Emulation estimates?

[sikyon]

Does anyone have any estimates for how powerful a Computer's general specifications would need to be to equal consoles, using emulators? I mean stuff like PS2 emulators and XBox emulators, but it would be nice if someone had some estimates of future systems like the PS3 which I hear is going to be REALLY powerful.

 

[TheHeadFL]

It would all depend on how closely the processors in question resemble x86 in terms of machine language and opcodes.

For instance, if someone decided to make a console that used some kind of crazy VLIW (Very Long Instruction Word)-type CPU, then emulation would be very slow.

If the chip were similar to x86, and was fully documented and published, then they could emulate it with just a marginal overhead.