[Jazzymarc]

Hello all!
It has been a long time I use emulators and I have always wanted to know how are these brillant apps created? I am wondering from what an emulator programmer start, I suppose he doesn't start from scratch? So the question is, how does an emulator programmer work?

 

[Vanit]

They are programmed from scratch based on either leaked/guestimated design documents. They take an incredible amount of time to program and years to perfect.

If you don't know C++ or a programming language I would suggest you get a thorough understanding of it first before you even contemplate writing your own emulator.

 

[cloudsBro]

so if someone writes an emulator for say psx, how does one get this emulator available?

 

[salam_azad]

so if someone writes an emulator for say psx, how does one get this emulator available?

available? oO

 

[cloudsBro]

what i meant was how does someone get his or her emulator on the scene, make it available to the public to download?

 

[Vanit]

... well here I would believe you simply post it in the emulation news submission section.

 

[Ramsus K]

Put it up on a website and tell everyone about it.

 

[Xymet]

You can register yourself at an esteemed website which normally ppl visit such as Sourceforge. (you may have to give the coding there)... But as PCSX2, you can submit your project files (or rather the program) to them and register it with them. They would handle pretty much of advertising, I guess. But like the other emulators around you gotta pull the job well done to get it well on... and also youd better have your own project website, for publicity maybe.......

but to program an emulator takes both time and wit. You need to understand how the actual hardware work, what the components are and all. It would be a big challenge, but i guess it'd be a relief to get through it all with an extraordinary emulator....

(P.S. - I tried to learn how to emulate but am having a bad time learning, its not hard to understand but to actually try to complete it............ disaster.....)

 

[GiGaHeRz]

You justn need to make it work, and post it somewhere public... if it works and ppl likes it it will be known.

The hard part is making it work. You need to know how do all the parts of the console work (CPU,GPU,SPU,memory and any other devices it has). If the specs are known (with public official documents or reverse-engineered info) you just need to make the program do what the real chip is supposed to do. And make it do that as fast as possible. There are some techniques to make emulators faster, like dynamic recompilation and High-level emulation (do a search in the forums if you want more info on that), but they are useless if you don't know how does it actually work. That's why making an emulator for a new or unknown console might be so hard.

About publishing, as I said it's just posting it somewhere that ppl can see it (like vanit said, the emulation news forum would be a nice starting place).

 

[SnakeBite]

maybe these threads are of interest:
http://www.ngemu.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50072
http://www.ngemu.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59894

 

[Shin_Gouki]

Interesting the qurstion comes up quite often i think to write an wikibook about this would be a very cool idea!
wbr Shin Gouki