[EncodedFATE]

Cool. So my PC meets the requirements?

Can we have screenshots when you have the time?

Certainly. They'll be posted to the projects homepage as we take them. As for now, we're still trying to get most of the emulators either coded or permission from other programmers to package their emulators with the OS. FlameAlchemist2, the OS programmer, is currently working on repackaging a test version of the OS with a few existing emulators simply for our personal staff-only tests.

 

[cloudvii]

Actually I'm very curious to see screenshots too. I'll be waiting ^^

 

[Talbain]

That's a rather high graphics card requirement... but I suppose if you're emulating games from the latest generation, it'd be expected.

 

[MT]

You know when we talk about emulation, we also need to talk about legal processes, piratary, etc... I am an emulation fanboy, and I've seen emu projects that were stalked by consoles/games enterprises, like what Sony did with Bleem!. What do you guys in the project think? Do you think the enterprises will try to stop the project? Are you guys ready for such legal battles?
IMHO, even being an OS, this project may wake up the anger of big corporations... =\

I wish you the best of luck guys

 

[GCFreak]

That's true, Miretank. Very true.

 

[EncodedFATE]

Well, being as this is for *ahem* educational purposes, I don't readily foresee any problems. It's freeware and once the innitial release is ready, it'll be completely open source. We're not really getting paid for the actual programming, so we're not taking their money. If I recall, the main reason Bleem! was targeted was due to the fact it wasn't freeware.

In the future, there is always a chance we could face legal issues of some sort. The programmers of any team making emulators face that possibilty. If that should happen, we'll readily consult the proper lawyers. Otherwise, I don't see a major problem coming up anytime soon.

 

[zenogais]

Not to be a downer or anything, but I really can't ever see this coming to fruition. The sheer technical difficulty of writing an operating system, combined with the driver issues, I think will stop this dead in its tracks. Not to mention the fact that all aspects of the OS would have to be finely tuned to allow emulators to get the best possible performance on any system - meaning thread scheduling algorithms, extremely fast memory management etc, etc. If you guys pull this off I'll be floored, but good luck anyways :thumb:

 

[hellmasterx]

good luck whit your project

 

[EncodedFATE]

Not to be a downer or anything, but I really can't ever see this coming to fruition. The sheer technical difficulty of writing an operating system, combined with the driver issues, I think will stop this dead in its tracks. Not to mention the fact that all aspects of the OS would have to be finely tuned to allow emulators to get the best possible performance on any system - meaning thread scheduling algorithms, extremely fast memory management etc, etc. If you guys pull this off I'll be floored, but good luck anyways :thumb:

Trust me, we've got a very good team and I'd hope the new members we get are just as motivated and don't lame out on us. Keep in mind that the first releases will be running on a Fedora Core 4-based distro, so luckily we're not looking at an extreme amount of work just yet.

However, you have a very good point. This -is- going to take a good bit of time and I have no doubt there's going to be a ton of frustration on our part. But I'm pretty sure that if we work together with some (hopefull most) of the programmers who've already started or completed emulators for Linux that this will be a complete success.

good luck whit your project

Thanks! We appriciate the encouragement. ^_^

 

[DJ Stenny]

If you guys are looking into making a very efficient OS, then I strongly suggest you look into the structure of BeOS. It's very light-weight and speedy, it may serve your purposes well.

Btw, how much of the OS would you say is finished? 20-30%?

 

[EncodedFATE]

If you guys are looking into making a very efficient OS, then I strongly suggest you look into the structure of BeOS. It's very light-weight and speedy, it may serve your purposes well.

Btw, how much of the OS would you say is finished? 20-30%?

It's about 70% complete I think, minus the emulators of course. As for BeOS, I'll definately suggest it to the staff.

 

[DJ Stenny]

Also, just so you know, while BeOS does have a POSIX compatability layer, it's not a Unix based OS.

Btw, are you guys going to implement ACPI support for laptops?

 

[Vanit]

EncodedFATE, how much of an increase in PS2 emulation are you expecting in this project? Practically all of the consoles before this generation are emulated at proper speeds on a standard PC, which means the only real thing I think people want to see in this project for better speeds in PS2, GC etc. My real question then is do you expect your project to live up to this? I'm really intrigued in this OS as it's been suggested before to make an emulator Linux distribution, but no one ever considered tweaking the OS component.

I too wish you good luck.

 

[EncodedFATE]

EncodedFATE, how much of an increase in PS2 emulation are you expecting in this project? Practically all of the consoles before this generation are emulated at proper speeds on a standard PC, which means the only real thing I think people want to see in this project for better speeds in PS2, GC etc. My real question then is do you expect your project to live up to this? I'm really intrigued in this OS as it's been suggested before to make an emulator Linux distribution, but no one ever considered tweaking the OS component.

I too wish you good luck.

There's going to be a definate and very noticable speed increase with GC, PS2, GBA, NDS, etc. We're expecting anywhere in the range of double the PCSX2's current speed on our test PC with the first beta (which of course will increase as we work out bugs). This of course will differ on other systems depending on hardware. Our test PC currently utilzes the minimum spec requirements, by the way.

I for one refuse to give up on the project until the goals we've set have been met. The speed increase combined with it's compact size, the fact it can be used to make a fairly cheap portable emulation "console" unit, and be installed to another partition on your current PC's HDD for easy access without having to delete any of your current files, not to mention the new possibilities for emulator programmers... I hope all these things make the OS a formidable and useful addition to the emulation world.

Btw, are you guys going to implement ACPI support for laptops?

It's a definate possibility, as I feel that it would dramatically increase the possibilities of the OS. However, the moment our primary goal is simply to get it running as expected on the average desktop PC. Well... as average of a PC as most gamers would own, anyway.

 

[cooliscool]

:|

...

:|

 

[Viper_Viper]

We're expecting anywhere in the range of double the PCSX2's current speed on our test PC with the first beta (which of course will increase as we work out bugs)

!!!

 

[Chrono Archangel]

somehow i doubt you can "double" the speed just by making an extra slim OS...
im no expert but im thinking at best 10-20% increase...max

proove me wrong please

 

[GCFreak]

I for one, too would like to see evidence

 

[Criftus]

hmm...

You're definitely optimistic, I'll give you that. =)

I was thinking about something similar to this a while ago, though I lack the technical knowledge to pursue any of my ideas. lol A "stripped" OS would probably give a noticeable speed increase, but I'm not convinced it would be such a drastic leap from current rates ...

... I was always under the impression that modern PCs couldn't emulate consoles with inferior hardware specs at their intended speeds because of their (the consoles) dedicated hardware, the manner in which that hardware operates with each other, and the basic way in which emulators "emulate" (I can't explain that last vaguarity... don't ask please... heh). I have a fairly modern machine and still get hiccups with the next-gen emulators (pre-PS2 I mean), so again, I'm a little skeptical.

Not to say that this isn't a worthy cause. =D I love the idea of an emulation-only OS. Removing all of the useless clutter an OS normally loads while in operation would be excellent.

Best of luck!

 

[Viper_Viper]

Not to say that this isn't a worthy cause. =D I love the idea of an emulation-only OS. Removing all of the useless clutter an OS normally loads while in operation would be excellent.

Exactly, I would not care if there was any speed impovements. Those will come in time with advancements in hardware and the emulators themselves. I just like the idea of having a Box that does everything with minnimal hassle. A very slick GUI is nessissary for this OS, so it is basicly a SUPER frount end!