(07-01-2014, 03:03 PM)Shonumi Wrote:cdoublejj Wrote:you'd think after all these years and the recent work on N64 that N64 emulation would be further along and be multi platform.
I can see how those who aren't programmers or familiar with the deep down-and-dirty workings of emulation could make that assumption. The fact is, however, that in comparison to the Wii, the N64 emu-scene has historically had both a lot less effort gone into reverse engineering things completely ("just HLE it" they said :p), a lot less effort in overall development (seriously Dolphin probably has more commits and hours dedicated than any other console emulator I know of), and the documentation is notably sparser. So yeah, RE work, effort spent on a project, and documentation are all pretty big factors that determined why Wii emulation has seemingly outpaced N64 emulation.
The conditions were simply better for people to make an accurate Wii emulator before an accurate N64 emulator. When it comes to Dolphin's N64 emulation, Dolphin also has the advantage of not really giving a crap about what kinds of quirky things the N64 hardware had, or any little small undocumented features, or any of the other stumbling blocks that actual N64 emulators face. To Dolphin, the VCs are just another program containing PPC code that tell it what instructions to run, what graphics to draw with the Wii's GPU and when, and what sounds to process with the Wii's DSP and when. Nintendo already wrote the N64 emulation in the VC, all Dolphin has to do is be a good Wii and run Nintendo's code faithfully.
But I'm still waiting for Mario Tennis on Mupen64Plus to reach perfection. Mario Golf too.
Yeah I supposed I could have worded that better. You'd think there would have also been more interest and or effort but, perhaps we still lack more information on how the N64 work or perhaps it works just good enough to keep every one happy.
It makes you wonder how they figure out how the console chips and operating system work in the first place to even start making and emulator. At the risk of starting a run away thread I sometimes wonder when and how the R700 GPU in the Wii U will get such attention/research. Obviously there is quite a lot of work to be done for the wii let alone the N64.... let alone and current gen console like the U.
I also wonder how emulating the wii would work on powerfully PPC computers like the last gen dual Qaud CORE PPC machines apple made and sold... obviously being closed platform the GPU options are limited to due to the drivers and PPC EFI but, i often wonder how much emulation could be tweaked/cut down and instead converted or something on the CPU side sine they are both PPC.... assuming they are the same kind of PPC... as i learned not to long ago there is more than 1 kind of PPC.