2600 emulation, on the low end.

[Atari-Jess]

Just a question, I'm sure its been asked before, but now in the year 2005,

I bet it has not yet been asked.

 

Anyway,

 

Anyone who's been in the emulation scene long enough has used Nesticle.

Even today it has proven to be a useable emulator and plays the great

majority of NES games.

 

And for those who have used it, I'm certain a great many of them have

used it on a 486.

 

For those who have (ones with clock co-processors that is) you've found that

it runs actually quite well, and experience practically smooth framerates

even with 25mhz and 4mb of ram.

 

 

This however, is not the case with A26, or Z26 on such a similar system.

A26, runs quite wretchedly and Z26 runs about the same although with

much improved quality on the visuals and compatibility and so on.

 

While programming is much easier for the NES, it would seem to me

that emulation would not be, due to the extra simplcity of the machines

design.

 

So, if I may ask, what is the cause of the higher system requirements

for z26? (DOS) Is it the way it is compiled? If I were to have it compiled in

a different manner, on a different compiler would I have improved speed?

 

Or is it simply, that I am incorrect and the VCS is just as hard to emulate

as it is to program.

 

Does Z26 take advantage of higher level commands that take up more

CPU power although make programming it simpler?

 

Or a third (although perhaps the most insulting) possibility, is z26 simply

bloated in comparison to Nesticle?

 

The answer is greatly appreciated!

[NE146]

I can't answer your question.... But I do know that as far back as 1995/6 or so when the first vcs emulators started trickling out.. I tried most of them on a 66mhz machine and always remember them being having less than spectacular results (although I remember being VERY excited at seeing an orange dot in the top left of my moniter on that very first 2600 emulator.. what the heck was it.. dos2600? I forget.) Anyway, it was pretty much this way all the way up until PCAE came out.. even the emulator on that Activision Classics compilation for the pc paled in comparison.. remember that one? You could sub in your own rom images and rename them to what it was looking for and thus play a lot of other games .

 

Anyway, PCAE. That's what I remember would work fine on a low end pc. Maybe look for an early version of that? (like Nesticle.. the DOS version). I'd imagine it'd work a lot better on an older pc than win-based Z26.

[Atari-Jess]

the latest PCAE runs rather well, just fast enough to be playable, thanks NE.

 

 

Oh and I meant 33mhz, not 25.

[Atari-Jess]

Any one know where I can find older versions of PCAE?

[Atari-Jess]

nevermind, I just googled slight file changes and it found itself.

[+FujiSkunk]

You've probably heard about how the Atari 2600 ended up being capable of far more than the original design called for. This was mostly the result of programmers trying bits of code that, according to the specs, should not have run at all, but in reality allowed the 2600 to go beyond its established limits. While it would be fairly straightforward to write an emulator that runs Atari 2600 code the way it is "supposed" to be run, you would actually break a fair number of games in doing so! So, an Atari 2600 emulator not only has to know how to do things the right way, but also how to do things the wrong way, and then which way to use at any given moment. This requirement makes Atari 2600 emulators bigger and more CPU-intensive than they might otherwise be.

 

JeffVav, over in the "Atari Anthology First Impressions" thread, plugged an article he wrote about how Atari 2600 emulation is actually a more complex task than emulation of later machines, presumably including the NES. I haven't read the article myself, because that site requires registration, but you might find some additional insight there.

[Atari-Jess]

Interesting and appreciated.

[Keatah]

what's happening is that you have to deal with a high-level language and compiler when you write the emulator. also, the pentium I/II/III/IV have extra instructions that the 486 doesn't have. The extra instructions, simply put, move tons more data in a single clock than the 486. so the 486 needs many many more clock cycles than say a p3. and that extends to direct draw and the way the screen is put to the graphics board. don't forget the bloat in the os, there are other reasons, but those are the main ones.

 

GOD I LOVE EMULATION, DON'T YOU ??

 

 

"So, if I may ask, what is the cause of the higher system requirements

for z26? (DOS) Is it the way it is compiled? If I were to have it compiled in

a different manner, on a different compiler would I have improved speed?

 

Or is it simply, that I am incorrect and the VCS is just as hard to emulate

as it is to program.

 

Does Z26 take advantage of higher level commands that take up more

CPU power although make programming it simpler?

 

Or a third (although perhaps the most insulting) possibility, is z26 simply

bloated in comparison to Nesticle?

 

The answer is greatly appreciated!"

[Shannon]

The 2600 is hard to emulate do to the way the machine functions. The 2600 did not have a "screen buffer" and hardly have any RAM. So each 2600 game was literally drawing the game all the time and then using what cycles are left to actually execute the rest of the game code.

 

Because of this 2600 emu's have to be extremely frame accurate (down to the scanline, etc) in order for the game to even function correctly. So the usual emu tricks (like frameskipping, etc) to speed up emulation cannot be used.

 

So yes, even though the 2600 was a simpler piece of hardware. It's design makes it harder to emulate.

[Atari-Jess]

what's happening is that you have to deal with a high-level language and compiler when you write the emulator. also, the pentium I/II/III/IV have extra instructions that the 486 doesn't have. The extra instructions, simply put, move tons more data in a single clock than the 486. so the 486 needs many many more clock cycles than say a p3.  and that extends to direct draw and the way the screen is put to the graphics board. don't forget the bloat in the os, there are other reasons, but those are the main ones.

 

Thats not exactly what I asked.

 

What I think you are trying to answer is my question on what language

and compiler the emulator was compiled in. I already understand

processor optimization, which is what you are explaining.

 

You also seem to be getting into the bloat of Operating systems but

I have already explained that I am running both emulators on the same

machine under DOS. (6.22 IIRC)

 

NESticle runs at roughly 100% on my 486 where as Z26 has never

run well on a 486 (even back in 1998 when I first used it)

 

So you didn't actually answer any of my questions, but I appreciate

the effort since you went fairly in length.

 

 

Shannon, skunkworx and of course forum favourite, NE146 you've been

a great help. I am now using PCAE with roughly 85-90% of speed on my

laptop. (I estimate previously I had 65-75%)

 

However I still wonder if the emulator were to be compiled using a compiler optimized for the 486 specifically, would we see improved

(minorly) performance?