Console Emulation Thread

[Devalaous]

On 12/12/2023 at 7:35 PM, Kinsie said:

Grazie. Not sure whether I'll use it for non-NES stuff since I already have other emulators (Ares/bSNES, Bizhawk/Mednafen...) that are either equal or better accuracy, but it never hurts to keep up to date.

 

I guess I should mention that since this exchange, its been updated on the sly with Master System and Game Gear support. Now I can finally retire Kega Fusion for those systems. Totally made my night tonight finding this out, ive had an itch to play Sonic 1 SMS again, and Kega is outdated and doesn't play nice with modern OSes.

[Dynamo]

As far as I understand, Kega Fusion is still the optimal way to play 32X games. Are there any emulators that do a better job for that? Not that there's many games for that system, mind you, but when playing Tempo recently that is the emulator I used to complete the game.

[Devalaous]

According to the emulation wiki, the only other options for 32X are 'Picodrive', 'ares' and 'BizHawk'. Only 32X games ive ever played are Doom (to see it in action) and Knuckles Chaotix, as Sega has for some reason never ported it to anything, everything else on the library seems 'eh' to me, same with the Mega CD which only really has Sonic CD.

 

I'm hoping Mesen later gets Megadrive support, its quickly become a favourite with how it looks and functions, having 'all' the 8 and 16 bit systems under one system with an actual UI sounds great.

 

I spent New Years Eve playing SMS games with the FM audio blasting through my really good sound setup, had no issues with the fresh SMS support. I just miss Kega's ability to expand Gamegear screens for extra viewing area, it really helped Sonic Triple Trouble.

Edited December 31, 2023 by Devalaous

[Dynamo]

I do remember trying ares out for the 32X, but it did not work properly. However, I ended up using it for the Popful Mail romhack (Mega CD game originally) since that one crashed Kega Fusion, and it worked fine enough even though it didn't have much of a speed up option unlike Kega. The 32X library is indeed rough, mostly containing experimental and dated 3D games, but I'd say Knuckles Chaotix and Tempo are worth checking out, alongside possibly Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure which has extra content on the 32X, but it comes at the cost of a lower framerate than the other versions, shockingly enough.

Mega CD, for its part, has its share of hidden gems in terms of 2d platformers and shmups: Robo Aleste, Adventures of Flick, the aforementioned Popful Mail (which is kinda like the Wonder Boy games), a good port of Final Fight, the Terminator game, and the list goes on.

[Kinsie]

32X emulation is, by and large, still a little bit lumpy, due to a blend of a strange architecture and a general lack of interest. Kega works to an extent, but it's very very old and no longer updated, so it ain't gonna get better. Ares is rapidly catching up, but it's also a bit imperfect.

[AmethystViper]

Back in 2019 thanks to my older brother's help, I was able to put together my own SNES Mini emulation box with a Raspberry Pi 3B+ after seeing LGR's DIY PlayStation Mini and parts recommended by ETA Prime. I *could* have gone for a Genesis Mini set-up with RetroFlag's Mega Pi case, but I went with the Super Pi case instead since I never had a Super Nintendo growing up and also for practicality with the aesthetically-matching controllers I wanted to use with it. I do need to upgrade my system's SD card since I'm running out of room for games. Some of my favorite emulators that I've been using across various systems includes Genesis Plus GX (via RetroArch), DuckStation, Snes9x, PCSX2, RMG, Tsugaru, neko project-II, melonDS, mGBA, Beetle PCE (also via RetroArch), and flycast. I hope that one day that Mednafen can get *.CHD support for certain games like PS1, Saturn, and PC-Engine CD games.

 

 

[Devalaous]

Today I found out that a game ive had faintly in my memory for over a decade as being 'something on the Master System that Castlevania on the GBA reminded me of' is 'Master of Darkness', which is indeed, a Castlevania-type game. I had ever so vague memories of playing this cool vampire themed game on the SMS, that had references to Johnathan Harker, the main character of the Megadrive 'Bram Stoker's Dracula' game that my brother's father owned (I remember distinctly saying this to him to get his interest in the game), was never able to remember the game.

 

Now I just need to figure out what the topdown-ish castle exploring game on the SMS was and if it actually existed (who knows, might have been Megadrive..) as well as this one MD game where I could pour boiling oil on people from a castle. I only played it once but it stuck out. We rented a LOT of games back then, emulation is helping recover these old memories.

