Is a Nintendo DS Emulator possible?

[willmon22]

I was thinking since the N64 can't be emulated from what I heard. Can the Nintendo DS be emulated? The DeSmuME emulator seems to work fine for the pc so maybe it can be ported to the ps2. Also they have the source available. But I was really thinking about the N64 it was released before the ps2 and its graphics are about like playstation games. So what exactly is it that is preventing it from being emulated? There is 4 or more open source emulators out there and some have even been ported to android. I have used a few on my slow optimus v phone and it seems to work fine it is just a little slow. Anyways I am probably going to get lots of people saying this has been answered several times but I haven't found definite answers for it. Anyways all the other emulators I have used for the PS2 seem great except the snes9x it seems to be much too slow. I have used the snes station 0.24 with usb support and it goes full speed but after quitting a game or so the sounds start to repeat themselves and it slows down a little.

[SP193]

I was thinking since the N64 can't be emulated from what I heard. Can the Nintendo DS be emulated? The DeSmuME emulator seems to work fine for the pc so maybe it can be ported to the ps2. Also they have the source available. But I was really thinking about the N64 it was released before the ps2 and its graphics are about like playstation games. So what exactly is it that is preventing it from being emulated? There is 4 or more open source emulators out there and some have even been ported to android. I have used a few on my slow optimus v phone and it seems to work fine it is just a little slow. Anyways I am probably going to get lots of people saying this has been answered several times but I haven't found definite answers for it. Anyways all the other emulators I have used for the PS2 seem great except the snes9x it seems to be much too slow. I have used the snes station 0.24 with usb support and it goes full speed but after quitting a game or so the sounds start to repeat themselves and it slows down a little.

I don't remember the exact details on why the N64 was believed to not be emulatable by the Playstation 2, but I think that it was because of the sort of power that the N64's hardware has.

In that case, it would be like the 32x extension for the SEGA Genesis/Megadrive - each of it's processors may be weak in comparison to the Playstation 2's 294MHz R5900, but when combined together their combined power is really quite great.

As for emulating the Nintendo DS - if it cannot be done on the Playstation Portable (With it's slightly more powerful MIPS32 CPU), it surely cannot be done with the Playstation 2.

There is a project that involves making Nintendo DS emulation on the Playstation Portable a reality, but it hasn't shown performance and compatibility that is compatable to the original DeSmuME emulator.

[ace99]

I've heard that to emulate something, (for example, NES on PSP) the machine doing the emulating has to be roughly 7 times faster, which includes CPU speed, SPU speed, media reading, and so on. There is an N64 emulator on the PSP, but is very slow and glitchy.

In the end, why not find a way to use a console controller on an N64 and DS emulator on your PC or Android smartphone/tablet? I use an official Xbox 360 wired controller on my XP netbook to play GBA and NES, and it's almost seamless. (The controller is USB, by the way.)

[SP193]

I've heard that to emulate something, (for example, NES on PSP) the machine doing the emulating has to be roughly 7 times faster, which includes CPU speed, SPU speed, media reading, and so on. There is an N64 emulator on the PSP, but is very slow and glitchy.

In the end, why not find a way to use a console controller on an N64 and DS emulator on your PC or Android smartphone/tablet? I use an official Xbox 360 wired controller on my XP netbook to play GBA and NES, and it's almost seamless. (The controller is USB, by the way.)

Maybe not that much CPU power is required if binary translation was used... but no such emulators exist for the Playstation 2 console.

In fact, I think that most emulators out there don't use binary translation, especially those that can be ported onto other devices easily. Building an emulator that uses binary translation is not as easy as developing one that uses an interpreter.

[willmon22]

Well now I understand. I kind of wish I knew how to port things to the ps2 as I have nothing else better to do and wouldn't mind trying it and see what it does. I would do it just to watch it go extremely slow so then I could at least say I did it but don't expect to ever play any games with it.

[mrjared123]

Dude, DaedalusX64 isn't extremely slow and glitchy anymore... Sure, for some games it doesn't work so fast, but it is advancing in every revision, LoZ: OoT runs nearly full speed in every part of the game. And it is still active, so it'll still get better and better.

[willmon22]

I don't know about daedalusx64 but 1964 is still active it seems the latest release was last month on the first and it seems to work fine. It compares with project 64 but some games don't work like they do on project64. What I am wondering though is how would you be able to integrate the plugins to the playstation if it was possible. Sounds a little complicating to me all the emulators on it now don't need plugins I believe.

[mrjared123]

Dude, DaedalusX64 is the N64 emulator on the PSP!! That would be cool for a DS emulator, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 on the PS2...

[willmon22]

Yes, I just figured that out. Too bad I don't have a psp. Only a ps2. But I guess a emulator for the psp can be ported to the ps2. But the psp has 33 MHz more which sometimes makes a difference but I don't think it would make much of a difference though.

[mrjared123]

Maybe, since they both use MIPS? Idk what I'm talking about, but yeah, I haven't used Daedalus for a while and checked back at it's progress and was amazed!