Quote:
Originally posted by lunitunez
hey guys im lost here, im no expert when it comes to programming but how is a psx emu possible on dc (bleemcast) but yet a n64 is not?
|
First of all speed:
PSX has a 33.8MHz R3000A (32-bit, no FPU) while the N64 has a 93.75 MHz R4300i (64-bit, with FPU), while the DC has a 200MHz SH-4.
And secondly, as I wrote above, memory is an issue:
The PSX has 2MB RAM, 1MB VRAM, and 512K sound buffer, so of the 16MB RAM of the DC over 12MB can be used for the emulator, especially the translation cache of the dynarec.
The N64 has 4MB unified memory, so you also have 12MB left after you reserved space for the N64 RAM, but unlike the PSX the N64 doesn't get game data from CD-ROMs but from a ROM cartridge which has to be held in memory for the whole time to get a decent speed.
Even a small game like Mario64 has a 8MB ROM, so you have only 4MB left for the emulator and the translation cache, which isn't much but it could work, although it will be too slow (see above).
But if you won't be able to even use any larger games because they simply don't fit into the DC's RAM! Eg. Zelda has a 32MB ROM, which is twice as much as the RAM of the DC.
Resume: It just isn't worth it to make a N64 because it will be too slow and because any game with a ROM larger than 8MB is impossible to emulate anyway.