M.A.M.E. for SONY PlayStation 2
As I’ve just started working on PlayStation 2 hardware and I have access to a DTL-T10000 development station (the big black monolith) I wanted to find out just how fast the main CPU, an Hitachi clone of a MIPS processor, really was.I took the source code to M.A.M.E. and xMAME and with a little tweaking ported it to the Sony PlayStation 2 without too much trouble. The emulator runs at 40fps for most of the older 1980’s ROMs with all the GNU compiler optimisations switched on, with no audio support currently. Once I have the graphics functions optimised I expect to see it running at a solid 60fps.
The other speed test I did was take the open-source 1964 Nintendo 64 Emulator that is available and to which I can claim absolutely no credit for and ported it to the PS2, I just cheekily renamed it to 2064 to bring it up to date.
Getting the N64 emulator up was a much easier task and with only a few tweaks and a little optimisation it is running a good 55fps. With some thougth given to the 3D rendering and harnessing the full power of the PS2 I expect to have an N64 emulator running at 150% to 200% of the speed of the actual console.
I’m hoping that the MAME cabinet I intend to put together wil not require a $1500 PC inside of it and I’ll be able to slip in a $300 PlayStation 2.
Please do not ask me for either of these programs as I cannot legally distribute them.
Update #1: Unfortunately for me, I was too dumb to actually take any pictures with a camera of M.A.M.E. running on the PS2 dev kit. A couple of days later I did remember to take pictures of my generic Atari 2600 VCS Emulator that I ported so you’ll just have to satisfy yourself with those.
Update #2: I ported my Atari 2600 VCS Emulator to the Sony PlayStation 2 as well.
Update #3: At least I had the presence of mind to take pictures of M.A.M.E. running on the Microsoft XBOX a year later.
February 13th, 2008 at 8:13 am
(sorry if this is received twice, seems the first submit had some network problems ¿?)
Hi,
I know this is a very old post, but I’m doing a little bit the same you did (trying to compile xmame for PS2). First, let me say, I don’t want to ask you for the software (I understand you did that development, probably, under some NDA related to the DTL-T10000), but just to check some points and see whether you can give me some hints.
I’ve been able to download and compile (minor fixes in Makefile) xmame 0.106 and run it in Linux for playstation 2, but I cannot get more than 9-10 FPS on 80x games like Star Force. So, I just wanted to check what where the games that you tested, in order to see whether this low FPS rate is a matter of the game to test (Star force needs two Z80 and 1 audio chip “only”).
Also, any hint about compiler flags or where to optimize (for example, right now I’m taking a look to all the rotate/blit functions in the video subsystem) would be great.
So… as I said before, any help will be welcome!
Best,
Jose