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[tangomar]

Hi,

would it be possible to port yabause to the XBOX?
There is a PSP port of it that is using dynarec cores for the SH-2 processors and I wonder if that would give any hope for the XBOX as well.

thanks

[Darknior]

Yes, i stand bye it too lol
I think it is possible ...

[Pulsemasta]

This is from Xports request thread regarding Cassini, another Saturn emulator

QUOTE

Cassini/Saturn - While technically the source is available for this Saturn emulator, it is primarily one (very) large assembly file which looks like it was created by simply running the GiriGiri EXE file through a disassembler. Porting x86 assembly to the XBox is not generally a problem, but in this case the code makes all sorts of calls to Windows GDI routines that are not implemented in the XBox SDK. This means that in order to port it, I'd have to implement those API calls myself or try to hand-edit the assembly file. Both of those tasks would be extremely tedious and therefore this project is not something that particularly interests me.

In that long post he never once said the Xbox couldnt handle the Saturn, or that it would run too slow or anything.... which means there may be hope. The only problem would be finding a coder who wants to port Yabause or other.

If the PSP can run it with 333MHz CPU and 32MB of RAM then I would hope the Xbox  

[butanebob]

I highly doubt the xbox has enough cpu power to run a Saturn emulator. Don't hold your breath...

[madmab]

Well that does bring up a few questions...

How is the yaubuse performance on the PSP?
How is the compatibility in yaubuse?

I've seen dynamic cores really speed things up so you'd be surprised.. But the Saturn was like a mish mash of different processors.  Just think 32x times 5..

[Pulsemasta]

QUOTE(butanebob @ Sep 17 2010, 03:24 AM)

I highly doubt the xbox has enough cpu power to run a Saturn emulator. Don't hold your breath...

I wouldn't hold my breath on someone porting it, but the Xbox is more than capable of running at least some games as good or better than current ports

Xbox
Processor: Intel Pentium III 733 MHz  
RAM: 64 MB of DDR SDRAM @ 200 MHz
Graphics Processor: 233 MHz nVidia NV2A

Systems that have a Yabause port

Dreamcast
Processor: Hitachi SH4 RISC 200 MHz
Graphics Processor: 100 MHz PowerVR2 CLX2

PSP
Processor: MIPS R4000-based 333 MHz
RAM: 32 MB, or 64MB in the 2000, 3000, and PSPGo models.

Wii
Processor: IBM PowerPC 729 MHz
Graphics Processor: ATI Hollywood 243 MHz


I would say if there was an Xbox port it would be miles ahead of the Dreamcast port, and the PSP.... Wii might be the same

Food for thought  

[hcf]

Wow, it would be a dream!! The question asked for madmab is very important. Let's see if anyone can test Yabause in a PSP and tell us how it goes.

If it goes well in a PSP (or even in a Dreamcast) we can dream!! Having a new system emulated would be a great resurrection for the black box...

[tangomar]

QUOTE(madmab @ Sep 16 2010, 10:42 PM)

Well that does bring up a few questions...

How is the yaubuse performance on the PSP?
How is the compatibility in yaubuse?

I've seen dynamic cores really speed things up so you'd be surprised.. But the Saturn was like a mish mash of different processors.  Just think 32x times 5..

I can only find a few videos on youtube. Some run smooth, others are quite slow.
The other problem is that yabause hasn't had much activity lately (maybe dead).

The PSP porting author said that he designed the recompiler to be portable to other target architectures. He also has in mind some other possible optimizations since the actual SH2 compiler is in fact a Mips compiler instead. If you ask him kindly he might reply to performance/compatibility questions as well.

Another interesting point is that mame is currently developing a "universal dynamic recompiler". Don't know if it could be re-used for all the Saturn CPUs (at least SH2 and 68K).

[cheema201]

hmmm... Sega Saturn or Sega Pico

Choose your destiny

[dnyce1987]

SEGA SATURN ALL THE WAY!!! WOOT WOOT! We'll be patiently waiting no hurries .

[hcf]

Madmab, do you think that it would be usefull to test Yabause for Windows or Linux (or any other emulator for Windows or Linux!!) in a virtual machine made with VMWare or something similar, with similar performance to an Xbox? Maybe it is a more accurate test to see if something can be ported?

I say this because a PSP is less powerfull than a Xbox, so maybe testing Yabause in a PSP is not enough: if Yabause goes bad in a PSP, it does not mean that Xbox is not capable of doing it. Besides, I know that there are newer models named "PSP Slim" and "PSP Lite" with 64 MB RAM, but I don't know anyone who owns them.

The question about testing programs in a Virtual Machine to see whether a program can be ported or not, is valid for every program (not only Yabause). I am thinking about future emulators (Nintendo DS emulator for Xbox?) or programs (Flash players?)

[jojones88]

There is no way it would be worth all the time put in coding to play the 1 or 2 games that could possibly be playable...

[cheema201]

I am slightly in league with jojones88.. though that is only if compatibility would be unstable. I think it would definately be prudent to test yabause on a machine with similar specs to the xbox, to gauge some sort of idea as to the limits of compatibility.

Even then, if more than a handful of games were playable on the xbox then it would be yet another great addition to the scene. Many people think that the xbox is dead, but look at how much attention hyper eyes port of doom has brought! This may yet be the last emulator ported to the original xbox, who knows.

[hcf]

The last emulator? Don't forget Sega Pico!!!  

Speaking seriously... I like to think that there are lots of emulators still coming. For example an emulator of the PC-9801 maybe will be feasible in the future    

And even I have faith in having a Flash player in the future. I have seen recently some implementations of Flash based on Javascript (for example smokescreen). Maybe in the future the code can be ported from Javascript to C# and compiled for a Xbox. Who knows...

The Xbox is far from dead!!!  

[tangomar]

XBOX emulation depends on the people interest. I agree that the Saturn might not add many titles to the one already available for PS1 and N64. Also Saturn was kind of a flop back in the days and a difficult machine to deal with.

But, what can be emulated anymore? Dreamcast and PS2 are out of reach IMO.

Long life to xbox1 emulation scene.