One really big thing to mention about the virtual console is, you don't truly own the games. You can't transfer them to another system, and your save files are permanently stores on the system. If your Wii/WiiU/3ds fails,you louse all your save file. And on the Wii you'd louse all your purchases too!
You can transfer titles when you do a 'system transfer'. Look in settings. Save managers (look up 'JKSM' )work with most titles - you just need homebrew access (easy to set up on any firmware).
Which is the reason I've never bought anything from the nintendo eshop. I think even the restriction to activate purchased psn games on only 2 home consoles and 3 handhelds is a pain in the ass (since I own multiple versions of both the psp and the vita and like to switch them around), and also the reason I put CFW on my psp's so I didn't have to deal with activating/deactivating systems to work with different purchases and keeping track of which purchase was linked to which account... (I own both a European and US account, because of release differences). A 128gb micro sd + photofast adapter in your psp and you've got plenty of space to carry all your favourite retro titles with you, all the way from from the 8-bit era to the 32-bit era (I'm not counting 64-bit since emulated N64 games are barely playable on the daedalus emulator for psp)
I bought a lot of VC titles in the first four years of 3DS ownership but could never work out why NES games (and the 'ambassodor' GBA games) looked and felt so wrong. Now I can make my own NES / GBA VC titles to install onto 3DSs without the darkness and ghosting filters official releases are blighted by and also with 1:1 pixel mode that makes retro games look the best they possibly can be.
Mehdi Hamai I was going to say the SAME exact thing. I have an emulator cart plugged into my arcade cabinet jamma harness which has 600+ games. The emulation of the games that I care most about (TMNT, X-Men, etc) suck, compared to the actual PCB boards which I luckily enough have. The problem is dragging the cabinet from the wall, removing the heavy wood back panel, crawling into the cab to switch games just is a pain.
I am a huge fan of emulation. I came from a low income family and I wasn't able to get a lot of games. Now as an adult I have to money to buy games I want, but all the games that I wanted as a kid and classics that were around before I was aren't as readily available now. I would gladly pay for it, but sometimes it's not an option. My current favorite game is melee, and a GameCube or Wii isn't as easy to find, especially a copy of melee. I have finally bought a Wii and a copy of melee, but for a long time it was my only option. I understand the controversy behind it, but sometimes it's the only way to play a great game from older platforms is emulation
agree with almost everything you say here. especially with the controller part. The problem is most people have been playing on emulators for so long they have forgotten what the real thing really was.
@@rootykazooty351 I've tried the real thing many times, but it's the games that I am attached to, not the consoles or controllers. I can understand why some would prefer just the original stuff, but I'd much rather just find one controller that's really comfortable and use it for as much as possible.
@@BawesomeBurf You took the words right out of my mouth !!! I have a scuf controller that I play all of my emulators from and have all the fun with plus you can re-map all of your buttons to your liking too ! It's all about the games and not the controller or console that you are playing it on as long as they can run it fluently with no problems.
To me emulators are too dull and boring, sure they offer more but to me playing on real hardware feels like it has life, heart and soul in it and has value when you buy it.
I've often felt like emulation is a way to see if you're still interested in a certain game you haven't played in a long time and don't own anymore/have never owned yourself. For example, a while ago I emulated Zelda: The Minish Cap (a game one of my childhood friends owned that I never had myself), before it was officially released on Virtual Console, on my PC. I really enjoyed it and then went and bought the official version on Wii U. I even bought the cartridge later on so I could play it on my GB micro.
Lorvald I like emulating my ps2 games on my pc. I can play 60fps at much higher resolutions. this also allows me to play with a ps4 or xbox controller. it's nice to have that option and ease of use
The Wii version is no more official and probably is the same visualc# emulator also the Wii is a very weak computer so n64 games are gonna run slow but n64 requires crappy PC or everything looks like rough
I remember when the game first came out but was released in Europe a few months before it came out in the US. My brother's friends couldn't believe that we were able to play it in English months before it's official release thanks to Visualboy Advance.
That's a very good point! You could also play games from another region that had been modified or censored when released in your own (e.g. Doki Doki Panic becoming Mario 2 in North America).
While I do enjoy collecting original games and hardware, I'm also a huge fan of emulation. It allows me to play games that are hard to find, or weren't released in my region, or are ridiculously expensive, etc. Plus it's nice to be able to save anytime I want. I don't always have the time to replay the entire game just to get back to where I died so I can try again. Playing original hardware is great and all, but I love the convenience of having all my games on a hard drive or SD card and just choosing from a list instead of swapping carts/discs. Some great alternatives for those who only want to play on original hardware with original controllers are flash carts and jailbroken consoles. I just recently hacked my Wii and DSi so I could play any of the system's games on original hardware.
I find that with PS1 and N64 emulation, most games actually run BETTER than they do on the consoles. I played Turok 2 and Goldeneye on Project64 for years, so I got used to stable framerates and sharp, upscaled graphics. When I finally revisited them on the actual console, I thought, "Holy shit, these games are laggy." It's hard to go back to the PS1 and N64, because of the low framerates.
Me too. I use emulators to try out games to see if i want to buy the real thing. But genuine games are little nuggets of gaming history. Emulators can only ever be a tribute act, no matter how close they become. Also, i like inserting cartridges into a system like the Atari VCS and knowing that, almost 40 years ago, someone was doing the same thing with the very same cartridge i'm holding! I love the artwork on the cartridges, boxes + instruction manuals. And sometimes old RPG's come with maps. It's so cool when you buy a game and look up the back of the manual to find that, decades ago, some kid had written a list of level codes and/or hints. Seeing that really gives me a strong connection to a bye-gone era which cannot be emulated.
Honestly there's absolutely no need t have the physical hardware unless you're a collector. I have 157 4K movies on two hard drives whereas I would have a wall full of hard copy movies which would just take lots of space. Again nothing against collectors as that would make perfect sense to do but just to say that you have it is just a waste of space honestly.
For me,there are 4 categories of emulators: 1.Console emulators (excluding handhelds) You can emulate perfectly the most known consoles (Atari 2600,NES,Megadrive,Playstation etc) and even use joypad replicas (or the real ones through usb adaptors)but you really need a crt tv (that means you need an older gpu with tv-out) 2.Handheld emulators Its obvious that you cant replace the portable magic through a pc,so you will play them like playing a normal home console game. If you own a hacked Psp though or a chinese android handheld,you can revive all the magic properly. 3.Arcade emulators Things here are easy for the most part,but not for all games,especially the ones with different controls other than the usual. You can built arcade cabinets with joysticks and buttons that are easily accesible and you can have the proper screen resolutions through crt tvs and special adaptors/software and have a perfect achievement for games like Pacman,Bubble Bobble,Street Fighter2 and all the golden era. 4.Computer emulators This category is very difficult to achieve a proper result and not because of the actual emulation which is perfect in emulators like Wiuae or VIce64,but you can never replace the physical part which is very important here. Overall and in my opinion,unless you are a collector,for consoles and arcades you dont really need the real ones,you can do your job with a pc and proper equipment fine. Even get a Psp and play Gameboy games on the go. But for home computers and special arcades,thats another story,you cant replace them that easy. Thats how I see stuff after 20 years of emulation using.
all i read in the comments is: graphics graphics graphics... its obvious that a lot of people play purely for the graphics and not to experience a game and its content. kind of sad that gaming came down to that in the mind of manny.
Yes, every model of the PS3 has the ability to read PS1 Discs via Emulation. Some games actually render sharper than original hardware others are softer. The PS3's PS1 emulation however does add some input lag
Russia Good You will notice the input lag if you play often on a CRT or Gaming Upscaler from original hardware (Due to how a CRT works they have no input lag and Gaming Upscalers like the Framemiester have only about 1ms which is unnoticeable)
Helloz World i play on LCD on a big screen where i can see everything. You always going to have input lag on lcd over an crt, its true for every console and PC
I personally believe that playing on original hardware is the best way to recreate the experience. Like you mentioned, there is a nice convenience factor associated with emulation. Emulation provides a way to get access to games that may not have been available to you at the time, such as Japanese exclusives. Especially when you think about the world, and the internet even up to the early 2000s. Today, it's pretty easy to find those kinds of games on eBay, Amazon, etc. But, there are a lot of modders who've created translated copies of those exclusives, which is really neat. One of the coolest things I think that emulation can be used for would be modded games - like the randomized Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past runs. Mixing emulation with real hardware, you can play that modded game with an Everdrive on a SNES. And then there are things that are completely unavailable like the BS Legend of Zelda game where you needed the Satellite Adapter to get the game broadcasted to you in parts. I enjoyed your thoughts on this subject!
Like the sega genesis, the Video processor can actually address 128kb of vram but only 64kb was installed on commercial hardware and most games didnt make use of it So i dont think any emulator can emulate the 2nd bank of vram of the YM7101 of the genesis
We had NES, Super NES, and Nintendo 64 emulated on our military internet back in 2009 in Iraq. Made the time go by a bit quicker, but probably wasn't what the network was intended for.
The convenience of being able to integrate a emu frontend like Big Box into my Kodi htpc interface alongside Steam Big Picture and my streaming apps really helps me not give a fuck about any of your objections.
I do use emulators in instances where I can't play the real thing. Either due to high prices, region locking or unavailability where I live. I wanted to play Shantae on GBC and it was near impossible for me to play it legally (before it came to eShop) so I played it on my Wii instead. That said if I can find real copies easily I will do but mostly for handheld systems since they're more accessable for me. *Sorry for writing lots of words :3*
I play both on emulators and on real hardware. Sometimes it's nice to play on real hardware giving the feel of how you used to play it back in the day. But, sometimes I just want to play for 5 to 10 minutes while doing other things. That is when I boot up an emulator.
I'm an EE: console hardware (from the 8/16-bit eras) are vastly different than PC (then and now). A PC developer inherently realizes that all PCs vary, so they generally create code that will run similar using different hardware (CPU, RAM, GFX etc). This is done using system timers, multi-threads, interrupts, callback delegates, etc. When developers made games for the 8/16-bit consoles, the limited processor, ROM, and RAM pushed the code to the limits nearly every time. So because of this most games were coded using ASM and C libraries and during development they would test routines and make optimizations based on what they saw on screen. For example, a falling obstacle moved as fast as it could be drawn on screen, animation frame advanced by one, hit box detection invoked, position changed by one, etc. This routine running on 4Mhz would create the desired result, but running it at 3000Mhz, not so much. Some game elements would trigger by a game timer, some would not. Some code relied on memory latency for timing. And this is the single biggest challenge of emulation. It may only take a few million processors cycles (MHz) to emulate a SNES game but it takes thousands of MHz to emulate the various timings that are ROM dependent.
The "they already made money" argument is the worst one I ever heard. Thats like saying a second printing of a book should be available for free, because they made money already. I agree with the "if it's available, pay for it, and if it's not, it's ethical to use an illegal rom" argument. Talking to people that hate console players I always hear this argument "pc is better because of emulators" basically "pc is better because we get away with stealing in mass"
Greetings from Sheffield England Colin. How about doing a this does not commute about technology that was before its time. Apple newton, Sega channel, Nokia communicator etc.
I owe emulation a big thanks for introducing me to old games as a kid. It's made me more savvy to old gaming culture and also more willing to play old games when other people my age usually won't even know what a NES is, or even if they did they likely wouldn't play those NES games since they look so dated. That being said, lately I've been purchasing more and more physical copies of games I've played through emulation; and some games I haven't even played yet like Zelda: Wind Waker & Twilight Princess on the Gamecube. To the Virtual Console, when there's a game that I own through physical (or even just a game I'd like to play) I purchase it because I'm willing to support the developers for making these awesome games. On a random but related note to end on, I'm currently playing a Pokemon: Trading Card Game cart on my Gameboy Advance SP as I'm typing this.
Emulators are at a state (retroarch) where its "almost" as good as hardware. The biggest difference is input lag. Where a pc will have overheads USB and OS. It will change the "feeling" hardware does not have this issue on the system itself. It depends if ur a purist where ur going to invest that money. If u want to save money than emulate. Its the money your willing to put in for the authentic experience
N64 games have sky rocketed and it sucks for other people who want to game for that system. I luckily got all the games i want but other people have to pay the expensive price:/
When it comes to the issue of playing on real hardware people have the option of using "everdrives" and vatious other flashcarts or the use of "mod chips" . Its all down to your perception of how you want to play your games aswell your reasons to choosing it as an option to try new/retro games that you have an interest in to buy later on or not. "Try before you buy" .
for me...there's the money it would take to start a collection from scratch, the amount of space it would take up, the fact that emulators allow for unauthenic and crisper visuals, and it's so convenient! I love emulation
I decided to pick up an old Pentium 2 IBM computer from the late '90s in order to play some DOS and Windows games. I like having actual hardware for a few reasons. 1) Emulation can be hit or miss. DOSBOX is a fantastic emulator, but it can be a pain to configure, and doesn't quite look right on my modern 1080p monitor. An older 4:3 monitor looks better for some of these games, IMO. And I can just launch these games without too much hassle, depending on the game. 2) I enjoy the nostalgia. I played many games on Windows 98 when I was a kid, even though they were old, because that's all I had at the time. So it's nice to be able to play some of my older favorites on the original systems that they were made to run on. 3) It's fun. I enjoy playing with old hardware sometimes. It was a blast to just open this old girl up, and start swapping out bad or questionable parts for parts I know are good. At the end of the day, there is no one size fits all solution. In fact, some of us might just combine the two. Emulate some games, and play some on real hardware, depending on how well the games we want to play work on one or the other.
