Some News Of Things To Come...


It will take a hell of a lot of work before 3d games come anywhere close to playing on a real playstation. I just really want to play the original wipeout on my gp2x. it works but takes forever to finish a lap.

I'm not saying it can't be done.

davec some coders just enjoy a challenge or enjoy doing whatever technical tricks they can do to get things to work. I mean thats what drives the whole demo scene. people don't try to write 3d games in 96k or 2d games in less than 4k because its easy and practical.

we were supposed to get a 2x to 3x speed increase with the dynarec. possibly a different implementation of a dynarec may actually get that result.

if they achieve a working psx emulator it sure is something to be proud of too.
 
you can't just compare the hardware... the PSX CPU runs only at 13 MHZ or what? or less? it has also a lot to do with the rest of the hardware, how efficient the cummunication between them is emulator and what not. It's has also to do with the compatibility of the PSX and GP2X hardware.. I know it's not that well, but there might be methods to make it fast anyway... so no you DON'T know what you're talking about I think it's a little bit more complex then you think.
 
DaveC Look at this HERE!

Thats not far off full speed ! not very 3D or anythin but still . Also look at my other videos again and see some other not bad ones. Some are playable.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
you can't just compare the hardware... the PSX CPU runs only at 13 MHZ or what? or less? it has also a lot to do with the rest of the hardware, how efficient the cummunication between them is emulator and what not. It's has also to do with the compatibility of the PSX and GP2X hardware.. I know it's not that well, but there might be methods to make it fast anyway... so no you DON'T know what you're talking about I think it's a little bit more complex then you think.
I think it was closer to 34 Mhz and it was also MIPS, compared to the ARM in the GP2x. Of course I'm pretty sure it also had a dedicated GPU and sound unit, a definite strain on the GP2X.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
DaveC Look at this HERE!

Thats not far off full speed ! not very 3D or anythin but still . Also look at my other videos again and see some other not bad ones. Some are playable.

leave him alone with his destructive argumentation.
this psx-emu is a milestone for the gp2x, and the developing level will not be the end! ;)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I'd hate to think all the talented dev guys stuck on just getting the SNES, etc emulators closer and closer to perfection. No-one thinks the PSX is an easy machine to emulate, but it's great to see people embracing the challenge. :)

People develop most of the time for the challenges - okay it's frustrating and you can sometimes feel demoralised when things fail or don't go to plan - but the journey is usually the best bit, not the destination. Obviously you need successes and with psx4all running as it is now - that _is_ a success!

Okay maybe zodttd/unai/tinnus are wasting their time - it's up to them. I know it's fun tracking what they're up to and seeing the results of their labours. They've got far further than I'd expected - a ground-up approach concentrating on (current) hardware limitations may well be the best bet..

Unfortunately there are people on this board who appear to be constantly negative about things; but that's just the way they are. I guess they're trying to be helpful; but they don't know everything.

It takes a long time for people to understand the limitations of a system and successes and failure are part of that development. Devs are constantly pushing the boundaries - look at what progress is being made on a weekly basis.

I've been an embedded software engineer for 22 years - I know the above reasons are why I do the job I do (it's definitely not the money!).

Kev
 
thanks kevcal!

i am no software engineer but i share your opinion. bending the limits of a machine and achieving something awesome is what it is about.

i mean we have a gameboy emulator, which is great! BUT nobody ever thought that we wouldn't see one on the gp2x.

and davec look at it like that: we are getting close to perfect snes emulation, we have neo geo, mame, and there are 2 or 3 gba emus in the works which all seem to progress nicely (or at least the ideas are coming along nicely)

so whats left to emulate? i think its psx right? and imagine final fantasy trilogie at say 25fps with sound (it doesn't have to be crystal clear) wouldn't that be cool? thats at least 120 hours of netto gameplay. if you do every sidequest you come close to 300 hours.

i say go on guys and get the holy grail of gp2x emulation! you are doing a great job!
 
I know this is going to be kind of flame inducing
What are you talking about? :rolleyes:

Why are so many developers willing to bang their head against the wall spending hours and hours of hard work on an emulator that can never be very playable due to the hardware limitations?

