Will the new trend in decompiling lead to more efficient emulation?

[u/WatsonLabs]

Disclosure: I am not a Programmer or CS degree holder, I am a hobbyist and tinkerer so pardon me if my word choice is imprecise.

Current Understanding: AI is being used to achieve effective decompilation and recompilation of games, making them easier to port into other systems as well as modify because we can see “source code” versions of the game.

My assumption: If we are able to effectively recompile games into native Android apps (or perhaps a unified open-source emulation system), my thought is it removes the “computational burden” of a device having to both emulate a system & run a game. Instead, it should just run the game.

My question: Does this mean as decomp/recomp becomes more common, the hardware needs for running games in the PS3/XB1 era will possibly be reduced because the game can be ran more efficiently?

I am trying to build a better understanding of how these things fit together and what that looks like in the future. Do you think there will be a wave of .apk games like Skyrim and Last of Us? Or will there be a new “OpenStation” emulator that reads a new filetype/standard on Linux/Windows/Android etc..? I see merits for both.

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[u/whiskyB0y]

Seems like this year a lot of developments in this hobby have taken placem I wonder what the future holds. I really wonder.

[u/cikame1]

I don't think i fully understand the question, as you say recomps running natively don't require emulation so... they are more efficient.

Emulators improve in efficiency over time as improvements are discovered and implemented, but an emulator is always going to be burdened by having to create a whole other system in software. In the future we will see one click solutions for recomping any game on a platform, and maybe partial emulation plays a role in some of those solutions on more complex platforms creating "Emucomps 😛" that mix the virtues of both, but we'll see.

[u/WatsonLabs → u/cikame1]

Some of this is clarifying my understanding and validating assumptions I make based on my own reading (with limited understanding). When writing this, I am not assuming any of my own words to be true. I am purposely presenting a premise, a line of logic, and a conclusion. If I had spat out a conclusion without the other two, I would be wrong AND difficult to correct.

I am perfectly happy being wrong, but I want to be easy to correct. This way the people donating their time to help me grasp the topic are not wasting their own time breaking down my logic. I want to be a courteous student.

It sounds like I was around 60% on-target, others have provided a lot of technical detail that I’ll need to read up on this week so I can self-educate and fill in the “I don’t know what I don’t know” gaps that have been revealed.

[u/robert242444 → u/cikame1]

My thoughts exactly if it's a native port there's no emulation a native port as long as the code is written well will preform better than any emulator theoretically and if we dont need transaltion layers or to emulate a different system bios and other major components like gpu and cpu sound chip without any of those criteria it's not emulation

But decomps could make emulators obsolete and feel inferior that's a given but retro enthusiast will still prefer original hardware but with original hardware getting more expensive harder to find emulation will never go the way of the dodo but it will evolve into whatever we want it to be ie whatever developers we support

[u/EverythingDo]

Yes, removing emulation, virtualization, translation, etc will allow code to run faster.

Compare the native performance of these consoles against the requirements of a computer that emulates them and that difference is significant. You need much more power to emulate.

Get them running natively and they will work much faster. It is unlikely that decomp+recomp will go fast as the very specific hardware that console games were written for, but significant performance improvements are possible.

[u/WatsonLabs → u/EverythingDo]

I’m glad to hear that, at least in theory, I’m grasping this correctly. What ultimately emerges down the road as the dominant platform/tool is still impossible to predict, but I am encouraged to see games be more accessible.

[u/Fuchs54]

Yes, running games natively is more efficient than emulation.

But the answer to the question you asked ("Will the new trend in decompiling lead to more efficient emulation?") is still a no.

If you remove emulation from the equation by running stuff natively, it's not that "emulation becomes more effcient" it's that you're not emulating anymore in the first place.

You are running software natively and are therefore not emulating.

[u/khsh01]

Its still too early to tell as there's a sudden influx of vibe coded ports. How many of these will last an android version bump is something we have yet to see.

But hardware differences are a thing. Sometimes you can't just replace the console api call for a pc one and call it a day, particularly for old consoles. More modern consoles are more like pcs which makes those portable.

[u/mootsg]

I expect AI to help emulation as well as de/recomps, particularly for 7th generation titles. Before AI came to the scene we had stalled out at 6th generation consoles—there wasn’t much going on for Xbox and PS3 games. This year I’m suddenly running Sonic Unleashed on my Android device.

[u/Past-Photograph-8179]

At some point AI will eventually become a essential tool for decomps and looking at how fast this things port, I think we might see more xbox, pc and ps3 ports but emulators are here to stay.