How hard is it to make an Emulator for a system?

[DarkBloodyFetus]

I'm just curious about this. I've seen Visual Boy Advance work almost flawless with any of the games currently released yet the DS Emulator is barely in the beta stages for actually get a game to work properly. I know that there's a difference between the change of hardware and that the developer's tend to make it more difficult for people to hack their products in general. How long do you think it'll take for us to see a fully working DS Emulator? My credit goes to the creators that are currently hard at work with their own but I fear that as we get more advanced gaming hardware, the difficulty of emulator will drastically increase to the point that emulation will cease to exist.

[Spellsong]

It gets more difficult as the technology advances. To play FFX on a PS2 emulator for example, you need to have a Dual Core CPU to run it fully. So I imagine its very diffuclt.

[Zach]

Emulation will never "cease to exist" as you put it. Because there will always be the demand to play a platform on your PC. Especially from people who do not want to spend money on obscenely priced products.

Computer hardware advances are a predictable rate, and now that we are seeing multi-core CPUs on the market, emulation will keep pace just fine with the other systems. The majority of time it takes is due to research and development and testing on the programmers' parts.

You have to understand that they are reverse engineering these emulators, they have never seen any code or hardware information (which is why reverse engineering is legal) and at the same time they have to make it work "just like the original". That is how the early "IBM compatible" PC's were developed.

It's a very difficult, and sometimes expensive process. And that is for companies that actually have the money; so I think what most emulator authors do is pretty good. Systems always appear in emulation a few years after the physical hardware. It's just the way things are. And depending on how difficult the system is to emulate, and how dedicated and interested people are in advancing it's progress it can move incredibly slow, or somewhat fast.

People often think the Saturn emulation scene is "dead" or doesn't exist because so few emulators are out there, for example. When the truth is the Saturn has multiple chips and is difficult to work with/program even on the real console. As we see more multi core emulators this same issue may crop up and slow down development somewhat. But the scene is in no true danger of ever disappearing.

I've also moved this to Misc Emulation, as it is not really a Nintendo specific issue.

[FatTrucker]

Its also worth noting the generational differences. People bemoan the fact that DS emulation and PS2 emulation is slow and incomplete, what they fail to appreciate is that these are relatively new platforms in emulation terms.

Many 16 bit emulators for the snes and megadrive are still being worked on and refined and these systems were developed 20 years ago!!.
32 bit emulators for the Playstation, N64 and Saturn are still far from complete and are still being worked out and developed and these systems were released over a decade ago.

You have to be patient and wait for the technology to catch up. With the PS2 and DS still being commercially available its worth considering purchasing the hardware and supporting the industry anyway. Investing in current technology ensures there will continue to be new systems to emulate in the future and encourages developers to continue making new games. Particularly in the case of the PS2 which is very cheap now, with loads of fantastically cheap software. Its arguably the best time to own one.

[Spellsong]

I really agree. I personally don't see why people want to take PS2 emulation seriously, and bother about issues with there games not working on a PS1 emulator at times, where you can get both for the price of 1. PS2 Backwards compatibility is not to be underestimated, plus the nice Little filter enhancement. Wait 10 years until these consoles are considered old school. PSX almost is though. Like the above poster said, PS2 are cheap, and most of the games are as well, especially if you buy them used like me.