Emulation on a PC

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I find it a pain in the ass configuring gamepads Id rather play on real hardware or emulate it on the Wii or Wii u virtual console and besides the emulation quality should be more accurate on the vc anyway rather than homevrew emulators on a PC

What are your thoughts

I've always preferred playing on real hardware as opposed to emulating. And emulation is theoretically illegal unless you own the original system and a copy of the game anyway.

Emulators are ok, but there is just something about turning on an old machine and running software on it, especially things that you could never afford as a child.

I actually ran CP/M in Vice for the first time every in 2017. Has had a C128D since the 90s that i bought for €50 and has seen CP/M disk several times that i could have gotten free/cheap, but i have never bothered. Wasn't overly impressed with it, felt like a MSDos beta without most of the commands. Vice is nice and WinUAE give the ability to set up pretty insane Amiga configurations (1GB internal memory, an emulated insanely fast 68040 etc).

As for games, there are some ways to use modern flash storage to move over games to C64 and Amiga, i got both the SD2IEC (C64 1541 emulator) and the Gotec drive (USB device that replace the internal floppy) and while they work fine, there are some limitations to both, i.e. the SD2IEC needs you to use the loading program to change floppy content so multi side/floppy games are out of the question - you have to copy the D64 images to real 5.25" floppies to get around that.

In theory: I prefer the real thing. As in the actual original machines. It's more... authentic?

In practice: Screw that. It's ALOT of trouble for most games. I dont have the space to set the blasted things up every time and I'd have to search all over for the controllers....

When I could instead just use the PC here, and use the PS4 controller for absolutely everything.

Particularly arcade games though. Damn near all of them are A: impossible to find/get, and B: even if found, are gigantic, often not released in any form on console. There are THOUSANDS of the things. Dont get me wrong, if I find a *real* arcade (as in, not one of those money-gobbling prize ticket ones that is the usual definition of "arcade" these days) I'll absolutely jump on it, but for the most part the 8000+ arcade roms on this machine are just easier to use.


Now as for the bit about the Virtual Console: Actually the emulation quality on those is.... pretty bad. The colors in particular, but basically everything else too. The VC *is* just an emulator, and it's a lazy one. This is a corporate entity just trying to suck some extra money out of you, after all. Wheras typical PC emulators are made by extremely enthusiastic and obsessive fans that must have every freaking detail perfect. I have plenty of games on VC, because they can be useful when travelling, but I have the same ones on PC emulators, and the two arent even comparable. That's how much of a difference there is.

Not to mention the fact that 99% of possible features and functions are missing from the VC's emulator.

I have nothing against Nintendo these days and have been quite happy with the Wii U in particular, but still, I absolutely wouldnt choose their setup over a proper emulator on a PC if I had to pick between the two.

Not to mention that the selection of games they have is VERY small. The NES for instance had a massive library. Nearly all of it is missing from the VC (regardless of whether or not it's the Wii or Wii U).

....Also when it comes to gamepads, you should only have to configure them exactly ONE time. If you need to do it more than once, you've done something wrong.

I don't think most people care if it's illegal or not when it comes to emulating.

Indeed.

Not to mention that even the companies behind the games tend not to care. Those games are OLD. They're not making anyone any money anymore. There are very rare exceptions, but even those only make money in a limited capacity.

In the end, it's just not worth the time or money for one of these companies to try to pursue it. Even Nintendo will typically just occaisionally send a cease-and-desist message to rom sites about certain SPECIFIC roms (AKA, the really major ones like Zelda or Mario) and otherwise they dont really give a fart. And that's about as aggressive as these guys get with this. As a rule, they really arent interested.

I've got a couple of emulators set up on the PC, but rather than try to do them all individually, I'm considering buying a Raspberry Pie 3 and setting it to run retropie. Then all I will need is a usb controller and the roms And I shouldn't need to search for/set up all of the other emulators individually. win win!

Emulation of older games can depending on the emulator can be highly accurate. The emulators created by third parties are much more accurate in general as well as more fully featured compared to emulators like those Nintendo employs.

