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What systems do you not want to admit when emulation is actually better?


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Colecovision? I've never actually owned one, but the hardware is supposed to be flaky and the controllers not comfortable.

 

Some systems such as Turbografx (especially the CD) and Neo Geo are prohibitively expensive to collect. Even SNES and Genesis are getting expensive. Emulation is one of the better options.

 

 

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On 2/12/2020 at 4:11 AM, juansolo said:

The latest thing that particular tiny box of wonder has done is the Mega CD. Again, I was looking to the MegaSD, or getting an actual flakey Mega CD unit. It's just far more practical. The difference being there that I still play the Megadrive because it doesn't detract from just how awesome that thing is.

Selling my X'Eye was more than enough to fund the purchase of a complete MiSTer setup with 128 MB SDRAM, USB daughterboard, and IO board. The IO board looks fairly impressive plugged into my OSSC with direct native video output. HDMI with integer scaling looks pretty good too. It's a tossup, but I like it. Once MiSTer Addons has the case back in stock I'll buy one, but for now the standoffs with rubber feet and the IO board with fan are good enough. I just want to protect it better from dust. 

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The only emu I'd say that comes even close to real hardware would be Atari 2600.  It's been around the longest and has the biggest fanbase for the longest, as a result it has continually been upgraded over the years.  I got my start on pcae  and have mostly stuck with a26  or stella over the years.  Like I said, 2600 emulation is the only one that comes close.  To this day there is still stuff that doesn't quite work right.

 

This may be subjective though, I know a lot of people want emulation more for convenience and not for accuracy.  Plenty of people like emulation for extras like save states, or better graphic processing, in my case though, I"m looking for the most accurate.  Playing golden eye (64) with a much better draw distance, or some DS game with better upconverted graphics, I can se the appeal, but I'd prefer as close as possible to 100% accuracy. 

 

Gameboy, or at least, GBA was pretty darn close to perfect.  Get a SNES style game pad and it's almost perfect.

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Not sure yet, since I haven't played any emulation that I feel is better that the real thing.    I love emulation, and have since way back in WIN 95 days when it was all new and shiny, I suppose, but I've not played any yet that makes me think "this feels 100% the way it should, PLUS the added perks (save states, etc) make me never want to bother playing this on the real hardware again."

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12 hours ago, Video said:

The only emu I'd say that comes even close to real hardware would be Atari 2600.  It's been around the longest and has the biggest fanbase for the longest, as a result it has continually been upgraded over the years.  I got my start on pcae  and have mostly stuck with a26  or stella over the years.  Like I said, 2600 emulation is the only one that comes close.  To this day there is still stuff that doesn't quite work right.

 

This may be subjective though, I know a lot of people want emulation more for convenience and not for accuracy.  Plenty of people like emulation for extras like save states, or better graphic processing, in my case though, I"m looking for the most accurate.  Playing golden eye (64) with a much better draw distance, or some DS game with better upconverted graphics, I can se the appeal, but I'd prefer as close as possible to 100% accuracy. 

 

Gameboy, or at least, GBA was pretty darn close to perfect.  Get a SNES style game pad and it's almost perfect.

BSNES(Higan) actually would probably match or exceed your expectation of the emulation accuracy of the 2600.  It requires heavier hardware to pull it off, more so when you tier up with expansion chips, but it's there.

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22 hours ago, Video said:

The only emu I'd say that comes even close to real hardware would be Atari 2600.  It's been around the longest and has the biggest fanbase for the longest, as a result it has continually been upgraded over the years.  I got my start on pcae  and have mostly stuck with a26  or stella over the years.  Like I said, 2600 emulation is the only one that comes close.  To this day there is still stuff that doesn't quite work right.

Yes good work has been done on the system. Though lag is still something of a problem. Ask anyone who plays Kaboom or Breakout, the paddle simulation needs much massaging and lag enters the equation there. Scores are consistently higher on real hardware.

 

And the blargg effects are becoming dated, that part of the code I don't think has been touched in over 10-years. But then again expectations of continual change for change's sake is the order of the day today.

 

22 hours ago, Video said:

This may be subjective though, I know a lot of people want emulation more for convenience and not for accuracy.

You'll get a few here stating it's all about free games. Freeloading and being cheap.

 

22 hours ago, Video said:

Plenty of people like emulation for extras like save states, or better graphic processing, in my case though, I"m looking for the most accurate.  Playing golden eye (64) with a much better draw distance, or some DS game with better upconverted graphics, I can se the appeal, but I'd prefer as close as possible to 100% accuracy.