Most of the emulated games and emulators I use I already own their original hardware and software. I mostly enjoy emulators for convenience and portability. HOWEVER there may be a few here and there I don't but I'm well below the poverty line and I can't afford to pay a multibillion dollar companies essentially pennies to them, just for ethics sake. And alot of my emulated games are RARE very expensive games that without emulation I would never get to enjoy. And im not about to miss out over some company or publisher being butthurt over their profits and greed. I'm not distributing or personally profiting from having these emulated games. The fact of me having them doesn't effect or harm their companies in the slightest.
If you're a streamer or let's play channel then emulation is your best option whether it's PC or modded Wii, CFW Console etc. I say this because as the player you can set options for your own viewing preferences so you get closest to the OG experience you like. This way the viewer can see the game as best as possible because we don't have CRT mobile devices. If you play using original hardware and capture, then the viewer doesn't get the same OG experience as you and the video quality suffers because we're mostly on HD screens viewing analogue or upscaled video with no scan lines etc. We watch lets play purists, yet we as the viewer get the experience most hate which is analogue gaming on an HD screen. This is why we need emulation to coexist amongst purists.
I won't lie - I've grabbed games off of ROM/abandonware sites. If it gets re-released (for a reasonable price, of course), I'll grab it. Like the old SSI AD&D Gold Box series. I had downloaded them off of an abandonware site, but when I found out they were all available through GOG.com, I had no problem paying for them again.
I do own retro console with their official games. I also enjoy playing older games on modern consoles. Yeah, they don't look as good on a modern TV but i also do it for convenience. Great video. Never seen someone make a video where they drive and talk about video games good job!
Emulation is a great way to extend the life of aging titles without requiring you to pick up a copy of the physical game. That being said, where I can, I'm a collector and steer clear of modern games that I don't physically own a copy of, or don't at least have once in the past, but can't find anymore. I wish more game developers would embrace hardware emulation, because they could honestly provide a nice, solid gaming experience, since they originally developed the hardware. And going forward, I really wish that once a game stops being pressed commercially, that it would find continued life on these Virtual Console-type shops, or at least as a digital download.
The biggest reason for emulation is to address the biggest risk with digital media; loss. Our society is at huge risk of losing all of our recent history, developments, and information because it isn't being backed up and maintained properly. With home consoles having a 5 years sales life and maybe a decade of shelf life afterwards, we risk losing all of this material in the future. Emulation is important in preserving that material when we no longer have the hardware that can play it, or when you have issues like component failure within the game itself. We are on the verge of basically losing nearly all of our art and history since the 1960s, and if companies don't start taking measures to make these products available past that very small few year window, these products will be lost forever. Emulation is one way to try and preserve that material and a very important one.
When I go to the retro game store and buy Pokémon blue for forty dollars, I have no problem emulating it on my phone when I get home. I love to play on original gbc or gb boy colour to experience my old Gameboy games, but I will download the rom of the game I own to my iPhone after because I love the convenience and I have already circulated my money back into the retro gaming market.
Hey Collin. You could get the framemeister for a future video, then deduct it as a business expense on your taxes at the end of the year. Really a win/win. The image quality is just mind blowing, truly worth the investment as a retro enthusiast. Also recommend checking out the new OSCC.
Also, I still have my collection of classic consoles like the Atari 2600, Colecovision, etc, etc. My plan is to play these games in my arcade cabinets (MAME machines). I'd much rather play the games on a sharp arcade quality CRT monitor and arcade quality controls than the original systems on a TV with those cheap controls. That's something we'd love to have done in the 80s that is now possible, thanks to emulation.
One thing I wish you would have touched up on that some of the people who are bigger into the emulation scene talk about: preservation. You mentioned games that are harder to find, some that more or less are non-existent, and that you cant get digitally do to different reasons. This kind of makes it so some games can kind of just disappear. There are older movies that we have lost. There are no more copies of, no one can watch it, and at this point it basically just doesn't exist. So some people are going through and putting games, movies, and music online, not just so people can pirate it and get it for free, but because there's the chance that it could just disappear. It could be argued this isn't a problem. I mean, is anyone going to play that game or watch that movie that was just terrible and only has a few copies left in existence? Probably not. But it was created. It was part of that scene. And some want all of that preserved. For me, a big part of emulation is convenience, price, and nostalgia. Of course, I mostly do this with older consoles. I actually still buy PS2 games, and like to collect them. But for systems like the NES, I personally can't justify buying them, especially with how old they are, as well as the fact that as they get older they tend to have more problems. I also don't make enough to go through and have these collections that I see online. But every now and then it's nice to go back through and play something from my childhood for a bit. If the NES Mini had more games, I would be willing to buy it(which you touched up on why it cant), but since it doesn't, it has a very limited selection of games, and since it's more or less just emulation anyways, I just personally can't justify spending that much money on it. Hell, Nintendo has already been called out for the fact that their version of Mario is the emulated version of the game rather than one from their own collection. They downloaded it and then put it on there.
I agree with what you say about downloading roms for ridiculously priced games. examples would be; Little Samson, Hagan, Aero Fighters, Misha. Forget paying several hundred dollars for the carts alone.
one of the nicer things about pc emulation is that my saves are transferable without headaches, I can sync up my saves between my main PC, my laptop, my phone, etc. with relative ease. compared to trying to move saves from my softmodded PS2 which requires me to manually copy the save file to a usb drive. You also forgot to mention that on 3D consoles you can run at higher resolutions without upscaling. Just look at some screenshots of Mario Galaxy in HD with a Texture pack and you'll see why emulation can be so much more preferable
i am an old schoold gamer(since the 1970's..yes really) and i would adore having original hardware. however, realistically, i love emulation. real hardware can be way too expensive, so the idea of emulating old systems is awesome, and can bring back nostalgic memories, and some great fun as well. i have owned most every system sold in north america since the early days of 8 bit 1mhz cpu, right up to gamecube era. i own a couple of my original systems, although they are non working. i use emulators often, and still play donkey kong on MAME. and pac man and galaga and ..... lol keep on gaming, and emulating. keep those great old games alive.
Original Hardware for me all day. I can still get everything I want for close to garage sale prices. I can also fix and replace most broken or worn parts as well. So for me it's worth it to use original hardware. But for someone who's unwilling to wait for a good deal or simply doesn't want to collect or gain the knowledge of cleaning and repairing these older systems, then I can see why emulation would be better. Also most emulators for older systems has gotten to a point where you can hardly tell the differences. However Saturn and N64 are still somehow hard to emulate for.
You should mention that (at least in the US) you are allowed to make personal copies for archival purposes, which means you can dump any disc or rom cart you own and play those on an emulator, which is how you are supposed to do things. Because technically, even if you still own the game, getting the ROM off of the internet is still illegal because the person you are obtaining it from still is distributing the game illegally (except for in the grey area of abandonware, which is really confusing and doesn't have much legal precedent.).
I use a Super Nintendo emulator semi-frequently. Yes, I primarily use my Xbox 360 for gaming, RUclips, watching movies from my computer through LAN, what have you... However! In regard to the 'piracy' aspect: I agree with you, that, no, I don't feel that ROM download availability back in the day necessarily CAUSED or in any way directly led to game piracy, but I would say, that if anything, it showed that ROM ripping was very possible and may have encouraged the game fan's desire to pirate old ROMs. Thank you, Darren "Scratchy" Pierazek ABQ, NM
One of awesome parts of 1st party devs taking up emulation is it makes reversing the systems hundreds of times easyer as software now existst ot do it properly the hard part is understanding the software
This is a really good outlook on emulation. The only thing a can say is that the ps3 final fantasy anecdote is not a good one because you could just play your discs directly.
One issue with the Framemeister beyond the price is its difficulties handling mixed resolution games. Many PS1 games, for example, had most gameplay in 240p, but menus in 480i for denser text. The Framemeister has problems switching between those two resolutions, and takes at minimum a few seconds to make the switch - which can be a problem in anything that requires quick reaction times. The Framemeister also introduces quite a bit of lag compared to certain competing products like the cheaper but less feature-rich OSSC (Open Source Scan Converter).
Video quality on an emulator can be just as complicated as the hardware emulation itself. It really depends on what system you're emulating and what you consider "quality". One of the issues is dealing with pixelation. The original analog displays and outputs were a little blurry, so this wasn't really noticeable back in the day. Display resolutions have increased over the years and people don't agree on the best way to upscale the video from systems made for lower resolution displays. On older systems that rendered video using 2D images composed of discrete pixels, not much can be done to actually increase the original resolution. One way is to just make the pixels bigger. It's fast and easy to implement, giving a clean crisp picture with pixel edges sharp enough to fillet a salmon. Some people actually prefer that, while others want a softer picture--more like the original analog. There are a number of filtering techniques to render the image at a higher resolution. Some are blurry while more sophisticated ones produce a sharper picture with out the jagged pixel edges. Some will even reproduce fuzzy scanlines, for the people with nostalgia for of the old CRT displays. Personally, it depends on the system, or even the style of a specific game, which approach looks best. For example, Atari 7800 games had a logo screen with bright lines that cycled though a rainbow of colors. On an emulator, it becomes apparent that they achieved the effect of displaying more colors than the hardware could technically produce by using different colors on opposing scanlines. Old CRT TVs had interlaced signals that ran through only half of the lines with each display pass--alternating between the even numbered lines and odd. This usually wasn't noticeable because the colors of one line would bleed a little into the adjacent lines, blending them together. The animation on the logo screen took advantage of this blending to mix the two colors, effectively emulating a wider color palette. Emulators, however, faithfully reproduce each scanline with its correct color, breaking the effect. Even overlaying fake "scanlines", as emulators for other systems do, won't fix that. The only way a modern display can show the original animation how it was intended to be seen is to actually blur the opposing scanlines together--just like a CRT would. Newer systems that used 3D rendering to produce video are an entirely different matter. The original game itself is composed of 3D geometry and textures that have to go through a number of intermediary steps to dynamically render a 2D image--depending on the rendering techniques the system used. Even though the final picture is stuck at a specific resolution, the game content isn't directly tied to that resolution the way older systems were. Well, some also included "pre-rendered" images or video for title screens and cutscenes, but the rest was rendered on the fly. With access to the original geometry and textures, and control over the rendering process, emulators can technically render the image at any resolution the hardware it's running on can handle. They can also introduce new rendering techniques and effects that weren't even available on the original system, potentially creating a superior experience. However, the emulator is still stuck with the original game geometry and textures, each with their fixed limitations. There are techniques for smoothing out the rough edges on older games, there still are limits on how much they can be improved.
Perhaps you've already talked about it at some point in the channels lifetime, but to somewhat tie in with this topic, flashcarts, everdrive 64 etc, since it's roms on original hardware.
I watched a Twitch tv streamer playing Majora's Mask emulated on his PC. Every single day he said "This game is garbage". Twice on his stream he got "soft locked" which means Link got stuck. The streamer doesn't use save states with his emulator. Always said the game was garbage. It was my childhood game that I played on a CRT tv. I hate that guy. And I hate people who emulate and stream that game while saying it's garbage. Of course it is. It's an old game.
Emulation can be quite useful for portable reasons. I can sometimes have downtime at work and my phone can emulate everything from the NES to the N64 and PS1 just fine (a little bit of Dreamcast too). Rather than taking an entire console with me to play a game, I'd rather just emulate it with my phone.
I pirate almost everything, pc games, roms, movies.... but so far as roms go, I was a 90's kid. I used to own a huge portion of the roms I get, and I don't feel bad for playing them. So far as new games go... demos don't always reflect the final product in terms of how it plays. 90% of the time, if I download a new game to check out, I'll buy it later if I like it, or played it for a long time. Devs deserve their money... I don't have unlimited funds, I can't buy every console and pc upgrade that comes out... let alone games at 60 dollars a pop. If I'm going to give you 60 dollars... I want to know the game will run, and that I will enjoy it. So call me a thief, I don't care. If they want my money, this is the only way they'll get it.
Yeah bit of an urban myth that the Saturn is super hard to emulate. It's more like a global lack of interest meant that emulators were slow to mature for that platform.
What i know, sega saturn was reverse engineered not too long ago. It took him years to get trough. That thing is fkin mess, layers and layers of dummy code, encryptions and protections. Its miracle that emus for sega saturn worked at all.
