While Nintendo did a good job of convincing people that the arcade version of Rare's original Killer Instinct was running on the exact same hardware that would power the N64, the reality is that the arcade fighter was actually powered by custom hardware created in collaboration between Rare and Midway which uses a 64-bit MIPS CPU.
While Killer Instinct is playable in MAME, programmer Rich Whitehouse recently revealed that he has been working on something far more accurate and impressive: a custom emulator designed to run Killer Instinct and its coin-op sequel as faithfully as possible, but with some cool bonus features.
The bad news is that the client who commissioned this work has now pulled its funding, leaving the project in limbo.
"I'm sad to say that funding has been pulled on my KI/KI2 emulator," says Whitehouse, who is Head of Digital Conservation for the Video Game History Foundation and created the BigPEmu Jaguar emulator.
"However, I still want to make this thing; I love KI, I'm pretty far along, and this emulator beats everything in terms of accuracy, speed, and functionality. I've already implemented what might be the fastest MIPS III interpreter in existence, which achieves a better frame time than MAME running KI with dynarec. Achieving this without any manner of dynarec/JIT/AoT is no easy task, but it's still going to get even faster."
Whitehouse adds that this emulator features "interesting techniques which I haven't seen anywhere else" and that he's "keeping it all close to the vest for now, so that companies will have to actually pay me to achieve this kind of platform-agnostic performance. We'll see if anyone ever does."
One of the most significant features of Whitehouse's Killer Instinct emulator is the introduction of netplay with rollback netcode. "This isn't just your standard chuggy-ass rollback," he says. "The frame times allow for a huge rollback window even on inferior hardware, and no local hitches even when correcting for input changes occurring 5+ frames back in time."
He adds that BigPEmu's scripting system has also "come along for free" and that other unique features and enhancements are planned. "This includes audio enhancements, new gameplay options (which work with netplay), and a few mindblowing things that I'll be rolling out over time."
Whitehouse is adamant that he wants to complete this labour of love, despite losing funding. "The client who'd agreed to license this emulator (indirectly funding its creation) ended up attaching more work to the contract. They wouldn't move forward with the emulator by itself, and wouldn't pay more than around 25-50% of the industry standard rate for the extra work. Losing funding was a big blow financially, and I haven't found anything to fill the gap."
To make it happen, Whitehouse is asking for donations to his Patreon so he can commit valuable time to finish off this project. If you'd like to see the most accurate and feature-rich Killer Instinct emulator become a reality, then be sure to support him.