TALK / James Murphy / From 3 to 300 fps: NES Emulation in Python and Cython

It is sometimes asserted that “Python is a real bad choice for any kind of real-time system”. When I first got my Python NES emulator to boot, only for it to run at 2 frames per second, I felt like agreeing. But is it really true? After just a few days reworking the emulator’s operational core into Cython, the framerate is now above 300fps, proving that Python is a viable choice for emulator development and other performance-dependent projects. In this talk, I will outline the advantages and some challenges of using Cython to achieve realtime performance from an existing Python codebase. Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vTj4Y7KEy5hhOlYKqbSdUDbFLol4tw91Qvn7otLdFTb-rCwhP4kLKYieYUzhcDnV9OGtgxuraQV3-ep/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=3000