I just like having a CRT TV to play on with the original controllers and stuff. The CRT is so much brighter and more colorful (on RGB anyway) than emulation on an LCD screen, I'm also noticeably worse at a game like Super Mario World on an emulator because of the slight input lag which interferes with my muscle memory. I used to think that was bullshit but once I realized the difference I never really went back.
You know, I still can't remember the title. I learned about it from another RUclips video about the Genesis. I do remember that it was a platformer, and that the developer had figured out some tricks they could do with the hardware (that apparently even the Sega engineers hadn't noticed) that would enhance gameplay. If I stumble across it again, I'll throw a note in the description.
I still use my old CRT TV for pre 7th gen consoles. Played ICO and MGS2 today. Original hardware/setup/flaws for me, it's a matter of traveling back in time.
I came back to the retro scene via emulation but it only took me a year to buy the original systems again as I feel this is the only way to play old games. A CRT TV is necessary as well.
the original hardware has that nostalgic homey feel that i love, and even tho its expensive, its way better then emulators. anybody want to add on by agreeing or disagreeing?
Juicy McLovin agree people who say it compares or blows away the looks of the original have never owned the original games on the real hardware. I agree with testing games on emulator if you're interested in a game before you buy it but that's it for me.
@carcino. I strongly disagree with "Most of them if not all of them are dead". The original Game Boy is *very* reliable. The only real problem i've encountered is sometimes they can lose a vertical pixel line, and that's a very easy fix. Mine has worked great since the 1990's, and i''ve bought about a dozen over the last year for gifts and sometimes to fix and sell (once i'd replaced the scratched screen, or done the easy "missing pixel line" fix). Regarding GBA/SP: you can always get reasonably priced units. I love my SP, but prefer an original GBA with a good white "worm light". The colors are more vibrant, and you can get a good GBA for $30. Replacement screens are very cheap too. Emulators can never be as good as owning the genuine article. But I use them to demo games i'm interested in buying.
@Fishing Under 10 Bucks. Agreed. Genuine games are little nuggets of gaming history. Emulators can only ever be a tribute act, no matter how close they become. Also, i like inserting cartridges into a system like the Atari VCS and knowing that, almost 40 years ago, someone was doing the same thing with the very same cartridge i'm holding! I love the artwork on the cartridges, boxes + instruction manuals. And sometimes old RPG's come with maps. It's so cool when you buy a game and look up the back of the manual to find that, decades ago, some kid had written a list of level codes or hints. Seeing that really gives me a strong connection to a bye-gone era which cannot be emulated.
FPGAs may be the future of retro gaming. Essentially it's a reconfigurable hardware clone chip that can emulate many types of chips. It's basically a shape-shifting CPU that can change its form to whatever schematics you can fit inside of it, which is a lot more accurate than software emulation. The problem is that currently it only works for self-contained FPGA computers and as drop-in replacement parts for existing systems. Maybe some day someone will come out with a PCI card containing an FPGA that can plug directly into your computer and allow you to hardware emulate a bunch of retro consoles on the hardware level.
+Timstuff Interesting idea. We have the CPU, which is a processor that can compute highly complex instructions with few cores. Then the GPU was added, which can compute simple instructions with thousands of cores in parallel. A third "Core" that could be reconfigured for efficient calculations of specific "Problems" (physics for Game A, AI for GAme B and Emulation of Hardware for Emulator X etc...) could be the next evolution....
Timstuff im an embedded systems eng and we use an fpga that is fully emulating 68K mcus for obsolescence management. and this is in SIL rated systems. the problem will still exist where u dont have access to VLSI of proprietary SOICs
Pretty interesting video ! Sorry in advance for my english, I'm french so I'm sure there will be some mistakes, please understand ;) For my part, I am really attached to the original hardware, even though there are a lot of limitations. Of course it costs money, you have to be able to store games, consoles and controllers and you have to dedicate a special place for them if you don't want to bother wiring everything up once in a while when you just want to play one of these games. But I don't mind these inconvenience because what I am looking for is to experience the game as it was meant to be. Besides I really love the physical object itself, like the NES and its controller or any other device. It just feels like an open museum of video games in my living room. Eventually, when you look for a particular game, it becomes a treasure hunt (if you don't want to order it on eBay) and you end up with some nice anecdotes. Of course I think emulation is necessary in order to keep a track of all these games even once you won't be able to find any original hardware or when the game is too rare. It just feels like a priviledge to be able to play on original consoles and I think it is a sharing space. I always encourage my friends to come by any time they want to pick up a game and try it.
I love playing on the original hardware, there is nothing in emulation that can surpass the original experience, however as a matter of convenience, since I have move a lot for work i have to keep my game collection at my parents house, and emulation is a big help in terms of portability... i can still enjoy all my favourite games without the need of moving them arround from house to house, currently for me retropie on the raspberry pi is the way to go to keep all my favourite systems in a single device... but i'm allways longing for the time i can go back home and play on the OG hardware
I think this is the first video of yours ive seen, love the depth and complete process in exploring your topic. Will be subbing on my personal channels too.
I hope for games 5th Gen and up, when companies like Nintendo and Sony emulate these games that they increase the internal game resolution to perhaps 4K One day maybe even supporting the original discs :D
I emulate because retro games and consoles around me and online have gotten pretty expensive. I mod my older consoles that I don't use mainly and turn them into emulation devices.
Another aspect of this, in some cases you can get _better than original hardware_ gameplay with emulation. A number of games that actually crash and fail due to faults with the original gamecube hardware run perfectly on the dolphin emulator, and in many cases you can get a lot of additional benefits. Higher resolution and framerates, mouse controls, VR support, high-res resource packs, game translations, and quality-of-life software mods, the emulation experience can in some cases be legitimately _better_ than on original hardware.
7 лет назад
I would really like to watch a video about this subject, but with direct comparison real hardware to emulation and all in-between things (virtual console, backward hardware compatibility etc.). Seeing both hardware and emulator running the same game head-to-head would be cool. I've done this myself with Amiga and PS1 versus emulation on PC with hardware 240p 15KHz pixel-perfect TV output, old joystick usb adaptors etc.
Emulation almost always has been about sacrificing accuracy for speed, due to the difficulty of accurately emulating hardware (even if you manage to figure out everything there is to know about the original hardware). So for example, the hardware requirements for Zsnes are WAY lower than those of Bsnes (which apparently isn't even called Bsnes anymore, I guess I'm out of the loop) because Bsnes places such a high emphasis on accuracy while Zsnes places its emphasis on speed. Factor5 was widely known to use the N64 hardware in unique ways in order to be able to get it to do things other developers couldn't, which is, for instance, why Rogue Squadron was able to run in high-res mode. They actually wrote their own CPU microcode. Without the ability to emulate the N64 extremely accurately, a game like that will never run properly on an emulator. I'm not sure if any N64 emulators have gotten close to running games like that yet, but even Rare was using some simpler tricks to make their games look better that end up causing issues on some emulators. I think even if Nintendo's own software engineers with complete access to full system details with 100% accuracy would have trouble creating a perfect emulator of N64 hardware, even given the power that today's high-end PCs have. Hmmm, an emulation-perfect Virtual Console for PC? That's an interesting idea which I would throw lots of money at, but they'd never spend the time to do it when they can just take the quick and dirty approach to port emulators over to their own lesser hardware.
A properly set-up emulator used on a decent PC with crt emu outputting native resolution and refresh rates on a CRT monitor is indistinguishable from the original in most cases for anything up to the PS1. Videos like this are made by people that don't understand how to set-up their emulators properly, or people that don't understand that emulators for newer machines like the PS2 / PS3 are still a work in progress. Or people that send 240p games to a 1080p monitor and blame the emulator for it looking bad and having lag.
As soon as I got me a decent source of income I started to collect retro consoles and original games, however, I had my share of throwing money at auctions for original cartridges, expensive cables, ridiculously expensive scalers and stuff needed to get the consoles running fine and with the best picture quality I felt it was interfering with my budget, specially with the prices of certain cartridges cuz the retrogaming scene is a miserable little pile of scalpers,so I resorted to emulation and now I'll get into the FPGA thingy. To feel better about myself I pay for the games when they become available on Virtual Console tho.
I can't speak for classic consoles like NES for example, because I don't play them much. For over 20 years, I have "Extensively" compared coin operated classic games of the 80s from the originals I've spent a lot of time (I visit collectors with hundreds of games weekly) with to emulated games in MAME which I've also spent a lot of time with. As a collector of both dedicated games, and a builder of MAME cabs (for my own use) out of classic parts, I can say emulators do an "incredible" job. I've gone as far as building them out of CRT monitors including vector monitors, original leaf-switch joysticks & buttons like Wico, Bally Midway Pacman joysticks (both 4 way & 8 way), Tron flight joystick and all sorts of stuff. The arcade community in general has the attitude that emulation is not that good, but very few of them have seen it running on machines built with the right parts to properly match the original games. It's not a fair comparison to say emulators are junk when your comparing games running on CRT monitors with leaf-switch parts to LCD monitors and micro-switch parts. The emulators are rarely at fault (arcade games anyway), it's the people doing the comparisons with different displays & controls. I'm not into the karate games so much, and some have said the USB interface in Windows isn't fast enough to reproduce them. I wouldn't know, I'm playing golden era games. Arcade emulation with the right video cards & monitors can even match the original screen resolutions of the games. You can literally choose your favorite cabinets including the artwork, and even the collectors would have an extremely hard time being able tell the difference. So my point being, don't be quick to fault emulation as a concept, it's only going to perfectly match if all other components also match. My eventual goal is bring some of these MAME machines to a large game room arcade full of classics to be able to see them side by side. I'd be willing to bet for a number of the games, the collectors will not be able to tell the difference. And what few differences they see in some of the games, it really do not matter much.
I like the convenience of Virtual Console and similar services, but so many of the best licensed titles are never released. Say you want to play Turtles in Time and don't want to go the PC emulation route, you're basically stuck buying the SNES cart. That combined with a lack of crossbuy and tying the VC account to a single console has really pushed me toward using original hardware for Nintendo.
I have a growing collection of retro hardware and games. Nothing can compare to using the real hardware, aside from perhaps hardware emulation when executed perfectly. However, since I spend most of my time living elsewhere than my video game collection, I pretty much have to emulate in order to play most of my games. Since I already own them I don't really mind.
Most people don’t want to resort to ripping games. It can be a pain in the ass. Most just simply want to play a freaking game on a consule with a controller that matches that game. Something that looks right and feels right. It would be nice if you could buy and select mutilple older or even retro games on one single cart/disc at a reasonable price. Maybe $1-5 per game. For instance: I would of easily bought the snes mini. If I would of had some type a way to personally pick the 20+ games, or a way to play more games on it without getting technical. the switch.. if I could play GameCube, Wii, and N64 games on it as well. The problem with newer systems too is they don’t reasonably remake alot of the older games that everyone loved, with the same type of gameplay either. Priority seems to be ‘graphics’ vs gameplay.
You want really accurate emulation? Use Software mode. But because that takes lots of CPU, most modern Emulators use JIT Recompilers and OpenGL. And this is, where the bugs start.
@3:14 The first Java based iteration of PSP emulators required a topend gaming PC to run even remotely lag and frame drop free. Even though the PSP is actually pretty weak from a hardware perspective. Nowadays, even smartphones are able to run it.
As much as I agree with you about how much better the original game is than the emulation, retropie is just brilliant! I recommend everyone tries it!!!
Yup. Some software are more or less depending on the harware to get the most out of it. My old Amiga generally does the Amiga things "better" than emulators do. And the Amiga emulators out there are really quite good. The Amiga has a real advantage in the amount of harware and software that is still produced for it! And yes... the displays can be a real issue.
I also experience input lag. On Mario games especially, things like input lag effect the precise movement you are able to conduct, which is a big turnoff for me.
I know you were probably just using the digital versions of FF7, 8, and 9 as an example, but ALL models of the PS3 can play PS1 discs. I didn't believe it myself until I popped my copy of Ehrgeiz into my PS3 slim 150gb. Not needing to shuffle discs around is indeed a convenience though.
Emulation all the way. I never have to worry about looking around at all the crap I built up and wonder wtf I'm going to do with all of it. Less dusty that way too.
I'm glad you got into the NES Classic Mini toward the end of the video. Once it comes out it should prove interesting to see how well it works. However I can't picture them doing a bad job on their product.
Nowadays emulation is far superior and a will always get better. For example features like run ahead latency providing less button lag than original consoles.
For me Emulation does not feel the same as playing it on the original hardware I mean I know most of us use emulators to preserve the old games but for me It will never replace playing these old games I mean to me it does not feel as legit as playing it on original hardware I mean I know not everyone is a collector but for me it will never replace playing these old games.
