General question about emulation

[keem85]

Hi. Ive got a general question. Im Just curious.. Why does certain things in an emulated game not work? For example the heat waves in wind waker, or link in ocarina of time in the menu is messed up. I mean, why is there often small portion of a game that the emulator cant handle? Im looking for a technical answer in hope of understanding emulation more :-)

-kim

[RachelB]

Because certain aspects of the console are emulated accurately, and others are not. Those aspects that aren't implemented correctly don't tend to cause the entire game to fail, but only a certain part of it, which makes use of the poorly emulated function.

[cosmoruski]

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/08/accuracy-takes-power-one-mans-3ghz-quest-to-build-a-perfect-snes-emulator/1/

Some explanations about accuracy of emulators

[Shonumi]

In addition to what's been said, sometimes it's also the case that one aspect isn't emulated at all, but it's such a small component that other parts of game don't rely on it, functionally speaking. A nice example on I personally encountered happened when I was emulating Pokemon Gold the other day. The intro has little waves in the ocean; they're supposed to move back and forth but my emu I'm writing didn't do that. Turns out I needed to implement a certain non-essential feature (HBlank STAT interrupts) to get that graphical effect.

[keem85]

Thanks everyone! Very informative! Makes it easier to understand