General Emulation Discussion

KeRbDoG

KeRbDoG wrote: »

To be realz both rooms should look the same right? Wonder if they will allow yea to be able to virtually shoulder your competitor in the room to put them off

Doge wrote: »

Since you can customize your own room it isnt really what theyre going for, youre not sitting side by side but in your own room while playing multiplayer.

I don't think yea got what I meant, net multiplayer great but it simulates sitting in the same room with a mate playing the same game - I jokingly said it would be great to have a way to nudge your fellow player in the virtual world to put them off we all did that right or was it just me?

1o059k7ewrqj3n

Have any of you tried the newest version of Swiss for Gamecube? I think it's r634. I only ask because there seems to be a much better method for playing games through the memory card port off of SD card.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANx7UtqRv7U

I had a couple of games that would work via this method but run with slight graphical glitches or with performance problems. This method stated in the video seems to fix that completely.

I might add; I own the games I run from the SD card, I just want to try and save the laser in my console so I thought this might do the trick.

Doge

KeRbDoG wrote: »

I don't think yea got what I meant, net multiplayer great but it simulates sitting in the same room with a mate playing the same game - I jokingly said it would be great to have a way to nudge your fellow player in the virtual world to put them off we all did that right or was it just me?

What a bully! Now i know why Ciderman refuses to play online multiplayer with me, traumatic memories! :pac::P

The Last Bandit

What's the general state of PC emulation these days for these consoles ?

Dreamcast, Saturn, Gamecube, 3DO

Seriously thinking of a big clear out and just building an emulation PC using a Ryzen powered Asrock A300 of similar small PC.

Retr0gamer

Dreamcast: Some good fast emulators out there but not very accurate emulation. Plenty of bugs and glitches

Saturn: It's gotten better but still very inaccurate. Bugs and glitches in lots of games.

Gamecube: Dolphin is a really great emulator but it sacrifices accuracy for speed and resolution improvements. Lots of big games work well. Lots of games are a mess. Emulation of the Flipper/Hollywood GPU with shaders causes issues.

3DO: Why even ask? (actually I don't know this one).

Check out redream for dreamcast emulation. Newish and looks and plays well.
Yabaouse for Saturn I think is your best bet and its made a lot of progress but still kinda crap

Inviere

The Last Bandit wrote: »

What's the general state of PC emulation these days for these consoles ?

Dreamcast, Saturn, Gamecube, 3DO

Seriously thinking of a big clear out and just building an emulation PC using a Ryzen powered Asrock A300 of similar small PC.

This is precisely what I did. I got tired of having no space, hoarding junk, having 90%f my collection in storage, the stupid pricing of retro stuff, etc etc. Now, I would preface this by saying, as you’ll prob agree with, that original hardware, on a real crt, with rgb interconnects, is the definitive and best way to play. But that’s not to say you can’t get damn close with some of today’s modern emulators.

With all due respect to Retr0’s post, I’m not sure I’d agree with his info, or that it’s entirely accurate. So here’s my thoughts on it.

Dreamcast has come on immensely, like seriously. Have a look at Redream. It’s a free emulator, with a premium version if you so choose. Premium allows you to increase the internal resolution of the games, and for the whopping price of €5, I think it’s a fantastic deal to compensate the guy for his work and contributions. A LOT of games play amazingly well, and with the resolution bumped, you might find yourself losing interest in playing these games on a real DC at some stage. Obviously it’s not perfect, you may encounter bugs here and there, but the emulator is being actively developed with updates frequent.

Saturn, Retr0 isnt far wrong here, it still has a ways to go before being properly able to take over from real hardware. It has definitely improved, and continues to do so all the time, but it’s a tricky beast. Expect bugs and glitches, though again, many games play very very well.

