DreamSnes Vs PSX

Quest4glory · Post by **Quest4glory** » Sat Nov 16, 2002 8:44 pm

Do you think that the progress has been VERY slow compared to other Emulators? I for one do when you look at something like The DC playstation emulator that is already running at a Peak ( hence i said PEAK) 30 FPS, and this is without taking advantage of the PVR. ( the PVR Plugin is still in the works i think) The average Playstation game almost always runs at 30 so basically it can almost get full speed on a game! I mean i don't program on the dc and is there someting about the SNES compard to the PSX that makes it harder to emulate? I mean it has a 5mhz chip ( not sure about that) I just don't understand how the PSX can be where it is at compared to the SNES emulator and where it is at. I no this may sound like garble but i think i got my question across.

Post by **|darc|** » Sat Nov 16, 2002 9:15 pm

Are you on crack? No, really, are you?

Swiss_Cheeseman · Post by **Swiss_Cheeseman** » Sat Nov 16, 2002 9:16 pm

the snes processor is quite a lot faster than that...

The PSX is very similar to the Dreamcast in many ways. The SNES is not. More of the PSX can be interpreted, unlike the SNES which has to be completely emulated.

Therefore, the PSX is *kind of* faster, because it has more in common with the Dreamcast.

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Sun Nov 17, 2002 8:28 am

That peak framerate is not going to happen on a real game - most games get about 10FPS. DreamSNES peaks at 60FPS (full speed, on a tech demo) and runs a lot of games at 80%+ of full speed. The PSX emulator runs at about 15% full speed.

Nyarlathotep · Post by **Nyarlathotep** » Sun Nov 17, 2002 10:33 am

you......... haven't actually tried that PSXDC emulator yet have you?

IF you have problems with DreamSNESs speed, set the sound to mute in the options and Hey Presto!

crt0 · Post by **crt0** » Sun Nov 17, 2002 11:11 am

is there someting about the SNES compard to the PSX that makes it harder to emulate? I mean it has a 5mhz chip ( not sure about that)

the snes processor is quite a lot faster than that...

It's more like 3mhz, and it's basically a slightly updated / overclocked version of the CPU in the NES, which is fairly underpowered as well.

Swiss_Cheeseman · Post by **Swiss_Cheeseman** » Sun Nov 17, 2002 7:47 pm

Heh, your right, funny that. Its about 3.4mhz

Swiss_Cheeseman · Post by **Swiss_Cheeseman** » Sun Nov 17, 2002 7:49 pm

I can play Bleem on my p166 at pretty much full speed. Its perfectly playable along with my voodoo 2 and 48mb ram.

The snes emulator cant handle many games without a whole lot of slowdown, with both snes9x and zsnes, dos and windows versions.

Veggita2099 · Post by **Veggita2099** » Sun Nov 17, 2002 7:54 pm

Swiss_Cheeseman wrote:I can play Bleem on my p166 at pretty much full speed. Its perfectly playable along with my voodoo 2 and 48mb ram.

The snes emulator cant handle many games without a whole lot of slowdown, with both snes9x and zsnes, dos and windows versions.

I had a laptop that was a 233mmx with 128 megs of ram and it couldn't run Zsnes at full speed. It came pretty close on some games though. This was back in 1999, so it was a older version of Zsnes then what is out now.

clessoulis · Post by **clessoulis** » Sun Nov 17, 2002 8:03 pm

I can run the newest version of Zsnes Dos on 486 with Windows 95 installed.

Lartrak · Post by **Lartrak** » Wed Nov 20, 2002 3:03 am

"IF you have problems with DreamSNESs speed, set the sound to mute in the options and Hey Presto!"

People say this all the time, and I still thing it's a terrible solution. I don't know how people can stand doing that... It stinks playing almost any video game without sound.

reaper2k2 · Post by **reaper2k2** » Wed Nov 20, 2002 4:12 am

clessoulis wrote:I can run the newest version of Zsnes Dos on 486 with Windows 95 installed.

BUT what has that got to do with the dreamcast ?

crt0 · Post by **crt0** » Wed Nov 20, 2002 9:41 am

Depending on how well it runs, it's fair to state that it's possible to get it running at least that well on DC... however just saying it runs, without giving any indication of performance, allows one to (wrongly) make such an interpretation, so perhaps some more information is in order to be given...

BlackAura · Post by **BlackAura** » Wed Nov 20, 2002 10:06 am

I know that ZSnes runs at full speed on a 233MHz AMD K6 for most games (those that don't need special chips) and that was the newest version way back in 2000.

Anyway, it's silly to compare DreamSNES and PSXDC - they're just too different. On a SNES, you have to emulate absolutely everything, and a SNES is nothing like a Dreamcast. The PSX has a lot of hardware that's closer to the DC's hardware, so a full speed PSX emulator is probably possible too.

For a SNES, bear in mind that the emulator must be very accurate to run the majority of games, and accuracy comes at the cost of speed. You have to run the CPU emulator for a single scanline, then stop (which takes time), emulate another CPU (which takes time to start and stop as well), then emulate the sound hardware and video hardware, and then start the next line. And DreamSNES is still mostly written in C++ (well, C using a C++ compiler, the same as Snes9X) and has a lot of room for speed ups.

For a PSX, remember that it doesn't need to be that accurate to run most games. Unlike a SNES, most things take variable time to happen, so even on a real PSX the system state is not as predictable as it is on a SNES. So it can be less accurate, which means that it can be much faster than SNES emulation, even though the system is more powerful. Add to that the fact that PSXDC uses a dynamic recompiler, which is faster that the interpretative emulator used in DreamSNES. And no, DreamSNES can't use a dynamic recompiler because it would make it too inaccurate to run anything, and the tiny speed gain for older 8/16-bit CPUs in not worth it. And, when a PVR plugin gets written, you can just use the PVR to do all the video work, so the Dreamcast CPU doesn't need to do any of it.