The Dolphin can play alot of games very clearly (graphics wise). However the Speed is verrrry slllooowwwww. Gcemu can play games at near perfect speeds, but not alot of them, but the graphics are bad in most cases. What do you guys think...is it gonna happen sometime in the near future. Maybe an emulator that could take advantage Dual Cores would be great.
It took... what? Almost 10 years to get SNES emulators to be virtually perfect? N64 emulators are still buggy and slow on many systems... it's going to be a VERY long time before you see a really good Gamecube emulator.
I disagree, there are ppl who can currently play some GC games on the Dolphin emulator. Don't believe me check out this website, and lookout for the PC specs, and tell me how far away do you think we are now?. Of course the few are hosting monster PCs. http://www.emutalk.net/showthread.php?t=34055 I This is one example, he even has video to prove that he got his PC to emulate decently on the Dolphin.
That's a ridiculously powerful PC. Spent over a $1000 just for the processor and video cards. I'm still inclined to agree with silver95.
Last thing I'll say on this thread. I think that with the upcoming Windows and the promise that DirectX10 promises to bring to the table, Gamecube emulation should be right around the corner.
DX10 or no, the current hardware is still the current hardware. While DX10 may be capable of some really supreme optimizations, the bottom line is that you want to run code that simulates another machine and bios code. That's a hefty operation, unless using HLE methods, which is entirely possible. Even using HLE methods; you're still looking at a super hefty overhead processor being necessary. I'm sure that we'll have it shortly, but the bottom line is that systems need to be massively more powerful before we can really do that. And by that point; why would you even care to bother with it?
Windows Vista is even more of a resource hog than XP. If anything, it'll just make GC emulators run even worse. Basically, the biggest problem to overcome is hardware limitation, which is mostly being caused by running operating systems that drain all the hardware resources. I wouldn't be surprised if a GC emulator was created for Xbox 360 or PS3 before one was made for PC. Unless a good GC emulator was created for a 64-bit Linux distro and ran on one of those monster PCs.
Now there's an idea. A good solid linux monster could do it. And probably well too. As for Vista, the new features are indicating much higher resource needs, and I'm not all that interested in the new features included; they don't really do anything for me. And the whole thing about releasing Halo 2 exclusively for vista doesn't make me care for it much more. As for a linux os monster rig running a gcemu; I think it would, at the very least need a 64 bit processor, the added pipelines would really assist in the coding threads. Things would be able to run much smoother. I can't think of a desirable scenario for running one on a 32 bit cpu. I would almost garauntee that said 64 bit processor would be 3.0 ghz, MAYBE in the 2.8ghz if the user really knew what they were doing with their specific equipment. It wouldn't need a monster new card, but it would help to be wicked fast. Bottom line, GC isn't going to introduce any new features that will require an advanced DX9 shader library, lol. But the added speed will certainly come in handy. At least 1gb of ram will probably be necessary for 'comfortable' use, probably more like 1.5-2gb just to make sure that performance STAYS liquid smooth 24/7. I know these estimates are going to sound way off to a lot of people; some will say higher, others will say "No, it's only a 400mhz PowerPC." I hope everyone recalls that the little 32mhz risc processor used in a gba doesn't truly emulate smoothly on anything short of a 700Mhz with 128mb ram(Usually.) Emulation is not a matter of matching hardware specs, it's a matter of doing several laps around the emulated hardware specs. Especially when people want to turn things up. Because, realistically, no one wants to play pikmin on their 19" flat panel monitor at a resolution of 640x480. It's undesirable. So please remember that you have to allow extra power for the graphics changes too. Now that I've rambled on, I hope someone understands most of that, and has something more useful than "Gamecube is dumb." to respond with. While it may not eb my system of choice; they all have their own games that make them worthwhile.
