GBA Emulator

[Jon]

Does anyone know if a GBA emulator is viable on the current PPCs? I'm considering doing a port of one of the emulators available (yes a real one!). I'm not hugely experienced in C but I've got lots of free time (summer hols)and I know some other languages. Is it possible or am I being a bit naive?

[suchiaruzu]

There is no real emulator out, but the one for april fools day.<br>:(

[Jon]

yeah i know. thats why im considerinbg doing one. But i need to know if its possible/worth it.

[jongjungbu]

I guess you'll never really know until you try it

[Jon]

anyone willing to help? would hopefully speed things along a bit more with more people.

[suchiaruzu]

It would be more than great! I was thinking about buying one, but if you make an emu (i think it is illegal, isn't it?) I wouldn't have to...

[jongjungbu]

According to the master emulator Marat Fayzullin and his gameboy advance emulator VGBA:<br><br>"My experience shows that you need at least a PentiumII/400 machine with fast video to run VGBA at a reasonable speed. "<br><br>I suppose his emulator is just not highly optimized yet?<br><br>It's interesting to note that the Gameboy advance has a ARM7TDMI 32bit CPU running at 16MHz. Hmm. Maybe it's the interrupts or something that cause such slowdowns on a 200Mhz PC or PPC for emulating a console system??<br><br>

[Jon]

im really not suprised. I wouldn't expect GBA games to run at a playable speed on the current PPCs. Anyway, I reckon it would be quite an undertaking to make this emu (as my first proper PPC project!!) and then find that it barely even works! Nice idea anyway

[jongjungbu]

Port a better Commodore 64 emulator. Comeback 64 is good and all but whoever ported it to PPC (IMHO) did a horrible job.<br>Maybe they didn't do so bad for their particular targeted system...

[Jon]

Hey hold on!! I haven't given up on GBA yet. If I can find some people who also want a challenge, i'll still go for it. Bear in mind that it won't be too long before PPC processors are upped thus making emulation much more enjoyable.

[suchiaruzu]

Yeah, a C64-Emu!!!<br>Or maybe a nice flipper, do you know the ProPinball Series? It's the best flipper series out there. Do something like that. Or that C64-Emu. Check out CCS64, it's the best C64-PC-Emu.

[randall]

It must be poorly written or something. I don't understand how an emulator like Bleem! can run Playstation games without a hitch (Min: Pentium 233 MMX ; recommended: PII), yet a GBA emu  requires a PII 400.

[Jon]

can we PLEASE focus on the topic in hand. I'm really not interested in doing a C64 emu.

[jongjungbu]

I believe the GBA has a similar architecture to the SNES. Therefore, if the SNES could appear as a reasonable emulator in the PPC world, a GBA emulator should too. However, the good SNES emulators were ports of already existing long-time-standing emulators with good success. I'm not sayin give up on the dream, but maybe look for alternatives. Heheh. But...by all means...if you really have the desire..go for it. A GBA emulator that wasn't a trick would be pretty cool.

[jongjungbu]

Well, Randall. We should keep in mind that the SNES and NES emulators were pretty slow when they were first created. Same for pretty much all other emulators. I think since the GBA is new on the scene it might take a little bit of time for the emulators to catch up and reach a very playable stage. Bleem! didn't play well on my old laptop originally...but now it fares better as well as the Virtual Game Station--which runs really well. So I think b/c its so new the emulation still needs some work.