how they managed to emulate a 64 bit architetture on a 32 bit macchine?
Here's a number: 64
That number is sixty-four, but you'll notice it only consists of two numbers; a six and a four. How can we represent a large number such as sixty-four with only two numbers? We do it by having a smaller number represent a bigger number. "64" can be explained as us having six tens and four ones. The highest number that can be represented by 32-bits is 4,294,967,296. After that limit is reached, we start a second number that keeps track of how many 4,294,967,296s we have.
If at some point in your life you've managed to complete 1st grade, you might be familiar with something called addition. When using the standard written method you'll start by adding together the least significant figures. If they amount to more than ten, you'll carry an extra one over to the next set. This concept is similar to how a processor can deal with bigger numbers than it can handle natively.
If you don't understand any of that, it can be summarized as "magic".
Because the R4300i CPU has two modes: 32bit and 64bit. Pretty much every single game ran in 32bit mode since there was little point in using 64bit when you're dealing with a system that has only 4 to 8 megabytes of RAM.
This CPU only had 64bit mode in case you were trying to build a server out of them, not a bloody 90s games console.
http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/R4300_datasheet.Rev0.3.pdf
Also emulators are generally high-level emulation that don't seek to accurately reproduce the cycles of the original CPUs, so you can build in special cases to handle any instances where 64bit was executed in the original.
>>2822153
So The n64 is a scam, in some ways
>>2822190
n32 doesn't have the same ring to it.
>>2822190
Well the CPU is true 64bit.
It's pretty amusing that Nintendo emphasized the one feature of this off-the-shelf CPU that wasn't useful for a game console.
nintendo saw sega making shit up with the blast processing campaign so they thought two can play this game
>>2822220
Sega:
>Blast Processing
Nintendo:
>N64
Sony:
>Dual Polygon Buffering
Microsoft:
>Cloud Streaming
They've all done it. They're getting less creative and more obtuse.
>>2822201
It was all about the bit wars back then.
>>2822256
>Sony:
>>Dual Polygon Buffering
Never heard of that one.
>>2822151
Epic
>>2822190
Not as much as the Jaguar.
YOU DO THE MATH.
>>2822541
Jaguar wasn't real 64bit and N64 was.
Really a comparison between outright lying and promoting a useless feature.
Same way you emulate any system on a host that's different from it, you write software functions that mimic the behavior of each of the guest system's opcodes; if not for space limitations it would technically be perfectly feasible for an old 8 bit system to emulate a modern i7 albeit very slowly
In practice the actual 64 bit instructions were rarely used by N64 games so the performance hit from having to emulate them on a 32 bit host was usually not a significant issue
>>2822151
>If you don't understand any of that, it can be summarized as "magic".
lol'd
>>2822549
>In practice the actual 64 bit instructions were rarely used by N64 games so the performance hit from having to emulate them on a 32 bit host was usually not a significant issue
The 64DD used some 64-bit code in its firmware, can't think of much else.
>>2822136
I hardly hardly HARDLY believe you know anything about programming, but you can easily answer your own question by understanding how to write an emulator. There are several quick overviews on this issue online, just Google it.
>>2822985
http://fms.komkon.org/EMUL8/HOWTO.html
http://emulator101.com/
http://nesdev.com/NES%20emulator%20development%20guide.txt
>>2822220
Blast processing was actually a thing.
Genesis = 7.67MHz
SNES = 3.58MHz
>>2824108
No, that's just a higher clocked cpu. Nothing is blasting anything here...
>>2824503
>half as fast
>not blasted
>>2822543
>Jaguar wasn't real 64bit
Falling for the Trip Hawkins Jaguar meme-lie
>>2824557
it had 2 32bit processors right?
>>2824503
if you put your ear to the case you can hear the silicon pistons in the cpu's internal combustion engine blasting away
>>2824562
No.
That was a myth made up by Trip Hawkins to sell more 3DOs.
"Tom" Chip, 26.59 MHz
Graphics processing unit (GPU)
Object Processor – 64-bit non-programmable; provides all video output from system.
Blitter – 64-bit high speed logic operations, z-buffering and Gouraud shading, with 64-bit internal registers.
DRAM controller, 8, 16, 32 and 64-bit memory management
>>2824587
Hmm I see. Interesting.
>>2824108
>>2824506
>>2824570
It was definitely a thing. The Genesis had a faster processor by far.
The thing is, the SNES could actually put out more instructions per clock cycle. The real advantage the Genesis had wasn't processor speed, but memory bandwidth speed and more registers.
IIRC, they specifically made Sonic games fast to capitalize on this, because the Genesis didn't have too many more advantages. Could be wrong.
>>2824587
A co-processor (which is exactly what a blitter is) that can do some 64-bit operations doesn't make the Jaguar 64-bit.