 

 

EDIT: Added Master of Darkness pic. Now you can see why for decades I kept thinking 'what was that SMS Dracula game? I swear it was Castlevania, but wikipedia says there was no SMS Castlevania..'

Edited January 3, 2024 by Devalaous

[Dynamo]

Have you checked out Sega-16 and Hardcoregaming101? Those tend to be pretty good for coverage of obscure games from Sega consoles.

[TheMagicMushroomMan]

4 hours ago, Devalaous said:

this one MD game where I could pour boiling oil on people from a castle. I only played it once but it stuck out. We rented a LOT of games back then, emulation is helping recover these old memories.

This sounds very familiar. Do you happen to remember if the game had some pretty impressive graphics for its time?

[Daytime Waitress]

4 hours ago, Devalaous said:

Now I just need to figure out what the topdown-ish castle exploring game on the SMS was and if it actually existed (who knows, might have been Megadrive..) as well as this one MD game where I could pour boiling oil on people from a castle. I only played it once but it stuck out. We rented a LOT of games back then, emulation is helping recover these old memories.

 

Only thing coming to mind with boiling oil is King Arthur's World on the SNES...

 

But the top-down one might be Rampart.

Edited January 2, 2024 by Daytime Waitress

[Devalaous]

Well, went through several databases online with screenshots, and couldnt fit either of the games I *faintly* remember. The one I think was on SMS, was going by my tattered memory, a screen by screen game exploring something like a castle. My first thought was 'was it Gauntlet?' but then I played it and I would have remembered if it was a game where you get attacked by 9 million monsters at once. The second one for the Megadrive was an overnight rental and all I really remember is it being medieval/fantasy and having a castle where I could upgrade or change defences, and young me always clicking 'boiling oil' because it sounds awesome.

 

Really glad I found Master of Darkness though at least. No wonder I kept thinking of Castlevania, its a ripoff of it :D

[Dynamo]

4 hours ago, Devalaous said:

Well, went through several databases online with screenshots, and couldnt fit either of the games I *faintly* remember. The one I think was on SMS, was going by my tattered memory, a screen by screen game exploring something like a castle. My first thought was 'was it Gauntlet?' but then I played it and I would have remembered if it was a game where you get attacked by 9 million monsters at once. The second one for the Megadrive was an overnight rental and all I really remember is it being medieval/fantasy and having a castle where I could upgrade or change defences, and young me always clicking 'boiling oil' because it sounds awesome. 

Could either of them be King's Bounty?

[Devalaous]

 

The game is 'Mega-Lo-Mania', or 'Tyrants: Fight Through Time' in America.

 

I went to the wikipedia page for Megadrive games, filtered by release date and only the European releases (As im in NZ, it wouldnt have been a US-only release), and painstakingly checked out almost every game on the list. I skipped over this one because of its name nd cover art, but the wikipedia screenshot instantly gave me that '!!!' recognition from my faded memories. Saw videos and was like 'surely this is it', as I distinctly remember being able to slot things into the corners of the castle, but I didnt see any 'oil' references in any reviews or pictures, so I just downloaded it and played it myself till this screenshot. I was worried that my memories were warped and mixing games and platforms, as I was less than 10 when this all was going on, but this one screenshot has laid my memories to rest. Now I just need to identify the SMS game..

[Daytime Waitress]

1 hour ago, Devalaous said:

 Now I just need to identify the SMS game..

 

Golvelius?

Pit Pot?

[Devalaous]

17 minutes ago, Daytime Waitress said:

 

Golvelius?

Pit Pot?

 

Yep, its Pit Pot, I found it not too long ago. Being bundled with Astro Warrior is why I couldn't find it!

 

I FINALLY HAVE ALL MY CHILDHOOD SEGA GAME MEMORIES DOCUMENTED AND COMPLETE

Edited January 3, 2024 by Devalaous

[Dynamo]

 

Missed this video from last month, which looks at some recent emulator progress to give a nice recap of recent advancements. Very good stuff.

 

And on that note, I wanted to ask people here: what has been your experience in emulating the original Xbox? What games have you tried on Xemu, if any? And separately, have you tried emulating any of the XBLA games? I feel like a lot of those are almost lost media by this point as they were only ever released digitally for the Xbox 360 back when indie games started gaining massive popularity. Interested to hear how performance and compatibility has been for people here.

