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N64 Emulator for DC

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 1:07 pm
by JS Lemming
http://dcemu.co.uk/dcnincest64.shtml

I thought people argued that this was impossible??? What up wit dat?

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2005 5:04 pm
by Falco Girgis
They were right, it is impossible or at least to an extent.

Nincest is a DC port of an SDL emulator. First of all, the vast majority of N64 games are somewhere between 32 and 64MB. Only older games like Mario64 are 16MB. Let's assume that the emulator is REALLY optimized and can be loaded into the RAM using under an MB. You've still got to have room for the rom (the DC just doesn't load from a CD fast enough that gameplay would be feasible loading off the CD). Lets assume that you do have room for the rom (which lots of times you do).

The N64 is actually a very powerful system. The SDL port has been partially rewritten using the DC's PVR I believe. Even now they still haven't properly emulated a startup screen right. Nincest is not anywhere near playable and most people believe that it never will be.

That's okay, though because it's still awesome. I believe one day it'll be playable though not full speed.

Most argue though that the RAM wouldn't be a problem because the main objective would be to get N64 homebrew up and running on DC (which would indeed be possible). So yeah, Nincest has alot of potential, but it still has a long way to go.

A few other hardcore "I thought that was impossible" projects that are going on (or were) are:
1) GameBoy Advance emu for DC
2) Sega Saturn Emu for DC.

Man, these would really be cool. The GBA emu actually boasts partial completeness and lots of games are actually playable (I don't think the devver has released it yet, though). The Sega Saturn emu is being made by BlueCrab. He's done a great job so far and I think he's gotten the BIOS of the Saturn fully running on the DC.

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2005 7:26 am
by JS Lemming
I think every emu should use the power of the PVR. That way maybe some decent frame rates would exist. The best SNES emu for DC has such a sick frame rate... I couln't take it.

Now why would the GBA emu be called impossible?

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2005 8:02 am
by Falco Girgis
JS Lemming wrote:I think every emu should use the power of the PVR. That way maybe some decent frame rates would exist. The best SNES emu for DC has such a sick frame rate... I couln't take it.

Now why would the GBA emu be called impossible?
Most GBA games are over 16MB. I think there was some other stuff.

Yeah, all emus should use the power of the PVR, but at times it isn't that practical. Almost all DC emus are SDL ports of others on the PC already. Rewriting it to use the PVR is a bit more than porting. But yeah, it's cool.

DreamSNES's framerate wasn't that bad. Or at least I thought. I like SNES emulation on DC and it only gets fairly bad when I play stuff like Donkey Kong Country and Super Mario RPG. Both are playable on DC though.

Both Genesis and SNES still have a ways to go before their emulation on DC is perfect, but they're making it there.