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Does anyone have any links to blog posts they consider good descriptions of what goes into making a game console emulator? I am super impressed by the content

Does anyone have any links to blog posts they consider good descriptions of what goes into making a game console emulator? I am super impressed by the content of this post, but I bet there is also a lot that is going over my head that I am not even aware of.

Cyph0n 6y ago
I’ve recently been working on a Gameboy Color emulator in Rust[1], mostly as a learning project, and it has been an absolute blast! I’ve never enjoyed working on a project this much to be honest - it’s very satisfying to gradually see your emulator run games developed for another system, especially if it’s a system you’ve personally used in the past. In my opinion, the best way to learn how an emulator works is to start writing one. /r/emudev and the emudev Discord (see subreddit sidebar) are a great place to start. The Discord in particular is great: it’s split into channels for each system, and there are a ton of pointers to resources for all systems in the main channel. As far as consoles go, the typical recommendation is to start with CHIP-8. It’s a straightforward system with a very simple design, which makes it relatively easy to emulate. [1] For the curious: https://github.com/aksiksi/gbc https://github.com/aksiksi/gbc
- city41 6y ago
  I agree for older machines this is a great approach. A lot of the challenge is being organized and persistent, powering through all the opcodes and making sure they're accurately implemented. I made a Sega Master System emulator many years ago and it was a fun project. I do wonder how one takes on modern machines though. It seems like it'd be a completely different ball of wax.
  - Cyph0n 6y ago
    Oh definitely, writing an emulator for a modern system is an entirely different ballgame. I truly respect the dedication and skill of the people behind large emulator projects like PCSX2 and Dolphin.
  - agret 6y ago
    Modern game consoles have a lot of common library / OS system calls that instead of emulating you re-create those calls and make your own implementation with the expected return values. The low level stuff and shader translation aspects are very complicated though.
- djmips 6y ago
  There must be hundreds of Gameboy emulators now. I guess it's the equivalent of "Hello World" for emulators.
  - TylerE 6y ago
    Infocom Z-Machine? Probably even simpler to implement since it was designed to be emulated.
    - sanj 6y ago
      Been there, done that! And it was a blast.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
      Pretty sure the word "emulation" doesn't apply. The Z-Machine never had hardware to be emulated, only a virtual machine to be implemented. Ditto CHIP-8 though. For emulating a real system, the Gigatron would be relatively simple. The hard part would be the display because it is bit-banged into NTSC.
  - Cyph0n 6y ago
    I think CHIP-8 is a better candidate for that title. But yes, Gameboy emulators are quite common.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- peteretep 6y ago
  > it’s very satisfying to gradually see your emulator run This does sound like fun. I feel like I’ve had a similar experience in porting and refactoring legacy code, and each successive step forward unlocks more and more cool stuff
denkmoon 6y ago
https://cturt.github.io/cinoop.html https://cturt.github.io/cinoop.html Basic overview of a GameBoy emulator. Far cry from the complexities of a Switch, but still a great writeup by cturt.
HideousKojima 6y ago
If you want to get into writing emulators yourself, I'd recommend starting with the CHIP-8. I just wrote one in C# and it was pretty easy, still need to properly handle input and rendering though (I'm currently saving the display output to a bitmap after every draw call)
- fermentation 6y ago
  If you’ve got a bitmap you’re almost there, you can stream that bad boy over the bus to SDL for rendering.
riverg 6y ago
I wrote up a series [0] documenting a CHIP-8 emulator I wrote that I hope explains how to get something like this working from the ground up, albeit for a much simpler system. [0] https://river.codes/emulating-a-computer-part-1/ https://river.codes/emulating-a-computer-part-1/
TAForObvReasons 6y ago
Dolphin (wii / gc emulator) blog is great: https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/ https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/
lathiat 6y ago
There are some pretty good YouTube videos on the subject, worth a search
JetSpiegel 6y ago
https://byuu.net/ https://byuu.net/

Cyph0n 6y ago

I’ve recently been working on a Gameboy Color emulator in Rust[1], mostly as a learning project, and it has been an absolute blast! I’ve never enjoyed working on a project this much to be honest - it’s very satisfying to gradually see your emulator run games developed for another system, especially if it’s a system you’ve personally used in the past. In my opinion, the best way to learn how an emulator works is to start writing one. /r/emudev and the emudev Discord (see subreddit sidebar) are a great place to start. The Discord in particular is great: it’s split into channels for each system, and there are a ton of pointers to resources for all systems in the main channel. As far as consoles go, the typical recommendation is to start with CHIP-8. It’s a straightforward system with a very simple design, which makes it relatively easy to emulate. [1] For the curious: https://github.com/aksiksi/gbc https://github.com/aksiksi/gbc

city41 6y ago
I agree for older machines this is a great approach. A lot of the challenge is being organized and persistent, powering through all the opcodes and making sure they're accurately implemented. I made a Sega Master System emulator many years ago and it was a fun project. I do wonder how one takes on modern machines though. It seems like it'd be a completely different ball of wax.
- Cyph0n 6y ago
  Oh definitely, writing an emulator for a modern system is an entirely different ballgame. I truly respect the dedication and skill of the people behind large emulator projects like PCSX2 and Dolphin.
- agret 6y ago
  Modern game consoles have a lot of common library / OS system calls that instead of emulating you re-create those calls and make your own implementation with the expected return values. The low level stuff and shader translation aspects are very complicated though.
djmips 6y ago
There must be hundreds of Gameboy emulators now. I guess it's the equivalent of "Hello World" for emulators.
- TylerE 6y ago
  Infocom Z-Machine? Probably even simpler to implement since it was designed to be emulated.
  - sanj 6y ago
    Been there, done that! And it was a blast.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
    Pretty sure the word "emulation" doesn't apply. The Z-Machine never had hardware to be emulated, only a virtual machine to be implemented. Ditto CHIP-8 though. For emulating a real system, the Gigatron would be relatively simple. The hard part would be the display because it is bit-banged into NTSC.
- Cyph0n 6y ago
  I think CHIP-8 is a better candidate for that title. But yes, Gameboy emulators are quite common.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
peteretep 6y ago
> it’s very satisfying to gradually see your emulator run This does sound like fun. I feel like I’ve had a similar experience in porting and refactoring legacy code, and each successive step forward unlocks more and more cool stuff

denkmoon 6y ago

https://cturt.github.io/cinoop.html https://cturt.github.io/cinoop.html Basic overview of a GameBoy emulator. Far cry from the complexities of a Switch, but still a great writeup by cturt.

HideousKojima 6y ago

If you want to get into writing emulators yourself, I'd recommend starting with the CHIP-8. I just wrote one in C# and it was pretty easy, still need to properly handle input and rendering though (I'm currently saving the display output to a bitmap after every draw call)

fermentation 6y ago
If you’ve got a bitmap you’re almost there, you can stream that bad boy over the bus to SDL for rendering.

riverg 6y ago

I wrote up a series [0] documenting a CHIP-8 emulator I wrote that I hope explains how to get something like this working from the ground up, albeit for a much simpler system. [0] https://river.codes/emulating-a-computer-part-1/ https://river.codes/emulating-a-computer-part-1/

TAForObvReasons 6y ago

Dolphin (wii / gc emulator) blog is great: https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/ https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/

lathiat 6y ago

There are some pretty good YouTube videos on the subject, worth a search

JetSpiegel 6y ago

https://byuu.net/ https://byuu.net/