Question on how emulators work.

crisko · Post by **crisko** » Sun Jan 05, 2003 6:32 am

I think I have an understanding of how they work; An emulator creats a "virtual computer" and performs tasks that pertain to it. Basically tricks the computer into thinking its something that its not? Lamens terms. Anyways, what if, and the only reason I ask is because I just want to know, not that anyone would actually do it, but what if someone loaded, say a SNES emulator, and what if a legit emulator for say, NES, had been released for retail sale, so you had a workable .smc file of an NES emulator. Once the SNES emulator was loaded (whatever it may be), the loaded the NES emulator. How would that work? A computer emulating a computer thats emulating another? Like I said, no one would do it, but what would be goin on technicaly?? Please dont Flame me. Just something I thought of when I was in the restroom.

Prophet][ · Post by **Prophet][** » Sun Jan 05, 2003 7:02 am

Well, Emulators act like the orginal machine like you said. SO a snes emulator makes, say the Dreamcast, act like the BIOS of a snes making games think it is a snes. It can now run anything a snes could (of course thats if its programed right) So it could indeed run a NES emu (if their were one) As the Dreamcast would be acting like snes which would be acting like a NES. Their is no easy way to explain this, unless you want to get technical, even then it would be hard to understand

toastman · Post by **toastman** » Sun Jan 05, 2003 7:33 am

It's not as uncommon as you think either.
Linux -> running Wine -> running SNES9x
or better yet

Linux -> running Wine -> running Visual Boy Advance -> running PocketNES

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Sun Jan 05, 2003 7:37 am

Why not go mad, and do something insane like:
Windows -> running VMWare -> running Linux -> running Wine -> running VBA -> running PocketNES.

An emulator basically takes the program code, and interprets what a real machine would do, and then does it. So emulators work within emulators.

crisko · Post by **crisko** » Sun Jan 05, 2003 10:07 am

Prophet, please do get technical. Even if I cant totally grasp it, its something that I would find intresting, toast and black..if you had the time, and would not mind going into more detail that would be great!!! Thnx for your replies thus far!!

Post by **|darc|** » Sun Jan 05, 2003 11:57 am

Basically, when the SNES game tells the processor to do a certain command, the emulator interprets the command and 'translates' it to the processor the emulator is running on.

About your question with the NES on SNES on an emulator, it's possible. PocketNES is a NES emulator for Game Boy Advance. You select an NES ROM, and it makes a new file with both the NES emulator and the NES ROM inside the file, but it is a gba file. When you load that file up into a GBA emulator, it plays just like an NES game would, making it an NES emulator on a GBA emulator on a PC.

crisko · Post by **crisko** » Sun Jan 05, 2003 12:04 pm

You guys give me a warm fuzzy feeling inside..or is that the crown and coke? Hehehe. Its amazing...all this, and its being done on a voluntary basis by dedicated individuals.

Post by **BlueCrab** » Sun Jan 05, 2003 12:29 pm

BlackAura wrote:Why not go mad, and do something insane like:
Windows -> running VMWare -> running Linux -> running Wine -> running VBA -> running PocketNES

I can do better:
Windows -> running basilisk-II -> running bochs -> running Windows -> running VMWare -> running Linux -> Running basilisk-II -> running bochs -> running Linux -> Running plex86 -> running Windows -> running bochs -> Runinning Linux -> running Wine -> running VBA -> Running PocketNES

crisko · Post by **crisko** » Sun Jan 05, 2003 12:38 pm

Wow. When my Brains stop leaking out of my ears....well, wow. What are the specs of the PC running that? I can only imagine what Processor is going through. In situations like these I wish I knew more about programing..you guys know whats going on inside..I dont. I mean, I would love to know the tasks and requests being performed by the emulators/harware, in laymens terms.

Speeddemon · Post by **Speeddemon** » Sun Jan 05, 2003 6:18 pm

EEEK EMULATOR PARADOXES

404NotFound · Post by **404NotFound** » Sun Jan 05, 2003 6:41 pm

BlackAura wrote:Why not go mad, and do something insane like:
Windows -> running VMWare -> running Linux -> running Wine -> running VBA -> running PocketNES.

An emulator basically takes the program code, and interprets what a real machine would do, and then does it. So emulators work within emulators.

On slashdot some people were running Wine in Cygwin, which was running another instance of Wine.. etc

Or it was something like that which had to do with Wine.. maybe it was Cygwin in Wine, which was running another instance of Wine...

Anyway, they were running 8 instances of Wine O_o

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Mon Jan 06, 2003 10:27 pm

Mmm... Recursive Emulation.

crisko wrote:You guys give me a warm fuzzy feeling inside..or is that the crown and coke? Hehehe. Its amazing...all this, and its being done on a voluntary basis by dedicated individuals.

I know - it's good, isn't it?

perry · Post by **perry** » Tue Jan 07, 2003 12:56 am

Yeah but when you emulate sometihng which emulate's sometihng else...It's gonna take up more processing power. 0_o What the hell would you do with eight instance's of WINE ?

crisko · Post by **crisko** » Tue Jan 07, 2003 4:07 am

perry2175 wrote:Yeah but when you emulate sometihng which emulate's sometihng else...It's gonna take up more processing power. 0_o What the hell would you do with eight instance's of WINE ?

Hopefully she'll be drunk.

On a serious note; if you were to compare the specs of the DC to a computer, at what level would the DC be at?? I want to know before I make my next statement...so I dont sound like to big of a fool. But hey, we all need our class clowns!!!

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Tue Jan 07, 2003 10:34 am

It'll slow down a lot. Cygwin tends to run stuff much slower than Linux, so that alone would make it run at about 1/8th speed. Take Wine into account: Press key... wait... more wait... character appears on screen.

The DC, numerically, is equivalent to a P2-200MHz with 16MB of RAM and a very, very fast graphics card (compared to the CPU). For 3d games, it's more like a 300/350MHz CPU, because Intel (and clones) CPUs are really bad at floating point math, which is needed for 3d games, and SH-4s are comparatively brilliant. And the hardware was designed for games, of course.

For emulators, it's not much faster than a P2-200Mhz. That's not based on any measurements or anything.