I use to be a heavy emulator but don't have time now. One thing you never addresses was all these places u can buy Roms is new. So, prior too any older game the company was never making money. I personally also don't want to buy a modern system to play a old game.
I'm a big fan of emulation, IF the emulator is reasonably accurate. I'm not a fan of the Virtual Console or older games available in the Playstation store though. Why not? Because it's a closed, locked down ecosystem. If they were selling digital copies that could be backed up to a disc or SD card and used in the emulator of your choice, I'd be all for it, but when you can only run them in their pre-made emulator on a single console and you have to use the online service as your only form of backup, that doesn't appeal to me at all. Not to mention that due to copyright issues, these services only have a tiny fraction of the titles available for any given system. Before it was removed completely, the Commodore 64 section of the VC only had a couple dozen games, and that's for a system with thousands of titles available for it! Frankly, I think copyright lasts way too long in today's world. The game industry moves fast and I think if a title hasn't been offered for sale in at least 10 years, it should become public domain. And I don't mean keeping 100 copies in mothballs in case anyone should happen to ask the company for one, I mean being available in stores and online services (preferably in a portable format). If a title doesn't have enough value for the company to continue selling it, then obviously they aren't going to be hurt by someone downloading a copy of it. "But what about things like copyrighted music in games???" I hear you ask? When someone downloads a copy of an old game with copyrighted material in it, the corporations scream bloody murder that they're losing money. Well how much money are they losing when nobody is still buying the game in the first place? You can't have a game sitting in limbo, and then suddenly claim you're losing money when someone downloads it. If it's that valuable to you, why the hell isn't someone still selling copies of it? Getting back to emulation, if it's done well, I often prefer it over the real thing for two reasons; Save states and configurable controls. I'm not that great of a games player and I find it supremely frustrating to get to a certain point in a game and then die and have to start over because I made a stupid mistake, or an enemy popped up out of nowhere for a cheap death. Plus, I'm right-handed and no amount of propaganda will ever convince me that having the movement controls on the left for anything other than first person shooters is the way that right-handed people were meant to play games. With an emulator I can remap the controls to something that doesn't have my character staggering all over the screen like a drunken uncle at a family reunion.
lurkerrekrul I agree with everything you said but I'm curious as to how is it that you are having difficulty with movement controls commonly on the left? What controllers are you pertaining to anyway? Dualshock, xbox 360 controller, wiimote or mouse & keyboard? I mean, I'm right handed too (as well as 3 of my siblings and a lot right handed friends) but it is bizzare to hear someone with the same hand dexterity complain about movement controls being on the left. Care to clear things out for me?
+PM Salvo - I apologize for taking so long to respond. I meant to reply before now, but I wanted to write a proper explanation and I kept getting sidetracked. Anyway... Short version - I'm right-handed (RH for short), so my right hand is my most coordinated hand. When a game requires me to make quick, precise movements, such as in a scrolling shooter, my left hand isn't coordinated enough to make those movements. I end up moving too far or not enough and usually end up right in the path of a bullet. I'm this way with virtually all game controllers from the original NES through the PS4/Xbox One. Never played many arcade machines either. Long version (I'll try not to make this too boring) - At 50, I'm probably older than a lot of gamers today. My first major video game system was the Atari 2600. You held the joystick or paddle in your left hand, pushed the button with your left thumb/index finger and worked the stick/knob with your right. This felt entirely natural to RH people, although lefties found these controllers to be extremely awkward to use, since their right hands were their least coordinated hands. Other systems of the time were designed so that the controllers could be used equally well with either hand. The Intellivision, Atari 5200, Colecovision and Atari 7800 all had ambidextrous controllers, and RH people all held the controller in their left hand and used the stick/disc with their right. From the Atari, I moved on to the C64 and then to the Amiga, both of which used Atari standard joysticks. I never had any Nintendo, Sega or Sony systems. I tried playing the NES a few times and found it as awkward to play as lefties did using an Atari joystick. When I use a keyboard and mouse to play FPS games, my left hand often gets confused in the heat of battle and I end up moving the wrong way. Still, I suppose it's the preferable way to play since it frees up my right hand for aiming with the mouse. BTW, after having played FPS games with a mouse, I can't play them on consoles with an analog stick if my life depended on it! It's only in recent years that I've truly tried using modern game controllers, mostly with emulators, with very mixed results. If a game only requires left/right movement, such as steering in a racing game, I do fairly well. If it's a slower paced game where the left stick is used to move around, I do reasonably well. However if the game requires a lot of fast movements, I'm hopeless. It's like trying to write with your left hand. Sure, it can be done and you may even be able to read what you write, but it feels awkward and unnatural and the results will never look as good as you can achieve with your right hand. By way of illustration, try playing this game (it uses the mouse) using both your left and right hands and see which one you get farther with; www.dailyhaha.com/_flash/mouse_maze.htm Don't worry, it's not one of those stupid jump-scare games where a face pops up and screams at you. It's a legitimate game where you try to get through the mazes without touching anything. If you're like most people, you'll do much better using your right hand on the mouse. Now imagine that this game was ported to a console. You would be forced to use your left hand (D-pad or left analog stick) to move through the maze. Does that really make sense? And here's the part that really gets me; People argue that having the movement controls for RH people on the left makes sense even though they're being forced to use their least coordinated hand for movement, but yet nobody ever argued that it made sense to force LH people to use their least coordinated hands for Atari joysticks. Even today, if you take an ambidextrous joystick, like a Quickshot II, and hand it to a RH person (even a gamer), probably 90% of them will instinctively grip the stick with their right hand. At least they will, if you haven't discussed the issue of right/left handed controls with them beforehand and made them self-conscious about which hand they use. I'm aware that people can "get used to" using controllers with the movement controls on the left, especially if that's all they've ever known, I just don't understand how it makes sense to force them to do so. In real life, a RH person will use their right hand for anything requiring coordination. Writing, using a mouse, playing the board game Operation, etc. Yet when those same activities are transferred to a video game console, they're suddenly expected to use their least coordinated hand.
lurkerrekrul After reading your reply, I tried to research a bit into this topic. I found out that indeed, there are gamers like you who preferred remapping movement controls on the right. Some even make their own customized gamepads to accommodate this setup outside the benefits of control remapping on emulation. Gamers will always have different control layout preference. With plenty of reasons ranging from hand dexterity, hand size, button position, click/press feedback, hand ergonomics, etc. But I think the biggest factor is exposure to one's first controller. As you described, most movement controls prior to the famicom/nes are relegated to the left side. Which is to say that if you first learned to play with movement using your right, I would assume that you would prefer to keep that setup. And in an attempt to explain how control layouts are what they are today, this is what I believe: Perhaps Nintendo's controller design unintentionally made the control layout we have today the "default/standard" one. Given how Nintendo revived and revolutionized the gaming industry, I would assume that companies trying to enter the market would be wise to borrow a design or two from them. The controller, being the peripheral that interfaces between you and your game is the one thing you wouldn't want to risk too much experimentation to mess up. Perhaps this dictated how the company's future competitors, namely Sega, Sony and Microsoft to design (and even Atari to redesign) their controllers based on the "tried and tested" layout. Movement on the left, action buttons on the right. That is not to say that there were no attempts to try other layouts. I read somewhere that the Atari Lynx and the Bandai Wonderswan tried to incorporate left handed support on their control setup. They still keep the common setup but allowed the user to reverse it by tilting the handheld device to the side. There are even gaming mice and keyboard which are designed for "lefties". You might want to check those out, but at a price of course. Unfortunately, for gamepads, I haven't heard of a mass produced one that had the movement and action buttons reversed. Either you customize one yourself for current gen consoles or be in the mercy of button remappings for older system emulators. =)
+PM Salvo - I remember once reading about how some players would play arcade machines "cross-handed", holding the joystick (which was on the left) with their right hand and crossing their left hand under it to use the buttons (which were on the right). The only real explanation I've heard for why they put the movement controls on the left was that using the buttons is more important than movement, so it should be handled by most people's most coordinated hand. I really don't buy that. If you can't accurately line up shots and avoid the enemy's shots, how fast you can fire won't matter. I borrowed an Atari Lynx once and while putting the movement controls on the right helped, I still wasn't very good at playing fast action games. In my opinion, a D-pad is a poor substitute for a joystick. I've tried pretty much every Playstation fighting game there is and most of the 2D ones, like the Street Fighter games, all use the D-pad for movement. You have to press up for jump, and up diagonally to jump forward or back. This only works about 50% of the time. Half the time I just jump in place like an idiot. If you need to do some combination of moves to do a special attack, I can never make them work. I can't make most combos that require pressing the buttons in sequence, work either. Regarding customizing controls for consoles; I've thought about doing that. Theoretically it should be easy, just cut the traces for the controls on each side and wire them to the other side with jumpers. However actually doing it might prove difficult. Many controllers use flex circuits (all the PS2 ones do), which you can't solder to and the traces where it connects to the actual board are usually tiny. It would be easy to make a joystick for older systems like the NES though. Just wire an Atari joystick to the contacts inside a spare controller. Of course you would need to add extra buttons. I'm curious; Have you ever tried using a flightstick style joystick? If you have and assuming it wasn't custom designed for the right hand, which hand did you feel most comfortable using it with?
lurkerrekrul Yes, I have plenty of experience playing with both a gamepad, keyboard and mouse and an arcade joystick setup. I'll give a little background so we can clear cultural, region, availability, popularity differences right out the gate. I live in the Philippines and I grew up in the 90s playing video games with different control setups. Consoles at home (gamepad), playing at our local three-cabinet arcade (joystick setup) and computer rental shops (keyboard & mouse). And all of them have movement controls on the left, so you can say that my controller exposure has always been "movement on the left - action buttons on the right" layout. Hence my amazement when I read someone not used to what I thought was the default and natural control layout. I share your control preference on fighting games though. Arcade sticks are the undisputed best controller for fighting games. I despise using gamepad controls on fighting games. I would even go far as to say that I would rather play fighting games on a keyboard than use a dualshock controller on emulators. Fighting games is one of my favorite genres and I did compete at casuals, community meetups and mini tournaments so I can be very meticulous regarding my preference of arcade sticks over gamepads. I felt my performance greatly reduced and very limited when forced to play using gamepads. I had no arcade stick of my own. Our community had resort to borrowing and sharing among ourselves during friendly gatherings. I would estimate that if there were 30 participants, only 3 to 5 had fighting sticks. You might be surprised to hear that I had friends who were equally proficient on both. No noticeable performance difference when they switched between a gamepad and a joystick. As for what you said about movement on the right side on arcades, I would have to respectfully disagree with you on that one. Fighting games, especially recent ones have more advanced and convoluted mechanics. Action buttons (punches, kicks, slashes) are as hectic, if not, more hectic compared to character movement. Btw, I appreciate the great insight you are sharing and the experiences you have concerning my original question about your control preference. It shows your dedication and love for video games. I wish I could be the same when I reach your age, sir.
all emulation I have tried works fine, except n64 of course. you can usually use the original controller too for PC if you buy a GameCube controller with a USB you can play game cube with the original controller! same with nes,snes, ps1,2,3
I prefer original hardware games for the sense of ownership. I don't mind (legal) emulation however sense I'm technically renting the game the price is the deciding factor compared to how much it would cost to find physically.
One really big thing to mention about the virtual console is, you don't truly own the games.
You can't transfer them to another system, and your save files are permanently stores on the system.
If your Wii/WiiU/3ds fails,you louse all your save file.
And on the Wii you'd louse all your purchases too!
emulating on pc can allow you to transfer saves
Hacks for all of those consoles allow transferring of all the content, albeit slightly unauthorized.
You can transfer titles when you do a 'system transfer'. Look in settings. Save managers (look up 'JKSM' )work with most titles - you just need homebrew access (easy to set up on any firmware).
Which is the reason I've never bought anything from the nintendo eshop. I think even the restriction to activate purchased psn games on only 2 home consoles and 3 handhelds is a pain in the ass (since I own multiple versions of both the psp and the vita and like to switch them around), and also the reason I put CFW on my psp's so I didn't have to deal with activating/deactivating systems to work with different purchases and keeping track of which purchase was linked to which account... (I own both a European and US account, because of release differences).
A 128gb micro sd + photofast adapter in your psp and you've got plenty of space to carry all your favourite retro titles with you, all the way from from the 8-bit era to the 32-bit era (I'm not counting 64-bit since emulated N64 games are barely playable on the daedalus emulator for psp)
I bought a lot of VC titles in the first four years of 3DS ownership but could never work out why NES games (and the 'ambassodor' GBA games) looked and felt so wrong. Now I can make my own NES / GBA VC titles to install onto 3DSs without the darkness and ghosting filters official releases are blighted by and also with 1:1 pixel mode that makes retro games look the best they possibly can be.
i emulate for pure convenience. don't have space in my room for a gazillion games and all the consoles + numerous cables etc...
true.
Convenience and superior features if you're emulating on PC.