The main processor wasn't 64-bit and that's what counts.
By your logic PS2 is a 128-bit.
>>2824596
I'm pretty sure people stopped considering bit-amounts when the PS2 rolled around anyway...
With enough time and memory anything that can be done on one turing complete machine could also be done on another, theoretically.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm0POwEtiqE
Linux is a 32bit or 64bit OS but this guy wrote a 32bit ARM emulator for an 8bit microcontroller and got ARM Linux to run(extremely slowly) on it.
>>2822190
No. Not a scam because the CPU is 64 bit capable.
Wether games use the 64 bit mode or not is irrelevant, it's there and so you can call the system Nintendo 64.
>>2824729
Bits were just marketing buzz anyway so people could say "it has more bits, it must be better!"
>>2824872
Well, it's really from the fact that during the 80s / early 90s the transition from 8-bit to 16-bit to 32-bit really did have a rough alignment with hardware power. But once 32-bit was reached, it was pretty much good for 20 years, and now 64-bit will be good for a hell of a long time. A serious case of diminishing returns.
>>2824903
So by the time we reach 1024-bit, the earth will have been consumed by the sun and humanity will have survived by colonizing other planets?
>>2824108
That's not what blast processing means.
>>2824587
So why did we need to do the math?
>>2824903
In the early days it had as much to do with address range as power. Today, with everything being 64 bit, storage handled differently, serial, etc. the number of A pins is irrelevent. You can even execute out of serial and that will only get better as technology advances.
The irony is that processors with lower bit count execute instructions in fewer cycles than ones with higher. They usually run at a lower clock speed so they are viewed as slower. But if you had a 65xx running a simple loop at 3ghz and the latest whatever at the same clock speed doing the same thing the 65xx would run circles around it. Do something more complicated that uses instructions the 65xx doesn't have or takes advantages of multiple cores and you have a different story.
>>2825641
What the hell do you mean?
>>2822261
This. The race to 64-bit was like getting to the moon.
>>2822201
>I was born after the N64 released
Many N64 games won't work without 64 bit support. (Crashes, broken physics, etc.) A 64 bit emulator wouldn't have any problems, but 32 bit emulators just translate.
Bits were the FPS or resolution of that generation/era
>>2826237
>Are you tech illiterate or just triggered? The only game that used 64 bit instructions in the whole library was puzzle league.
A long list of random games won't work with the 32 bit mode some emulators support. For example, Bug's Life shits itself without 64 bit support. Lucasarts games have twisted geometry and then crash. Unless of course the problem is that emulators that support 32 bit mode have some flaw with their 32 bit mode.
>>2822136
How come bits always double?
8, 16, 32, 64
>>2826279
>How come bits always double?
>8, 16, 32, 64
Power of 2. Binary is one bit. On and off.
8 bits is 00000000 or 11111111 or anything in between.
>>2826283
There are a few exceptions to that. I think there are some 7-bit architectures or 9-bit ones that are basically 8-bits and a parity bit. I think the Wii has a 48-bit APU or something like that as well?
>>2826283
Why can't it be 6 bits?
>>2822985
how is it possible for someone to be so condescending about something so insignificant
>>2826291
Binary not ternary
>>2826297
I don't get it, if each bit is just an on off wire why can't you have 6 wires?
>>2826303
Wait I'm stupid, I just got it.
>>2822136
They didn't, it's poorly coded.
>>2826279
Because they don't. I've worked on systems using 10, 12 and other word sizes. When you had to wire core memory you didn't wire an extra 4-6 bit just because it made your binary autism itch.
>>2826290
There are. 9/10 bits are still common in dedicated systems that only need that resolution such as DSPs. 4 bit CPUs are still very much a thing, although that is a power of 2.
Bits were a meme just like FPS is a meme now
>>2826369
I get you think other units of measurement are a meme like minutes or kg. lol.
>>2825762
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Genesis#cite_note-retrogamer-46
>During the run-up to the Western launch of Mega-CD ... [Former Sega of America technical director Scot Bayless] mentioned the fact that you could just 'blast data into the DACs'. [The PR guys] loved the word 'blast' and the next thing I knew 'Blast Processing' was born.
>>2826319
A bit is a one or zero (or on/off if you want to think of it as a wire carrying electricity), and with a group of say 8 bits, each bit represents 2^something, with the rightmost bit being 2^0 which equals 1 and the leftmost being the most significant bit being 2^7=128. Its the same concept as normal counting, just each value goes from 0-1 (base 2/binary) rather than 0-9 (base 10/decimal) before incrementing the next number.
So no, what you'd have is 5 bits that can represent integer values between 0 (00000) and 31 (11111).
>>2825357
not him, but yea. there's more to be had through parallelization and cycles than addressable instructions and memory.
