Emulators as Fast As Possible

What is an emulator? Are emulators limited in any way by your hardware?

[HansFerreyra]

One day we'll emulate humans and I'll play a pirated Linus ROM.

[BenKuyt]

It's actually crazy how hard emulation is. There isn't a working Original Xbox emulator, PS2 emulation is still young, but works pretty well except some issues. GameCube emulation, the console where the hardware is probably the hardest to figure out in a traditional computer sense (except Cell architecture), works stupidly well. Like, really well. 

It's kind of crazy.

[ProtoMario]

I remember Emulators and roms being on windows 95 and 98.

[geek]

Good connection to the PCs running as consoles at conventions. I always see posts about that!

[AdityaNambiar]

This is the only channel on which I enjoy the sponsorer's ads. You do the ads well dude..!!!!Techquickie 

[sukorileakbatt]

this clears up a lot dude thanks. you did an amazing job communicating such a complex process. 10/10

[BlackBird]

i find it funny that you will assume your audience is really stupid by pretending they ask you a question like "oh great does that mean I can run the Titan super computer on my phone as an emulator" but then go on to give a complicated and convoluted  answer :)

[professor_skilla]

I love looking back how far my dude has come style and content creation wise, makes my heart soar and im semi new to tech .... thank you Linus

[jimmyking]

At least your sponsored ads Linus interest us in most cases.

[devilmikey]

Own a high end PC? Emulate literally everything but region specific games up to and including the wii better then was ever possible on the original hardware. It's that simple. maybe like 5-10% of games don't run on an emulator but most popular games do fine and look/play better then they did on the original hardware. Especially anything cel-shaded.

[blakegriplingph]

I know this mostly covers things and terms in a nutshell, but you forgot to mention emulation accuracy i.e. high versus low-level and those emulators that made history like UltraHLE and Dolphin.

High level emulation means that rather than reproduce the hardware gate by gate, you simply simulate the hardware's reaction to whatever input the software does, as with UltraHLE and Cxbx. Low-level emulation on the other hand, does things more faithfully; though some of them actually take shortcuts for performance purposes e.g. ZSNES, emulators like Higan and MAME strive for a more purist approach.

[TharenCandi]

I love how you say a question then lead to the next part of the video by it.

[MrMonkeykiller]

so if it wasn't for a PC emulation  xbox and ps4 wouldn't be here, PC master race confirmed 

[Twiggy]

Fuck yea, pokemon silver on a gtx 980. I still have some good memories of my Gameboy colour.

[gman]

I think this techquickie is one that might have to be redone as I don't think it adequately explains things, even for the given audience and time frame. Rather than saying that emulation is faking hardware in software, it is better explained as the translation of functions from one format to another that the host hardware understands. This translation can be done at different levels.
It can be done at the hardware level where every call to a function of the hardware being emulated is translated into a call the host understands. This type of emulation is known as an interpreter and is the most accurate form of emulation, but is quite slow due to the need to translate every function at the lowest level and often requires the operating system and firmware images of the emulated machine.
It can also be done at higher software level where only the api calls are translated into api calls available on the host machine which closely approximate the function of the call. This can be known as dynamic recompilation or simulation. This is not as accurate as it only approximates the function of the emulated machine, but is much faster as there are fewer translations to be done leaving more time for the execution of the translated functions. This often does not require the entire operating system or set of firmware from the emulated machine as the higher level functions present in these prices of software are what is being translated. This method can even allow host hardware of only marginally higher performance to run the software of the emulated hardware.
The latter approach is what is used in development kits for consoles and the former often for running old software for businesses where 100% accuracy is required. The emulators used for playing games from older gaming hardware often use a mix of both methods. Often times the CPU and memory functions are interpreted and the graphics functions are dynamically recompiled; such is the case with community developed emulators like dolphin.

[OCDTraci]

Easily the best video I've found on the topic of emulators. Thanks!

[BdR]

2:12 Interestingly, back in the olden days, at least some developers were developing ZX Spectrum games on Atari ST's or Amigas. Usually not emulated though, just for compiling and debugging.

[tyleremmerich]

1:41 All that badminton seems to be paying off.

[sors]

I laught more than I should have at the photoshop of Linus with Arnold.

[hrachyamelkonyan]

Please make "Developer Kit as fast as possible"