I also prefer accuracy and the additional features of save states, reliability, and conveniences. But I tend to stop at better graphic processing. I'd rather see those cycles go toward emulating how an NTSC signal behaves and looks on a CRT, or, rather, a simulated CRT.

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9 hours ago, Tanooki said:

BSNES(Higan) actually would probably match or exceed your expectation of the emulation accuracy of the 2600.  It requires heavier hardware to pull it off, more so when you tier up with expansion chips, but it's there.

 

Yes. And since we're now passing through the downswing of the age of SNES, and entering "Sega stuff" I only recommend a fast i7 as the minimum for emulation. Requirements are only going to increase.

 

 

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17 hours ago, Keatah said:

 

Yes. And since we're now passing through the downswing of the age of SNES, and entering "Sega stuff" I only recommend a fast i7 as the minimum for emulation. Requirements are only going to increase.

 

 

If we're still talking like cycle accurate nitpicky right like byuu likes for his SNES emulator, yeah probably something around the 2.5-3ghz base for the Genesis, and that nasty SVP chip in Virtua Racing probably would become a real issue for almost anyone on top of that.

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I ended up getting an A1200 because Amibian didn't quite work for me. Certain games (Shuffle Puck Café, Virus and Vroom) I really struggled with on the emulator because there was lag there that I just couldn't compensate for and it just didn't feel right in those games. Minimig on the MiSTer however I cannot tell the difference between the real thing and the core. The same has to go for the NeoGeo core, it's pretty much indistinguishable from the real thing and certainly a load more reliable (I will be taking a soldering iron to mine tomorrow in the hopes of bringing it back to life...).

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  • 2 months later...
On 2/10/2020 at 9:19 AM, CatPix said:


Many games on the 1292 AVPS console have been programmed with the fact that the joysticks are NOT autocentered (which make many games harder to play on the Interton VC 4000 since it got auto-centered sticks) and again a joystick can't emulate this.

I am not sure I follow - why would games be harder to play on the consoles WITH the centering sticks?

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On 2/11/2020 at 1:23 AM, Nintendo64 said:

I second this. Save states are great to be able to come back to any point in the game. The only problem i have with them is: is it considered cheating if you save a game at a particular spot, then die in the game, then load that save state and continue the game from that particular spot? The developers didn't have it in mind to start games from any "loading state" you want, and it definitely makes games easier to complete that's for sure.

I consider using save states beyond pausing the game to be cheating. I also think using more than 1 credit per player in arcade-games to be cheating. I also think that if you don´t complete a game at its hardest settings, you haven´t really completed it.

 

As for the topic of the thread, I have virtually no knowledge about how good emulators are relative to their original platforms in running games. But I do know that games, which were originally laggy, can be improved by overclocking the emulator. Double Dragon for the arcade, for example.

 

Emulators are also superior in that you can pause them using save states, and they are more convenient. But it doesn´t feel quite the same as using the real hardware.

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On 5/2/2020 at 7:16 AM, 4cade said:

I am not sure I follow - why would games be harder to play on the consoles WITH the centering sticks?

Several games on the 1292 have been programmed with an "absolute" positionning of the sprite, think like how Pong paddles move or how the rotary joysticks on Atari works.

With those games, a centering stick mean that it goes back on the middle of the screen, making games like Bowling impossible to play.. or reall difficult

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2 hours ago, CatPix said:

Several games on the 1292 have been programmed with an "absolute" positionning of the sprite, think like how Pong paddles move or how the rotary joysticks on Atari works.

With those games, a centering stick mean that it goes back on the middle of the screen, making games like Bowling impossible to play.. or reall difficult

Ah, thx for the clarification. Werid!

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On 5/2/2020 at 3:35 PM, Lord Mushroom said:

I consider using save states beyond pausing the game to be cheating. I also think using more than 1 credit per player in arcade-games to be cheating. I also think that if you don´t complete a game at its hardest settings, you haven´t really completed it.

Heres the thing, with the cheating subject aside, I play games now a days for relaxation. I feel like some games are more enjoyable with save states, because it is more relaxing to know that I don't have to start over from the beginning if a game is too hard to complete. It takes the relaxing element out of gaming, in my opinion, when you have to start from the beginning because a game is to hard. I definitely agree though, the developers didnt intend for there to be save states at any time, and it does make games easier to play. The thing is, there are so many games out there that, if I wanted to finish all the games I want to play without save states, I would never have the time to do so.

 

Also Ill never forget back in the day that in order to keep a game going, I would have to leave the NES on overnight in order to play the game the next day because it wasn't possible to save a lot of games on the NES. What a waste of electricity it was to have to finish a game without turning the system off, If I didnt have time to play, and not be able to come back to the game later. Also it wasnt even possible to play another game in between on the same system, if you got really far in a game, because if you turned it off you lost the game state you were playing. For that reason alone, emulators are a really good way to play multiple games, on old hardware, and come back to them at a different point in time to complete different games.

