Retro games and emulation - Discuss retro shit in case you're stuck in the past or a hipster

[Lone MacReady]

Let's be real, almost nobody with an actual legit Earthbound cartridge is playing the game with it. They have it displayed carefully somewhere and only play Earthbound on a SNES Mini, or lying about having a SNES Mini because they don't want to admit to playing just a ROM. If they're even actually playing it and not just watching YouTube videos instead, that's a real possibility.

I got the Snes mini for the great deal, but recently came to the revelation of melonDS and the majesty that is playing HeartGold with shiny cheats and easy caps.

 

[Dr. Geronimo]

That's a fucking nice controller! Could definitely use that for my PC.

I'm currently using a PS2 controller for everything (I just love th way it feels, especially the D-Pad) and I have the C-Buttons mapped to the right analog stick

PS2 was my go to for a long time but I needed something wireless, and my hands were starting to hurt since it's not that big.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

So it's the one emulation console I've considered just giving up and buying a special controller for, like one of these:

View attachment 2895410

also because after I grew up my big adult man hands are too big for the N64 controller and it just doesn't fit like a glove anymore

Way back I had a controller almost identical to that made by Manufacturer Unknown, with the exception of it missing the R2 button, don't know why, and the shape was asymmetrical, can't figure that one out either. The right side was largely like that, the left side was more of a thick Megadrive controller. It was excellent for the then new N64 emulation.

It also had something I don't think I've seen on any other joypad and that was an analogue sliding button that you would expect to see on music studio equipment, it was like if an insane person had re-imagined the analogue trigger.

I've been trying to find at least an image of that controller for some but I'm always coming up empty.

 

[BlackDragoons]

For those that play on there phones do you guys use Bluetooth controller and if so which one?

 

[Maurice Caine]

You're 100% right about scanlines. The only people who like them are people who are desperately tying to go back to their childhood and think that if every last tiny detail is just right, they'll be able to be happy again. They think that the reason they're unhappy is because the balance of the universe is upset, and naturally that balance was absolutely perfect right around the time they were 8-12 years old. What a coincidence. If we just return the universe to the state it was in during their childhood, they'll feel the same happiness and wonder they did when they were ten. Right? That's how it works, right?

And yes, it does feel very similar to the way Twitter genderspecials think that the reason they're never happy is because they haven't found the correct combination of genders and sexualities, like some form of fucked up alchemy. They can never admit it's because of their lifestyle or outlook. No, if they simply combine demisexual with femme genderqueer and add a dash of two-spirit as a reagent, then they'll finally be happy. They're sure of it. They were sure of the last combination, but now they're really sure.

What's funnier is that actual retro gamers that own the consoles try to get the best possible image quality out of it. A popular dreamcast mod for example is VGA output.

 

[You're The Man Now Dog]

For those that play on there phones do you guys use Bluetooth controller and if so which one?

I actually really like the Switch Pro controller. You can get a cheap third party one and pair it to your phone and it works great. Overkill for retro games, sure, but whatever. It's even got motion controls so you can emulate Wii games.

The Xbox One controllers are also great, and they're probably cheap now that whatever the hell the new one is called is out. I'm not an Xbox fan - haven't had one since the 360 - but I have an Xbox One controller for PC gaming. I think it's my favorite controller ever made. The only caveat is that you have to be sure you get one of the "newer" models that has bluetooth. The older ones require a USB dongle to work on anything but an Xbox.

I know, it's blasphemy to like new things, but if there's one thing the video game industry has really figured out recently, it's controllers. I still have almost all my original consoles and the controllers feel so cheap and flimsy compared to the newer stuff. Plus having a thousand buttons is really nice for emulation. A dedicated turbo button is a godsend for those old RPGs that didn't have Skip Cutscene capabilities.

 

[Dom Cruise]

On the topic of scanlines, I'm not trying to get the "authentic" experience, I just think pixel art games look way worse without them.

 

[Pee Cola]

Bare metal emulation on the Raspberry Pi is the tits. Booting is just as quick as the real thing.

It's also a great way to use low capacity SD cards that otherwise aren't very useful in current year. Heck, you could probably create working SD cards for 3 or 4 bare metal emulators in less time than it'd take to get RetroArch working.

 

[Calandrino]

ResetEra has a "no emulation" talk policy because it is bad but at the same time they have deified the emulation programmer Byuu.