[Panzermann11]

On 1/7/2024 at 10:50 PM, Dynamo said:

And on that note, I wanted to ask people here: what has been your experience in emulating the original Xbox? What games have you tried on Xemu, if any? And separately, have you tried emulating any of the XBLA games? I feel like a lot of those are almost lost media by this point as they were only ever released digitally for the Xbox 360 back when indie games started gaining massive popularity. Interested to hear how performance and compatibility has been for people here.

I tried a few games on Xemu, such as San Andreas, Black and Conker: Live and Reloaded. I haven't had a good time with all of them, to say the least,

 

San Andreas is just straight-up not running, Black gets ultra-choppy on the FMV parts, it's virtually impossible for me to even get to gameplay. Conker runs at around 15 FPS when testing the multiplayer portion of the game.

 

I tested a few XBLA titles like Heavy Weapon and Banjo-Kazooie aswell and they ran pretty well. It's really strange Xenia runs games at a much more reasonable frame rate than the 360's predecessor's emulator does.

Edited January 16, 2024 by Panzermann11

[Kinsie]

My experience with emulating the first two Xboxes are pretty mixed. Some games look and sound great, while others are unplayable, broken messes, with no particular rhyme or reason as to which is which.

[Panzermann11]

Got bad news: Citra and Yuzu are closing down due to a settlement in a lawsuit between the developers and Nintendo.

 

https://yuzu-emu.org/

Edited March 5, 2024 by Panzermann11

[Devalaous]

What happens when you emulate current systems, make 30K a month off paywalled features, and it happens to be for a Nintendo system, who are known to be merciless killers when their IP is involved.

 

Naturally, I forgot to reinstall Citra after my PC got a windows reinstall, so this does affect me a little. I never liked Citra much, as it was plain as day the devs all left it to chase the moneymaker that was Yuzu, but only recently it got some support again with a vulkan renderer that did wonders.

 

Being open source, Citra is just going to be forked though.

[taufan99]

On the other side, Japan's first cartridge-based console ever, the Epoch Cassette Vision (not to be confused with the successor Super Cassette Vision), just recently got emulated.

Spoiler

 

 

[Mr. Freeze]

I would simply not try to make money off of emulation 

[scalliano]

Immediately cancelled my NSO the moment I heard the Big N was going after Yuzu last week. Nintendo have seen their last penny from me. As a fan of emulation/preservation (albeit one who never actually bothered with Yuzu or Citra), I cannot in good conscience continue to support a company that acts in this manner. The argument that the Yuzu devs painted a target on their backs is a valid one (especially with the Patreon paywall), but hacked Switch systems existed long before Yuzu gained any meaningful compatibility. All of this could have been avoided if the OG Tegra X1 didn't have an unpatchable exploit, yet I don't see a summons showing up on Jensen's doorstep for "facilitating piracy" (emulation isn't piracy, btw).

 

I didn't use Yuzu as I don't really have any interest in emulating a current system that I can buy games for. In ten years though when the hardware starts to fail, what then? Nintendo doesn't care, they'll make you rent the same fucking Super Mario rom you bought from them three times over already. Yuzu were admittedly reckless, but this development heralds a deeply concerning precedent going forward.

 

In other news, finally got myself a MiSTer last week. Yes, I am officially an FPGA convert. Have a few Analogue systems including the Pocket but figured I'd save my money with an all-in-one solution going forward. It is absolutely fantastic so far. Saturn support is a bit spotty, but the N64 core blew me away with how well it runs even problem games like Quake I & II.

[Kinsie]

On 3/5/2024 at 5:26 PM, Devalaous said:

What happens when you emulate current systems, make 30K a month off paywalled features, and it happens to be for a Nintendo system, who are known to be merciless killers when their IP is involved.

Also when you patreon-paywall compatiblity fixes specifically for pre-release zero-day first-party titles.

 

Also when you register an LLC for your emulator. Or ROM site. Surprising number of people willing to provide a neck for some very large hands to throttle!

 

23 hours ago, Mr. Freeze said:

I would simply not try to make money off of emulation 

Just license your emulator off to Digital Eclipse or other compilation developers. Lord knows we know Capcom isn't going to go after MAME because they use bits of it for Arcade Stadium!

 

9 hours ago, scalliano said:

In ten years though when the hardware starts to fail, what then?

Probably the other Switch and 3DS emulators that already exist, are already in deep development, take less hacky approaches to compatibility and are being headed up by people who aren't running fucking Twitter ads.