Pandora Handheld Emulator List?


Okay, I'll chime.. ARMv5 on ARM9 IS a subset of what we see on Pandora.. for the most part, but I've mentioned a lot before why I think that a virtualization approach is a bad idea for GBA and DS, here are some bullet points:

- No cycle counting = no fine grained control over when things are executed, this is especially bad when you consider that official DS games rely on the ARM7 and ARM9 to be within several dozen cycles of each other during their initialization procedures.
- No cycle counting also means you're fixed to using external interrupts, which means you can't very reliably increase the speed without breaking the game.
- And since DS games have events happening hundreds of times per scanline this means relying on hardware interrupts a lot - going through Linux means a lot of overhead for this.
- And if the game isn't fast enough to run at 60fps it could just end up breaking instead of slowing down, without giving you an opportunity to do things like auto frameskip.
- This also means that if a big slowdown event, like say something else stopping to load a file in the background, causes it to be late by just a little bit on one of its interrupts then you can get seriously screwed... with a normal emulator this would just be a little speed blip at worst.
- Accesses to I/O regs have to go through Linux signals and would be slower.. contrary to what Stephane Hockenhull said earlier games really do sometimes start hammering registers for transfers instead of using DMA.
- ARM doesn't allow certain system instructions to cause exceptions in user mode, they just silently fail instead - this is going to be bad for when an NDS games uses a cp15 instruction and relies on it to work (and they do).
- Same goes for SWI, and the games expect to be able to change all the vectors too.
- Have to fight with Linux for the address space.
- Although ARMv7 allows setting pages to execute only, allowing you to track + invalidate code when overwritten (especially in non-cached regions like ITCM and ARM7 WRAM), it's not more fine grained than a page which would cause headaches fast.
- Would be really hard to debug when something doesn't work. Can't synchronize it to an emulator written for say, PC.

If you think "so just throw out Linux" would be a good way to get around some of these things then think again, because not only would accessing many external things w/o Linux be total hell but there's no chance of using the SGX without it.

Near-kun said:
Oh, as mentioned. The ARM7 is used just for sound processing. So, even if the Pandora can't provide us the 1:1 experience with sound, without sound it really looks like it could be achieved...

Actually the ARM7 on DS also gives you touchscreen, the X/Y buttons, and for at least some games savegames. I think you want these things at least as much as you want sound.

But I certainly wouldn't write off DS emulation in a more "normal" fashion just yet. Not saying it'll be doable on Pandora, even at 850MHz, but bare in mind that just because DS has 66 and 33MHz ARMs doesn't mean that games use all of the CPU all of the time, especially not the ARM7 which is only running official Nintendo code. For instance I've had New Super Mario Bros quoted at something like 7 million instructions/second on the ARM9 and 1 million on the ARM7, in the middle of the first level. That's not that bad.
 
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Exophase said:
But I certainly wouldn't write off DS emulation in a more "normal" fashion just yet. Not saying it'll be doable on Pandora, even at 850MHz, but bare in mind that just because DS has 66 and 33MHz ARMs doesn't mean that games use all of the CPU all of the time, especially not the ARM7 which is only running official Nintendo code. For instance I've had New Super Mario Bros quoted at something like 7 million instructions/second on the ARM9 and 1 million on the ARM7, in the middle of the first level. That's not that bad.

Oh, don't take MIPS too seriously >_> that's not an accurate measure to performance. It really depends on the complexity of the instructions...
Not that it matters, I've got your point.
And I didn't really knew that the ARM7 did more than handling the sound. I guess I haven't done research enough. -.-
Thanks for clarifying this, Exo
 
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Near-kun said:
Oh, don't take MIPS too seriously >_> that's not an accurate measure to performance. It really depends on the complexity of the instructions...

Sure, a breakdown of what instructions are being executed will tell you more, but you can tell for sure that it's not doing nearly as many as the CPU can. That's all that matters. Unless they're all load multiples or something then it doesn't look like a big emulator load.
 
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I'd like pandora versions of the the best GP2X emulators at launch or early after: gpfce, Picodrive, Temper, Stella, gp2xhandy (lynx emu), gngeo and of course mame.
 
