the time, motivation, desire and skills to make it happen.

[Axelius]

Hmm yeah, even if we got to a playable framerate, the thing that makes the ds worth the money is its cool feature: the touchscreen and the two screens.
With the PSP lacking these features I doubt that ds games would be fun on the psp...

[Sektor]

Some of the best selling DS games rarely use the touchscreen. The PSP resolution is only 32 pixels width off, if it displayed the screens side by side, so an emulator could cut off part of the less important screen, rescale one of the screens, only display one screen at a time or as is currently done, turn the screens sideways.

Without a touchscreen, it can never be a total replacement for a DS, which is a good thing, no matter how good the emulator gets, it shouldn't hurt Nintendo's sales in any significant way.

[odino]

N64 has 2 processor too:

Cpu: R4300 93 MHz
Coprocessor: Reality Immersion 62 MHz
Sound: Reality Signal processor

Anyway, i know that some games run at 33mhz on gba.

[yoshinatsu]

Exophase believes it can't be done:(
But why?? WHY??? We've seen THINGS and THINGS!
We SEE IT EVERYDAY!!! Things tagged "IMPOSSIBLE", YET HAVING THEM ON OUR PSPs RIGHT NOW!!!!!
Like gpSP, and Daedalus, and the custom firmwares!
I told it before, what I believe is that we NEED another genius to make this happen.
And some people pointed that there's no need to have a DS emulator cause it won't be fun. OH YEAH????
AND WHAT ABOUT PEOPLE THAT ENJOY THE DS' SINGLE SCREEN AND GAMES THAT DON'T USE THE SILLY TOUCH SCREEN??


I look forward to the day i see a saturn game boot on the PSP at 1-5fps. :P

Oooooooooooohhhhh. I'd give ANYTHING in this UNIVERSE to see Shining Force III booting on my PSP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! EVEN IF IT WAS AT 1 FPS!!!!

What if we ignore the sound and the second screen (the touch one)?
Will we gain any speed with that?

[Gold Line]

my opinion is, if u can make a ds emulator, great. BUT i will never use it because most ds games are crappy remakes of n64 games with weird controls.


i was refering to the touch pad being emulated, not when its on the acual ds.

Sorry bud but it has to be said theres only 3 or 4 n64 remakes and they all have great controls also your first post made you look like you where bashing the DS for no reason.

[firedragon_jing]

I think eventually it could be possible, especially if the N64 ever becomes full speed. It would work better, like every other homebrew, on the PSP Slim if it gets homebrew enabled because of the extra RAM, so that's the best bet of full-speed.

The only problem is the lack of a touch screen, which would make most games unplayable or extremely hard to play. Some could be handled with a mouse function with the analog stick, but it will never have the same feel. Also without the dual screens, it would be hard to play games that the uses both screens for gameplay, like Sonic Rush, but would still work for games that use it for maps and puzzles.

[Sektor]

A DS emulator doesn't need more RAM than what the PSP currently has. The PSP can read from the memory stick much faster than the DS reads from DS cards. There's no need to load the whole .nds file into RAM.

[kiariki]

The ARM7 is mostly used for sound, touch and wifi. Many games would be playable without those features. It's far more important to emulate the ARM9 efficiently. Emulating some DS games at 30 FPS on a PSP is entirely feasible. The hard part is finding someone with the time, motivation, desire and skills to make it happen.

I doubt games will boot without at least tricking them that the Arm7 is there. :/

[sappo]

Exophase believes it can't be done:(
But why?? WHY??? We've seen THINGS and THINGS!
We SEE IT EVERYDAY!!! Things tagged "IMPOSSIBLE", YET HAVING THEM ON OUR PSPs RIGHT NOW!!!!!
Like gpSP, and Daedalus, and the custom firmwares!
I told it before, what I believe is that we NEED another genius to make this happen.
And some people pointed that there's no need to have a DS emulator cause it won't be fun. OH YEAH????
AND WHAT ABOUT PEOPLE THAT ENJOY THE DS' SINGLE SCREEN AND GAMES THAT DON'T USE THE SILLY TOUCH SCREEN??



Oooooooooooohhhhh. I'd give ANYTHING in this UNIVERSE to see Shining Force III booting on my PSP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! EVEN IF IT WAS AT 1 FPS!!!!

What if we ignore the sound and the second screen (the touch one)?
Will we gain any speed with that?

You? Again?

