Why Not ???? ZsnesDc
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- DCEmu Cool Newbie
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Why Not ???? ZsnesDc
I hear everyone talking about how hard it is to port zsnes to the Dc, but no one says its impossible. So has someone tried and is just to hard or can it be done? Please let me know. Im not putting down Dreamsnes or Sintendo or any other but isn?t zsnes the best? also I know that zsnes is coded in a different language.
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- Smeg Creator
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The basic difficulty is that ZSNES is written in x86 assembly language - the actual machine code that the x86 series of CPU's read. This makes it very fast... on PC's. It almost makes it completely unusable on a non x86 based platform.
To port the x86 code to an sh4 based platform (that would be the Dreamcast), nearly every single line of source code (other than comments... and some of those too to be proper) would have to be written. I did a quick word count on the source tree and it tells me it's got about 200,000 lines of code.
Holy crap, that's a lot of code - particularly assembly language, which isn't the clearest thing in the world to read.
But, yeah, it's technically possible, so why not do it? ZSNES is the best, right?
Yes, it's the best and fastest -- for PC's. If you did a literal translation of all the x86 code to sh4 and got it running, it wouldn't run well (maybe better or worse than DreamSNES, I couldn't say for certain). It's not just the choice of language, but algorithms and general design that's suited for a PC and not for the Dreamcast, which truth be told is a very fussy machine.
To get ZSNES class performance on a Dreamcast, you'll need an emulator customized for the Dreamcast. And SNES9x is really the best place to start - you can get the whole thing working first without rewriting the whole source tree. Then, you can rewrite and optimize the individual modules that bog it down.
ZSNES's source code still comes in handy, however, as a technical reference of the SNES hardware (and that of some of the on-chip processors).
To port the x86 code to an sh4 based platform (that would be the Dreamcast), nearly every single line of source code (other than comments... and some of those too to be proper) would have to be written. I did a quick word count on the source tree and it tells me it's got about 200,000 lines of code.
Holy crap, that's a lot of code - particularly assembly language, which isn't the clearest thing in the world to read.
But, yeah, it's technically possible, so why not do it? ZSNES is the best, right?
Yes, it's the best and fastest -- for PC's. If you did a literal translation of all the x86 code to sh4 and got it running, it wouldn't run well (maybe better or worse than DreamSNES, I couldn't say for certain). It's not just the choice of language, but algorithms and general design that's suited for a PC and not for the Dreamcast, which truth be told is a very fussy machine.
To get ZSNES class performance on a Dreamcast, you'll need an emulator customized for the Dreamcast. And SNES9x is really the best place to start - you can get the whole thing working first without rewriting the whole source tree. Then, you can rewrite and optimize the individual modules that bog it down.
ZSNES's source code still comes in handy, however, as a technical reference of the SNES hardware (and that of some of the on-chip processors).
Thanks
Thanks for clearing things up. I now see why people say its a bad idea. And it makes me appreciate the efforts in DreamSnes and Sintendo as well as others.
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- DCEmu Junior
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- DuffMan
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Ya, ZSNES is the best SNES emu for PC. But SNES9X is a close second, they both run games at full speed and both have great compatibiliy, but it is the little things that make ZSNES better. But SNES9X is written in C which is 100% portable which is why they choose that one.
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- DCEmu Junior
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Who in the world would want windows xp on their dreamcast? besides its not open source. There's a difference between an emulator and an operating system
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- Smeg Creator
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It's not a open source???Ralphis wrote: Who in the world would want windows xp on their dreamcast? besides its not open source. There's a difference between an emulator and an operating system
and what about reverse engine ?
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yeah, you can use the "reverse engine" to modify the dynarec of the header files, that way you can activate the asm cores of the super monkey flipChip(tm). after doing that, you can run a command line module that will emulate a tr-404 to get the mad beats. this will allow you to port windows xp to any platform! even toasters and other devices that use embedded sheep herders! amazing, isn't it? :)
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