Uae Portrd By Squidqe


declaration posted on Oct 11 2005 at 10:10 PM said:
DaveC- that list is so pessimistic.

Just look how good SNES is on the GP32. Its not perfect by any means, but its great considering the limitations. The GP2X hasnt even been released yet, but we have UAE running at 10fps.
What did the GP32 have at a similar period? Not much.

I don't think it is pessimistic exactly, just realistic. That list is basically what can be expected from what devs that have the system have been saying about it. The below statement leads me to believe that the second core has some serious HARDWARE limitations that make some things not too likely, even impossible like NeoGeo with full speed and full sound.

Squidge posted on Oct 10 2005 at 08:38 PM said:
the problem with that would be getting the blitter or audio to synchronize with the 68K processor being emulated on the other processor. I think the closest we'll be able to get is having all the emulation done on one processor, and the actual graphics and audio output (not emulation) being done on the other. Should still save quite a bit of time.

Eventually there will be some tricks found but there still is a limit. The CPUs do not equal one 400 MHz CPU, not for emulation anyway. With that in mind that list was made. I am open for anything though. If Squidge or and of the devs with units correct that list I will believe them. It was kind of put there for their scrutiny too. If there is something wrong there thay can point it out.

As far as SNES goes on the GP32 yes it runs, slowly with mono sound and no transparencies. If the second CPU is basically only used to output sound and as a framebuffer it won't improve much on the GP2X. It will be like as stated it will run smoother but without transparencies. Transparencies would give a big hit to performance. They even bring the much more powerful PSP to it's knees.
 
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Esn posted on Oct 12 2005 at 01:33 AM said:
I don't know if you realize this DaveC, but your list is pretty much a dead-on listing of how well emulators work on the GP32

...I'd imagine that the GP2X would be a bit more powerfull... :huh:


Yeah but for alot of things the GP2X will be like a 200 MHz GP32. Until there is some breakthrough that proves otherwise that list pretty much stands. There will be some things that will not be changed even with time like the absence of a MMU etc.

I suppose if someone really devotes tons of time and effort with optimising and tweaking and alot of ASM the list can be improved within the bounds of physics. For "ports" though (which most emus will be) that list seems accurate.

Time will tell all.
 
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LOL. I love your technobable and your SNES orintated PSP biased perspective on things.
 
Speaking as a developer, a lot more is possible with the GP2X than DaveC gives credit for. His pessimism serves a purpose, as it prevents people from getting their hopes up. However, Very Nice Things (tm) will be possible on the GP2X in time, even if I have to see to it myself.
 
It's all very well predicting the future, but don't try and predict too much - no one knows what is possible until they actually start porting and working on the stuff. For example, I bet you never expected DrMD to work as good as it did on the GP32 ?
 
Maybe Reesy uses black magic, but thankfully, I suspect he'll be weaving same on GP2X :)

Just ordered mine from GBAX, can't hardly wait - half the fun is seeing what the devs what can come up with :)
 
Well, I've certainly got some tricks up my sleave, and they seem to producing some quite nice so far. Just need to get the bugs worked out :)
 
No, I don't use that one. My GP2X version is from E-UAE.

I had another play with Cyclone today as mine is taking an absolute age to get anywhere (development wise), but Cyclone just doesn't seem compatible enough to run Amiga stuff - gets itself into infinite loops and I can see data registers being set with incorrect values (although not straight away - normally 5 seconds or so into emulation).
 
Well, to be fair, Cyclone took 6 months before it got to the stage it was at when we first saw it, so I'm not too surprised yours is taking a while to get anywhere... that said, I'm looking forward to whatever you end up producing. Amiga emulation, as everyone knows, would be *exceedingly* cool...
 
To DaveC: Like everyone else has said, you're way too pessimistic. You're only taking into account one way that the second processor can be used, when I'm sure it can be used hundreds of different ways to speed up emulation. The authors of the emulators just need to get creative with how the second processor is used, and I'm sure, in time, it will be closer to running like a 400mhz processor then running like a 200mhz processor.
 
A couple questions about what you have working so far, Squidge...

Will you/me/anyone need Kickstart romfiles to use the emulator?
Which ones are so far compatible with the emulator? 1.3/2.04/3.0/3.1?
Is floppy drive yet emulated, and if so, just one floppy drive?
 
Yes, developers can't just jump in and use the full capability of the machine - it does take time to learn the techniques and tricks.

Winterkid:

Yes, you will need kickstart romfiles. I've only tested 1.3 so far, as that one is by far the most popular. However, as I'm going for a standard Amiga 500 with between 512KB and 2MB of chip for performance reasons, I don't see many uses for kickstart 2.0 and above.

2 floppy drives are currently emulated, which should be enough for most things.
 
Squidge posted on Oct 14 2005 at 07:07 AM said:
Yes, developers can't just jump in and use the full capability of the machine - it does take time to learn the techniques and tricks.

Winterkid:

Yes, you will need kickstart romfiles. I've only tested 1.3 so far, as that one is by far the most popular. However, as I'm going for a standard Amiga 500 with between 512KB and 2MB of chip for performance reasons, I don't see many uses for kickstart 2.0 and above.

2 floppy drives are currently emulated, which should be enough for most things.

Moonstone is much better with 4 floppys emulated :ph34r:
 
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Well, it will not actually take much (development wise) to emulate more floppies, so it'll probably end up being a config option to support from 1 to 4 floppies.
 
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