A lot of people said that it's not possible. Get it over yourself.

Like gPSP? Yeah, but that was possible. Now there's that little thing that the creator of gPSP said that this is not possible. Daedalus is a great work, but we're talking about MIPS. DS has two ARMs. Doing emulation over differents architectures is a LOT consuming.

Custom Firmwares are not that much of tech-magic, they don't do something so absurd, hardware-level.

And, 80% of DS games use touch. You'll lose great games like Trauma Center.

So to all the people that want to play free DS games on their PSP, get over it. Buy a DS. A lot of people bought it. And if you're that of a cheapskate, and don't want to buy original games, get a flash cart.

But stop ranting about full-speed DS emulators without sound, wifi and touch.

[xg917]

And, 80% of DS games use touch.

and 70% of those touch screen games suck :p

im geting a DS now so it doesnt matter to me :D

[cyclonus002]

I've had an Idea for a while (hope some of you coders are interested) for a program for the PSP....If I knew how to do it It's what I'd be working on. I've always thought that it would be great if there was a way to send a file (besides a picture) to another PSP via WIFI. If someone was to combine a file browser program like PSP Filer with WIFI connectivity, it would be great to transfer files between two PSPs without the use of a PC. I got this idea because I go to my bro's house sometimes and he might want a file on my psp but he does'nt have a PC, and I thougt...It would be badass if there was a way to send the file to his PSP through the WIFI connection...Well that's my idea. Hopefully I can inspire someone to go with it...Until next time...Later...:thumbup:

[xg917]

I've had an Idea for a while (hope some of you coders are interested) for a program for the PSP....If I knew how to do it It's what I'd be working on. I've always thought that it would be great if there was a way to send a file (besides a picture) to another PSP via WIFI. If someone was to combine a file browser program like PSP Filer with WIFI connectivity, it would be great to transfer files between two PSPs without the use of a PC. I got this idea because I go to my bro's house sometimes and he might want a file on my psp but he does'nt have a PC, and I thougt...It would be badass if there was a way to send the file to his PSP through the WIFI connection...Well that's my idea. Hopefully I can inspire someone to go with it...Until next time...Later...:thumbup:

this doesnt have anything to do with the topic.
and irshell can transfer anything from psp to psp through wifi.

[sonofsamus]

I've had an Idea for a while (hope some of you coders are interested) for a program for the PSP....If I knew how to do it It's what I'd be working on. I've always thought that it would be great if there was a way to send a file (besides a picture) to another PSP via WIFI. If someone was to combine a file browser program like PSP Filer with WIFI connectivity, it would be great to transfer files between two PSPs without the use of a PC. I got this idea because I go to my bro's house sometimes and he might want a file on my psp but he does'nt have a PC, and I thougt...It would be badass if there was a way to send the file to his PSP through the WIFI connection...Well that's my idea. Hopefully I can inspire someone to go with it...Until next time...Later...:thumbup:
And I bet with the extra RAM on the PSP Slim it'd go really super fast too!!1! LOL :) :) :thumbup:

No.

[PSmonkey]

For the love of god, will people stop bringing up the two DS CPU argument with out reading my post.

N64 yes also has two cores running (the RCP is another mips processor with a vector COP2). Yet thanks to the wonders of UltraHLE, most emu (including daedalus) HLE the RCP insted of LLE (low level emulation) it.

The same most likely could be done with the Arm7 in the DS. Why? Because it can not run custom code in comercial games. The Arm7 purely runs off SDK libs to handle some task like Audio processing, Touch Screen, Wifi and a few others.

---------------------------------------------

Another point, people for the love of god. Go freaking replay your DS games. You would be shocked how many of thoes "Touch Screen games" actualy are playable with out even using the touch screen. Even titles like Phyonix Write dont require you to use the touch screen to play.

[F9zDark]

The problem lies in the CPU. Both N64 and PSP are MIPS based, while the DS is using two ARM processors which is totally different.

That would hinder emulation no doubt. But the PSP has a much higher overhead than the DS. Two ARM processors running at a combined 100 MHZ... The PSP can run at 333 MHZ, allowing it to handle each DS CPU's instructions each clock cycle and still have another 100 clock cycles to handle other things (in a perfectly optimized environment... which may be impossible...)

The hardest hurdle I see is figuring a good way to emulate a touch screen. Analog would be the best bet, combined with maybe the X button. But that depends on the game (if some games use the touch screen and buttons).