Why can most computers run modern games really well but extremely stutter when emulating old games

Question

Why can most computers run games like RDR2, Cyberpunk, etc. Really fast but when emulating ps3/Xbox360 games it lags and can barely run it?

In: 690

Answer 1

In a lot of cases, it’s because emulation itself takes a lot of processing power. You’re not just running the game itself, but you’re also running a pretend-virtual console that can understand/process the game’s code.