I wonder why there's no low-level N64 emulation yet.

[Flojomojo]

We've had HLE, high level emulation, for almost twenty years, and it's been great for letting us play most of the N64 catalog. I think it's neat that we can swap out textures and run the geometry in crazy high resolutions.

 

Yet we still can't play many of the games with custom microcode, like the Factor 5 games. I'd think that hardware is fast enough. It seems like it's just a lack of motivation to do this, since most of our favorites run well enough as is.

 

I see there's a project called Cen64, which seems to be the right track

http://forums.cen64.com

 

and I see this discussion, which explains the situation pretty well

https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/28mifq/why_is_there_no_good_n64_emulators_yet/

 

What's the feeling here? "use the original hardware?"

[Keatah]

Open source, complexity, and motivation are the three main issues. Eventually we'll get there.

[Clint Thompson]

I dunno... I can head down to the local shop and still pickup a used completel N64 for $35 so I suppose the need to emulate it at this point still remains unnecessary over the cost of real hardware playing a large role.

[Osgeld]

It's a pain in the ass architecture using from the ground up design

 

Even the Saturn uses off the shelf sharp chips found in various things then and onwards... A custom SGI design... Not so much

Edited April 24, 2016 by Osgeld

[mbd30]

Even low level SNES and Genesis emulation is a complicated beast and requires a somewhat fast PC. Low level N64 emulation would be much more demanding than that, and I dunno if programmers understand the hardware well enough.

[Keatah]

Open source, complexity, and motivation are the three main issues. Eventually we'll get there.

and I dunno if programmers understand the hardware well enough.

 

They do not.

[iwasaperson]

Even low level SNES and Genesis emulation is a complicated beast and requires a somewhat fast PC. Low level N64 emulation would be much more demanding than that, and I dunno if programmers understand the hardware well enough.

Try out MarathonMan's uber experimental multithreaded RDP. Runs 150% full speed on my computer.

Then again, the regular single-threaded version also runs 85-100% on my computer.

[akator]

I don't think skill or knowledge is the problem here.

 

Most emulator development is done by volunteers in their spare time. With only 24 hours in each day to earn a living, eat, spend with family, and sleep that doesn't leave much time for emulator development.

 

We would have more emulator development if the people required for the work could make a living doing it.

[mbd30]

I don't think skill or knowledge is the problem here.

 

Most emulator development is done by volunteers in their spare time. With only 24 hours in each day to earn a living, eat, spend with family, and sleep that doesn't leave much time for emulator development.

 

We would have more emulator development if the people required for the work could make a living doing it.

 

You really need a dedicated genius with a single minded quest for accuracy such as byuu to get it done well.