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This is a pretty common and old idea, dating back to the original xbox, which was basically "just" a normal pentium processor with an nvidia gpu. For various r
by spijdar 6y ago
This is a pretty common and old idea, dating back to the original xbox, which was basically "just" a normal pentium processor with an nvidia gpu.
For various reasons, though, this sort of emulation has a lot of pitfalls. Either you directly run a lot of the console's firmware and e.g. try to implement the hardware devices in QEMU, or you try to recreate the console OS/firmware at a higher level, mimicking the underlying APIs. Neither are easy tasks. Take a look at the original xbox -- the emulators available aren't really great, even after nearly 2 decades of hard work.
Of course, any complex emulator is hard -- just pointing out this isn't really as much of a shortcut as it may seem. The biggest upside is just (potentially) performance, as you don't need to interpret or translate CPU instructions.
- kristofferR 6y agoI don't think your statement about 2 decades of hard work on OG Xbox emulators is totally correct - the real focus on emulation only began in the mid 2010s. It's lack of exclusives also results in a lack of emulator developers.
- spijdar 6y agoThat's fair -- development has been off-and-on, and there's not much of a desire for xbox emulation. Still, I think it's a good example of how just because the xbox is basically a regular Pentium III system with a modified GeForce 3 GPU, doesn't mean it's easy to make an emulator for. And the original xbox was more "PC-like" than the PS4/5 or current xbox lineup, I'd wager.