Emulators as Fast As Possible
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2015-05-07
·
890 words · ~4 min read
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now Nintendo recently filed a patent for Game Boy emulation which would allow
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folks to have the Game Boy experience on devices that range from their mobile
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phones all the way to the displays on the backs of the seats in front of them
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on trains and airplanes cool right wait hold on a minute lus what exactly is
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emulation are they going to cut open all those seats and stuff game boys inside
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where will they get so many game boys are they going to try to take mine no
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whoa hold on slow down there turbo they don't need actual game Boys in fact
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that's exactly the point of an emulator to use software combined with high-speed
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or specialized Hardware to effectively fake the functionality of another piece
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of hardware for the purpose of running or debugging programs so that Game Boy
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emulator is just a software program that runs on Hardware that is nothing like an
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actual game boy but is able to imitate its functionality so the game software
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itself never knows it's not running on a real Game Boy neat hey yeah Linus that
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sounds super awesome so can I emulate the Titan supercomputer on like my phone
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and run complex weather simulations in my
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pocket no uh even with intimate knowledge of how a device and the
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software it runs works the non-specialized processing power
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required to fake a given functionality purely in software especially one for
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which highly specialized purpose-built Hardware has been developed is often an
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order of magnitude greater than the original or more and in many cases
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especially where emulation is being used to preserve the gaming experiences of
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old games or software that wouldn't otherwise run on Modern computers a fair
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bit of brute forcing it is required to achieve sufficient
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performance okay lonus sweet then so I can run like Odell Lake on my Alienware
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riveting I'm glad you made a video about this actually emulation is not just for
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old stuff it's often used in the design of future products as well one of my
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favorite examples of this is the recurring Scandal of oh my goodness the
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game console maker X was using a PC to run their demos at video game convention
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y well of course they were it's called a
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development kit imagine a world where a new game console came out and then you
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had to wait the typical 2 to three years that a AAA game takes before you could
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actually play anything on it programmers use devkits often developed internally
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to write code for systems that aren't actually finished being designed yet so
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that once the hardware is finalized there's already software for it and
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programmable Hardware like a modern video game console is just one example
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of this it can be even more useful in the design of specialized Hardware
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called an embedded system where the hardware and software need to work
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tightly together to reduce power consumption and design complexity
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keeping costs low emulation of the hardware allows faster testing of
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software which allows faster refinement of the hardware multiple cycles of which
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can occur without ever actually physically manufacturing anything
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efficient right so there you have it emulation has the advantages of
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flexibility potentially improved functionality anti-aliasing add-ons for
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PlayStation 1 games anyone and when done well lower Hardware costs but with the
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drawbacks of sometimes imperfect compatibility and usually much higher
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processing power requirements speaking of power requirements Cooler Master is
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yes I don't know Nick's notes in here are terrible Nick your notes on the the
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video integration are terrible but the last couple things that are in there is
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that the nepon 240m which is a cooler that we actually checked out recently on
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the lus tech tips channel is a great value for someone looking for an
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all-in-one liquid cooler for their CPU and if you're not necessarily looking to
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buy something but you just enjoy learning I mean you're watching fast as possible so probably do then you can
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check out their Cooler Master University site which will be linked in the video description where they've got some cool
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information about cool things like coolers thanks for watching guys like
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this video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it leave a comment if you thought that my cool joke was not very
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cool just awful or if you have suggestions for future fastest Possible
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episodes just like this one