In fact I would tell people to avoid Nintendo's VC platform entirely, particularly for anyone who lives in areas where 50Hz refresh was the norm for older TVs as Nintendo tends to release only 50Hz variants of their titles there. This means distorted aspect ratios, audio and often games running at 83% of their intended speed.

I dislike this kitschy trend of devices that are essentially single purpose computing devices designed for emulation, like the Nintendo mini variants. I just don't understand the appeal of paying for emulated games that aren't even run that accurately that require a specific, locked down device.

The appeal is simply that people see a way to play these old games. They know of no other way, and plenty of consumers are quick to fall for the tricks these companies pull. Nintendo might make some good stuff, but they're still a cold corporate entity at heart. If the corporate drones that pull the strings see a good way to easily vacuum some money out of part of the consumer base, they'll do so. So they tap into that desire to play these old games while relying on the simple fact that so many consumers see it as the only way to do so.

People dont really research things like this most of the time. Consumers NOT researching purchases is something that a great many companies rely on. Particularly when the whole "herd" mentality is playing a part. The NES mini was popular, so that meant even less incentive for anyone to bother considering other possibilities, or to bother considering that other possibilities even exist.

I think emulation on PCs is fine for a lot of stuff, and it is a lot more practical for things like computers, or super expensive consoles, or consoles/computers that were much bigger in PAL land. But I'm much more comfortable on a couch in front of an old CRT TV if I can, especially if I have friends to play multiplayer with. Not to mention, emulation of newer consoles is pretty hit-or-miss.

I'm a really big fan of being able to run emulators on handheld devices, though. The GBA, DS, and 3DS can all play various other consoles, with varying levels of capability. You can even emulate a lot of PC games on the DS B)

I also really like a lot of the homebrew emulators on the Wii.

Nintendo didn't think they would even sell that well, though. That's why they didn't produce that many of the NES/Famicoms. If anything, I would point the finger at AtGames, who are quite content to pump out the same half-baked products with almost the same exact list of games year after year after year

You'd be correct. And frankly, there are certain cases where I can get behind "illegal" emulation, for instance if a game is very rare and/or commands high prices.

There are plenty of similar programs not specifically for the Raspberry Pi like RetroArch, which RetroPi is based on, that do the same thing.

Thanks!

Still not sure which way I will go (I like the portability and ease of using the raspberry pie), but this option would be cheaper as I'd only need to get a controller!

Or when the game is shut down, as in MMO. Before one shut down (first one in a "family" of two MMOs), me and a couple of others reverse engineered the network code and wrote a server, i went around in every zone and "vacuumed" all mobs to a wireshark capture that i later on parsed and turned into data files so they could be spawned on the right positions serverside.

2 years later, the company went bankrupt and liquidated and their second game was released to the public and is now hosted by the fans for free. So all in all, a good decision from the gamedev to let the game live on past the company, unlike some others that drag the IP with them into oblivion.

Ah, I was wondering how they do that. I'm sure it's a lot more difficult for games that are already defunct by the time fans attempt to preserve them.

I'm not really into MMOs, but it's a shame that more companies don't open source their servers after a certain point (well, maybe not fully OPEN source, but you know what I mean). Have some deal where you still have to buy the core game, but fan-run servers are free to join. We've got historic games like the original NeverWinter Nights that are basically lost to time, and I will be pretty bummed if MUD2 ever goes the same way.

It's way easier than most people think, and to some it may seem like magic, but all you need is programming skills, knowing how to set up a socket and sending/receiving data (i taught sockets in programming class and you should have seen the size of the students eyeballs as if a new world had opened up to them). I learned lots from that project and it helped me with my later projects.

It would be theoretically possible to analyse a disassembly and/or fuzz the client to see what happens when packet with content X goes in and thereby recovering a dead server, probably wont be 100% but it could be done. Some NPCs i've seen on emulated servers (mostly WoW) run through buildings/trees etc, that is because the lack the original server code/data to tell NPCs where the walls are.