Mehdi Hamai
I was going to say the SAME exact thing. I have an emulator cart plugged into my arcade cabinet jamma harness which has 600+ games. The emulation of the games that I care most about (TMNT, X-Men, etc) suck, compared to the actual PCB boards which I luckily enough have. The problem is dragging the cabinet from the wall, removing the heavy wood back panel, crawling into the cab to switch games just is a pain.
I am a huge fan of emulation. I came from a low income family and I wasn't able to get a lot of games. Now as an adult I have to money to buy games I want, but all the games that I wanted as a kid and classics that were around before I was aren't as readily available now. I would gladly pay for it, but sometimes it's not an option. My current favorite game is melee, and a GameCube or Wii isn't as easy to find, especially a copy of melee. I have finally bought a Wii and a copy of melee, but for a long time it was my only option. I understand the controversy behind it, but sometimes it's the only way to play a great game from older platforms is emulation
Elijah Quinene I always wanted to drive an Audi but could never afford one. So I just stole one.
#Brawlisbetter
agree with almost everything you say here. especially with the controller part. The problem is most people have been playing on emulators for so long they have forgotten what the real thing really was.
True. Or they haven't tried the real thing.
@@rootykazooty351 I've tried the real thing many times, but it's the games that I am attached to, not the consoles or controllers. I can understand why some would prefer just the original stuff, but I'd much rather just find one controller that's really comfortable and use it for as much as possible.
@@BawesomeBurf You took the words right out of my mouth !!! I have a scuf controller that I play all of my emulators from and have all the fun with plus you can re-map all of your buttons to your liking too ! It's all about the games and not the controller or console that you are playing it on as long as they can run it fluently with no problems.
To me emulators are too dull and boring, sure they offer more but to me playing on real hardware feels like it has life, heart and soul in it and has value when you buy it.
@@rootykazooty351 I haven't try older consoles.. it's really hard to find on these days.
I've often felt like emulation is a way to see if you're still interested in a certain game you haven't played in a long time and don't own anymore/have never owned yourself. For example, a while ago I emulated Zelda: The Minish Cap (a game one of my childhood friends owned that I never had myself), before it was officially released on Virtual Console, on my PC. I really enjoyed it and then went and bought the official version on Wii U. I even bought the cartridge later on so I could play it on my GB micro.
That's awesome. :)
I Actually did that too.
Usually games are so expensive that it's stupid...People are greedy.
Lorvald I like emulating my ps2 games on my pc. I can play 60fps at much higher resolutions. this also allows me to play with a ps4 or xbox controller. it's nice to have that option and ease of use
The Wii version is no more official and probably is the same visualc# emulator also the Wii is a very weak computer so n64 games are gonna run slow but n64 requires crappy PC or everything looks like rough
I remember when the game first came out but was released in Europe a few months before it came out in the US. My brother's friends couldn't believe that we were able to play it in English months before it's official release thanks to Visualboy Advance.
@Lorvald. Me too. I use emulators to try games to see if i want to buy the real thing.
Another aspect you left out is region exclusive games that you probably cant play any other way other than emulation.
That's a very good point! You could also play games from another region that had been modified or censored when released in your own (e.g. Doki Doki Panic becoming Mario 2 in North America).
...other than importing a copy, you mean?
+Redhotsmasher Doki Doki Panic is not a.... Easy thing to get, if we can say that xD
+Serra Uke Fair enough, some things are just impossible to get a hold of, import or not.
also rom hacks which can add new game play experiences to old engines.
While I do enjoy collecting original games and hardware, I'm also a huge fan of emulation. It allows me to play games that are hard to find, or weren't released in my region, or are ridiculously expensive, etc. Plus it's nice to be able to save anytime I want. I don't always have the time to replay the entire game just to get back to where I died so I can try again. Playing original hardware is great and all, but I love the convenience of having all my games on a hard drive or SD card and just choosing from a list instead of swapping carts/discs.
Some great alternatives for those who only want to play on original hardware with original controllers are flash carts and jailbroken consoles. I just recently hacked my Wii and DSi so I could play any of the system's games on original hardware.
I find that with PS1 and N64 emulation, most games actually run BETTER than they do on the consoles. I played Turok 2 and Goldeneye on Project64 for years, so I got used to stable framerates and sharp, upscaled graphics. When I finally revisited them on the actual console, I thought, "Holy shit, these games are laggy." It's hard to go back to the PS1 and N64, because of the low framerates.
ShortFingeredShreder What’s the best emulator for the PS1?
For me a digital copy is never as nice as owning a real physical copy a Nintendo game and having it in the collection.
Me too. I use emulators to try out games to see if i want to buy the real thing.
But genuine games are little nuggets of gaming history.
Emulators can only ever be a tribute act, no matter how close they become.
Also, i like inserting cartridges into a system like the Atari VCS and knowing that, almost 40 years ago, someone was doing the same thing with the very same cartridge i'm holding!
I love the artwork on the cartridges, boxes + instruction manuals. And sometimes old RPG's come with maps. It's so cool when you buy a game and look up the back of the manual to find that, decades ago, some kid had written a list of level codes and/or hints. Seeing that really gives me a strong connection to a bye-gone era which cannot be emulated.
Honestly there's absolutely no need t have the physical hardware unless you're a collector. I have 157 4K movies on two hard drives whereas I would have a wall full of hard copy movies which would just take lots of space. Again nothing against collectors as that would make perfect sense to do but just to say that you have it is just a waste of space honestly.
For me,there are 4 categories of emulators:
1.Console emulators (excluding handhelds)
You can emulate perfectly the most known consoles (Atari 2600,NES,Megadrive,Playstation etc) and even use joypad replicas (or the real ones through usb adaptors)but you really need a crt tv (that means you need an older gpu with tv-out)
2.Handheld emulators
Its obvious that you cant replace the portable magic through a pc,so you will play them like playing a normal home console game.
If you own a hacked Psp though or a chinese android handheld,you can revive all the magic properly.
3.Arcade emulators
Things here are easy for the most part,but not for all games,especially the ones with different controls other than the usual.
You can built arcade cabinets with joysticks and buttons that are easily accesible and you can have the proper screen resolutions through crt tvs and special adaptors/software and have a perfect achievement for games like Pacman,Bubble Bobble,Street Fighter2 and all the golden era.
4.Computer emulators
This category is very difficult to achieve a proper result and not because of the actual emulation which is perfect in emulators like Wiuae or VIce64,but you can never replace the physical part which is very important here.
Overall and in my opinion,unless you are a collector,for consoles and arcades you dont really need the real ones,you can do your job with a pc and proper equipment fine.
Even get a Psp and play Gameboy games on the go.
But for home computers and special arcades,thats another story,you cant replace them that easy.
Thats how I see stuff after 20 years of emulation using.
all i read in the comments is: graphics graphics graphics... its obvious that a lot of people play purely for the graphics and not to experience a game and its content. kind of sad that gaming came down to that in the mind of manny.
Collin you can play all your PS1 Disc games on your PS3
Yes, every model of the PS3 has the ability to read PS1 Discs via Emulation. Some games actually render sharper than original hardware others are softer. The PS3's PS1 emulation however does add some input lag
Helloz World i dont notice any input lag
Russia Good You will notice the input lag if you play often on a CRT or Gaming Upscaler from original hardware (Due to how a CRT works they have no input lag and Gaming Upscalers like the Framemiester have only about 1ms which is unnoticeable)
Helloz World i play on LCD on a big screen where i can see everything. You always going to have input lag on lcd over an crt, its true for every console and PC
correction. if you have a ps3 with the EE(Emotion Engine) it is hardware emulated. the original 20GB and 60GB had it. glad i own one :)
I personally believe that playing on original hardware is the best way to recreate the experience. Like you mentioned, there is a nice convenience factor associated with emulation. Emulation provides a way to get access to games that may not have been available to you at the time, such as Japanese exclusives. Especially when you think about the world, and the internet even up to the early 2000s.
Today, it's pretty easy to find those kinds of games on eBay, Amazon, etc. But, there are a lot of modders who've created translated copies of those exclusives, which is really neat. One of the coolest things I think that emulation can be used for would be modded games - like the randomized Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past runs. Mixing emulation with real hardware, you can play that modded game with an Everdrive on a SNES. And then there are things that are completely unavailable like the BS Legend of Zelda game where you needed the Satellite Adapter to get the game broadcasted to you in parts.
I enjoyed your thoughts on this subject!
Like the sega genesis, the Video processor can actually address 128kb of vram but only 64kb was installed on commercial hardware and most games didnt make use of it
So i dont think any emulator can emulate the 2nd bank of vram of the YM7101 of the genesis
We had NES, Super NES, and Nintendo 64 emulated on our military internet back in 2009 in Iraq. Made the time go by a bit quicker, but probably wasn't what the network was intended for.
The convenience of being able to integrate a emu frontend like Big Box into my Kodi htpc interface alongside Steam Big Picture and my streaming apps really helps me not give a fuck about any of your objections.
I do use emulators in instances where I can't play the real thing. Either due to high prices, region locking or unavailability where I live. I wanted to play Shantae on GBC and it was near impossible for me to play it legally (before it came to eShop) so I played it on my Wii instead. That said if I can find real copies easily I will do but mostly for handheld systems since they're more accessable for me.
*Sorry for writing lots of words :3*
I play both on emulators and on real hardware. Sometimes it's nice to play on real hardware giving the feel of how you used to play it back in the day. But, sometimes I just want to play for 5 to 10 minutes while doing other things. That is when I boot up an emulator.
I'm an EE: console hardware (from the 8/16-bit eras) are vastly different than PC (then and now). A PC developer inherently realizes that all PCs vary, so they generally create code that will run similar using different hardware (CPU, RAM, GFX etc). This is done using system timers, multi-threads, interrupts, callback delegates, etc. When developers made games for the 8/16-bit consoles, the limited processor, ROM, and RAM pushed the code to the limits nearly every time. So because of this most games were coded using ASM and C libraries and during development they would test routines and make optimizations based on what they saw on screen. For example, a falling obstacle moved as fast as it could be drawn on screen, animation frame advanced by one, hit box detection invoked, position changed by one, etc. This routine running on 4Mhz would create the desired result, but running it at 3000Mhz, not so much. Some game elements would trigger by a game timer, some would not. Some code relied on memory latency for timing. And this is the single biggest challenge of emulation. It may only take a few million processors cycles (MHz) to emulate a SNES game but it takes thousands of MHz to emulate the various timings that are ROM dependent.
The "they already made money" argument is the worst one I ever heard. Thats like saying a second printing of a book should be available for free, because they made money already.
I agree with the "if it's available, pay for it, and if it's not, it's ethical to use an illegal rom" argument. Talking to people that hate console players I always hear this argument "pc is better because of emulators" basically "pc is better because we get away with stealing in mass"
Greetings from Sheffield England Colin. How about doing a this does not commute about technology that was before its time. Apple newton, Sega channel, Nokia communicator etc.
Oooh, that's a good idea!
I owe emulation a big thanks for introducing me to old games as a kid. It's made me more savvy to old gaming culture and also more willing to play old games when other people my age usually won't even know what a NES is, or even if they did they likely wouldn't play those NES games since they look so dated.
That being said, lately I've been purchasing more and more physical copies of games I've played through emulation; and some games I haven't even played yet like Zelda: Wind Waker & Twilight Princess on the Gamecube. To the Virtual Console, when there's a game that I own through physical (or even just a game I'd like to play) I purchase it because I'm willing to support the developers for making these awesome games.
On a random but related note to end on, I'm currently playing a Pokemon: Trading Card Game cart on my Gameboy Advance SP as I'm typing this.
I prefer original hardware and software but I feel emulation is a very good thing for future preservation purposes
Emulators are at a state (retroarch) where its "almost" as good as hardware. The biggest difference is input lag. Where a pc will have overheads USB and OS. It will change the "feeling" hardware does not have this issue on the system itself. It depends if ur a purist where ur going to invest that money. If u want to save money than emulate. Its the money your willing to put in for the authentic experience
N64 games have sky rocketed and it sucks for other people who want to game for that system. I luckily got all the games i want but other people have to pay the expensive price:/
Not just N64, most OG Nintendo games have been going up, really sucks for collectors like me and a reason why I emulate some of the pricier games.
+Toonami4Life pokemon stadium 1 and 2 are both basically 50 dollars:/
+TheGameBoyMaster Pfft, that's nothing...Earthbound for snes is $200.
i know i used to own it:/
conkers bad fur day is around $400AUD or $600AUD boxed
When it comes to the issue of playing on real hardware people have the option of using "everdrives" and vatious other flashcarts or the use of "mod chips" . Its all down to your perception of how you want to play your games aswell your reasons to choosing it as an option to try new/retro games that you have an interest in to buy later on or not. "Try before you buy" .
for me...there's the money it would take to start a collection from scratch, the amount of space it would take up, the fact that emulators allow for unauthenic and crisper visuals, and it's so convenient! I love emulation
I decided to pick up an old Pentium 2 IBM computer from the late '90s in order to play some DOS and Windows games. I like having actual hardware for a few reasons.
