Emulating on strong hardware ---> Better AI ?

[Thewonderboy]

I confess, I suck at using search function but quick check didnt give me any wanted results.

Now, to my main question.
Does emulation on strong hardware that can exceed the original platform (via emulation) allow AI to be better ?

It almost feels like a myth to me...

Playing some of my old PSX games on my phone (Xperia Play, native emulator), namely Crash Bash, seems to make some of the AI unbeatable.

I had a chance to experience this even better when playing few of my PS2 games on PCSX2.

I just played Dragonball Infinite World on my original PS2 but decided to finish it again on PCSX2 so that I would have to collect all the items and such...

Holy cow, Im only playing on hard difficulty (because very hard and Z are locked at first) and second last battle was nearly impossible. Any of my hits that were "heavy" made my enemy to "teleport" behind me and perform either a grab or throw which cant be dodged if Im not facing to their direction. It took me like an hour to beat that fight.

Playing Z difficulty on original PS2 never made enemies so... Dodgeful... but they were still hard.

[Bositman]

Simply put, no way (except if the emulator has some kinda bug) You just think it's better...

[Zangetsu21]

Will never happen, the AI is already programmed and running it on different platforms or better specs won't change it. Maybe you haven't played in a while and you feel the AI is better? This happened to me when I played Budokai 3 on PCSX2. I used to be quite pro and then I stopped playing and when I played on the emulator I felt useless lol.

[andutrache]

Haha, nicely spotted. Did some tests with this on DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 3.
I did 3 fights on Very Hard difficulty with Goku vs Gohan (just took the first pick i saw) as follows
on PS2: won 2 matches barely and lost one with the AI on very low hp.
on PCSX2 with the EE Cycle speedhack set to the max (the slowest ps2 power): AI became easy mode and i kicked his ass like hell.
on PCSX2 with my custom build which overclocks the EE a bit: got utterly destroyed all 3 matches barely even touching the AI.

So yeah want a challenge? get a computer strong enough so you can overclock the EE like i do and you will see insane difficulty.

[KrossX]

Scalable AI ? Sounds like very interesting AI coding to me, albeit a bit unfair to the pass of time and new machines. Though it wasn't meant to be on other machines, maybe it was so as the AI would have to make do with as few cycles left per frame? So as to keep it away from lowering framerate.

[miseru99]

I'm pretty sceptic to that revelation. Player is a very randomizing factor here. I never really played any of those games with slider speedhacks, but by quick test in cpu vs cpu with savestate on the beginning of the fight in BT3(cpu vs cpu loaded from a savestate on the start in this game works like replay as all random seeds are exactly same;p) messing EE cyclerate doesn't change a thing, same timings, same skills used, same reactions, it doesn't make cpu player lag or "think" for actions, same instant with or without speedhack. I even tried to turn off one of the AI completely and the active AI still do same stuff same way each time speedhack doesn't change it.

[nosisab Ken Keleh]

Actually makes sense, maybe not in all cases but probably in some. having "spare" time the AI could get more room to be more active.

[xstyla]

better AI with the EE cycle hack is theoretically possible i'd think. if the game's AI uses a threaded implementation. that runs completely independent and async from the rendering code. just get the results at rendering time. maybe a timer or interupt or v-sync. but else it eats up all cycles. you know? it could work.

i still think it's either the time you didn't play it or the difference in input lag and how the programmed ai reacts to that differently.

[Saiki]

Slowing down the processor on the PS2 would cause the CPU to "think" more quickly, even testing against a PS2 and PS3 on the same settings the PS3 "version" seems tougher. I have to agree here, if your CPU can handle it slowing the EE so the CPU has more time to "think" it would get tougher

[miseru99]

Just to add to my post, I didn't saw any change in speedhack, but to be sure I build myself an OC ps2 build just now to test BT3 also at that the result of same CPU vs CPU fight was exactly same as on non OC PS2, hence AI didn't really changed, the game didn't even got havier either and speedhack didn't affect it either. BUT all of the timings halved(at double the mhz on EE;p). Hence it did made cpu much stronger vs player. Speedhack itself is mostly free of causing such couse this hack is a compilation of few hacks which try to correct timings and not just straightforward underclock.;p

Oh and more on the initial topic since I have that game as well, I didn't feel IW being harder in any way. O.o And about android psx emu example... ~_~ Touchscreen? Yeah "unplayable" difficulty.