psp homebrew and emu possibilities???? n64 emu???

gamedudex2 · Post by **gamedudex2** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 6:47 pm

i was just wondering how possible would an n64 emu be on the psp.
since sony pretty much said they could have download like demso and stuff on mem sticks

i was wondering would the mem stick work like a cartridge meanign you would not have to need a crap load of system ram to emulate something like a cd system needs? since right now we wont be seeing any umd drives or anything

they have mem sticks at like 4gigs obvious too much, but they have smaller.

i was wondering with this would it be possible to use them for an n64 emu on the psp, i mean for dreamcast it is harder ro do becasue u can't stream from the cd like a cart and u must load the game into ram, but with the mem stick it would be more like a cartridge and unlike cd???

i'm only thinking of this because of the snes emu for the gba even though it not 100% and probbaly wont be for a while if ever, mostly because of stuff like the cpu probbaly and its crazy special sound chips

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 7:03 pm

A memory stick, or any other kind of removable flash storage, is a hell of a lot slower than RAM. So you can't run ROMs off it.

Aside from which, I really doubt that there will be any way to actually run your own software on there.

gamedudex2 · Post by **gamedudex2** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 7:07 pm

i was just wondering becase they would have the same transfer rate as umd which is about 11mb pse sp ya probbaly not maybe dunno

Ex-Cyber · Post by **Ex-Cyber** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 7:25 pm

A memory stick, or any other kind of removable flash storage, is a hell of a lot slower than RAM. So you can't run ROMs off it.

You can if the ROMs in question are also a hell of a lot slower than RAM, and used in a manner similar to flash storage. Not all ROMs are created equal.

Aside from which, I really doubt that there will be any way to actually run your own software on there.

Amen to that. Unless Sony did something tremendously stupid (which I suppose is an open possibility given their history, but I'm not holding my breath), a PSP hack would probably be a mess.

Clessy · Post by **Clessy** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 7:29 pm

If you mean in just general power i'm pretty sure the PSP could emulate the DualScreen on it. Which would be a true mockery of the DS.

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 8:10 pm

Err... No, it couldn't. The PSP really isn't all that powerful.

You can if the ROMs in question are also a hell of a lot slower than RAM, and used in a manner similar to flash storage. Not all ROMs are created equal.

True...

Clessy · Post by **Clessy** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 8:43 pm

in raw CPU it is.

Post by **pixel** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 8:49 pm

Sorrie wrote:in raw CPU it is.

So what, you still couldn't do it. A lot more has to go into consideration for an emulator to work. :/

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Wed Oct 27, 2004 9:57 pm

in raw CPU it is.

Bull...

Bear in mind two things. First, the PSP's CPU can run at a maximum of 333MHz. That's a maximum value, and it's unlikely that any game will ever run it that fast. The reason is simple - battery life.

I'll give you an example. A GP32's ARM9 can also run at variable clock speed, between 66MHz (the same as the ARM9 in the DS) and 133MHz (double speed). Running at double speed halves the device's battery life.

Now, considering the extra hardware in the PSP, the CPU isn't going to be doing that much. Move things around a bit, shove some more data out to the sound and graphics hardware, throttle down the CPU to it's lowest setting, and go to sleep... I don't imagine that it would need to run much above 133MHz, and wouldn't be running that fast all the time.

So, we can assume that the maximum specified battery life is for a game that runs at a low clockspeed, and does CPU throttling when idle. It's still not very impressive. Now, running at full speed all the time will basically be tripling the CPU's power consumption, which could easily halve it's battery life, or even reduce it more than that. How does 2 hours sound to you?

Second, 333MHz isn't that much. With much effort, Bleemcast can emulate a PSX (with a main CPU running at 33MHz) on a 200MHz SH-4. Now, the SH-4 is not ideal for emulation, but I don't think there's any way in hell a 333MHz MIPS CPU is enough to emulate a 66MHz ARM9 and a 33MHz ARM7.

Ask some of the Mac users about emulating a modern system on another modern system. Dispite the fact that the PC is one of the most well understood hardware platforms in existance, the fact that the PowerPC CPU is extremely well suited for emulation, and that VirtualPC is one of the fastest emulators in the known universe, it is still really, really slow, even on the fastest Mac you can buy.

That's all irrelevant anyway. It is never going to happen. Assuming Sony haven't completely prevented anyone from writing their own software for it, which I highly doubt, there will never be a commercial emulator like Bleemcast that runs on it (because Sony will sue them out of existance as they did with Bleem), and it requires far, far too much effort for pretty much anyone else to bother with. It took the Bleemcast guys years of full time work to achieve what they did, which is probably just as hard as emulating a DS on a PSP.

djray · Post by **djray** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 2:24 pm

meh... it could probably emulate the 16-bit and 8-bit systems just fine...

ragnarok2040 · Post by **ragnarok2040** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 7:17 pm

Who uses batteries these days anyways? I always used ac adapters and etc. for gameboy

.

DaMadFiddler · Post by **DaMadFiddler** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 7:19 pm

Erm, isn't the PSP 32-bit anyway?

neoak · Post by **neoak** » Thu Oct 28, 2004 10:26 pm

Yeap, a 32 bit 333 Mhz max system emulating a 93.7 Mhz MIPS R4300 64 bit system...

Get an iQue.