Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

SNES on iPhone?

E

erandall38

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 24, 2007
463
1
Is SNES possible on iPhone in the future or is there a reason why it can't be on there?

There are some SNES ROMs I would really like to play.
 
They have to use frame skip for NES ... CPU is at a premium. They would have to do a LOT of optimizing to get SNES roms running at any usable speed.
 
wunderbaren said:
SNES working great on the PSP, shouldn't it work great on the iphone as well?
Click to expand...

Let's make a comparison:

PSP - been out for years, designed to play games, different OS and different processors. Has buttons

iPhone - been out for 2 months, designed to be a phone, internet device, iPod. Has no usable gaming buttons.

No, the PSP running SNES makes no difference.
 
SNES on the PSP uses dynamic recompilation which yields a major speedup but is completely specific to the PSP's processor, so it doesn't help for the iPhone's ARM processor.

However, http://wiki.gp2x.org/wiki/DrPocketSNES claims fullspeed emulation at 250 MHz (I'm pretty sure on an ARM9 processor), and there are a couple SNES emulators optimized for the GP32 which uses a 133/166 MHz ARM, so it looks very possible on the iPhone's 667 MHz ARM11 (even if it's underclocked to 400 MHz as I've heard)

Of course, the biggest problem is the l/r buttons...
 
erandall38 said:
Is SNES possible on iPhone in the future or is there a reason why it can't be on there?

There are some SNES ROMs I would really like to play.
Click to expand...

Give it time, there are SNES emulators for other smart phones which use basicly the same processor. I had Zelda running on my HTC 6700 for years. As for the buttons, I never used L+R, and there is plenty of room on the screen.
 
I think if anyone is going to make any sort of game emulator viable for the iPhone then someone would also have to make a controller attachment. Of course, at that point, it kind of undermines the purpose of playing the games on the iPhone.
 
Chaszmyr said:
I think if anyone is going to make any sort of game emulator viable for the iPhone then someone would also have to make a controller attachment. Of course, at that point, it kind of undermines the purpose of playing the games on the iPhone.
Click to expand...

I highly dissagree, Contra is the only game so far I found unplayable on iPhone, no diagonal. Ive gotten pretty far in SMB3, Zelda, Megaman, Castlevania 1 & 3, all without a single physical button being pressed. If they can add diagonal to an snes emu it would pay fine on most games.

I agree a controller would be better, but the touch on nes.app works well enough to play, and win.
 
I would think that GBA emulation could be pretty well done also. Shoulder buttons would be a small issue, but plenty of games don't use them, or aren't essential to the gameplay. They should be able to figure out a system for controlling the diagonal directions.
 
All I have to say is that a SNES emulator for the iPhone is completely possible. I have a treo 650, which has a 312 MHz Intel XScale PXA270 processor, and when that processor is overclocked to about 460 MHz it can run SNES games using an emulator called LJP really smoothly.

Now, if development continues for iPhone emulation (especially because the nes emulator came out just a couple months after the iPhone came out), then there may be many options allowing people to be able to open up "virtual memory" and processor overclocking (though not incredibly likely), making it possible to run SNES games quite well.

Oh, and may I just make a comparison (note: while the iPhone's processor hasn't been officially disclosed by apple, what is shown here is taken from a good source and is probably at least extremely close to what the iPhone has):

Treo 650: 312 MHz Intel XScale PXA270 processor running at 460 MHz can run SNES.

iPhone: ARM1176jzf processor (samsung) that runs at 620 MHz, together with a PowerVR MBX 3D graphics co-processor which supposedly runs at 230 MHz (yes, there is a dedicated graphics processor!!!).

Way more capability with the iPhone for game emulation.

So, it is definetely possible. The only problem is that, since apple refueses to release a public SDK, making homebrew apps for the iPhone is long from perfected. All it needs is time.
 
WolfgangK said:
I would think that GBA emulation could be pretty well done also. Shoulder buttons would be a small issue, but plenty of games don't use them, or aren't essential to the gameplay. They should be able to figure out a system for controlling the diagonal directions.
Click to expand...

Seriously, i want Pokemon Yellow!!:D
 
TragicManner said:
a PowerVR MBX 3D graphics co-processor which supposedly runs at 230 MHz (yes, there is a dedicated graphics processor!!!).
Click to expand...

Ah, PowerVR. That brings back some memories. :D

quake2-21.jpg
 
Now that i think about it, why wouldnt the original Game Boy games work? They only had a d-pad and A&B buttons so they should work fine on the iPhone
 
It seems as though the processor (after reading above posts) may be able to handle it but the only "bummeristic" thing as everyone says is the controls.

Now when someone develops a mini-iPhone SNES controller that plugs right into the dock connector, we have success!!!

But then everyone would have to buy from a private owner or ebay :(
 
AppleSJ511606 said:
It seems as though the processor (after reading above posts) may be able to handle it but the only "bummeristic" thing as everyone says is the controls.

Now when someone develops a mini-iPhone SNES controller that plugs right into the dock connector, we have success!!!

But then everyone would have to buy from a private owner or ebay :(
Click to expand...


Man o man... the things we would do to avoid staying home on the couch!! ;) he he
 
Snes is definitely plausible but give it some time. It will be a blast if they come out with it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back