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

[Carpenter Trout]

The OS could be a big deal. Should it be open allowing for emulation and homebrew, or locked down to prevent cheating?

Everytime, the console flourish when people crack it open. The PS3 got basically a second wind a couple of years ago when people revived through modding some games with long-dead multiplayer. as well as all the emulators people threw in it.
Plus the Deck is great when you add emulators in it, I use sudachi and PCSX2 without any issues, as well as MAME

Just use a phone

no.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

the Switch is just a repackaged tablet with a tegra processor nobody else wanted.

I don't agree with this part, it has some cool ideas. The gimmicks were at least interesting in theory, though didn't end up getting much use probably. I've only played portable multiplayer on it a couple of times, it was neat but it has a lot of room for improvement. Still, that's at least something, unlike PS & XB.

I think you may be overcomplicating it. Power is debatable, but everything else should just be the exact same as the Steam Deck. Same OS, same mod-ability, digital only, Steam as the focus but it can technically run other things, all that stuff. A cheaper, non-portable Steam Deck.

At this point they're better off focusing on Steam Deck 2 and this time should offer a non-portable option too. It's probably only a couple years away.

 

[Shinkai]

I don't agree with this part, it has some cool ideas. The gimmicks were at least interesting in theory, though didn't end up getting much use probably. I've only played portable multiplayer on it a couple of times, it was neat but it has a lot of room for improvement. Still, that's at least something, unlike PS & XB.


At this point they're better off focusing on Steam Deck 2 and this time should offer a non-portable option too. It's probably only a couple years away.

I can see a Steam Deck 2 within two years. The OLED ones quite recently but the small qol changes helped and besides battery still being a problem it's got some accessories for battery banks. The most demanding things will net you 1 hour 30 mins max but that's high load. I've played games on it for ages but they've not been the most demanding obviously.

I'm just hoping that with the elden dlc tomorrow performance isn't too fucked. Usually they're on the ball but the amount of things that get borked on deck with an update and never fixed making the verification badge system just absolutely useless can get annoying

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

I can see a Steam Deck 2 within two years. The OLED ones quite recently but the small qol changes helped and besides battery still being a problem it's got some accessories for battery banks. The most demanding things will net you 1 hour 30 mins max but that's high load. I've played games on it for ages but they've not been the most demanding obviously.

I'm just hoping that with the elden dlc tomorrow performance isn't too fucked. Usually they're on the ball but the amount of things that get borked on deck with an update and never fixed making the verification badge system just absolutely useless can get annoying

Battery life should be at the top of the list for SD2, but my biggest hope is it's somehow lighter (but I bet the opposite will probably be true if there's a change at all).

 

[Shinkai]

Battery life should be at the top of the list for SD2, but my biggest hope is it's somehow lighter (but I bet the opposite will probably be true if there's a change at all).

Weight wise yea could do a little lighter although I've been relatively ok with it. I don't get the ergonomic complaints. But I don't have soylent hands so who knows. I find everything's within a good reach. I would also love a second SD Card slot. Can't imagine they'd give us second drive slot so having two SD cards at once would save a lot of hot swapping

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Weight wise yea could do a little lighter although I've been relatively ok with it. I don't get the ergonomic complaints. But I don't have soylent hands so who knows. I find everything's within a good reach. I would also love a second SD Card slot. Can't imagine they'd give us second drive slot so having two SD cards at once would save a lot of hot swapping

The ergonomics are nearly perfectly, some buttons could feel better to press but otherwise I don't really have any complaints aside from weight.

Two card slots would be nice. One for Steam, one for ROMs.

 

[Pissmaster]

Same power as the Steam Deck, 512GB SSD, $199, bundled with a basic Xbox-style controller. It would sell gangbusters.

My #1 console wish right now is Windows 11 (or better yet, Linux) support for the Xbox Series X|S, so I can install Steam on it.

Or just Steam Deck OS so I can pop it on my old computer that I figure is about on par with a PlayStation 4 Pro.

Two card slots would be nice. One for Steam, one for ROMs.

Indeed. Or just as many card slots as possible. Put six on there so I'll have a use for all those obsolete little MicroSD cards I have in a drawer.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Indeed. Or just as many card slots as possible. Put six on there so I'll have a use for all those obsolete little MicroSD cards I have in a drawer.

The more the merrier. Then I could have more of an excuse to bother trying to get EGS games working for one of them. I could see myself going a little OCD with it lol

 

[foam rolla]

DVD was a huge factor in its long-term success when parents could justify the new game machine a lot more easy as the new media gizmo too

Not gonna lie, the PS1 got used as a CD player a bit when I was a kid.

 

[cybertoaster]

I don't agree with this part, it has some cool ideas. The gimmicks were at least interesting in theory, though didn't end up getting much use probably. I've only played portable multiplayer on it a couple of times, it was neat but it has a lot of room for improvement. Still, that's at least something, unlike PS & XB.

I wasn't talking about gimmicks but hardware, its using a tegra X1, its all off the shelf stuff, which is the point I was making that these companies don't even bother doing custom stuff anymore, the gimmicks are what you named and stuff like the new dualsense with force feedback.

Like SEGA could call nvidia right now and buy the orin chip to make its own handheld, which is about 4x more powerful than the tegra, but they wont because SEGA sucks now.

 

[Pissmaster]

I wasn't talking about gimmicks but hardware, its using a tegra X1, its all off the shelf stuff, which is the point I was making that these companies don't even bother doing custom stuff anymore, the gimmicks are what you named and stuff like the new dualsense with force feedback.

