Emulators for the PSVita in the HENkaku days that ended up as vapourware
We all love seeing our console do stuff that’s not currently possible but sometimes, the promises fall flat. In this article, we will be looking at some pieces of vapourware that the community would have liked to see but no more info surfaced for some time about them.
1. The N64 emulator from the libretro folks
The PSVita has lived in the shadow of the PSP for quite some time and there’s one thing that the PSP fails at that we thought the Vita could maybe pull off. That is N64 emulation, while Daedalusx64 for the PSP is quite a feat considering the limited hardware, it’s not really of much use outside of Super Mario 64 and a few other titles. Then, last January, the folks at libretro (RetroArch) hinted that they were starting to work on the N64 emulator but since then, we didn’t get much except a screenshot of it running with a software renderer. Oh well, all we can do is wait now. Don’t be expecting it anytime soon but maybe we’ll see it someday!
Libretro’s image that got our hopes up high.
2. The DS emulator from masterfeizz
The Nintendo DS was a portable console in the same generation of the PSP. The PSP even had an unusable emulator for the DS which was nothing more than a PoC. In the early days of HENkaku (about early August 2016), we were all excited about being able to emulate the DS on the Vita. While the position of the Vita’s controls are not optimal for the DS, it would still be a decent way to play DS games on the go if you have a Vita. Sadly, the DeSmuME emulator port for the Vita has fallen flat and we haven’t heard any news since early August of last year. The reason of the development stopping is probably because of the limited performance of the Vita which is quite sad. If you wish to mess around, you can check out a list of ‘working’ games and see how well they run. Maybe some simple homebrew would fare better. There’s also a RetroArch core of DeSmuME but that doesn’t do much better either, if it even works.
Conclusion
Every console and computer has it’s own fair share of vapourware and the PSVita is no exception. I hope that one day, we’ll see the NDS and the N64 emulators up and running on our Vita but I wouldn’t suggest you hold your breath. Expect to mess with the settings if you wish to get something with the DS emulator! (frameskip ahoy)
DeSmuME for the Vita v0.2 (by masterfeizz): https://github.com/masterfeizz/DeSmuME-Vita/releases
N64 emulator Twitter post: https://mobile.twitter.com/libretro/status/821321500133326849
List of DS games that ‘run’ on the DS emulator: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Wi4psjwk6BNSnawhod1mnEwTWVKvXk1fwscrGsT_LOU/edit#gid=862919078
The vita might not have the aw factor the psp had in its homebrew days, but it’s becoming the ultimate handheld. With Adrenaline we have psp and psone. Then Henkaku brings us psv titles along with emulators for almost any console from the last couple of gens. I hope these emulators get picked back up in the future, especially the N64 one.
first
I banged your momma!
look ain’t gon’ even mad at you just becauze ain’t time for this
*got time for this
It’s okay, I left money on her dresser so she can buy you a dictionary. 🙂
Sad to see. i thought with the GXM (Graphic chip) finally working in a demo, i thought emulators would take advantage of it. the app is called “GXM Fun” if you are interested.
Emulators need CPU power more than GPU. It’s the CPU that slows everything down first since it’s doing 90% of the work.
In my head, i thought if the graphics chip could alleviate some stress off the CPU, then that could help emulation more. but i see.
Well that’s rude.
Considering that the poc was more than a year ago, and we havent seen an update since then, its not.
Problem is that the N64 has to be built by scratch Like the daedalusx64.
As vapourware? I see what you did there, hehehe. Vaporwave, listen to it if you haven’t, and you won’t be disappointed. Listen to this masterpiece > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T6pgZdFLP0
Remove trannies from the scene
What does the fact that someone is transgendered have to do with whether or not they can write a quality article?
Remove idiots from this website
You know what’s actually a bigger vapourwave issue? This whole article that has the astounding number of 2 entries…
Of course they cant release a complete N64 emulator in 6 months, and they are probably working on it.
The DS Emulator was a port of the PSP one and was more of a proof of concept than an actual release…
A vapourwave article about vapourwave…
IIRC the DS emulator was a port of the 3DS version which was in turn a port of Desmume. No clue if that also trails back to the PSP DS emulator though.
And lets not forget we are currently limited to software rendering, if we had hardware rendering then that is another story..
You know, you’re views would count for more were you able to distinguish between vaporware and vaporwave. The former is software which is announced but never released. The latter is a genre of electronic music.
we want CPS3 too
That article is so bad.
The vita has a Cortex A9 444Mhz cpu core.
Manage your expectations accordingly
First of all, it’s a quad-core CPU because how you wrote it, it sounds like it’s a single core.
As you may have read, I do acknowledge that the performance of the Vita isn’t stellar but then again, maybe someone can at least get the NDS emulator up and running with decent framerates if you can tolerate a frameskip of 3-4.
Since yo defaulted to RetroArch’s N64 emulator and tossed the DeSmuME core from them as an example as well, it would probably be good to note for the readers here that RetroArch Team has a patreon and is supporting bounties.
If seeing these emulators exist on our beloved device is that big a deal to you, especially the N64 one that is probably being worked on still, then it wouldn’t hurt to set up a bounty for it. I know I will be dropping a bounty towards N64 on Vita soon.
if something has had initial release – it is not vaporware. that would be the case if it ended at promises.
clickbait article, that;’s all.
Vapourware can also refer to things that didn’t really get past planning (or PoC) stage.
I got an old Android phone that has no space to install apps on it cuz it’s only a 4 gig and it can run the N64 without a leg.
People complaining on here, why don’t you try writing articles for the site instead of whining huh?, na i’m guessing you guys just love to moan instead.
“Here, let me show you how to write better articles than the staff.”
*does absolutely nothing*
“Here you go. You’re welcome!”
And it would actually be better. It would still waste less of people’s time.
You have just proved my point, instead of adding something genuinely useful to my topic, you just make jokes instead. At this moment I would really really love to see you “try” write a proper article right now, see how people would judge it too…..good luck since there is currently nothing much happening in the scene for now that hasn’t already been posted. 🙂
Wololo.net became famous for the quality articles that were always relevant in the hacking community and not for vapourwave articles.
I rather have a slow week with no articles if nothing new is coming out than have someone spam the front page with meaningless articles that add nothing…
Wololo “became famous” because of the psp emulator exploits, dont try and rewrite history so you can make a rather malevolent point. The hacking community consists of about 20 people. Statistically speaking, I doubt you are one of them.
well no one is forcing you to be here.
Im surprised that no article has been posted about Henkaku being updated and now has a few added features just a few days ago.
Maybe they are just waiting for the major proper update so they ca write a full article, instead of having lots of mini articles about Henkaku minor updates. Shrugs.
Here’s a thought. How about we stop waiting and start doing. If we keeping waiting for someone else to make an emulator, it might not ever release.
Are you gonna work on it? I know I’m not because I’ve looked at the emulator code in C and let me tell you that’s a LOT of work an I know quite a bit of C. I couldn’t even imagine writing in native Vita code…
Not everyone in the world knows how to code you know, people study for all kind of things, you can’t just expect the rest of the world to simply start coding out of their a.sses -_-
CPS3 / Dreamcast / Dolphin / Mame full speed