1) Emulation can be hit or miss. DOSBOX is a fantastic emulator, but it can be a pain to configure, and doesn't quite look right on my modern 1080p monitor. An older 4:3 monitor looks better for some of these games, IMO. And I can just launch these games without too much hassle, depending on the game.
2) I enjoy the nostalgia. I played many games on Windows 98 when I was a kid, even though they were old, because that's all I had at the time. So it's nice to be able to play some of my older favorites on the original systems that they were made to run on.
3) It's fun. I enjoy playing with old hardware sometimes. It was a blast to just open this old girl up, and start swapping out bad or questionable parts for parts I know are good.
At the end of the day, there is no one size fits all solution. In fact, some of us might just combine the two. Emulate some games, and play some on real hardware, depending on how well the games we want to play work on one or the other.
Most of the emulated games and emulators I use I already own their original hardware and software. I mostly enjoy emulators for convenience and portability. HOWEVER there may be a few here and there I don't but I'm well below the poverty line and I can't afford to pay a multibillion dollar companies essentially pennies to them, just for ethics sake.
And alot of my emulated games are RARE very expensive games that without emulation I would never get to enjoy. And im not about to miss out over some company or publisher being butthurt over their profits and greed. I'm not distributing or personally profiting from having these emulated games. The fact of me having them doesn't effect or harm their companies in the slightest.
If you're a streamer or let's play channel then emulation is your best option whether it's PC or modded Wii, CFW Console etc. I say this because as the player you can set options for your own viewing preferences so you get closest to the OG experience you like. This way the viewer can see the game as best as possible because we don't have CRT mobile devices. If you play using original hardware and capture, then the viewer doesn't get the same OG experience as you and the video quality suffers because we're mostly on HD screens viewing analogue or upscaled video with no scan lines etc. We watch lets play purists, yet we as the viewer get the experience most hate which is analogue gaming on an HD screen. This is why we need emulation to coexist amongst purists.
I won't lie - I've grabbed games off of ROM/abandonware sites. If it gets re-released (for a reasonable price, of course), I'll grab it. Like the old SSI AD&D Gold Box series. I had downloaded them off of an abandonware site, but when I found out they were all available through GOG.com, I had no problem paying for them again.
I do own retro console with their official games. I also enjoy playing older games on modern consoles. Yeah, they don't look as good on a modern TV but i also do it for convenience. Great video. Never seen someone make a video where they drive and talk about video games good job!
This guy's videos look so professional. he deserves so many more viewers.
Emulation is a great way to extend the life of aging titles without requiring you to pick up a copy of the physical game. That being said, where I can, I'm a collector and steer clear of modern games that I don't physically own a copy of, or don't at least have once in the past, but can't find anymore. I wish more game developers would embrace hardware emulation, because they could honestly provide a nice, solid gaming experience, since they originally developed the hardware.
And going forward, I really wish that once a game stops being pressed commercially, that it would find continued life on these Virtual Console-type shops, or at least as a digital download.
Been watching your videos for a few weeks now - just subscribed. Great channel!
Thanks, and welcome aboard!
What I like about the original Gameboy DMG is how the screen looks like when you turn it off when it is running a game.
The biggest reason for emulation is to address the biggest risk with digital media; loss. Our society is at huge risk of losing all of our recent history, developments, and information because it isn't being backed up and maintained properly. With home consoles having a 5 years sales life and maybe a decade of shelf life afterwards, we risk losing all of this material in the future. Emulation is important in preserving that material when we no longer have the hardware that can play it, or when you have issues like component failure within the game itself. We are on the verge of basically losing nearly all of our art and history since the 1960s, and if companies don't start taking measures to make these products available past that very small few year window, these products will be lost forever. Emulation is one way to try and preserve that material and a very important one.
When I go to the retro game store and buy Pokémon blue for forty dollars, I have no problem emulating it on my phone when I get home. I love to play on original gbc or gb boy colour to experience my old Gameboy games, but I will download the rom of the game I own to my iPhone after because I love the convenience and I have already circulated my money back into the retro gaming market.
Hey Collin.
You could get the framemeister for a future video, then deduct it as a business expense on your taxes at the end of the year. Really a win/win.
The image quality is just mind blowing, truly worth the investment as a retro enthusiast. Also recommend checking out the new OSCC.
Also, I still have my collection of classic consoles like the Atari 2600, Colecovision, etc, etc. My plan is to play these games in my arcade cabinets (MAME machines). I'd much rather play the games on a sharp arcade quality CRT monitor and arcade quality controls than the original systems on a TV with those cheap controls. That's something we'd love to have done in the 80s that is now possible, thanks to emulation.
One thing I wish you would have touched up on that some of the people who are bigger into the emulation scene talk about: preservation.
You mentioned games that are harder to find, some that more or less are non-existent, and that you cant get digitally do to different reasons. This kind of makes it so some games can kind of just disappear. There are older movies that we have lost. There are no more copies of, no one can watch it, and at this point it basically just doesn't exist. So some people are going through and putting games, movies, and music online, not just so people can pirate it and get it for free, but because there's the chance that it could just disappear. It could be argued this isn't a problem. I mean, is anyone going to play that game or watch that movie that was just terrible and only has a few copies left in existence? Probably not. But it was created. It was part of that scene. And some want all of that preserved.
For me, a big part of emulation is convenience, price, and nostalgia. Of course, I mostly do this with older consoles. I actually still buy PS2 games, and like to collect them. But for systems like the NES, I personally can't justify buying them, especially with how old they are, as well as the fact that as they get older they tend to have more problems. I also don't make enough to go through and have these collections that I see online. But every now and then it's nice to go back through and play something from my childhood for a bit. If the NES Mini had more games, I would be willing to buy it(which you touched up on why it cant), but since it doesn't, it has a very limited selection of games, and since it's more or less just emulation anyways, I just personally can't justify spending that much money on it. Hell, Nintendo has already been called out for the fact that their version of Mario is the emulated version of the game rather than one from their own collection. They downloaded it and then put it on there.
I agree with what you say about downloading roms for ridiculously priced games. examples would be; Little Samson, Hagan, Aero Fighters, Misha. Forget paying several hundred dollars for the carts alone.
one of the nicer things about pc emulation is that my saves are transferable without headaches, I can sync up my saves between my main PC, my laptop, my phone, etc. with relative ease. compared to trying to move saves from my softmodded PS2 which requires me to manually copy the save file to a usb drive. You also forgot to mention that on 3D consoles you can run at higher resolutions without upscaling. Just look at some screenshots of Mario Galaxy in HD with a Texture pack and you'll see why emulation can be so much more preferable
i am an old schoold gamer(since the 1970's..yes really) and i would adore having original hardware. however, realistically, i love emulation. real hardware can be way too expensive, so the idea of emulating old systems is awesome, and can bring back nostalgic memories, and some great fun as well. i have owned most every system sold in north america since the early days of 8 bit 1mhz cpu, right up to gamecube era. i own a couple of my original systems, although they are non working. i use emulators often, and still play donkey kong on MAME. and pac man and galaga and ..... lol
keep on gaming, and emulating. keep those great old games alive.
Original Hardware for me all day. I can still get everything I want for close to garage sale prices. I can also fix and replace most broken or worn parts as well. So for me it's worth it to use original hardware.
But for someone who's unwilling to wait for a good deal or simply doesn't want to collect or gain the knowledge of cleaning and repairing these older systems, then I can see why emulation would be better. Also most emulators for older systems has gotten to a point where you can hardly tell the differences. However Saturn and N64 are still somehow hard to emulate for.
You should mention that (at least in the US) you are allowed to make personal copies for archival purposes, which means you can dump any disc or rom cart you own and play those on an emulator, which is how you are supposed to do things. Because technically, even if you still own the game, getting the ROM off of the internet is still illegal because the person you are obtaining it from still is distributing the game illegally (except for in the grey area of abandonware, which is really confusing and doesn't have much legal precedent.).
I use a Super Nintendo emulator semi-frequently. Yes, I primarily use my Xbox 360 for gaming, RUclips, watching movies from my computer through LAN, what have you... However! In regard to the 'piracy' aspect: I agree with you, that, no, I don't feel that ROM download availability back in the day necessarily CAUSED or in any way directly led to game piracy, but I would say, that if anything, it showed that ROM ripping was very possible and may have encouraged the game fan's desire to pirate old ROMs.
Thank you,
Darren "Scratchy" Pierazek ABQ, NM
One of awesome parts of 1st party devs taking up emulation is it makes reversing the systems hundreds of times easyer as software now existst ot do it properly the hard part is understanding the software
i emulate on my pspgo
This is a really good outlook on emulation. The only thing a can say is that the ps3 final fantasy anecdote is not a good one because you could just play your discs directly.
One issue with the Framemeister beyond the price is its difficulties handling mixed resolution games. Many PS1 games, for example, had most gameplay in 240p, but menus in 480i for denser text. The Framemeister has problems switching between those two resolutions, and takes at minimum a few seconds to make the switch - which can be a problem in anything that requires quick reaction times. The Framemeister also introduces quite a bit of lag compared to certain competing products like the cheaper but less feature-rich OSSC (Open Source Scan Converter).
I like these videos. I get to hear someone talk about games and consoles who knows the facts and things nerds are thinking about.
Video quality on an emulator can be just as complicated as the hardware emulation itself. It really depends on what system you're emulating and what you consider "quality". One of the issues is dealing with pixelation. The original analog displays and outputs were a little blurry, so this wasn't really noticeable back in the day. Display resolutions have increased over the years and people don't agree on the best way to upscale the video from systems made for lower resolution displays.
On older systems that rendered video using 2D images composed of discrete pixels, not much can be done to actually increase the original resolution. One way is to just make the pixels bigger. It's fast and easy to implement, giving a clean crisp picture with pixel edges sharp enough to fillet a salmon. Some people actually prefer that, while others want a softer picture--more like the original analog. There are a number of filtering techniques to render the image at a higher resolution. Some are blurry while more sophisticated ones produce a sharper picture with out the jagged pixel edges. Some will even reproduce fuzzy scanlines, for the people with nostalgia for of the old CRT displays. Personally, it depends on the system, or even the style of a specific game, which approach looks best.
For example, Atari 7800 games had a logo screen with bright lines that cycled though a rainbow of colors. On an emulator, it becomes apparent that they achieved the effect of displaying more colors than the hardware could technically produce by using different colors on opposing scanlines. Old CRT TVs had interlaced signals that ran through only half of the lines with each display pass--alternating between the even numbered lines and odd. This usually wasn't noticeable because the colors of one line would bleed a little into the adjacent lines, blending them together. The animation on the logo screen took advantage of this blending to mix the two colors, effectively emulating a wider color palette. Emulators, however, faithfully reproduce each scanline with its correct color, breaking the effect. Even overlaying fake "scanlines", as emulators for other systems do, won't fix that. The only way a modern display can show the original animation how it was intended to be seen is to actually blur the opposing scanlines together--just like a CRT would.
Newer systems that used 3D rendering to produce video are an entirely different matter. The original game itself is composed of 3D geometry and textures that have to go through a number of intermediary steps to dynamically render a 2D image--depending on the rendering techniques the system used. Even though the final picture is stuck at a specific resolution, the game content isn't directly tied to that resolution the way older systems were. Well, some also included "pre-rendered" images or video for title screens and cutscenes, but the rest was rendered on the fly. With access to the original geometry and textures, and control over the rendering process, emulators can technically render the image at any resolution the hardware it's running on can handle. They can also introduce new rendering techniques and effects that weren't even available on the original system, potentially creating a superior experience. However, the emulator is still stuck with the original game geometry and textures, each with their fixed limitations. There are techniques for smoothing out the rough edges on older games, there still are limits on how much they can be improved.
Perhaps you've already talked about it at some point in the channels lifetime, but to somewhat tie in with this topic, flashcarts, everdrive 64 etc, since it's roms on original hardware.
I watched a Twitch tv streamer playing Majora's Mask emulated on his PC. Every single day he said "This game is garbage". Twice on his stream he got "soft locked" which means Link got stuck. The streamer doesn't use save states with his emulator. Always said the game was garbage. It was my childhood game that I played on a CRT tv. I hate that guy. And I hate people who emulate and stream that game while saying it's garbage. Of course it is. It's an old game.
Emulation can be quite useful for portable reasons. I can sometimes have downtime at work and my phone can emulate everything from the NES to the N64 and PS1 just fine (a little bit of Dreamcast too). Rather than taking an entire console with me to play a game, I'd rather just emulate it with my phone.
