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

[Sergeant Politeness]

The second

Well, then I will excuse myself, because to tell the truth, I have some emulators too on my PC and used to play them like five years ago but now I feel like it isn't enough. But maybe the only thing that's missing for me is a good gamepad.

And on the other hand, the Virtual Console counts as emulation too, doesn't it? I have Mario Kart 64, Wario Land 4 and Wario Ware Inc.: Minigame Mania on my Wii U. Maybe I'm just nto a friend of PC gaming.

The only fact that confused were people sayings ROMs would be illegal if you didn't have the original game. Well, on the other hand I doubt this is true. I mean - tons of Let's Players do the same...

so with other words, you aren't wrong.

Yeah, VC is emulation. PC emulators are fine, as long as you have a controller. Keyboard and mouse is no way to play them. Even an Xbox controller is fine. I bought a classic controller for my Wii box for emulators and Geometry Wars and it makes a world of difference. I'd recommend an Xbox wired controller, honestly. As gamepads go, they're excellent, and they have Windows 10 integration if you're like me and got suckered into that.

Overall I have emulators for N64, SNES and GBA.

However, my N64 emulator (Project 64) doesn't work as good on my (shitty) PC as the other ones. Hope you have a better working computer than me, I mean if it keeps lagging all the time it really is a torture. With the SNES and GBA one it really is a torture. I even finished the first DK Country on there. (however, with keyboard)

I remember being super little and playing Project 64 and Goldeneye on a shitty Celeron build I got from a family friend; thing was glitchy as hell and I had to run it fullscreen to get DX not to error constantly. Dunno how good it is now, that was 2008 or so.

Also, you should edit your posts if you have more to say instead of double posting.

 

[Terror Rism]

Overall I have emulators for N64, SNES and GBA.

apologize for double double posting

to be serious though, it's sad that most of the people in this thread don't know about Retroarch, the graphical frontend for most emulators that lets you run nearly every console as if it was one emulator. it's not perfect and a bit finicky, but it gives you a homebrewed Wii/3ds/psp feeling on your pc and globalized configurations.
also project64 is likely to run like actual trash on a bad computer, try mupen64 or one of the alternative Retroarch cores.

as an aside, I'm personally considering building windows-based hyperspin/Retroarch arcade cabinets and selling/leasing them if the licensing permits (If anyone wants tips on how to completely hide Windows and set the shell to launch your frontend instead of explorer, I can make a tutorial when I have my PC again). It's (arguably) harder than setting up a pi and shoving an emulator on it, but allows you to use a more powerful standard pc for higher internal resolution/more recently made games and established emulators that have more development and features on standard windows architecture.

 

[Sergeant Politeness]

also project64 is likely to run like actual trash on a bad computer, try mupen64 or one of the alternative Retroarch cores.

Oh I know that now, I was 8 at the time.

I've fallen out with emulators a bit, and most games in general. The only game I'm really seriously playing right now is GTA San Andreas. I'm not the type to play a lot of different games at once. I should get back into that.

as an aside, I'm personally considering building windows-based hyperspin/Retroarch arcade cabinets and selling/leasing them if the licensing permits (If anyone wants tips on how to completely hide Windows and set the shell to launch your frontend instead of explorer, I can make a tutorial when I have my PC again). It's (arguably) harder than setting up a pi and shoving an emulator on it, but allows you to use a more powerful standard pc for higher internal resolution/more recently made games and established emulators that have more development and features on standard windows architecture.

I have always wanted a proper arcade machine, even if it's just the frame with a computer and an X-Arcade stick in it. I don't see the appeal of playing, say, Nintendo games on an upright, but something like Robotron? Fuck yes.

 

[MysticMisty]

The only fact that confused were people sayings ROMs would be illegal if you didn't have the original game. Well, on the other hand I doubt this is true. I mean - tons of Let's Players do the same...

I used to hear this all the time when I first got into emulating. I've always thought that was bullshit, and really they're going to go after the hosting sites, not the people who download them.

Anyways my personal stance on downloading games has always been that I only play games that are only available legally second hand. The exception was when the GBA was still relevant, sometimes I'd try games before buying a physical copy. Not even a full 24 hours, just perhaps an hour, maybe two.

Since legal games available for purchase and download I've moved away from using ROMs of games made available again. It's nice to play versions that are less glitchy, and have more accurate sound and sound effects.

 

[Cubanodun]

Personally, Dreamcast emulation is a pain in the ass. No matter how hard you try, some of the games will either run like shit, have graphical issues, or both. The others run just fine. Still less of a pain than Saturn emulation, though.

Dreamcast emulation is almost as dead as the Sega saturn emulation, Mednafen is doing a good work trying to emulate the Saturn but is not there yet, it took them like a lot of updates to barely manage to make save states function properly, i know about Redream but it's still not perfect yet

Third Birthday.

I dropped that thing like 10 times because it was horrible to play it with the PSP, but a friend told me that the experience is much better in PPSSPP with a xbox 360 controller so i need to download the undub version again

Retro Game Challenge and its fan-translated sequel are great.