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2 hours ago, Nintendo64 said:

For that reason alone, emulators are a really good way to play multiple games, on old hardware, and come back to them at a different point in time to complete different games.

What I mean to say was, emulators are a really good way to play multiple games, that were available on old hardware, and come back to them at a different point in time to complete any game in any order that I choose. Its just great that if I have something else to do, I don't have to leave my NES on and turn the T.V. off, like in the old days, in order to finish a game.

Edited by Nintendo64
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Well I definitely used save states recently to recently beat NES Ninja Gaiden, Blaster Master, and Bionic Commando. Anyone who believes that it was "cheating", well their hearts can be satisfied with the multiple times I'd beaten all of them 20-30 years ago the regular way. :lol: 

 

But yeah.. I still don't really get the debate. I jump between emulators and consoles constantly. But if that's not you there's nothing wrong with just playing whatever makes sense for what you feel is better for whatever particular game.   It kind of reminded me of this post

 

image2.thumb.jpg.2e15c45e99fe72e80925b8198bd1ec87.jpg <pic>

 

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5 hours ago, Nintendo64 said:

I feel like some games are more enjoyable with save states, because it is more relaxing to know that I don't have to start over from the beginning

 

Also Ill never forget back in the day that in order to keep a game going, I would have to leave the NES on overnight in order to play the game the next day because it wasn't possible to save a lot of games on the NES.

I agree that many games become more fun to play if you use save states multiple times, unless you are an anti-multi-save-state fundamentalist like me. Not having to play the same levels over and over before getting to where you were last. Especially when you have already played many of those levels perfectly already, so there is no gain in extra lives or something from starting from the beginning. I am just saying that if you complete a game by using a save state more than once, there needs to be an asterisk next to that accomplishment, as it makes it easier. 

 

I also agree that using save states simply as a means of pausing the game is not cheating, as there was already an electricity-intensive way of doing that originally.

Edited by Lord Mushroom
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If yu mean working with non-original Sega glasses well in fact Sega used a stereoscopic glass standard .

The problem is that this technology has been abandonned in the mid 2000's so "generic wired 3D glasses" are no longer readily available. Buf if you find any pair of LCD glasse that connect with a regular jack, then it will most likely work on the Sega 3D module.

I remember looking to see if anyone worked to convert the signal from the jack to wireless glasses but th problem is that unlike for wires shutter glasses,  each TV maker made their own standard for 3D TV so there isn't much done in that regard.

Edited by CatPix
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This is a hard discussion... Taking things like the NES for example on a modern TV (4K TV), it looks so bad it's almost unplayable even over composite.  So after doing a RGB mod, and a Stereo mod, through a Framemeister, it looks epic (PIXEL PERFECT) but, all this comes with a large expense.  I could get a PI 4, a NES to USB adapter, and a 32gb SD card, and I could get ALMOST the same quality if not better for a TON less money for NES games, never mind all the other systems it can do. 

 

In the US, we don't have SCART connections on any TV, so to get RGB, you would need a OSSC, Framemeister, or one of the other devices out there. So even systems that supported it, in the US your limited on outputs with out a scalller or something.

 

Other consoles do not have RGB, or other type mods, so unless you can have a CRT sitting around (can't do for most people) it's not always about what is better, it's about what you can do.

 

So, in a nut shell, Emulation can give you the best quality you can get for the least amount of money if you don't have these systems that are modded to see the best they can do.

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22 hours ago, CatPix said:

If yu mean working with non-original Sega glasses well in fact Sega used a stereoscopic glass standard .

The problem is that this technology has been abandonned in the mid 2000's so "generic wired 3D glasses" are no longer readily available. Buf if you find any pair of LCD glasse that connect with a regular jack, then it will most likely work on the Sega 3D module.

I remember looking to see if anyone worked to convert the signal from the jack to wireless glasses but th problem is that unlike for wires shutter glasses,  each TV maker made their own standard for 3D TV so there isn't much done in that regard.

No, I meant - it would be nice if someone could code an emulator to work with the original glasses, or some kind of substitute for the original glasses, so I don't have to use a real console.

 

Also - it would be really great if someone could do that so it would work on modern LCD/OLED/LED TVs and monitors as opposed to needing a CRT.

 

also - I bought a pair of wired "standard" pre-2000 sterescopic classes that were sold as supposedly working. They don't. they woudl phase in and out of the effect working because the refresh cycle wasn't lining up.

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