Like SEGA could call nvidia right now and buy the orin chip to make its own handheld, which is about 4x more powerful than the tegra, but they wont because SEGA sucks now.

Using stock, or lightly modified components has always been a thing. The NES & SNES both use a cheaper variant of the MOS 6502, and the PSVita used the same SoC as the third generation iPad.

The whole notion of making a game system with off-the-shelf hardware was a thing with the Ouya, too, but it failed to do anything interesting, or showcase any worthwhile games. They got the pomp and circumstance down, but dropped the ball on everything else. And, ironically, a huge thing that's missing from today's consoles is all the pomp and circumstance, and I guess that was all lost as they got completely overshadowed by COVID. That was a thing I liked about consoles. New ones only rolled around once every several years, and there was so much hype and excitement and festivities that the whole thing felt like a big fun event. I'm all in on PC now, but PC never had such excitement, and with the rising prices of video cards, their release dates really don't matter anymore. We might see a little bit of that when the next version of the Steam Deck rolls out, but it's just never gonna have the bare-ass excitement of a new Nintendo or PlayStation, pre-COVID.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

I had no idea Tomb Raider Legend and Sly Cooper were avaliable on PSN!! Wow

 

[cybertoaster]

The NES & SNES both use a cheaper variant of the MOS 6502, and the PSVita used the same SoC as the third generation iPad.

It was still custom silicon, and the only thing the Vita and iPad shared was different variants of the same GPU but the chip itself was custom. The GC/Wii has a powerPC CPU but it wasn't the exact same one from an iMac AFAIK, it was custom just like the tri-core powerPC on the X360.

But what you mention with pomp and circumstance also fits the theme of the hardware: everything about consoles is half-assed now.

 

[Shinkai]

It was still custom silicon, and the only thing the Vita and iPad shared was different variants of the same GPU but the chip itself was custom. The GC/Wii has a powerPC CPU but it wasn't the exact same one from an iMac AFAIK, it was custom just like the tri-core powerPC on the X360.

But what you mention with pomp and circumstance also fits the theme of the hardware: everything about consoles is half-assed now.

Was that PS2 Emotion Engine actually a thing or was it just salesman talk?

 

[Carpenter Trout]

Was that PS2 Emotion Engine actually a thing or was it just salesman talk?

https://www.psdevwiki.com/ps2/Emotion_Engine

https://archive.arstechnica.com/reviews/1q00/playstation2/m-ee-1.html

 

[3deadniggers]

How many side scrollers use fighting game inputs? Those are fun and seem rare.

 

[Two Dollars]

Weight wise yea could do a little lighter although I've been relatively ok with it. I don't get the ergonomic complaints. But I don't have soylent hands so who knows. I find everything's within a good reach. I would also love a second SD Card slot. Can't imagine they'd give us second drive slot so having two SD cards at once would save a lot of hot swapping

Do people really use multiple SD cards? Why not just use one big one? Or is it a situation of not wanting your old card to go to waste if you ever need more storage?

https://www.psdevwiki.com/ps2/Emotion_Engine

https://archive.arstechnica.com/reviews/1q00/playstation2/m-ee-1.html

In other words, it’s a fancy way of saying “good CPU”. The blast processing of the 2000s.

 

[Carpenter Trout]

In other words, it’s a fancy way of saying “good CPU”. The blast processing of the 2000s.

Yeah, exactly.
There is a couple of things about the EE that were unique to the PS2, but I still laugh at those people saying "the PS2's EE would read your emotions and jerk you off" or some other batshit insane rumours that were generated by the kid whose uncle worked at microsoft.

 

[Shinkai]

Do people really use multiple SD cards? Why not just use one big one? Or is it a situation of not wanting your old card to go to waste if you ever need more storage?

In other words, it’s a fancy way of saying “good CPU”. The blast processing of the 2000s.

I got 1 for ROMs which is 500gb and that's full and I also have a second 1tb for other games and a few Randons that would be nice to just use for media/assets for working on the deck in desktop mode. I mean two slots would be perfect for me cause I could just have my ROMs and my games on separate ones without having to swap them over

 

[Enig]

In other words, it’s a fancy way of saying “good CPU”. The blast processing of the 2000s.

Trust me, if you read into how that hardware actually worked you will be calling it anything but good, just take a look at this batshittery for example:

For example, let's say a game developer tries to normalize a zero vector by dividing by its length, which is 0. On the VU, the end result will be (0,0,0). On x86/IEEE, the result will be (infinity, infinity, infinity). Now if the game developer uses this vector to perturb some faces for artificial hair or some type of animation, all final positions on the PS2 will remain the same. All final positions on x86 will go to infinity... and there goes the game's graphics, now figure out where the problem occurred.

The simplest solution is to clamp the written vector of the current instruction. This requires 2 SSE operations and is SLOW; and it doesn't work sometimes. To top it off, you can never dismiss the fact that game developers can be loading bad floating-point data to the VUs to begin with! Some games zero out vectors by multiplying them with a zero, so the VU doesn't care at all what kind of garbage the original vector's data has, x86 does care.

These two problems make floating-point emulation very hard to do fast and accurate. The range of bugs are from screen flickering when a fade occurs, to disappearing characters, to spiky polygon syndrome (the most common problem and widely known as SPS).

Nothing about that thing followed industry standards and the fact it works at all is impressive.