Board 8 > Excellent Ars Technica article on bsnes

(+) Yeah! (+)

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2011/08/accuracy-takes-power-one-mans-3ghz-quest-to-build-a-perfect-snes-emulator.ars

I've mentioned bsnes a few times here before. It's an SNES emulator that aims for accurate emulation of the original hardware, for preservation of the platform. The article is a well-written look into why that's important, what exactly it means, and how it might compare to less accurate emulators in results. Worth a read!

mod disclaimer: no illegal material present in this article. thank you for understanding. :)

From: OmarsComin | #001
mod disclaimer: no illegal material present in this article. thank you for understanding. :)

'Illegal activities is a slight misnomer, most of it is not related to material that is actually illegal.' - nintendogrl1

--
_foolmo_
mobile computer

slight misnomer more like deliberately misleading

Pretty cool. I'll definitely check that program out someday when I have a PC again.

--
"Setsuna, you have to change. To make up for me... who didn't change." ~SCP~
http://img.imgcake.com/Jeffzeropngus.png

Hardware accuracy is nice, but as noted, it's not practical. "Perfect" hardware emulation is on the order of 100-1000x slower to run. And yes, it's ALL timing issues. The SNES' clock speed is ~3 MHz. That sounds weak, but that means your timings must be accurate down to the millionths of a second.

Which reminds me of the time when I was discussing GPGPU vs. CPUs and I was stating "well, CPUs are going in the more-cores direction too; you can't increase clock speed much more because you can't get power everywhere fast enough" and someone went "tch" like I didn't know what I was talking about and then I was all "for the skeptical, let me rephrase: you can't get power everywhere in the chip in a billionth of a second" and they were like... "oh". But I digress.

--
assert(!hotterThan(foo, "Hot Nymphomaniacal Lesbian Mind-Controlling Dominatrix Fairy Doctors with glasses"))

Tag to read later.

--
C _ _ H _ _ E _ _ S _ _ T _ _ E _ _ R _ _ _
http://img.imgcake.com/chestaga1gifun.gif \ http://bbg-games.com \ http://twitter.com/BennFried

bumpo

i enjoyed this

--
http://img.imgcake.com/nio/10stingerspngvu.png
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=Apalachian

I'm glad! yeah I think it's a worthwhile read no matter where you stand on the various subjects discussed.

I think the preservation of gaming is a good thing. When the old systems die out, what will be left with? Yeah, the popular games like Sonic and Yoshi's Island and Chrono Trigger will live on in ports and Virtual Console emulators and stuff...but what about everything else? The obscure or unappreciated gems? I would hate to see these games, this history of this great medium, lost to the annals of time and stomped under the march of technology.

--
It will launch for $350 with some Wii Sports s***. I bet my life on it. Damn, that KoolAid guy is awesome - NGamer64

Yeah I think so too. Also worth mentioning that getting it exactly right means the little details in the popular games show up right, too. Whether it's something silly like making sure the Triforce rotates correctly and in time on LttP or something more important like making sure Star Fox runs like it's supposed to or making sure the Sonic 2 sound effects aren't tinny-sounding, it's all positive.