3 ms·

Talk to some game devs sometimes, they don't think of it like a PC at all(which is why PC -> console is so hard and not vice versa). I doubt we'll ever see thi

Talk to some game devs sometimes, they don't think of it like a PC at all(which is why PC -> console is so hard and not vice versa). I doubt we'll ever see this for titles that extract every ounce of performance out of a platform.

derefr 11y ago
Man, this is the fourth time today that someone's suggested that maybe I should talk to a real game developer about something. I am a game developer. Just not a (modern) console game developer. But I did develop SNES games, way back when! My point was not that this might be possible now; but that, as console CPU+GPU power approaches a certain threshold of "good enough; why would we need more?", console makers will eventually decide to spend some of the console's power not on fancier graphics, but on making development easier and more portable by introducing at least one full black-box abstraction layer above the hardware. When this happens, that layer can then be considered the "source ABI" for transpilation. Now, I haven't played with the XBO or PS4 SDKs, but I have played with the Wii U SDK—and it's exactly what I'm talking about. There's no hardware to think about in the Cafe toolchain—no IO ports to peek and poke, no MSRs to read off. There's just library APIs. It's nearly as abstract as Apple's tvOS SDK.
- anthk 11y ago
  > There's no hardware to think about in the Cafe toolchain—no IO ports to peek and poke, no MSRs to read off. There's just library APIs. It's nearly as abstract as Apple's tvOS SDK. That's why CEMU is so advanced.
- pandaman 11y ago
  There had been library API on PS1, PS2 had been an exception with the DMA chains and VU code exposed to developers but Xbox 1 and all later consoles come with libraries and no poking into registers business. So you can already try your idea by writing an Xbox 1 emulator (which is as much a PC as PS4 or Xbone). Spoiler alert: these libraries are statically linked on top of developers going around them all the time. Ultra High Level emulation seems to work only on Nintendo consoles, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UltraHLE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UltraHLE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin_%28emulator%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin_%28emulator%29

derefr 11y ago

Man, this is the fourth time today that someone's suggested that maybe I should talk to a real game developer about something. I am a game developer. Just not a (modern) console game developer. But I did develop SNES games, way back when! My point was not that this might be possible now; but that, as console CPU+GPU power approaches a certain threshold of "good enough; why would we need more?", console makers will eventually decide to spend some of the console's power not on fancier graphics, but on making development easier and more portable by introducing at least one full black-box abstraction layer above the hardware. When this happens, that layer can then be considered the "source ABI" for transpilation. Now, I haven't played with the XBO or PS4 SDKs, but I have played with the Wii U SDK—and it's exactly what I'm talking about. There's no hardware to think about in the Cafe toolchain—no IO ports to peek and poke, no MSRs to read off. There's just library APIs. It's nearly as abstract as Apple's tvOS SDK.

anthk 11y ago
> There's no hardware to think about in the Cafe toolchain—no IO ports to peek and poke, no MSRs to read off. There's just library APIs. It's nearly as abstract as Apple's tvOS SDK. That's why CEMU is so advanced.
pandaman 11y ago
There had been library API on PS1, PS2 had been an exception with the DMA chains and VU code exposed to developers but Xbox 1 and all later consoles come with libraries and no poking into registers business. So you can already try your idea by writing an Xbox 1 emulator (which is as much a PC as PS4 or Xbone). Spoiler alert: these libraries are statically linked on top of developers going around them all the time. Ultra High Level emulation seems to work only on Nintendo consoles, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UltraHLE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UltraHLE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin_%28emulator%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolphin_%28emulator%29