Idea for Wii N64

Hi Guys,

I have one question. The N64 guys like sepp try to runtime recompile the rom data into power pc data to avoid software emulation. And they have trouble because only the 24 MB of the wii RAM are very fast, so they have memory trouble.

Why don't they "just" [it will be hard work i think] release an app, which compiles a N64 rom into a power pc executeable (with a header for the emulator), on the pc before you play the game (so just compile it 1 time)?
So they won't suffer the low RAM problems and I think it would be faster then a runtime recompiler on the wii.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/18/2009 03:32PM by badbob.

That is what they're doing.

It's called Dynarec. Read up on it some time: [emulatemii.com]

Oh then I misunderstood the text. I have read that they want to recompile the romcode while the emulator is running on the wii. Thank you arikado :)

yes they are, this is why this is called dynamic recompiling
what you are proposing is similar to another technique called static recompilation (however, you can not just compile a ROM into a powerPC executable, it's not so simple and emulators just don't work like that)

from what I know, there are two common downsides to static recompilation:
- it's hard to differentiate data from code in the ROM without running into every possible code paths
- it's hard to deal with self-modifying code (the ROM program copy some code from ROM into RAM, modify it, then execute from RAM)

this is probably the reason why they choose dynamic recompilation in the first place, because it's more efficient and more suitable to this emulator... feel free to correct me if i'm wrong though



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/2009 02:55PM by ekeeke.

Quote

this is probably the reason why they choose dynamic recompilation in the first place, because it's more efficient and more suitable to this emulator... feel free to correct me if i'm wrong though

I think it can't be more efficent (because you do it every time you play the game). But now I understand the problem and it sounds very hard to convert a rom into a power pc executeable (I'm thinking of the images for the sprites etc. A rom is just a binary blob...)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/2009 11:52PM by badbob.