Notices

After reading the "Emulators for the N900" thread, I was a little confused as to why the PSP emulator was brushed aside so quickly?

There is a beta for windows (Potemkin), so why not with a little (ok a lot) of work can this not be possible on linux/maemo?

If I am completely missing the point here, feel free to let me know, but I think, if it is at all possible, it should be looked into as it would be very very nice to have

As I understand it (after reading lots of similar threads), running an emulator requires 2 to 5 times the power of the original platform (at least) so that everything can run on the current platform without lagging too much. I don't know if the tablets have hardware powerful enough to be able to run a psp emulator, even with the advancements in 3D gaming for the n900. Another factor is that any x86/x64 (Windows compatible processor) is completely different than the processor the n900 uses. For that reason, the entire emulator would have to be rewritten differently and reoptimized for use on the n900, which is a lot of work, if it's even possible to get it working.

I will be happy if we get a PS1 emu that can at least play DOA and Raiden 2

It really depend on how the N900 handles the PSX and the Dreamcast. There's already a Dreamcast emulator for the Pandora in the works, so that should be portable without too much effort. If the N900 can handle the Dreamcast, it should also be able to handle the PSP.

Likewise, if we see a PSX emulator it should then be able to gauge the devices ability to run a PSP emulator, as the PSP sits somewhere in between the PSX and the PS2.

I would say that it's very unlikely that the N900 will get a PSP emulator with acceptable performance. If you want to know what emulators we are likely to get, look at the openpandora which runs on exactly the same hardware.
The executive summary is that we will probably get everything up to and including the PS1 at full speed, and the N64+Dreamcast slow but possibly playable. There is an outside chance of getting a nintendo DS or PSP emulator, if someone does the work, but since the current best emulators for those systems (JPCSP/Desmume) require 2GHz+ desktops, don't expect playable speed. DS is much more likely of the two, since it has an ARM cpu that is similar to the one in the N900. At least it is a lot closer than the MIPS based one in the PSP. Note that just because the N900 and DS run on ARM cpus does not make an emulator easy by any stretch, for a start they aren't even the same type of ARM cpu, not to mention all the rest of the hardware.

Basically, you will almost certainly never play a PSP game at playable speed on the N900, even the simplest 2D ones.

Because the PSP's GPU is even more powerful than iPhone 3GS', which is more powerful than N900's.

It does sound like a lot of work, but I think it would be a BIG reward to get it working. You do raise some valid points, but I can't see it being impossible. The power of the device is probably the big thing which will let it down, just had a quick look through the PSP specs and its difficult to tell the general "power" of the two devices because they are, as you said, completely different.

Really?? I'm sure I read somewhere that they were the same/equal??

http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/c..._side_by_side/

EDIT: sorry iphone and n900 being equal not psp

Same CPU but different GPU. N900 can only pump about half (14MPolys/s) of iPhone 3GS' (28MPolys/s).

Thanks for the info. May still try, just to see what happens/ how slow it is - that's what its all about right. I was thinking maybe using the window's emu running inside Qemu on Qole's easy debian install (simply because no linux based psp emu avaliable, yet???? Bit of a round-about way of doing it, but worth an afternoon to see, unless I am missing something important in that plan. You'll have to forgive any stupidness, only just started using linux, so I'm still a bit lost sometimes.

Probably all go horribly wrong and come to a grinding halt, and i'll be expecting a "told you so or two" but just have to give it a go.

Just seen that psp runs at 35MPolys/s.....

...I'm prepared for failure...