Well they I think they have to. It's like child porn, just because it's officially against ResetEra's rules doesn't mean they don't have TB drives overflowing with it. I don't think the anti-emulation boogeymen are even real. Nintendies don't count, they feel guilty when they buy food instead of amiibos and aren't really human.

I heard Fighting Vipers 2 was fantastic, but good luck finding it. That was rare even when it was new.

CD burner is the way to go, although it can be a little finnicky. Buying physical copies of games is generally not a thing you want to do, unless you really just want to for whatever reason.

The Xbox One controllers are also great, and they're probably cheap now that whatever the hell the new one is called is out. I'm not an Xbox fan - haven't had one since the 360 - but I have an Xbox One controller for PC gaming. I think it's my favorite controller ever made.

I use that because Windows likes it. Sony controllers make you work a little more, in my limited experience. It's a fine and rather versatile controller though.

On the topic of scanlines, I'm not trying to get the "authentic" experience, I just think pixel art games look way worse without them.

I think it's weird that people get very strongly opinionated about this. I just switch it to whatever depending on my mood. I have a CRT and old consoles because I think they're neat. For authenticity, try a 9-inch black-and-white CRT with K-Mart logo burned in and connect via RF. However, only genuinely evil people stretch 4:3 images to 16:9.

 

[You're The Man Now Dog]

On the topic of scanlines, I'm not trying to get the "authentic" experience, I just think pixel art games look way worse without them.

I've always been the opposite. Let me see every pixel exactly the way it's coded into the game. It's just so crisp and clean. A far cry from the messy, muddy graphics so many games have today, especially AAA games. I don't care if it's "realistic", if your game looks like a reflection in a puddle of dirty water, I'm not playing it.

 

[Dom Cruise]

The Xbox One controllers are also great, and they're probably cheap now that whatever the hell the new one is called is out. I'm not an Xbox fan - haven't had one since the 360 - but I have an Xbox One controller for PC gaming. I think it's my favorite controller ever made. The only caveat is that you have to be sure you get one of the "newer" models that has bluetooth. The older ones require a USB dongle to work on anything but an Xbox.

If you like the Xbox One controller, check out the Series X controller, I was very impressed when I bought one last year, it's like the One controller but better in pretty much every way.

I've always been the opposite. Let me see every pixel exactly the way it's coded into the game. It's just so crisp and clean. A far cry from the messy, muddy graphics so many games have today, especially AAA games. I don't care if it's "realistic", if your game looks like a reflection in a puddle of dirty water, I'm not playing it.

I guess we are kind of getting into "authenticity" territory because if you're playing it with raw pixels you're not seeing the game anywhere close to how the original developers meant it to look.

Of course scanline filters aren't getting it perfect to how the games were meant to look in the days of CRT's eithers, but it's a lot closer, but again, it's not really about "authenticity", it's about how raw, chunky pixels look like shit, how can anyone prefer that when a scanline filter makes it look 100 times better? I just don't understand that at all.

 

[Xarpho]

Of course scanline filters aren't getting it perfect to how the games were meant to look in the days of CRT's eithers, but it's a lot closer, but again, it's not really about "authenticity", it's about how raw, chunky pixels look like shit, how can anyone prefer that when a scanline filter makes it look 100 times better? I just don't understand that at all.

Unless you were one of those kids who sat two feet away from the television, when you play console games, you're supposed to sit a bit farther away from the television to begin with.

 

[Dom Cruise]

Unless you were one of those kids who sat two feet away from the television, when you play console games, you're supposed to sit a bit farther away from the television to begin with.

Again though, it's not really about making them perfectly emulate a CRT screen, it's about what makes them look better on an HD screen, scanlines simply smooths it out a bit and makes it look better than raw pixels.

 

[You're The Man Now Dog]

Of course scanline filters aren't getting it perfect to how the games were meant to look in the days of CRT's eithers, but it's a lot closer, but again, it's not really about "authenticity", it's about how raw, chunky pixels look like shit, how can anyone prefer that when a scanline filter makes it look 100 times better? I just don't understand that at all.

They say it's about your brain "filling in" detail where the scanlines are, thereby making you see a better picture than exists. It works for some people, it doesn't for others. For me, all I see is the same picture but with a bunch of lines making it harder to see.

Filters like HQ2X have the same effect for me. Instead of seeing a "nicer" image, I just see blurriness and lack of detail. There are some exceptions; modern upscaling filters that use AI rather than just a simple algorithm can actually make pixelated games look like they're hand drawn. But for the most part, a filter just registers as a loss of information in my brain. I don't like it.