I pirate almost everything, pc games, roms, movies.... but so far as roms go, I was a 90's kid. I used to own a huge portion of the roms I get, and I don't feel bad for playing them. So far as new games go... demos don't always reflect the final product in terms of how it plays. 90% of the time, if I download a new game to check out, I'll buy it later if I like it, or played it for a long time. Devs deserve their money... I don't have unlimited funds, I can't buy every console and pc upgrade that comes out... let alone games at 60 dollars a pop. If I'm going to give you 60 dollars... I want to know the game will run, and that I will enjoy it. So call me a thief, I don't care. If they want my money, this is the only way they'll get it.
Yeah bit of an urban myth that the Saturn is super hard to emulate. It's more like a global lack of interest meant that emulators were slow to mature for that platform.
What i know, sega saturn was reverse engineered not too long ago. It took him years to get trough. That thing is fkin mess, layers and layers of dummy code, encryptions and protections. Its miracle that emus for sega saturn worked at all.
I just like having a CRT TV to play on with the original controllers and stuff. The CRT is so much brighter and more colorful (on RGB anyway) than emulation on an LCD screen, I'm also noticeably worse at a game like Super Mario World on an emulator because of the slight input lag which interferes with my muscle memory. I used to think that was bullshit but once I realized the difference I never really went back.
What's that Genesis game that can't be emulated?
Virtua Racing maybe?
+CHRdutch Incorrect. It does indeed emulate, and it even plays pretty well and isn't especially taxing on either the emulator or the machine.
+chemergency Maybe Sonic and Knuckles plus Sonic 2 ?
You know, I still can't remember the title. I learned about it from another RUclips video about the Genesis. I do remember that it was a platformer, and that the developer had figured out some tricks they could do with the hardware (that apparently even the Sega engineers hadn't noticed) that would enhance gameplay. If I stumble across it again, I'll throw a note in the description.
Ah bummer. But yeah, thanks for letting me know. Likewise, if I come across it, I'll let people know as well. I've never heard of this.
I still use my old CRT TV for pre 7th gen consoles. Played ICO and MGS2 today. Original hardware/setup/flaws for me, it's a matter of traveling back in time.
I came back to the retro scene via emulation but it only took me a year to buy the original systems again as I feel this is the only way to play old games. A CRT TV is necessary as well.
Just wanted to let you know you do a fantastic job with these videos! Keep up with it, please!
the original hardware has that nostalgic homey feel that i love, and even tho its expensive, its way better then emulators. anybody want to add on by agreeing or disagreeing?
Juicy McLovin agree people who say it compares or blows away the looks of the original have never owned the original games on the real hardware. I agree with testing games on emulator if you're interested in a game before you buy it but that's it for me.
@carcino. I strongly disagree with "Most of them if not all of them are dead".
The original Game Boy is *very* reliable. The only real problem i've encountered is sometimes they can lose a vertical pixel line, and that's a very easy fix. Mine has worked great since the 1990's, and i''ve bought about a dozen over the last year for gifts and sometimes to fix and sell (once i'd replaced the scratched screen, or done the easy "missing pixel line" fix).
Regarding GBA/SP: you can always get reasonably priced units. I love my SP, but prefer an original GBA with a good white "worm light".
The colors are more vibrant, and you can get a good GBA for $30. Replacement screens are very cheap too.
Emulators can never be as good as owning the genuine article. But I use them to demo games i'm interested in buying.
@Fishing Under 10 Bucks. Agreed.
Genuine games are little nuggets of gaming history.
Emulators can only ever be a tribute act, no matter how close they become.
Also, i like inserting cartridges into a system like the Atari VCS and knowing that, almost 40 years ago, someone was doing the same thing with the very same cartridge i'm holding!
I love the artwork on the cartridges, boxes + instruction manuals. And sometimes old RPG's come with maps. It's so cool when you buy a game and look up the back of the manual to find that, decades ago, some kid had written a list of level codes or hints. Seeing that really gives me a strong connection to a bye-gone era which cannot be emulated.
FPGAs may be the future of retro gaming. Essentially it's a reconfigurable hardware clone chip that can emulate many types of chips. It's basically a shape-shifting CPU that can change its form to whatever schematics you can fit inside of it, which is a lot more accurate than software emulation. The problem is that currently it only works for self-contained FPGA computers and as drop-in replacement parts for existing systems. Maybe some day someone will come out with a PCI card containing an FPGA that can plug directly into your computer and allow you to hardware emulate a bunch of retro consoles on the hardware level.
+Timstuff Interesting idea. We have the CPU, which is a processor that can compute highly complex instructions with few cores. Then the GPU was added, which can compute simple instructions with thousands of cores in parallel.
A third "Core" that could be reconfigured for efficient calculations of specific "Problems" (physics for Game A, AI for GAme B and Emulation of Hardware for Emulator X etc...) could be the next evolution....
Timstuff im an embedded systems eng and we use an fpga that is fully emulating 68K mcus for obsolescence management. and this is in SIL rated systems. the problem will still exist where u dont have access to VLSI of proprietary SOICs
Pretty interesting video ! Sorry in advance for my english, I'm french so I'm sure there will be some mistakes, please understand ;)
For my part, I am really attached to the original hardware, even though there are a lot of limitations. Of course it costs money, you have to be able to store games, consoles and controllers and you have to dedicate a special place for them if you don't want to bother wiring everything up once in a while when you just want to play one of these games.
But I don't mind these inconvenience because what I am looking for is to experience the game as it was meant to be. Besides I really love the physical object itself, like the NES and its controller or any other device. It just feels like an open museum of video games in my living room. Eventually, when you look for a particular game, it becomes a treasure hunt (if you don't want to order it on eBay) and you end up with some nice anecdotes.
Of course I think emulation is necessary in order to keep a track of all these games even once you won't be able to find any original hardware or when the game is too rare. It just feels like a priviledge to be able to play on original consoles and I think it is a sharing space. I always encourage my friends to come by any time they want to pick up a game and try it.
I love playing on the original hardware, there is nothing in emulation that can surpass the original experience, however as a matter of convenience, since I have move a lot for work
i have to keep my game collection at my parents house, and emulation is a big help in terms of portability... i can still enjoy all my favourite games without the need of moving them arround from house to house, currently for me retropie on the raspberry pi is the way to go to keep all my favourite systems in a single device... but i'm allways longing for the time i can go back home and play on the OG hardware
I think this is the first video of yours ive seen, love the depth and complete process in exploring your topic. Will be subbing on my personal channels too.
I hope for games 5th Gen and up, when companies like Nintendo and Sony emulate these games that they increase the internal game resolution to perhaps 4K One day maybe even supporting the original discs :D
I emulate because retro games and consoles around me and online have gotten pretty expensive. I mod my older consoles that I don't use mainly and turn them into emulation devices.
Another aspect of this, in some cases you can get _better than original hardware_ gameplay with emulation. A number of games that actually crash and fail due to faults with the original gamecube hardware run perfectly on the dolphin emulator, and in many cases you can get a lot of additional benefits. Higher resolution and framerates, mouse controls, VR support, high-res resource packs, game translations, and quality-of-life software mods, the emulation experience can in some cases be legitimately _better_ than on original hardware.
I would really like to watch a video about this subject, but with direct comparison real hardware to emulation and all in-between things (virtual console, backward hardware compatibility etc.). Seeing both hardware and emulator running the same game head-to-head would be cool.
I've done this myself with Amiga and PS1 versus emulation on PC with hardware 240p 15KHz pixel-perfect TV output, old joystick usb adaptors etc.
Emulation almost always has been about sacrificing accuracy for speed, due to the difficulty of accurately emulating hardware (even if you manage to figure out everything there is to know about the original hardware). So for example, the hardware requirements for Zsnes are WAY lower than those of Bsnes (which apparently isn't even called Bsnes anymore, I guess I'm out of the loop) because Bsnes places such a high emphasis on accuracy while Zsnes places its emphasis on speed.
Factor5 was widely known to use the N64 hardware in unique ways in order to be able to get it to do things other developers couldn't, which is, for instance, why Rogue Squadron was able to run in high-res mode. They actually wrote their own CPU microcode. Without the ability to emulate the N64 extremely accurately, a game like that will never run properly on an emulator. I'm not sure if any N64 emulators have gotten close to running games like that yet, but even Rare was using some simpler tricks to make their games look better that end up causing issues on some emulators.
I think even if Nintendo's own software engineers with complete access to full system details with 100% accuracy would have trouble creating a perfect emulator of N64 hardware, even given the power that today's high-end PCs have. Hmmm, an emulation-perfect Virtual Console for PC? That's an interesting idea which I would throw lots of money at, but they'd never spend the time to do it when they can just take the quick and dirty approach to port emulators over to their own lesser hardware.
A properly set-up emulator used on a decent PC with crt emu outputting native resolution and refresh rates on a CRT monitor is indistinguishable from the original in most cases for anything up to the PS1.
Videos like this are made by people that don't understand how to set-up their emulators properly, or people that don't understand that emulators for newer machines like the PS2 / PS3 are still a work in progress. Or people that send 240p games to a 1080p monitor and blame the emulator for it looking bad and having lag.
As soon as I got me a decent source of income I started to collect retro consoles and original games, however, I had my share of throwing money at auctions for original cartridges, expensive cables, ridiculously expensive scalers and stuff needed to get the consoles running fine and with the best picture quality I felt it was interfering with my budget, specially with the prices of certain cartridges cuz the retrogaming scene is a miserable little pile of scalpers,so I resorted to emulation and now I'll get into the FPGA thingy.
To feel better about myself I pay for the games when they become available on Virtual Console tho.
I can't speak for classic consoles like NES for example, because I don't play them much. For over 20 years, I have "Extensively" compared coin operated classic games of the 80s from the originals I've spent a lot of time (I visit collectors with hundreds of games weekly) with to emulated games in MAME which I've also spent a lot of time with. As a collector of both dedicated games, and a builder of MAME cabs (for my own use) out of classic parts, I can say emulators do an "incredible" job. I've gone as far as building them out of CRT monitors including vector monitors, original leaf-switch joysticks & buttons like Wico, Bally Midway Pacman joysticks (both 4 way & 8 way), Tron flight joystick and all sorts of stuff. The arcade community in general has the attitude that emulation is not that good, but very few of them have seen it running on machines built with the right parts to properly match the original games. It's not a fair comparison to say emulators are junk when your comparing games running on CRT monitors with leaf-switch parts to LCD monitors and micro-switch parts. The emulators are rarely at fault (arcade games anyway), it's the people doing the comparisons with different displays & controls. I'm not into the karate games so much, and some have said the USB interface in Windows isn't fast enough to reproduce them. I wouldn't know, I'm playing golden era games. Arcade emulation with the right video cards & monitors can even match the original screen resolutions of the games. You can literally choose your favorite cabinets including the artwork, and even the collectors would have an extremely hard time being able tell the difference. So my point being, don't be quick to fault emulation as a concept, it's only going to perfectly match if all other components also match. My eventual goal is bring some of these MAME machines to a large game room arcade full of classics to be able to see them side by side. I'd be willing to bet for a number of the games, the collectors will not be able to tell the difference. And what few differences they see in some of the games, it really do not matter much.
You happen to be your own podcast for the morning commute, how convenient!
I like the convenience of Virtual Console and similar services, but so many of the best licensed titles are never released. Say you want to play Turtles in Time and don't want to go the PC emulation route, you're basically stuck buying the SNES cart. That combined with a lack of crossbuy and tying the VC account to a single console has really pushed me toward using original hardware for Nintendo.
I have a growing collection of retro hardware and games. Nothing can compare to using the real hardware, aside from perhaps hardware emulation when executed perfectly. However, since I spend most of my time living elsewhere than my video game collection, I pretty much have to emulate in order to play most of my games. Since I already own them I don't really mind.
Watching this video while I'm downloading ROMS for my DS. :}
Most people don’t want to resort to ripping games. It can be a pain in the ass.
Most just simply want to play a freaking game on a consule with a controller that matches that game. Something that looks right and feels right.
It would be nice if you could buy and select mutilple older or even retro games on one single cart/disc at a reasonable price. Maybe $1-5 per game.
For instance: I would of easily bought the snes mini. If I would of had some type a way to personally pick the 20+ games, or a way to play more games on it without getting technical.
the switch.. if I could play GameCube, Wii, and N64 games on it as well.
The problem with newer systems too is they don’t reasonably remake alot of the older games that everyone loved, with the same type of gameplay either. Priority seems to be ‘graphics’ vs gameplay.
You want really accurate emulation? Use Software mode.
But because that takes lots of CPU, most modern Emulators use JIT Recompilers and OpenGL. And this is, where the bugs start.
@3:14 The first Java based iteration of PSP emulators required a topend gaming PC to run even remotely lag and frame drop free. Even though the PSP is actually pretty weak from a hardware perspective. Nowadays, even smartphones are able to run it.
As much as I agree with you about how much better the original game is than the emulation, retropie is just brilliant! I recommend everyone tries it!!!
