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

[3deadniggers]

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.

Nintendo gimmicks are to get the console lots of marketing and then a year after release they're abandoned. Keeps happening.

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.

Steam deck 2 will come but the originals already non-portable. Get a dock and plug it into your TV. The deck 2 needs better ports on it and to lose some weight for sure. I would also like them to find a way to make R1 and L1 less awkward to use. I always switch them out for the back buttons to save finger cramp.

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

I'm considering playing some of it on the deck but isn't the base game performance 30 fps and the increased specs with the DLC maybe an issue. I have stuff I need to do tomorrow so Elden ring portable would be nice on lunch break but those shoulder buttons make it awkward.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

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:


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

I wonder if some of these consoles with wacky, non-standard architecture (PS2, N64, Saturn, etc.) were built that way as a "screw you" to emulator developers. One of the reasons why Dolphin was both timely and stable was because of the GameCube's PowerPC processor, which was well-documented and relatively popular (it had been used in Macs for years).

 

[Shinkai]

Nintendo gimmicks are to get the console lots of marketing and then a year after release they're abandoned. Keeps happening.

Steam deck 2 will come but the originals already non-portable. Get a dock and plug it into your TV. The deck 2 needs better ports on it and to lose some weight for sure. I would also like them to find a way to make R1 and L1 less awkward to use. I always switch them out for the back buttons to save finger cramp.

I'm considering playing some of it on the deck but isn't the base game performance 30 fps and the increased specs with the DLC maybe an issue. I have stuff I need to do tomorrow so Elden ring portable would be nice on lunch break but those shoulder buttons make it awkward.

Comes out in just under 2 hours here but I'll prob sleep not long after. I'll try remember to let you know atleast if there's any big differences but yea I played at 30fps locked on Steam Deck with only an occasional hiccup when traversing but never for long.

 

[3deadniggers]

Comes out in just under 2 hours here but I'll prob sleep not long after. I'll try remember to let you know atleast if there's any big differences but yea I played at 30fps locked on Steam Deck with only an occasional hiccup when traversing but never for long.

There's a new bug where if you go idle for 5 minutes it disconnects your controller on deck. The new lighting system also seems more resource intense. It's noticable in a few areas already

 

[I am Jack's dead arm]

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

My Sega CD was used a lot to play CDs.

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

Final Fight 3 uses them for the special/power moves.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

Steam deck 2 will come but the originals already non-portable.

But they could bring down the price for a truly non-portable version, like the PSTV model of the PS Vita (wow Sony was bad with naming conventions with that line of systems). I vastly prefer portability but understand not everybody cares about it, especially if they can get a discount to forgo a feature they're not interested in.

I wonder if some of these consoles with wacky, non-standard architecture (PS2, N64, Saturn, etc.) were built that way as a "screw you" to emulator developers. One of the reasons why Dolphin was both timely and stable was because of the GameCube's PowerPC processor, which was well-documented and relatively popular (it had been used in Macs for years).

Maybe the others but probably not Saturn, that's supposedly a bitch to emulate and develop for because they basically Frankenstein'd some extra parts in because they realized it was too weak late into production.

 

[Pepe Cortisona]

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:


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

At that point, the only emotions it conveyed were anger and frustration.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Maybe the others but probably not Saturn, that's supposedly a bitch to emulate and develop for because they basically Frankenstein'd some extra parts in because they realized it was too weak late into production.

The Saturn's 3D engine doesn't use triangles, it uses quads, which is the filmmaking standard but the game industry was triangles. And granted, it looks better in some cases but the calculations, texturing, and modeling are completely different. Most developers didn't actually use this, however.

