Dreamcast on X50v? Questions?

[ArCAngelS]

While im modifying the psx emulator FPSCE to run on my ppc, i came accross an article by intel/powervr stating that the Intel 2700g Chip is actually a powerVR chip that powered the Sega Dreamcast, i was impressed and it answer my question why they would put 16meg buffer in a pda, so my question is anyone know any current projects for Dreamcast Emulators for the 2700g or PPC in general? If so could i please have a link to them? If not is there any source's i can get that would give me nessary sdk suites to develop program for the 2700g, Thank You this would be greatly appreciated..

*Note please correct me if im wrong about the 2700g chip being the PowerVR chip that power the dreamcast becuase i read it off some web site that stated it source was from intel, some confirmation would be nice too*

[Ranma13]

The current emulator for Dreamcast for PC (I forgot what it's called) recommends a 2 Ghz computer. That's just to give you an idea of the feasibility of a Dreamcast emulator on Pocket PC.

[Grentz]

nothing i have heard of, but the interesting fact is that dreamcast says right on the front "Windows CE Compatible"

now DO NOT get me wrong, that does not mean its made to play its games on pdas...that means they used some of the CE technology in the dreamcast such as for the 56k modem (first of its kind in a gaming system) and the menus, etc.

[ArCAngelS]

Thanks you for reply, and that 2ghz remark from above the ONLY reason for that is because emulating on a windows pc with different processers and multitasking a bios,os, other software take huge system resource and special processes, it is entirely possible to emulate on a pocket pc because windows ce is bascially a very bare strippped version of windows, and if what i read is true 2700g is the Dreamcast PowerVR chip, the emulation instruction should not be TOO difficult to write out using the emulator for pc as a reference...how ever my question is still unanswered if that chip is the same function wise as the dreamcast one?

http://www.fpsece.net/ is PSX Emualator for the PocketPC to show what a pocket pc with good code can do.. *Note you may need GAPI tweak using the x50v*

[Axim-P]

I don't know really if the chips use similar instruction sets/api
and so on, then i suppose porting a game would be easy and assuming they are for the moment.

but for the fact that the 2700g has about 1/3 the power of dreamcast.

dreamcast = 3,000,000 polygons

2700g = 1,000,000 appz (round up)

so maybe its possible to port earlier games or if they can re-program them to accommodate the power difference.

or a speed revision of the 2700g from its current 75mhz.

i was wondering if its possible to overclock the 2700g in anyway???

[Munk]

Yeah, I was freaking out the other day when I found a Sega Dreamcast game that said "Compatible with Windows CE" at a thrift store. So I bought it and brought it home. Unfortunately, all you see when you put it in the drive are three tiny text files. I haven't played with it since.

But a cool fact is that Microsoft made a development kit for the Dreamcast and called it Dragon. It wasn't the fastest because Sega kept changing the chipset design on Microsoft. So the kit had to be modified over and over and wasn't optimized as well in the end.

Also, I heard that the 2700g was the same chip but just much smaller. But you are right about the 3 million polygons of the Dreamcast. Maybe that was a theoretical number and the reality is 1 million polygons? I have not heard of anyone overclocking specifically just the 2700g.

-Munk

[DrGonzo2k2]

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the Dreamcast using Windows CE for it's software. I thought it had a sticker on the front saying so. I remember if you would power it up without a game it would go to this screen with like 4 or 6 little icons for different things.

[Grentz]

yes, thats what i said earlier, it used windows CE as its base OS

here is an article that says a bit about it (remember this is from awhile ago, thats why they say CE has been a failure )
http://www.pocketpclife.com/issuespr...dreamcast.html

[ArCAngelS]

Interesting thankyou for the information, the way dreamcast was designed certainly makes it possible to port it, i doubt dreamcast lasted long enough for a developer to utilize its 3million threshold if that number is accurate.. reason i wanna push this is becuaae my fav game on dreamcast was PowerStone it owned all... porting it to PPC would be awsome.. A PowerVR chip in axim + windowCE kernal os in dreamcast certainly makes it plausible to emulate it.. i was wondering if that was anyway to turn off the OS and lauch the program so the PPC wont have any background process to bog it down because all console are realtively cheap and weak hardware wise while ppc has enough hardware its complex process prevent running in a simplified dedicated mode, of course the emualotor would need its own bios, startup session, GUI interface... ahh this would be a fun project... thank you for the clarification on the chip... i wonder if the archtecture is just a sampled down version or completey different..

[NotShorty]

not to mention that Sega would be a great contibutor to the PPC game market in a "software-only" capacity, much like Atari is now for several different gaming platforms. could only be a good thing for gamers.

