The truth behind ZiNc

[hagbard]

Richter Belmont, a known MameDev and author of the M1 arcade game sound emulator, has post some very interesting news about ZiNc and more



Dropping masks and returning to tomorrow: There have been rumors and innuendo for years about ZiNc™, it´s authors, where it came from, and where it´s going. Admittedly I haven´t helped that - I tell a "filtered" version of events that changes slightly on every occasion, just to keep everyone on their toes. Now I have permission to tell the truth.

ZiNc is S11Emu is The Impact is PSEmuPro.

The original authors have always been my good friends Duddie (aka The_Author) and Tratax (aka DynaChicken) up until ZiNc 0.9, at which point smf and I took over while D&T went Cube-hunting. Now you understand why I decided to "add" home PSX mode to ZiNc - it was really there all along waiting to return.
Now, I know a lot of current ZiNc users weren´t around back then and couldn´t care less about the ghost of scene politics past, but there´s more. ZiNc will become open source as of the v1.2 release. This does *not* mean the end of the project - smf and I will continue to update ZiNc after that point (after all, "complete" is a long way off) but we will welcome improvements from external contributors as well.

So after all ZiNc is not dead, the dev team is almost the same as the S11emu, Impact and PSEmuPro and last but not least, a new PSX emulator is on the works, but actually this is ZiNc. However looks that now the dead of ePSXe is confirmed

http://www.bannister.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=24;t=001773
http://www.emuhype.com/index.phtml?s=news

[Jale]

So no new ePSXe eh?

The best of luck with this new project :)

[hagbard]

This makes me remember I forgot to quote another very important post by RB


...
ePSXe is, as far as I know, dead. Or at least not very active - the last release was in 2003, and the previous one was a year before that. If they're just asleep and we wake them up, everyone wins. We'd go from 0 to 2 actively maintained PSX emulators.

As far as "better", I'd certainly hope to at least be comparable eventually. ePSXe's secret to compatibility is that they have a large database of recognized games for which they patch the code to get them to work. This was a common technique in older emulators (ZSNES & SNES9x both do it too) and it doesn't mean anything bad about ePSXe or it's coders. However, it's fallen out of disfavor in the wake of perfection-above-all emulators like BSNES and NEStopia. As you might suppose, being a MAMEdev I'm much more in tune with the latter technique. Change the emulator to fit the games, not vice-versa :-)
So they'll go for accuray above all, like MAME. On the other hand looks like the new pSX is developed by Lewpy, which worked on some PSEmuPRO compatible (and then ePSXe, PSXven or SSSPSX) plugins.

[-=VampyR=-]

So they'll go for accuray above all, like MAME.
That will require tremendous PC power. :)

[hagbard]

Not necessary ;)



...
My plan is that ZiNc is the other prong of a 2-prong strategy. smf is right now making MAME/MESS's PSX emulation core more accurate than anything ever before seen (including cycle-accurate DMA), so MESS will in time be the reference emulator, speed no object. ZiNc will pick up the same improvements but keep them playably fast. The dynamic recompiler's not going anywhere, and neither are Pete's hardware-rendering GPU plugins. (In fact, some of smf's work has made Pete's plugins more accurate).

(Oh, for reference, ZiNc with the home console capability would still run all the arcade games just fine. It's just one of the game numbers will be "Home PSX Console").
Pretty interesting this comes out when PJ64 authors are talking about LLE. The constantly increasing PC hardware power is turning more usefull than expected about not-so-new hardware emulation

[-=VampyR=-]

What does LLE stand for ?

[hagbard]

Low Level Emulation, to make the most accurate graphic emulation possible. This would need, as you stated above, very high CPU power. HLE is currently used in PJ64, faster but less compatible because of the "shorcuts" it takes

http://www.emutalk.net/project64/33294-lle-gfx.html

[-=VampyR=-]

Thanks for clearing that up. ;)

[alcoatjez]

This is certainly interesting news. I have to admit I more excited with old systems being more accurately emulated than with the newer systems (such as NDS) being emulated.

[montpics]

Interesting..... :rolleyes:

[TheCreator]

I agree in a way actually, but nevetheless people should still stick to emulationj of moden systems too. Not everybody who has a PS2 will get a PS3, and then when the PS2 turns old and average PC's are good enough to play them, people will want to play thesir 'old' PS2 games again if their PS2 is down, or prefer their PC, etc. In fact my PS2 is dead and would like a PS2 emu, but not yet...

[alcoatjez]

IMHO there shouldn't be a PS2 emulator within 2 years, because I think that's the time people will still buy PS2 games.

[montpics]

But anything can be happen within 2 years though..... :rolleyes:

Either way, it is true that people are still buying PS2 consoles in around 3 to 4 years. (At least in my country.)