Why isn't a DS emulator possible?

Discussion in 'iOS Emulators' started by Jonttu, Jan 1, 2008.

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  1. Jonttu New Member

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    I know, I read the sticky, but why not? Maybe now people don't completely understand the iPhone, but would it be possible in the future to make the emulator? On Zodttd's forum, Blueberry and Zod himself made a couple excellent points on why it's possible.
    Blueberry:
    and
    as well as Zod's comment:
    Any arguments against their comments?
  2. doodoobrown1 New Member

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    i hope the ds emulater comes soon
  3. TheRapture New Member

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    ds has dual processors... iPod touch doesnt
  4. Virtualball Well-Known Member

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    That means nothing, there are DS emulators for single-core computers...
  5. Mindfield New Member

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    It isn't impossible. It would just be slow. It uses two ARM processors: An ARM9 at 67MHz and an ARM7 at 33MHz, plus a 3D processor and two 2D processors (one per screen). Even with dynamic recompilation, you're likely only to run it at maybe half speed if you're lucky.

    Incidentally, while it uses similar ARM processors, the iPhone/Touch use an ARM11. Not precisely the same thing, so virtualization is not possible.
  6. Bernstein229 New Member

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    I would still use a DS emulator even if only three games were playable.
  7. Mookler Banned

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    Something tells me you wouldn't.
  8. Danls92 Super Moderator Emeritus

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    Just because something can be emulated doesn't mean that it would run well.

    It isn't a simple matter of 2> 1. It also has to do with processing power.

    I remember somebody who knows about emulators (I wanna say zacaj, but I'm not sure) saying that it takes roughly 10x the processing power of a system to emulate it, and while the iPod might be able to process one of the cores, it would not be able to do both at even a slow speed.

    Keep in mind that the DS's processors are 67 MHz, (megahertz) whereas a computer's processor is usually in the gigahertz spectrum.
  9. Mint-Berry Crunch Member

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    yea the emulators are emulating BOTH processors because most single core computers are capable of doing both... with 67 mhz for one of them, its not that hard to do two on a comptuer. The ipod is only sporting a 412mhz single core arm processor so if an emulator does come out, it will suck... Not enough processing power
  10. [ß] New Member

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    Idiot, read the post.
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