NS

[Ranma13]

Thanks you for reply, and that 2ghz remark from above the ONLY reason for that is because emulating on a windows pc with different processers and multitasking a bios,os, other software take huge system resource and special processes, it is entirely possible to emulate on a pocket pc because windows ce is bascially a very bare strippped version of windows, and if what i read is true 2700g is the Dreamcast PowerVR chip, the emulation instruction should not be TOO difficult to write out using the emulator for pc as a reference...how ever my question is still unanswered if that chip is the same function wise as the dreamcast one?

It's obvious from your post that you have not ever tried to write an emulator. Let's put it this way: the GP32, a Korean handheld, runs at 166 Mhz. It has the exact same processor (with some modifications for higher clock speeds) as the GBA and yet it can't emulate GBA at all. Just because 2 devices share the same graphics chip, it doesn't mean it's all of a sudden 'easy' to write an emulator. The graphics chip is only one very small part of the entire device. Also, Xscale chips were designed for power-saving features in mind, NOT processing power. Even if a Dreamcast emulator was written in ASM it would still be too slow to push anything playable on the Axim.

http://www.fpsece.net/ is PSX Emualator for the PocketPC to show what a pocket pc with good code can do.. *Note you may need GAPI tweak using the x50v*

[b]Also note, ePSXe, a PSX emulator for Windows, runs fine on a 400 Mhz computer (if you don't turn on the nifty graphics filters and such). FpseCE running on a 624 Mhz PPC barely chugs along. I'm aware that the emulator is still in the works and I'm not saying it sucks (it's great, I use it all the time) but it's just an illustration between the differences of writing emulators for PPC and Windows. Another prime example is SNES emulation, I can run SNES games perfectly fine on a 486DX33 and yet they lag a lot on my 624 Mhz Axim.

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[Ranma13]

Thanks you for reply, and that 2ghz remark from above the ONLY reason for that is because emulating on a windows pc with different processers and multitasking a bios,os, other software take huge system resource and special processes, it is entirely possible to emulate on a pocket pc because windows ce is bascially a very bare strippped version of windows, and if what i read is true 2700g is the Dreamcast PowerVR chip, the emulation instruction should not be TOO difficult to write out using the emulator for pc as a reference...how ever my question is still unanswered if that chip is the same function wise as the dreamcast one?

It's obvious from your post that you have not ever tried to write an emulator. Let's put it this way: the GP32, a Korean handheld, runs at 166 Mhz. It has the exact same processor (with some modifications for higher clock speeds) as the GBA and yet it can't emulate GBA at all. Just because 2 devices share the same graphics chip, it doesn't mean it's all of a sudden 'easy' to write an emulator. The graphics chip is only one very small part of the entire device. Also, Xscale chips were designed for power-saving features in mind, NOT processing power. Even if a Dreamcast emulator was written in ASM it would still be too slow to push anything playable on the Axim.

http://www.fpsece.net/ is PSX Emualator for the PocketPC to show what a pocket pc with good code can do.. *Note you may need GAPI tweak using the x50v*

Also note, ePSXe, a PSX emulator for Windows, runs fine on a 400 Mhz computer (if you don't turn on the nifty graphics filters and such). FpseCE running on a 624 Mhz PPC barely chugs along. I'm aware that the emulator is still in the works and I'm not saying it sucks (it's great, I use it all the time) but it's just an illustration between the differences of writing emulators for PPC and Windows. Another prime example is SNES emulation, I can run SNES games perfectly fine on a 486DX33 and yet they lag a lot on my 624 Mhz Axim.

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[Un[R]egistered]

Heh, Ranma, don't even bother... These guys clearly don't know what's involved in emulating a system. For a general understanding on how emulation works, look here: http://fms.komkon.org/EMUL8/HOWTO.html

[ArCAngelS]

Thank You for the constructive critisim even though it was so blatant, i was merely asking if the 2700g = Dreamcast PowerVR chip, and saying if its plasuable.. i never said about writing the whole thing myself, and if i did want to, i never said it would be easy, just merely stating its NOT impossible, it would be a fun project to attempt, if i got a simple game running at 15fps it would prove these things are capable.. all complex program take time and effort to create and implement.. thats all i have to say.. good bye

[Ranma13]

Nor did I say that you cannot write the emulator. I just said it's not a feasible project. Anyone can write a PSX emulator for SNES. Whether it would be worth the effort or not is another question.

I believe that a Dreamcast emulator for Pocket PC is a waste of time because there is no way it would run at a decent enough framerate, not even with the best optimizations. It's just too underpowered.