 

[Dom Cruise]

They say it's about your brain "filling in" detail where the scanlines are, thereby making you see a better picture than exists. It works for some people, it doesn't for others. For me, all I see is the same picture but with a bunch of lines making it harder to see.

Filters like HQ2X have the same effect for me. Instead of seeing a "nicer" image, I just see blurriness and lack of detail. There are some exceptions; modern upscaling filters that use AI rather than just a simple algorithm can actually make pixelated games look like they're hand drawn. But for the most part, a filter just registers as a loss of information in my brain. I don't like it.

As a matter of fact, I don't like filters like HQ2X either.

But I simply can't understand preferring raw, chunky pixels to scanlines, sorry.

 

[Pissmaster]

They say it's about your brain "filling in" detail where the scanlines are, thereby making you see a better picture than exists. It works for some people, it doesn't for others. For me, all I see is the same picture but with a bunch of lines making it harder to see.

Filters like HQ2X have the same effect for me. Instead of seeing a "nicer" image, I just see blurriness and lack of detail. There are some exceptions; modern upscaling filters that use AI rather than just a simple algorithm can actually make pixelated games look like they're hand drawn. But for the most part, a filter just registers as a loss of information in my brain. I don't like it.

That makes sense. I'm with you in that filters just make everything look worse, and all I want is proper aspect ratios. I'm also a person who cannot for the life of me fathom why anyone is okay with watching 4:3 TV shows stretched out to 16:9.

 

[Jean Lafitte 1812]

Outside of a real CRT I usually go for an unfiltered integer scale for crispy pixels. As for filters, if integer scaling isn't a possibility a small amount of blur can get rid of scrolling shimmer without hurting the image too much if you really want fill a screen

I look forward to display dpi going up and allowing for more interesting options like the Analogue Pocket does. 2400 pixels vertically, which 4k is just short of, would allow for using the individual pixels as the emulated sub pixels. So a 10x10 grid would use up to 9x9 to do subpixels and then have pixels to simulate different screen technologies.

 

[Pissmaster]

Outside of a real CRT I usually go for an unfiltered integer scale for crispy pixels. As for filters, if integer scaling isn't a possibility a small amount of blur can get rid of scrolling shimmer without hurting the image too much if you really want fill a screen

I look forward to display dpi going up and allowing for more interesting options like the Analogue Pocket does. 2400 pixels vertically, which 4k is just short of, would allow for using the individual pixels as the emulated sub pixels. So a 10x10 grid would use up to 9x9 to do subpixels and then have pixels to simulate different screen technologies.

Speaking of Analogue Pocket, I was considering buying one until I checked on their website and saw that it'd be over a year before I'd get my order fulfilled, despite having to pay in full right now. Even by small business standards, that's way too much to ask. Plus, I'll hopefully have my Steam Deck by then.

 

[XYZpdq]

What's funnier is that actual retro gamers that own the consoles try to get the best possible image quality out of it. A popular dreamcast mod for example is VGA output.

lol that's not a mod that's an accessory
that's like saying people "mod" the NES to use the Power Pad
then you use the boot disc to override and force anything to VGA, iirc

That's what always bothered me about emulation vs Big Vidya. People wanted to play old(er) games so they turned to emulation, the companies like Nintendo then tried to shut that down while offering no alternative. They were no longer selling the games on their current systems or producing new cartridges, buying used was the only legal option and they wouldn't see a dime from that just like they wouldn't lose anything from emulation*.

Then they eventually figured out that people wanted to play old cartridge based games and they had to resort to emulation themselves to have anything to sell, at least they had a more legit financial reason to call it piracy at that point. But they wouldn't just sell you any and every game available on a system, most games were still only playable via eBay auctions and roms from the internet which yet again doesn't take money out of their pockets.

*I can understand why they were freaked out by UltraHLE and PSX emulators existing side by side with the PSX and N64.

iirc GBA was emued to playable very early into the system's life, too

 

[Maurice Caine]

lol that's not a mod that's an accessory
that's like saying people "mod" the NES to use the Power Pad
then you use the boot disc to override and force anything to VGA, iirc

iirc GBA was emued to playable very early into the system's life, too

I thought you had to open them up to add VGA. I guess you can tell I never owned a dreamcast lol