N64 Emu

[Smurph]

Mario 64 is only 6 mb. But the Dreamcast isn't powerful enough to emulate the N64.

It depends on the cart. However, it does have 3D hardware, unlike the PSP.

[SnoopKatt]

An N64 emulator could probably be designed for certain games...

[Elven6]

Mabye a team should work on this so we could get one lol.

[sixtyten]

An N64 emulator could probably be designed for certain games...

That's what I was thinking...I'm sure if a great emulator was coded that was almost or as close as we could get to full speed, a system could be developed that could divide the ROMS up and do proper loads off of a disc. Maybe some sort of...I dunno...program that you coiuld plug a ROM in and do very little code manipulating. If it were too complciated to emulate single games we'd never get anything done. Maybe Mario 64 and OOT.

[SnoopKatt]

Don't forget Goldeneye

[peens]

it must be possible in some way shape or form. i mean if dreamcast can handle dreamcast games which are larger than 64 games. mind you i understand that emulating is totally different than just reading a normal game but still....theoretically it should be possile right.... right..????
yeah i am probably wrong..

[Darksaviour69]

dreamcast games are loaded from the disc into memory (ram) in small parts. But with cart based console the cart pretty much becomes part on the memory of the console, and so is not structured into parts. Thats why emulators have to load the whole rom into memory. but the dc has got 16mb or ram, so a rom of over 16 can't fit.

but yes there is away around this Using MMU for loading large rom files. AES4ALL does this for large Neo cart games like Metal slug X ( which is about 27 Mbs). you have to convert the rom with a prorgram that breaks it up into smaller parts for the emu can load, but this method is far from perfect and can lead of miss gfx, sounds bugs.

Having said all that, i sure quzar will come in a say " well actually that not 100% right (or even 50% right), i'm a smart ass, and i will tell you how it works...."

[quzar]

dreamcast games are loaded from the disc into memory (ram) in small parts. But with cart based console the cart pretty much becomes part on the memory of the console, and so is not structured into parts. Thats why emulators have to load the whole rom into memory. but the dc has got 16mb or ram, so a rom of over 16 can't fit.

but yes there is away around this Using MMU for loading large rom files. AES4ALL does this for large Neo cart games like Metal slug X ( which is about 27 Mbs). you have to convert the rom with a prorgram that breaks it up into smaller parts for the emu can load, but this method is far from perfect and can lead of miss gfx, sounds bugs.

Having said all that, i sure quzar will come in a say " well actually that not 100% right (or even 50% right), i'm a smart ass, and i will tell you how it works...."

I heard my name! =P Yea, that's mostly right, but it's important to note that the mmu is not necessary to do this (and part of the reason that it's so buggy is that kos is designed to work specifically with the mmu turned off). The general Idea is to simply load up only as much as is needed at a time. With arcade systems it should be a LOT easier than how it was done in aes4all because the data is already spanning multiple files (and is usually divided by level or area of the game.

Also, a 16mb rom is way higher than the Dreamcast can fit, you have to remember that in the 16mb of ram we also need to fit: the emulator itself (maybe 1mb), all the data associated with it (which is why I don't use graphical menus =p), the emulated system's ram, buffers for the gfx and audio that is being sent to the pvr and aica, and all sorts of smaller temporary buffers. Depending on the system this usually leaves us with not much more than 8mb of free space. Lots of people say: "well what about the video and sound ram? there's an extra 10mb there" and they are absolutely right, but it is extremely slow compared to main ram, and is meant to be used by the video and sound systems. I know warmtoe in one of him SGAs used video ram to store one rom to load a large game, and in some of my wip things I've stored data to both video and sound ram, with the intention of swapping it into main ram when it's needed (which is faster than reading from the GDROM).

I don't doubt that N64 emulation could be done at good speed on the Dreamcast, although rom loading and control mapping would certainly be at the low ends of what will make it difficult.

[peens]

lol @ darksaviour

way to predict the future:P