 

[Shinkai]

There's a new bug where if you go idle for 5 minutes it disconnects your controller on deck. The new lighting system also seems more resource intense. It's noticable in a few areas already

So I played about hour and half in end. Runs about the same as base game on the settings I used. I can confirm the idle controller DC Though as I left it sitting to test it. I'm not too far in so dont know how well FPS will hold up

 

[3deadniggers]

So I played about hour and half in end. Runs about the same as base game on the settings I used. I can confirm the idle controller DC Though as I left it sitting to test it. I'm not too far in so dont know how well FPS will hold up

I'm playing on PC and From put huge enemies around like 30+ tents. I'm starting to see FPS drops to 45-50 when the main game ran mostly a smooth 60. The texture caching problem and possibly a memory leak they had fixed is back.

 

[Shinkai]

I'm playing on PC and From put huge enemies around like 30+ tents. I'm starting to see FPS drops to 45-50 when the main game ran mostly a smooth 60. The texture caching problem and possibly a memory leak they had fixed is back.

Good ol' From Soft. It was forgivable when they were underdogs but over the years the technical side of their stuff pisses me the fuck off.

Bloodborne is a great game ruined by constant frame pacing stutter

 

[3deadniggers]

Good ol' From Soft. It was forgivable when they were underdogs but over the years the technical side of their stuff pisses me the fuck off.

Bloodborne is a great game ruined by constant frame pacing stutter

I would love to shake your hand and buy you a beer. I've been saying the same shit for years and I get shouted down by fanboys. Bloodborne is nearly unplayable with it's pace and frame rate/input dropping problems. There's so many times I've died to From bullshit that should have been fixed.

Elden ring gets 40-50 FPS in catacombs and 30 in open areas but I think it will drop further if a decent size boss appears. Had to do some Steam deck playing and I can't imagine it will hold up well.

It's odd going from classic games to Elden ring again and seeing the amount of particle effects spam

 

[Shinkai]

I would love to shake your hand and buy you a beer. I've been saying the same shit for years and I get shouted down by fanboys. Bloodborne is nearly unplayable with it's pace and frame rate/input dropping problems. There's so many times I've died to From bullshit that should have been fixed.

Elden ring gets 40-50 FPS in catacombs and 30 in open areas but I think it will drop further if a decent size boss appears. Had to do some Steam deck playing and I can't imagine it will hold up well.

It's odd going from classic games to Elden ring again and seeing the amount of particle effects spam

Yea rabid fanboys wind me up. You can't have valid criticism for from games because they just dogpile you with memes and hate. It was an absolute struggle to get through Bloodborne it gave me like motion sickness. Which is a shame because it's a really good game. It's then stuff like you remember the Dark Souls remastered release? I think it looks much worse than the og release. Everything looks so flat visually and the lighting looks worse. Thats less a gripe with performance but when one big thing about DS1 is the atmosphere from the lights / shadows etc it kind of ruins some of the experience

 

[Mr. Duck]

I wonder if some of these consoles with wacky, non-standard architecture (PS2, N64, Saturn, etc.) were built that way as a "screw you" to emulator developers. One of the reasons why Dolphin was both timely and stable was because of the GameCube's PowerPC processor, which was well-documented and relatively popular (it had been used in Macs for years).

Emulation was barely a thing when the N64 and Saturn were new so no, N64 was complicated because it was basically SGI hardware cost reduced into a console, and SGI machines weren't well suited for games, the Saturn was complicated because of SEGA's retardation, and the PS2 was complicated on purpose because Sony wanted developers to make games directly for it and make the porting process to other machines more difficult, they tried the same strategy again with the PS3 but as we all know it failed spectacularly for the first few years of the console.

 

[Shinkai]

All the parts needed came through today and I've set up the PS2 to load from the Harddrive inserted into the network expansion bay. All works fine !

 

[Two Dollars]

All the parts needed came through today and I've set up the PS2 to load from the Harddrive inserted into the network expansion bay. All works fine !

I did the same thing a few days ago! Now to figure out how to load PS1 games.
OpenPS2Loader supports ZSO for compression, but A ) There's not much of a space difference (usually ~10-20%) beyond a few outliers, and B ) You may have to set different modes depending on the game/ZSO and I don't want to screw with that. Oh well, a 256GB SSD is plenty for what I have.

