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For ps2 emulation, the ps3 had some chips that assisted in the emulation (even for the so-called software emulation, it was a matter of it having less hardware chips and more taken over by the software). As far as I'm aware, the ps1 emulation was done entirely through software, and thus when they cut costs by cutting out extra chips, it didn't matter for the ps1 emulation. There's mixed information about that, some saying that the ps3 used the same processor architecture as the ps1, or compatible ones, so that was the reason it works with ps1 games. I don't know about that, as I was under the impression the cell processors in the ps3 were more radically different than both previous generations, but I suppose if the instruction sets remain compatible the way it works under the instruction sets doesn't entirely matter.
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Tue Mar 15, 2016 8:10 pm
psychokittyboy
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Re: 20 years later, I finally beat BoF3
I can assure you, the PS3 architecture was nothing like PS1. There is a reason so few companies developed for it for the first 2 years of it's life.
Cell processors worked by dividing jobs among processors. 1 for AI, one for Graphics, etc, etc. It made for pretty graphics, but not for easy programming.
Yea, I actually went to IBM labs to hear from them about it around the time it came out (IBM was involved in making the ps3s cell processor). However, instructions sets can act, in some ways, like an abstraction layer on top of the actual internals of the processor. And, if the set were simply expanded so that new instructions that take better advantage of the processor are accepted but old ones still work, then it can be done. This is essentially how current x86-64 processors technically can still run the old 16bit software developed for the original 8086 in the late 1970s, even though the processors underneath have changed significantly (including taking a lot off of the south/north bridges, handling memory, adding in caching, adding in graphics processing, and in the case of AMD adding in shared floating point modules between two integer modules). Again, I don't know that that IS what they did, that's just how I think it would be accomplished if it was.
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Tue Mar 15, 2016 8:49 pm
psychokittyboy
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Re: 20 years later, I finally beat BoF3
... you know a lot about computers. I am thus tasking you with making Mechwarrior 2/3 available for my windows 7 machine.
Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries OK? I think that's the one I have around somewhere...
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Tue Mar 15, 2016 9:15 pm
psychokittyboy
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Re: 20 years later, I finally beat BoF3
I have them functioning on my old Vista machine(which was a big enough pain in my ass), but for the life of me can't get them to run properly on my 7. Possibly because of the x64 architecture?
Two possibilities: Microsoft cut out additional backwards compatibility features (they do that with upgrades), or there was a shift in the support of 16bit for your processor that you used between the versions. It's been a bit, but as I recall there was a shift at some point in how the 16bit backwards compatibility was done and how extensive it is, but still in theory all x86 (including x86-64) are compatible at the processor level with all other x86 software (which everything on windows 95, as well as DOS and plenty of older stuff). Getting it all working can be a task, and the OS may not support the same level of backwards compatibility (in fact, it does not), but the hardware is theoretically capable.
As for Mechwarrior though, have you tried running the DOS version in DOSbox? The Windows 95 version is just a port of that, and as I recall, that era of games for the most part used a tie in 95 to drop into DOS to take better advantage of the hardware anyway.
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Tue Mar 15, 2016 9:59 pm
psychokittyboy
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Re: 20 years later, I finally beat BoF3
I actually completely forgot about dosbox. I'll give that a shot, see if it works.
As for backwards comparability, I tried with MW3, no luck. Oddly, speaking of Microsoft sponsored games, I can't get Crimson Skies to even register.
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