While the Cell is a lot weaker than x86 for a lot of things, at it's core it's a PowerPC, just like the Wii. Wouldn't that mean far less recompiling would have to be done? At least for main CPU instructions; obviously there would be a lot of things to change around for I/O, GPU, and other modules which differ/don't exist on the PS3. Of course that would all require some fairly radical design changes, so a viable PS3 version would probably be a lot more complicated than a straight port. Still, with the Sony wiimote on the horizon, it would be pretty sweet to play Zelda with it.
port dolphin to ps3
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09-06-2010, 04:16 AM
(This post was last modified: 09-06-2010, 04:18 AM by Xtreme2damax.)
I think some of you are neglecting the fact that this just isn't feasible, refer to my comment:
Quote:Sony couldn't even get their official PS2 emulator working well enough on the PS3 and they have access to all the technical docs, schematics, SDK's etc.. Could you imagine trying to get something like Dolphin working on a PS3 with as little documentation as there is for the GC/Wii, not to mention that the GC/Wii are more powerful than the PS2 hardware? If Sony couldn't get their PS2 emulator working well enough on the PS3 considering they have full hardware access and all documentation/schematics, what would make you think that that the Dolphin team would be able to do as good or any better given the lack of documentation for the GC/Wii? I know PSJailbreak was discovered but that is barely touching the foot of the mountain, as far as it's known there is still no way to run unsigned third party homebrew code on the PS3, OtherOS support was removed, no full hardware access etc... Someday Dolphin could very well run on the PS3 hardware, just don't expect it to run well enough to be playable in any sense. And no, just because the PS3 has a PowerPC based cell doesn't mean that emulation will run better, in fact it will likely run worse than it does on PC if Sony's official PS2 emulator for PS3 is anything to go by. 09-06-2010, 05:04 AM
(09-06-2010, 04:16 AM)Xtreme2damax Wrote: I know PSJailbreak was discovered but that is barely touching the foot of the mountain, as far as it's known there is still no way to run unsigned third party homebrew code on the PS3, OtherOS support was removed, no full hardware access etc... I'm pretty sure PSJailbreak gives you the capability to run homebrew. I expect once more people get their hands on hardware to use the open source version of the hack (or once the Android and iPhone ports are released) we'll start seeing a lot of homebrew action on the PS3. (09-06-2010, 04:16 AM)Xtreme2damax Wrote: And no, just because the PS3 has a PowerPC based cell doesn't mean that emulation will run better, in fact it will likely run worse than it does on PC if Sony's official PS2 emulator for PS3 is anything to go by. The PS2's architecture is radically different from Cell, so getting a good PS2 emulator would be extremely challenging. The Wii on the other hand has a PowerPC core, so that entire aspect of the hardware doesn't need to be emulated like it does on x86. The Wii and PS2 are very different beasts; the Wii and PS3, not so much. I would think getting Wii code running on the PS3 would be closer to getting original Xbox code working on a PC. Probably a bad example since Xbox emulation on PC isn't as far along as Dolphin, but I'd say that's due to there being much more interest in Wii emulation over the Xbox. With all the changes the Dolphin team would have to make to the core, a PS3 version may not even be worth their time, and I can totally respect that. Regardless, as a general notion, now that the PS3 has been hacked, Wii emulation is something that would really cool to see on it. 09-06-2010, 08:45 AM
I think your hopes are a bit unrealistic or just expecting a bit much, Cell PPC and GC/Wii PPC aren't exactly identical, it's basically comparing apples to oranges. It would still require recompilation of some sort and it likely won't run as well as you are thinking, especially considering the lack of PS3 docs and GC/Wii docs that will make it much more complicated to port over and get running. Don't expect it for a while and don't expect it to run well when and if Dolphin is ported over. All that effort and time could be better spent improving the Windows, Linux and Mac builds of Dolphin.
09-06-2010, 06:55 PM
I don't think he's saying we should try and do it, I think he's just saying that it would be possible if we wanted to, right?
"Normally if given a choice between doing something and nothing, I’d choose to do nothing. But I would do something if it helps someone else do nothing. I’d work all night if it meant nothing got done."
-Ron Swanson "I shall be a good politician, even if it kills me. Or if it kills anyone else for that matter. " -Mark Antony 09-06-2010, 07:07 PM
I believe that it can be done BUT it would be a MASSIVE undertaking. Not one that I'm likely to take on, that's for sure
Main pieces of work necessary: * Writing a new JIT, Gecko->Cell PPC. * Getting an OpenGL implementation (will involve porting MESA + Nouveau) OR porting the emu to directly access the nVidia GPU (might be even harder) * Getting a working Cg-compatible shader compiler that can run directly on the PS3 OR rewrite the whole shader generation to generate binary GF7800 shaders directly * Tying up all loose ends and optimizing I think all of the above are possible but seriously difficult and time consuming. Full speed is probably attainable, at least on GC games but possibly also Wii games, after a few years of solid work 09-06-2010, 11:57 PM
Quote:Full speed is probably attainable, at least on GC games Are you sure about that? I know you are a developer and know more than I do. We are talking about the GC/Wii, the GC alone is about twice as powerful as the PS2 although not as complicated. Sony could not even get the official PS2 emulator for PS3 working well enough, they have access to all technical docs, schematics, sdk's for the PS2 as well as the PS3. The Dolphin developers however have very little documentation for the GC/Wii and most of it has been achieved through reverse engineering, but there is a lack of documentation that is considered official. There is no direct access to the graphics hardware on the PS3, no more OtherOS, homebrew has just started since the release of the PSJailbreak and Sony might end up patching that anyway. The PS3 also has a very low amount of ram, that surely would be a big bottleneck for an emulator such as Dolphin wouldn't it? It's definitely going to be challenging, although I wouldn't really count on good performance for a while if ever. 09-07-2010, 06:24 AM
well, it would be sweet if this could be done but the consensus seems to be that it can but wont. At least there will me emus for older systems that will be ported.
(btw the port of psgroove to the ti84 is supposed to come out today!)
My rig isn't dust anymore!
AMD Phenom II 965 @3.4 ghz Radeon HD 5770 Super OC version 1gb 4gb ddr3 @ 1600 09-07-2010, 12:40 PM
Quote:GC alone is about twice as powerful as the PS2 What do you base this on? Quote:The PS3 also has a very low amount of ram, that surely would be a big bottleneck for an emulator such as Dolphin wouldn't it? In my opinion this would be the biggest problem. I don't see how it's possible to get dolphin to run with only 256MB of ram considering it usually uses twice that much running on an x86 platform. Quote:Are you sure about that? This is ector we're talking about.
"Normally if given a choice between doing something and nothing, I’d choose to do nothing. But I would do something if it helps someone else do nothing. I’d work all night if it meant nothing got done."
-Ron Swanson "I shall be a good politician, even if it kills me. Or if it kills anyone else for that matter. " -Mark Antony 09-07-2010, 07:17 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-07-2010, 10:37 PM by Xtreme2damax.)
(09-07-2010, 12:40 PM)NaturalViolence Wrote:Quote:GC alone is about twice as powerful as the PS2 The specifications that were listed for the GC/Wii, the PS2 is more complicated but it sucks in comparison as far as it's capabilities and features are concered, namely textures and polygon counts etc.. Capcom had to butcher Resident Evil 4 when porting it over to PS2. The PS2 version had lower polygon count, poor lighting effects compared to the GC/Wii versions, and the water texture/effects wasn't up to snuff with the GC/Wii versions Perhaps saying the GC is about twice as powerful is an exaggeration, but 1.5x more powerful is realistic I'd say. |
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