 

[Baraka Obama]

the PS2 was complicated on purpose because Sony wanted developers to make games directly for it and make the porting process to other machines more difficult, they tried the same strategy again with the PS3 but as we all know it failed spectacularly for the first few years of the console

I don't think this is true. Certainly it being complicated worked for PS2 in that regard.

But if you think back to the late 90s when the PS2 was being designed, dedicated GPUs did not exist and even 3D accelerator cards for PC were brand new unproven tech. The PS2 is designed to have the CPU handle all graphics work with a few esoteric hardware to make SIMD tasks (the basis of graphics work) very fast. It's not a bad plan given the era, and considering the hardware would have been finalized in maybe '99 at lastest, the results speak for themselves -- PS2 games look amazing considering when the hardware was designed.

For PS3 they made the mistake of trying to continue this design past the point where GPUs had been established and were getting amazing results gen-on-gen. The PS3 wasn't designed to have a GPU at all, it was bolted on at the last minute when they realized their results were much worse and harder to work with than what Xbox 360 ended up as for less cost.

Now to figure out how to load PS1 games

POPS is usable for that but it has a lot of bugs. If your PS2 is compatible with MechaPwn install that and use CD-Rs.

 

[Pepe Cortisona]

For PS3 they made the mistake of trying to continue this design past the point where GPUs had been established and were getting amazing results gen-on-gen. The PS3 wasn't designed to have a GPU at all, it was bolted on at the last minute when they realized their results were much worse and harder to work with than what Xbox 360 ended up as for less cost.

Wasn't Mark Cerny the one that convinced Kutaragi to put a GPU in there because the original plan was to have two CELLs powering the console? Imagine no games, but exponentially.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

I don't think this is true. Certainly it being complicated worked for PS2 in that regard.

But if you think back to the late 90s when the PS2 was being designed, dedicated GPUs did not exist and even 3D accelerator cards for PC were brand new unproven tech. The PS2 is designed to have the CPU handle all graphics work with a few esoteric hardware to make SIMD tasks (the basis of graphics work) very fast. It's not a bad plan given the era, and considering the hardware would have been finalized in maybe '99 at lastest, the results speak for themselves -- PS2 games look amazing considering when the hardware was designed.

For PS3 they made the mistake of trying to continue this design past the point where GPUs had been established and were getting amazing results gen-on-gen. The PS3 wasn't designed to have a GPU at all, it was bolted on at the last minute when they realized their results were much worse and harder to work with than what Xbox 360 ended up as for less cost.

POPS is usable for that but it has a lot of bugs. If your PS2 is compatible with MechaPwn install that and use CD-Rs.

The thing about PlayStation in E3 1995 Sony delivered would turn out to be a fatal blow to Sega (or at least one of the major milestones with "two-ninety-nine". Fast-forward just a little more than a decade later when they stunned people with "$599 US Dollars". Xbox 360 was already out for a year and less expensive than that. At the end of the day, PS3 would've been the absolute loser of the 2006-2012 consoles had it not been for the major hardware issues of the Xbox 360 that were plaguing consoles. As a result it was a bit of a toss-up.

 

[Judge Dredd]

At the end of the day, PS3 would've been the absolute loser of the 2006-2012 consoles had it not been for the major hardware issues of the Xbox 360 that were plaguing consoles. As a result it was a bit of a toss-up.

That's not how I remember it.

PS3 basically lost except for fanboys who had lots of money. The PS3 gained ground in the end because MS messed up the 360 interface with ads, PS3 was easy to mod with large hard drives at the fraction of the cost, and more importantly the PS3 slim reduced the price significantly. So much so that I got my PS3 fairly late due to an unadvertised sale I heard about through word of mouth for about £120. Most of the games were super cheap by then too.