<blah blah blah>
How about showing some support for those *many* developers who waste their time not perfecting your precious SNES transparencies? How about being thankful that this community harbours such talented programmers, who are willing to spare their free time on projects that excite and bring joy to so many? I'm sure you don't mean to show much disrespect to developers as some of your posts lead me to believe, but that's what many perceive. *many*.

- Alex
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Yes the PSX runs at about 36 mhz...but the GP32X runs at 240 - 280 Mhz. There is no strict 'rule' on how much faster a CPU should be to emulate another system. And besides that there is still a possibility of using the other CPU in the GP2X.
I believe people know what they are talking about said it is NOT impossible to use the second CPU to get more performance.. only very hard...
so don't say NEVER... I too seriously doubt that the GP2X could ever emulate ALL PSX games at full speed, but I do think if we keep the developers motivated they can come up a PSX emulator that will run a decent amount of very cool PSX games at acceptable speed, and that would be well worth the efford they put in this :)
 
DaveC Look at this HERE!

Thats not far off full speed ! not very 3D or anythin but still . Also look at my other videos again and see some other not bad ones. Some are playable.

The game is barely 3D and relies entirely on sprite graphics. It is exceedingly simplistic with nearly no animation. And yet with so little going on, it still runs at an appallingly low framerate and is just barely playable. It is honestly impressive the emulator got this fast, but it is still USELESSLY SLOW because of the HARDWARE IT RUNS ON. This is potentially the worst example possible to state a case for the GP2X emulating the PSX.

we were supposed to get a 2x to 3x speed increase with the dynarec. possibly a different implementation of a dynarec may actually get that result.
It won't ever happen, because most of the stress of emulating the system is not handling R3000A/GTE instructions, it's rendering a frame. Rendering the frame on its own with NO CPU and NO GTE to emulate, and NO AUDIO, would still not be able to achieve the full 30 FPS in the majority of cases just because the CPUs in the GP2X are in no way, shape or form suited for 3D rendering. The reason ARM recommends the VFP9 Vector Floating Point Unit and PowerVR MBX-RS coprocessors is because a bare ARM9 core is balls-slow at floating point and 3D operations of any sort.

Yes the PSX runs at about 32 mhz...but the GP32X runs at 240 - 280 Mhz. There is no strict 'rule' on how much faster a CPU should be to emulate another system. And besides that there is still a possibility of using the other CPU in the GP2X.
I believe people know what they are talking about said it is NOT impossible to use the second CPU to get more performance.. only very hard...
so don't say NEVER... I too seriously doubt that the GP2X could ever emulate ALL PSX games at full speed, but I do think if we keep the developers motivated they can come up a PSX emulator that will run a decent amount of very cool PSX games at acceptable speed, and that would be well worth the efford they put in this :)
You aren't getting it. Not only is the PSX's CPU a 34 MHz (not 36 MHz) 32-bit chip, that is a huge task to emulate on even a *300* MHz ARM9 (generally, the processor doing the emulation should be 10x as fast or so is the common convention, though you cannot just act on clockrate alone, there are more factors.) The issue is, not only is the CPU hard as hell to emulate at full speed on the GP2X's ARM920T, but on top of that there is the Geometric Transform Engine to emulate, which is loads of floating point code, and the GP2X has no FPU, at all. Then you have the worst part-- the 3D RENDERER. The GP2X has NO 3D SUPPORT AT ALL, PERIOD and draws 3D scenes at a snail's pace for even the simplest games. The ARM940T processor is just as poorly suited to 3D rendering as the 920T, even worse because it has a quarter as much cache. Also, its use of the bus is so ass-backwards that most of the time, heavily working the ARM940T lags the 920T to the point where it would've been faster just to work with the first processor only. There are isolated exceptions, but they don't involve intensive 3D work. Passing around this much data per frame will pound the bus between processors and memory into a bloody pulp.

PSX emulation will never be much faster than it is now. It will never achieve full speed in even simple games except perhaps a homebrew demo that just flips a few cubes around. Final Fantasy VII will never run properly. Just accept it, drop it, and move on, for god's sake. The facts are right in front of you. Pick them up, look them over, suck it up and drive on. Emulate something else.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Epicenter said:
Emulate something else.
Ah, yes. Thanks for the tip. So all you great programmers, stop working on a PSX emulator, because Epicenter (The expert in emulation) wrote it makes no sense. So you must obey...