Exophase said:
Near-kun said:
Oh, don't take MIPS too seriously >_> that's not an accurate measure to performance. It really depends on the complexity of the instructions...

Sure, a breakdown of what instructions are being executed will tell you more, but you can tell for sure that it's not doing nearly as many as the CPU can. That's all that matters. Unless they're all load multiples or something then it doesn't look like a big emulator load.

Tread softly, Exophase.. for you are treading on my dreams ;_; I assume you dream... Exophase..
 
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Paradox said:
Tread softly, Exophase.. for you are treading on my dreams ;_; I assume you dream... Exophase..
Hahaha and there I was thinking it sounded pretty positive. ;)
 
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Paradox said:
Tread softly, Exophase.. for you are treading on my dreams ;_; I assume you dream... Exophase..

Secretly I may dream of DS on Pandora more than anyone else.
 
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Personally I don't give a damn about your silly pandora until it can emulate 3DO, the master of all consoles
 
Confirmed: Exophase is working on a DS Emulator :p

(Wouldn't surprise me, with his extensive knowledge in all things GBA and his incredibly detailed analysis of what difficulties are involved in DS emulation and the fact he hasn't posted anything on his blog site for years, or worked on his GBA emulator for what seems like a good while too) :p
 
PoisonedV said:
Personally I don't give a damn about your silly pandora until it can emulate 3DO, the master of all consoles

I wish there was a sarcasm filter on these boards, and they made you start using it.

Also you're a girl now? And here people were saying you're not a troll >_>

MDave said:
Confirmed: Exophase is working on a DS Emulator :p

(Wouldn't surprise me, with his extensive knowledge in all things GBA and his incredibly detailed analysis of what difficulties are involved in DS emulation and the fact he hasn't posted anything on his blog site for years, or worked on his GBA emulator for what seems like a good while too) :p

Don't underestimate my ability to do nothing useful for years! I did do a PC-Engine emulator, but even that was mostly settled a good long time ago. gpSP is dead to me.
 
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PoisonedV said:
Personally I don't give a damn about your silly pandora until it can emulate 3DO, the master of all consoles
I actually want 3DO :blush: I will not leave any version of Road Rash unplayed. Shame the guy behind FreeDO is such a ****** ***** ***** ** **** **** ****.

They're actual words, not just random asterixes.
 
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Gruso said:
PoisonedV said:
Personally I don't give a damn about your silly pandora until it can emulate 3DO, the master of all consoles
I actually want 3DO :blush: I will not leave any version of Road Rash unplayed. Shame the guy behind FreeDO is such a ****** ***** ***** ** **** **** ****.

They're actual words, not just random asterixes.
I know, 3D0 has great classics such as plumbers dont wear ties and The Super Model - Gail McKenna among many other fantastic, similar titles!
 
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Gruso said:
PoisonedV said:
Personally I don't give a damn about your silly pandora until it can emulate 3DO, the master of all consoles
I actually want 3DO :blush: I will not leave any version of Road Rash unplayed. Shame the guy behind FreeDO is such a ****** ***** ***** ** **** **** ****.

They're actual words, not just random asterixes.

Is there an "S"?


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EDIT: multi spaces are striped. Bugger for lining stuff up.
 
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may88 said:
EDIT: multi spaces are striped. Bugger for lining stuff up.
That's what the code tags are for :)
Code:
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Gruso said:
PoisonedV said:
Personally I don't give a damn about your silly pandora until it can emulate 3DO, the master of all consoles
I actually want 3DO :blush: I will not leave any version of Road Rash unplayed. Shame the guy behind FreeDO is such a ****** ***** ***** ** **** **** ****.

They're actual words, not just random asterixes.

I agree, I still play my 3DO to this day and I still think Road Rash on it was more fun than any other iteration! It is actually the game that sold the system for me when I saw it on QVC way back when (LOL). It was also a cool system in that there was no worries with copy protection.
 
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It's a shame the FreeDO guy is being such a donkey, I would of loved to see the 3DO being showed some love for a change. I loved the 3DO and I've got a load of games for it in the attic collecting dust just waiting for a descent emulator to play them on. I'm kinda hoping someone will take up the challenge of doing an emulator on the pandora but it wont be any time soon though i don't think. Nice dream though :rolleyes:
 
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