Yup. Some software are more or less depending on the harware to get the most out of it. My old Amiga generally does the Amiga things "better" than emulators do. And the Amiga emulators out there are really quite good. The Amiga has a real advantage in the amount of harware and software that is still produced for it!
And yes... the displays can be a real issue.
I also experience input lag. On Mario games especially, things like input lag effect the precise movement you are able to conduct, which is a big turnoff for me.
I know you were probably just using the digital versions of FF7, 8, and 9 as an example, but ALL models of the PS3 can play PS1 discs. I didn't believe it myself until I popped my copy of Ehrgeiz into my PS3 slim 150gb. Not needing to shuffle discs around is indeed a convenience though.
Emulation all the way. I never have to worry about looking around at all the crap I built up and wonder wtf I'm going to do with all of it. Less dusty that way too.
I'm glad you got into the NES Classic Mini toward the end of the video. Once it comes out it should prove interesting to see how well it works. However I can't picture them doing a bad job on their product.
What is the Genesis game that doesn't work well in emulators? (at about 6:00)
Nowadays emulation is far superior and a will always get better. For example features like run ahead latency providing less button lag than original consoles.
For me Emulation does not feel the same as playing it on the original hardware I mean I know most of us use emulators to preserve the old games but for me It will never replace playing these old games I mean to me it does not feel as legit as playing it on original hardware I mean I know not everyone is a collector but for me it will never replace playing these old games.
A bit off topic but do you have any recommendations for aftermarket or third party snes ac adapters?
I use to be a heavy emulator but don't have time now. One thing you never addresses was all these places u can buy Roms is new. So, prior too any older game the company was never making money. I personally also don't want to buy a modern system to play a old game.
I'm a big fan of emulation, IF the emulator is reasonably accurate. I'm not a fan of the Virtual Console or older games available in the Playstation store though. Why not? Because it's a closed, locked down ecosystem. If they were selling digital copies that could be backed up to a disc or SD card and used in the emulator of your choice, I'd be all for it, but when you can only run them in their pre-made emulator on a single console and you have to use the online service as your only form of backup, that doesn't appeal to me at all. Not to mention that due to copyright issues, these services only have a tiny fraction of the titles available for any given system. Before it was removed completely, the Commodore 64 section of the VC only had a couple dozen games, and that's for a system with thousands of titles available for it!
Frankly, I think copyright lasts way too long in today's world. The game industry moves fast and I think if a title hasn't been offered for sale in at least 10 years, it should become public domain. And I don't mean keeping 100 copies in mothballs in case anyone should happen to ask the company for one, I mean being available in stores and online services (preferably in a portable format). If a title doesn't have enough value for the company to continue selling it, then obviously they aren't going to be hurt by someone downloading a copy of it.
"But what about things like copyrighted music in games???" I hear you ask? When someone downloads a copy of an old game with copyrighted material in it, the corporations scream bloody murder that they're losing money. Well how much money are they losing when nobody is still buying the game in the first place? You can't have a game sitting in limbo, and then suddenly claim you're losing money when someone downloads it. If it's that valuable to you, why the hell isn't someone still selling copies of it?
Getting back to emulation, if it's done well, I often prefer it over the real thing for two reasons; Save states and configurable controls. I'm not that great of a games player and I find it supremely frustrating to get to a certain point in a game and then die and have to start over because I made a stupid mistake, or an enemy popped up out of nowhere for a cheap death. Plus, I'm right-handed and no amount of propaganda will ever convince me that having the movement controls on the left for anything other than first person shooters is the way that right-handed people were meant to play games. With an emulator I can remap the controls to something that doesn't have my character staggering all over the screen like a drunken uncle at a family reunion.
lurkerrekrul I agree with everything you said but I'm curious as to how is it that you are having difficulty with movement controls commonly on the left? What controllers are you pertaining to anyway? Dualshock, xbox 360 controller, wiimote or mouse & keyboard?
I mean, I'm right handed too (as well as 3 of my siblings and a lot right handed friends) but it is bizzare to hear someone with the same hand dexterity complain about movement controls being on the left. Care to clear things out for me?
+PM Salvo - I apologize for taking so long to respond. I meant to reply before now, but I wanted to write a proper explanation and I kept getting sidetracked. Anyway...
Short version - I'm right-handed (RH for short), so my right hand is my most coordinated hand. When a game requires me to make quick, precise movements, such as in a scrolling shooter, my left hand isn't coordinated enough to make those movements. I end up moving too far or not enough and usually end up right in the path of a bullet. I'm this way with virtually all game controllers from the original NES through the PS4/Xbox One. Never played many arcade machines either.
Long version (I'll try not to make this too boring) - At 50, I'm probably older than a lot of gamers today. My first major video game system was the Atari 2600. You held the joystick or paddle in your left hand, pushed the button with your left thumb/index finger and worked the stick/knob with your right. This felt entirely natural to RH people, although lefties found these controllers to be extremely awkward to use, since their right hands were their least coordinated hands.
Other systems of the time were designed so that the controllers could be used equally well with either hand. The Intellivision, Atari 5200, Colecovision and Atari 7800 all had ambidextrous controllers, and RH people all held the controller in their left hand and used the stick/disc with their right.
From the Atari, I moved on to the C64 and then to the Amiga, both of which used Atari standard joysticks. I never had any Nintendo, Sega or Sony systems. I tried playing the NES a few times and found it as awkward to play as lefties did using an Atari joystick.
When I use a keyboard and mouse to play FPS games, my left hand often gets confused in the heat of battle and I end up moving the wrong way. Still, I suppose it's the preferable way to play since it frees up my right hand for aiming with the mouse. BTW, after having played FPS games with a mouse, I can't play them on consoles with an analog stick if my life depended on it!
It's only in recent years that I've truly tried using modern game controllers, mostly with emulators, with very mixed results. If a game only requires left/right movement, such as steering in a racing game, I do fairly well. If it's a slower paced game where the left stick is used to move around, I do reasonably well. However if the game requires a lot of fast movements, I'm hopeless. It's like trying to write with your left hand. Sure, it can be done and you may even be able to read what you write, but it feels awkward and unnatural and the results will never look as good as you can achieve with your right hand.
By way of illustration, try playing this game (it uses the mouse) using both your left and right hands and see which one you get farther with;
www.dailyhaha.com/_flash/mouse_maze.htm
Don't worry, it's not one of those stupid jump-scare games where a face pops up and screams at you. It's a legitimate game where you try to get through the mazes without touching anything.
If you're like most people, you'll do much better using your right hand on the mouse. Now imagine that this game was ported to a console. You would be forced to use your left hand (D-pad or left analog stick) to move through the maze. Does that really make sense?
And here's the part that really gets me; People argue that having the movement controls for RH people on the left makes sense even though they're being forced to use their least coordinated hand for movement, but yet nobody ever argued that it made sense to force LH people to use their least coordinated hands for Atari joysticks.
Even today, if you take an ambidextrous joystick, like a Quickshot II, and hand it to a RH person (even a gamer), probably 90% of them will instinctively grip the stick with their right hand. At least they will, if you haven't discussed the issue of right/left handed controls with them beforehand and made them self-conscious about which hand they use.
I'm aware that people can "get used to" using controllers with the movement controls on the left, especially if that's all they've ever known, I just don't understand how it makes sense to force them to do so. In real life, a RH person will use their right hand for anything requiring coordination. Writing, using a mouse, playing the board game Operation, etc. Yet when those same activities are transferred to a video game console, they're suddenly expected to use their least coordinated hand.
lurkerrekrul
After reading your reply, I tried to research a bit into this topic. I found out that indeed, there are gamers like you who preferred remapping movement controls on the right. Some even make their own customized gamepads to accommodate this setup outside the benefits of control remapping on emulation.
Gamers will always have different control layout preference. With plenty of reasons ranging from hand dexterity, hand size, button position, click/press feedback, hand ergonomics, etc. But I think the biggest factor is exposure to one's first controller. As you described, most movement controls prior to the famicom/nes are relegated to the left side. Which is to say that if you first learned to play with movement using your right, I would assume that you would prefer to keep that setup.
And in an attempt to explain how control layouts are what they are today, this is what I believe: Perhaps Nintendo's controller design unintentionally made the control layout we have today the "default/standard" one. Given how Nintendo revived and revolutionized the gaming industry, I would assume that companies trying to enter the market would be wise to borrow a design or two from them. The controller, being the peripheral that interfaces between you and your game is the one thing you wouldn't want to risk too much experimentation to mess up. Perhaps this dictated how the company's future competitors, namely Sega, Sony and Microsoft to design (and even Atari to redesign) their controllers based on the "tried and tested" layout. Movement on the left, action buttons on the right.
That is not to say that there were no attempts to try other layouts. I read somewhere that the Atari Lynx and the Bandai Wonderswan tried to incorporate left handed support on their control setup. They still keep the common setup but allowed the user to reverse it by tilting the handheld device to the side. There are even gaming mice and keyboard which are designed for "lefties". You might want to check those out, but at a price of course. Unfortunately, for gamepads, I haven't heard of a mass produced one that had the movement and action buttons reversed. Either you customize one yourself for current gen consoles or be in the mercy of button remappings for older system emulators. =)
+PM Salvo - I remember once reading about how some players would play arcade machines "cross-handed", holding the joystick (which was on the left) with their right hand and crossing their left hand under it to use the buttons (which were on the right).
The only real explanation I've heard for why they put the movement controls on the left was that using the buttons is more important than movement, so it should be handled by most people's most coordinated hand. I really don't buy that. If you can't accurately line up shots and avoid the enemy's shots, how fast you can fire won't matter.
I borrowed an Atari Lynx once and while putting the movement controls on the right helped, I still wasn't very good at playing fast action games. In my opinion, a D-pad is a poor substitute for a joystick. I've tried pretty much every Playstation fighting game there is and most of the 2D ones, like the Street Fighter games, all use the D-pad for movement. You have to press up for jump, and up diagonally to jump forward or back. This only works about 50% of the time. Half the time I just jump in place like an idiot. If you need to do some combination of moves to do a special attack, I can never make them work. I can't make most combos that require pressing the buttons in sequence, work either.
Regarding customizing controls for consoles; I've thought about doing that. Theoretically it should be easy, just cut the traces for the controls on each side and wire them to the other side with jumpers. However actually doing it might prove difficult. Many controllers use flex circuits (all the PS2 ones do), which you can't solder to and the traces where it connects to the actual board are usually tiny. It would be easy to make a joystick for older systems like the NES though. Just wire an Atari joystick to the contacts inside a spare controller. Of course you would need to add extra buttons.
I'm curious; Have you ever tried using a flightstick style joystick? If you have and assuming it wasn't custom designed for the right hand, which hand did you feel most comfortable using it with?
lurkerrekrul
Yes, I have plenty of experience playing with both a gamepad, keyboard and mouse and an arcade joystick setup.
I'll give a little background so we can clear cultural, region, availability, popularity differences right out the gate. I live in the Philippines and I grew up in the 90s playing video games with different control setups. Consoles at home (gamepad), playing at our local three-cabinet arcade (joystick setup) and computer rental shops (keyboard & mouse). And all of them have movement controls on the left, so you can say that my controller exposure has always been "movement on the left - action buttons on the right" layout. Hence my amazement when I read someone not used to what I thought was the default and natural control layout.
I share your control preference on fighting games though. Arcade sticks are the undisputed best controller for fighting games. I despise using gamepad controls on fighting games. I would even go far as to say that I would rather play fighting games on a keyboard than use a dualshock controller on emulators.
Fighting games is one of my favorite genres and I did compete at casuals, community meetups and mini tournaments so I can be very meticulous regarding my preference of arcade sticks over gamepads. I felt my performance greatly reduced and very limited when forced to play using gamepads. I had no arcade stick of my own. Our community had resort to borrowing and sharing among ourselves during friendly gatherings. I would estimate that if there were 30 participants, only 3 to 5 had fighting sticks. You might be surprised to hear that I had friends who were equally proficient on both. No noticeable performance difference when they switched between a gamepad and a joystick.
As for what you said about movement on the right side on arcades, I would have to respectfully disagree with you on that one. Fighting games, especially recent ones have more advanced and convoluted mechanics. Action buttons (punches, kicks, slashes) are as hectic, if not, more hectic compared to character movement.
Btw, I appreciate the great insight you are sharing and the experiences you have concerning my original question about your control preference. It shows your dedication and love for video games. I wish I could be the same when I reach your age, sir.
There's also something to be said about the ethics/morals of current copyright laws.
the old computer .com is where it all started for me
all emulation I have tried works fine, except n64 of course. you can usually use the original controller too for PC if you buy a GameCube controller with a USB you can play game cube with the original controller! same with nes,snes, ps1,2,3
I prefer original hardware games for the sense of ownership. I don't mind (legal) emulation however sense I'm technically renting the game the price is the deciding factor compared to how much it would cost to find physically.
I also own a hard drive with 8tb of roms and pc games using a program called hyperspin. such beautiful program.