Retro game challenge is better with the undub hack so you can hear Chief arino in all his glory, never played the second one but i have heard that the RPG Mini game is very good

PCSX2 has always been touch and go. It took them years before they could get the emulator beyond proof of concept level usable, and some games to this day are still nigh impossible to run well, if at all.

Stick to the builds of the GIT, honestly the last stable version of PCSX2 was a trainwreck when i was doing my Castlevania marathon with my friends on twitter, decide to swap to a version from the GIT and got stable framerate in Lament of innocence and Curse of Darkness

Wizardry 8

I readed the article from Hardcore gaming 101 about it and the serie picked my interest, i recently downloaded Wizardry I-II-III for the Super famicom and its very nice to play a RPG without all the modern goodies, still its taking me some time because im still not used to Western RPG, according to the article the first one for pc was rapetastic in levels that Dark souls can only dream, same as Ultima

However, my N64 emulator (Project 64) doesn't work as good on my (shitty) PC as the other ones. Hope you have a better working computer than me, I mean if it keeps lagging all the time it really is a torture. With the SNES and GBA one it really is a torture. I even finished the first DK Country on there. (however, with keyboard)

If 1964 is giving you problem, swap to the GIT version, the Carnivorous edition or if you want to do it the messy way, use BizHawk that come with a gui for Mupen64plus

 

[GethN7]

Dreamcast emulation is almost as dead as the Sega saturn emulation, Mednafen is doing a good work trying to emulate the Saturn but is not there yet, it took them like a lot of updates to barely manage to make save states function properly, i know about Redream but it's still not perfect yet

Some interesting information about the actual Saturn that may explain a few things.

The actual Saturn had a very unorthodox processor setup and a GPU that could handle 3D on paper while being better at 2D in reality. Worse, it used a bizarre polygon meshing format, which made rendering a pain in the ass, especially for people doing ports from other systems of other 3D games.

In emulation the same problems carry over, only with the added layer of taking Saturn specific processor instructions and then translating them and back between the emulated Saturn and x86-64 processors. The graphics emulation for 3D games also carries over the actual hardware's inherent goofiness, which also runs counter to the rendering logic of most PCs.

 

[Sergeant Politeness]

The actual Saturn had a very unorthodox processor setup and a GPU that could handle 3D on paper while being better at 2D in reality. Worse, it used a bizarre polygon meshing format, which made rendering a pain in the ass, especially for people doing ports from other systems of other 3D games.

Saturn ports, a lot of the time, had to be oddly warped to work on the platform. The Saturn ports of Quake and Duke Nukem didn't run on idTech 1 and Build, respectively; they ran off Lobotomy Software's (people who did the port) in-house SlaveDriver engine.

The weird faceted look that a game like Fighters Megamix exhibits is due to the Saturn rendering polys as squares rather than triangles. In general, the Saturn was a fucking bizarre console, a lot like other consoles from the time, like the Jaguar. The PS1 was really the least fucked and most straightforward of the lot.

 

[Cubanodun]

S1 was really the least fucked and most straightforward of the lot.

That would explain why the emulation of PSX is the most stable i know, well in mednafen that is, ePSXe is cancer, avoid it like the plague

Some interesting information about the actual Saturn that may explain a few things.

The actual Saturn had a very unorthodox processor setup and a GPU that could handle 3D on paper while being better at 2D in reality. Worse, it used a bizarre polygon meshing format, which made rendering a pain in the ass, especially for people doing ports from other systems of other 3D games.

In emulation the same problems carry over, only with the added layer of taking Saturn specific processor instructions and then translating them and back between the emulated Saturn and x86-64 processors. The graphics emulation for 3D games also carries over the actual hardware's inherent goofiness, which also runs counter to the rendering logic of most PCs.

This remind me at Sony with the Cell processor for the PS3, a neat piece of hardware that was not very standard and made porting to the console a pain in the ass thankfully they knock it off and embraced a standard AMD hardware for the PS4, making it a glorified Smart TV (according to r/PCMR), i remember reading about how much a pain it was by the devs of The Last of Us

 

[Sergeant Politeness]

well in mednafen that is, ePSXe is cancer, avoid it like the plague

I've used ePSXe for years with no problems. What's wrong with it?

 

[GethN7]

I've used ePSXe for years with no problems. What's wrong with it?

He's probably referring to how you have to edit the plugin settings for many different games to get the best results.

Won't lie, he's got a bit of a point on that, but on the other hand, if you know what you are doing you can often get even better quality than the real PS1 cranked out while still using the same games.

 

[Sergeant Politeness]

He's probably referring to how you have to edit the plugin settings for many different games to get the best results.

Won't lie, he's got a bit of a point on that, but on the other hand, if you know what you are doing you can often get even better quality than the real PS1 cranked out while still using the same games.

I've seen people have the most trouble on FMV-heavy games, and surprise, I don't play those. I can't think of a game I've had to tweak before it'll work. They definitely exist, but I haven't played any, and I've played a decent variety of games on it outside of that.