(Must stop now. Searching for the "ignore" function...)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Epicenter said:
Emulate something else.
Ah, yes. Thanks for the tip. So all you great programmers, stop working on a PSX emulator, because Epicenter (The expert in emulation) wrote it makes no sense. So you must obey...

(Must stop now. Searching for the "ignore" function...)
If you disagree with me and cannot provide one single coherent reason why, you're proving my point and spewing misplaced anger at someone who is simply stating the facts. But I see that's not specifically directed at me, as you lot have been giving the same act to DaveC for stating the same facts in much the same manner. It's no disrespect to the involved programmers if they could be better spending their time on something else. Hell, I vote PSX4ALL still be maintained, it'll be a great thing to use on more capable hardware down the line, with a real OpenGL rendering engine-- Zodttd expressed great interest in doing just that for any 3D-capable successor machine from GP or GPH. But for the GP2X? It's a futile cause and the manhours are better spent on something much more productive. You can throw all the hopes and dreams and compliments about how good a programmer is at a problem but that won't make it more feasible than it was before.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Epicenter said:
Emulate something else.
Ah, yes. Thanks for the tip. So all you great programmers, stop working on a PSX emulator, because Epicenter (The expert in emulation) wrote it makes no sense. So you must obey...

(Must stop now. Searching for the "ignore" function...)
If you disagree with me and cannot provide one single coherent reason why, you're proving my point and spewing misplaced anger at someone who is simply stating the facts. But I see that's not specifically directed at me, as you lot have been giving the same act to DaveC for stating the same facts in much the same manner. It's no disrespect to the involved programmers if they could be better spending their time on something else. Hell, I vote PSX4ALL still be maintained, it'll be a great thing to use on more capable hardware down the line, with a real OpenGL rendering engine-- Zodttd expressed great interest in doing just that for any 3D-capable successor machine from GP or GPH. But for the GP2X? It's a futile cause and the manhours are better spent on something much more productive. You can throw all the hopes and dreams and compliments about how good a programmer is at a problem but that won't make it more feasible than it was before.
i disagree with you epicenter here,s why
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utmFkamvMdU
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Try something that's actually halfway stressful and get back to me. The PSX is doing fuck-all in what you just showed me, and it's still running at about half the proper framerate, and often dips below that.
 
The best PSX games were 2D RPGs, which weren't very stressful at all. If it can run those, a lot of people will be very happy.

As it stands, I've played at least two fun games which ran at full speed, Finger Flashing and Bonanza Bros.

For an emulator to be enjoyable, not every single game has to run at 60FPS. If only a handful become playable, well, that's still a handful more games you can play on your GP2X than you could before. I don't see how that's a bad thing.

I'm looking forward to chui, unai, and Tinnus proving you wrong :)
 
The best PSX games were 2D RPGs, which weren't very stressful at all. If it can run those, a lot of people will be very happy.

Ah, I was wondering what exactly people expected to be able to emulate at a playable rate. Makes a lot more sense now, to me. I was never a PSX fan, none of the games really looked like they were any good. But now at least I understand what the project could potentially accomplish: a playable subset of the available 2D PSX games.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
@Epicenter

a lot of people (like me) are satisfied with this emu.
what is your problem with psx-emulation? maybe it will never be perfect, but it is an enrichment
that senseless babbling about impossible, to slow, develop other things...
zodttd and the team developed an emulator the community was waiting for. the gameboy is portable enough!
constructive critique?
this projekt was not senseless, some games perform well in perfect optics!

thanks to the fantastic 4 !!!!
 
If all you want is 20-30 FPS on 2D RPGs and 10 or less FPS on anything 3D or intensive, then fine, you already have your dream come true. I don't have a 'problem' with PSX emulation, but the more hype there is, the more people get brought to the GP2X like I've seen recently just to play PSX games, and then they are utterly disappointed. I do not find the best games available for the PSX to be RPGs, however, and I imagine a lot of people share my views-- if an emulator is to be worthwhile it shouldn't just run a tiny handful of games. This is why PSX emulation is ill-suited to the GP2X and I am glad the code remains portable so it can achieve something more appreciable on a later platform.
 
Back
Top