Getting there… Daedalus R10, state of the Emulator

How are we so far? Almost a couple of weeks ago, StrmnNrmn posted an update to how he was doing with the latest build of his N64 emulator, Daedalus R10. Well, it’s update time again at his blog, and for the most part, it’s good news.

You got something warm to drink? You can read the summary below, or look at the more detailed notes via the Read link, but either way, you WILL want to leave with a warm and tingly feeling inside you, because the effect of almost two weeks of optimization work is a combined (observed average) of 10-15% speedup on various tested games, says StrmnNrmn.

Hence the warm drink. In my experience, a cup of warm cocoa usually helps. Go mix yourself a batch.

• He’s managed to get Daedalus running with the GCC’s “-O3” setting, thus enabling all the optimizations that the GCC provides. Previous Daedalus Rs have had to run on -O1, he points out in comparison. Oh, yes, that’s worth three marshmallows in the cocoa. 
• Tweaks to the VFPU code for TnL and clipping, much, much streamlining he did with the help of fellows in the pspdev forums. The gratitude he has to the two who’ve given him suggestions on this is both implicit and understated. Toss in a couple more ‘mallows to the mix.
• Codes for N64 blend modes were also optimized. As he puts it, his original method for emulating this on the PSP “was very expensive” (on the PSP’s resources, we assume, and not some monetary budget), so he’s rewritten the code some for efficiency. Er, just ran out of marshmallows, but how about some candy sprinkles?

We have to note Strmn’s little caveat that the 10-15% speedup is based on all the games he tested, and even there, there’s a wide spread of results (with some games showing no changes to speed, and others zipping by like there’s no tomorrow). But the important part is that these are three checked off the Things-To-Do list he’s trying to stick to for R10. That’s why they call it incremental improvement: one thing at a time.

So, how did you like that cocoa?

How are we so far? Almost a couple of weeks ago, StrmnNrmn posted an update to how he was doing with the latest build of his N64 emulator, Daedalus R10. Well, it’s update time again at his blog, and for the most part, it’s good news.

You got something warm to drink? You can read the summary below, or look at the more detailed notes via the Read link, but either way, you WILL want to leave with a warm and tingly feeling inside you, because the effect of almost two weeks of optimization work is a combined (observed average) of 10-15% speedup on various tested games, says StrmnNrmn.

Hence the warm drink. In my experience, a cup of warm cocoa usually helps. Go mix yourself a batch.

• He’s managed to get Daedalus running with the GCC’s “-O3” setting, thus enabling all the optimizations that the GCC provides. Previous Daedalus Rs have had to run on -O1, he points out in comparison. Oh, yes, that’s worth three marshmallows in the cocoa. 
• Tweaks to the VFPU code for TnL and clipping, much, much streamlining he did with the help of fellows in the pspdev forums. The gratitude he has to the two who’ve given him suggestions on this is both implicit and understated. Toss in a couple more ‘mallows to the mix.
• Codes for N64 blend modes were also optimized. As he puts it, his original method for emulating this on the PSP “was very expensive” (on the PSP’s resources, we assume, and not some monetary budget), so he’s rewritten the code some for efficiency. Er, just ran out of marshmallows, but how about some candy sprinkles?

We have to note Strmn’s little caveat that the 10-15% speedup is based on all the games he tested, and even there, there’s a wide spread of results (with some games showing no changes to speed, and others zipping by like there’s no tomorrow). But the important part is that these are three checked off the Things-To-Do list he’s trying to stick to for R10. That’s why they call it incremental improvement: one thing at a time.

So, how did you like that cocoa?