On a slightly different topic, I'm not a fan of the way people try to fuck with the way old games look. If it's something like native HD rendering for something like the PS1, that's fine, but when people take to the extent of, say, Darkplaces (one of the most prominent Quake source ports), I hop out of the train window. I don't know how someone can tell me this looks good. It looks like Myspace.

 

[Cubanodun]

I've used ePSXe for years with no problems. What's wrong with it?

I don't know in older systems but in Window 10 ePSXe was buggy as hell, it even deleted my memory cards for no reason at all when i was playing Symphony of the night (the fan retranslated version not the american one), swapped to Mednafen and the emulation was smooth and without any problems, even in things like Retroarch, Mednafen is the core to go for the PSX for how precise it is, the only problem is that people hate it because it doesn't come with a GUI but there are plenty of options available like MedGUI Reborn or Mednaffe

He's probably referring to how you have to edit the plugin settings for many different games to get the best results.

Yep and in part because almost all the plugins that come with the installer of ePSXe are very outdated, PCSX2 has the same issue but at least they update the plugins more often in the GIT

 

[Shroom King]

He's probably referring to how you have to edit the plugin settings for many different games to get the best results.

Agreed, I spent a long time trying to get the world map to show up in Final Fantasy Tactics, and I finally found a thread on some FF board where they showed the settings they used, and it works but now all screenshots I take are glitched to hell. I spent more time fooling around with those settings than playing the game!

 

[GethN7]

Agreed, I spent a long time trying to get the world map to show up in Final Fantasy Tactics, and I finally found a thread on some FF board where they showed the settings they used, and it works but now all screenshots I take are glitched to hell. I spent more time fooling around with those settings than playing the game!

Yeah, some games are a hassle to get working right. I spent a LONG time getting FF7 to look decent.

 

[SregginKcuf]

I also found a German YouTuber who recorded a Let's Play from Super Mario World from his original console

 

[SregginKcuf]

I used to hear this all the time when I first got into emulating. I've always thought that was bullshit, and really they're going to go after the hosting sites, not the people who download them.

Anyways my personal stance on downloading games has always been that I only play games that are only available legally second hand. The exception was when the GBA was still relevant, sometimes I'd try games before buying a physical copy. Not even a full 24 hours, just perhaps an hour, maybe two.

Since legal games available for purchase and download I've moved away from using ROMs of games made available again. It's nice to play versions that are less glitchy, and have more accurate sound and sound effects.

Two N64 games that are almost unplayable on emulators are Paper Mario and Yoshi's Story.

 

[Sergeant Politeness]

Two N64 games that are almost unplayable on emulators are Paper Mario and Yoshi's Story.

Edit your posts instead of double posting.

The newer the console is, the less I wanna emulate it, generally. Fifth gen, PS1/N64 era is about the time I'd prefer to go with the actual consoles. They're still really easy to find in working order and the emulators aren't quite there in working as they should.

 

[Cubanodun]

Edit your posts instead of double posting.

The newer the console is, the less I wanna emulate it, generally. Fifth gen, PS1/N64 era is about the time I'd prefer to go with the actual consoles. They're still really easy to find in working order and the emulators aren't quite there in working as they should.

Yeah, i have even read opinions about Emulator devs talking about how for example, Emulating the switch was possible because the thing is just a glorified Nvidia Shield K1 and that thing has tons of documentation but is not worth it because it doesnt have anything that make people bitch about wanting to have a emulator, but they also admit that is a superbplatform for retro gaming just like the Shield (that is discontinued SAD!)

Two N64 games that are almost unplayable on emulators are Paper Mario and Yoshi's Story.

Never heard of anyone having problems emulating Paper mario, need to test Yoshi Story to see how bad it is even when i dont like the game

 

[Caesare]

Yeah, VC is emulation. PC emulators are fine, as long as you have a controller. Keyboard and mouse is no way to play them. Even an Xbox controller is fine. I bought a classic controller for my Wii box for emulators and Geometry Wars and it makes a world of difference. I'd recommend an Xbox wired controller, honestly. As gamepads go, they're excellent, and they have Windows 10 integration if you're like me and got suckered into that.



I remember being super little and playing Project 64 and Goldeneye on a shitty Celeron build I got from a family friend; thing was glitchy as hell and I had to run it fullscreen to get DX not to error constantly. Dunno how good it is now, that was 2008 or so.

Also, you should edit your posts if you have more to say instead of double posting.

The problem with playing n64 on computer is the weird controller. It's possible, but you pretty much have to change the button layout for each game (granted all I've emulated was star fox and mischief makers for n64.) It still works out though.

 

[Sergeant Politeness]

The problem with playing n64 on computer is the weird controller. It's possible, but you pretty much have to change the button layout for each game (granted all I've emulated was star fox and mischief makers for n64.) It still works out though.

All I played was Goldeneye. I think I used WASD and the insert/home/etc keys for the face buttons, since that was the default.

More recently, I played it on my Wii using a Classic Controller and it felt a lot more comfortable. But yeah, the N64 has one of those controllers where you almost need a USB version if you wanna play emulated games from it. They do exist.