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Some high accuracy emulators can achieve 100% compatibility with commercially released games.

Cycle accurate emulation is basically trying to perfectly emulate timings right down to per-cycle accesses. So each individual component is emulated at exactly the right time, and in perfect sync etc., which takes a performance hit. The size of the performance hit depends on the way cycle accuracy is implemented and the skill of the coder.

The accuracy of these emulators are close to perfection, but at a steep CPU cost. However, some people believe that the notion of 100% cycle-based accuracy being slow is a misconception, one that people believe because most attempts at a cycle emulator aren't as well-optimized as they could be. MarathonMan, developer of [[CEN64]], is one of the people who believes this. Whether or not this is the case remains to be seen.

Chip accurate emulation works by simulating each logic chip on the board individually. Not only does this take a tremendous amount of power to run (as in, even emulating something from the 70's on a chip accurate level would need Dolphin-level system requirements to run at a good speed.), but they also require a incredible amount of effort and money to make. This accuracy method is pretty much useless. Although it is technically the only way to achieve true 100% hardware simulation, cycle accurate emulation can already achieve accuracy which is virtually indistinguishable from the real hardware. Not only that, but cycle-accurate emulators have much lower system requirements and programming difficulty. There are currently no publicly-released chip accurate video game emulators in existence, and there will most likely never be one.