PS3: The Ultimate Emulation Machine?

[gord]

So your saying there aren't any people out there that know how to code outside of the x86 based chips?

I find that highly doubtful. As for the floating point math dealy... I don't know what goes into emulating hardware so I don't know if FP math is useless.

of course there are its just that most of the people who have wrote emulaters are based heavly in x86 and its much more easy to port an emulator thats cross platformable instead of one thats based around x86, for example snes9x is coded in c(c++?) which is cross platformable, thats why its the emulator thats usually used as a base for other console based emu's. zsnes on the other hand is coded mostly in x86 assembly, and will only work on x86 cpu's. its much easyer to just use the slower, but more accessible snes9x.

its the same reason why snes emulation on the dreamcast isn't exsacly quick, its based on the portable snes9x, not the quick (and easly runnable on 200mhz) zsnes .


and the floating point math co processors can't be used for emulation simply because emulation is about emulating the hardware, hardware works in 1's and 0's, not 1.021232 and 0.23412's

[neohx_7]

The PS3 is plenty fast to be able to handle SDL, C++, Open GL based emulators rather than assembly.

If the PSP is any indication, Sony will be very strict about signing homebrew executables on the PS3. I had a 1.5 PSP for a few months, and now I have a 2.6 PSP because of certain games. I felt like I lost half the appeal of the console when I upgraded.

[turkey]

I think it is worth noting that sony are not know for thier truth, every console has been hyped on lies and false hopes. Ps2 had an emotion engine as well as healthy online service.... only after live was realy did they even bother with online... and the emotion engines claims are possibly going to be realised this generation. can we say 2 X hdmi? killzone demo.....

Whilst you may hail the linux kit as great, remember the ps2 also had it, and as far as i know it was not the emulator hot bed you hope it to spawn, nor did it offer a media centre of epic proportions.

Also the basic ps3 not having hdmi kind of ruins its blue ray advantage but still costs more than the 360.... i cant help thinking sony may have made i cock up. If your really into hi quality video you wont buy a console as the player, not after the ps2 was so bad as a dvd player. And joe public could not give a rats arse about bluray as dvd still looks shit hot to most people, and upscaling players can already do wonders......

I would love the ps3 to become a cult underground emulation beast, just as much as i hope m$ keep on with the retro arcade idea. Anything which brings these old clasics into the mainstream modern market is doing a good thing

I think ms do have the edge, but sony will come back strong. I do believe the ps3 might get hacked fiarly quickly as they are basically including a ps2 inside it (which is already compromised) and the inclusion of the ps1 was the ps2's achilies heal.

[Mega-Dan]

The ps2 linux kit require you to shell out 200 bucks and was only availible in extremely limited quantities via a website. This is different because its included with every PS3 sold by default.
However I agree, never trust sony's marketing promises, they said the PS2 would push 100 billion polygons, it pushes like 10 but that no one could understand that because the emotion engine was so complex. In truth nobody knew it could do this because it could not in fact do this, they were lying so they could stop people from buying a dreamcast. For all we know the PS3 is substantially less powerfull than the xbox360. I got burned by sony twice already, and I am not lining up for a PS3. Both my PS1 and PS2 had to be replaced because the lasers stopped functioning correctly, and my current PS2 is starting to act up a little (can you believe that crap!).
" On the surface, it would seem to be a sound strategy. After all, that's largely how PS2 trounced Dreamcast: gamers were so convinced that the PS2 would be a generational leap over Sega's early offering that they were willing to wait a year for the more expensive console. But if Sony's really hoping to make Dreamcast 2.0 a reality, now would be a very good time to change tactics. Relying on obfuscation and hype is only likely to work once, especially for gamers who believed tall promises about the PS2 Emotion Engine's ability to present the most impressive game worlds imaginable but actually received a system only moderately more powerful than the Dreamcast." Ign http://egm.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3148720

[turkey]

agreed, a good round up from E3 here http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=64797 not exatly favorable, we shall have to wait and see.

Sorry the point i was hopeing to make was this linux kit may or maynot turn out as expected, as noted sony track record is less than spotless.