GameCube, I find GC emulation is incredibly good. The modern versions of Dolphin (and not the stable releases, believe it or not they only update the stable releases very infrequently, so you need to use the nightly versions to get the proper modern releases) are amazing. Ubershaders have completely eliminated shader cache stutter, the graphics resolution can be internally increased, making GC games look nothing short of gorgeous at high resolutions, compatibility is massively high, support for the GameCube controller adapter for the Wii U meaning you can use real GC controllers. For me, and the games I like, Dolphin has replaced original hardware as the best way to play. Same with Wii, Dolphin can use the Bluetooth chip from a real Wii (I built a tiny circuit to connect the chip to usb) and allow you to use real a Wiimote and Nunchuk to play Wii games with the same resolution increases etc, it’s brilliant.

3DO, it’s actually not bad at all. I think it’s strongly game dependent though, lots like Need for Speed will play perfectly, others might have bugs. I use a RetroArch core for 3DO, so no messing about with controls etc, seems fine for as much as I’ve used it (which admittedly isn’t much).

It doesn’t end there though, PCSX2 is coming on leaps and bounds, and PS2 compatibility is very good with many many games being perfect (perfect as in perfectly playable without noticing bugs or glitches). PPSSPP handles PSP like a champ, allowing you to increase the resolution of the games faaaaaaaar beyond what original hardware could do, making them look amazing (same with PS2 btw). RPCS3 is making incredibly strides, with updates very frequently, I’ve played several games to completion without any noticeable problems (check out Demon Souls at 4k resolution, 60 FPS). Cemu is a champ for Wii U stuff, they’re just about to release a version that uses Vulkan, so expect some further improvements before long. Hell, Yuzu is already running Switch games at resolutions and framrates a real Switch wouldn’t be able for. I’d say in a years time, Yuzu will be able to replace the Switch in terms of compatibility etc.

Modern emulators are damned impressive, but for me, the real hook is when you move away from having a folder of individual emulators that you use. This breaks the experience a lot, and for whatever reason, I find it harder to engage with emulation that way. What sold me was having a professional frontend for everything, with metadata like screenshots, preview videos, box art, game manuals, etc etc. Only then, emulation becomes a ‘product’ as such, where you launch the frontend, and have systems and games available from the Atari 2600 up to the Wii U, all presented to you in a manner that makes you feel like you’re using a real system....much like the effect the Snes Mini et al gives, only waaaay better. I use Launchbox, and one new feature is the ability to pause a game, then browse through high res scans of that games manual, through the pages, and return to the game, all without the controller ever leaving your hand. The days of launching Zsnes with a mouse, clicking file, load rom, and playing the game, are long gone.

^^ it can be a real project to set that all up, but the learning curve isn’t steep, and it becomes mostly repetition after a while. RetroArch handles most everything up to the modern stuff. Having one emulator for 90% of systems is a dream, and you can set different configs for different systems, so I’ve shaders set for certain consoles, then I’ll switch to something like a GameBoy, and it’ll load a GB game, put up the GB DMG overlay, switch to the Gameboy shader, and then if I switch to something else, it’ll load that config. It’s an incredibly versatile emulator. Well, I’m not sure emulator is quite correct. RetroArch is more like a frontend, and the individual cores you can download from within it, they are the actual emulators.

I don’t regret the move one bit. If I had a spare room, maybe I’d go back to shelves of carts and original hardware, but I don’t. The effect of having everything available to emulate means since switching, I’ve played way more games than I would have otherwise. If you do go down this road, I’ve learned tons from doing it, and have documented a lot of info Incase disaster strikes and I ever had to do it again. I’d be happy to help if stuck etc

Retr0gamer

I find with Dreamcast, PS2 and Gamecube they have the popular games working nicely. However I've played those already and like to explore the weirder stuff in the libraries which is what makes those consoles so special. And its there that you run into lots of issues. PS2 emulation in particular has a very long way to go. Dreamcast and Gamecube though I can see being sorted out in the next year or two.

Going to give PSP emulation a go soon as I've so many great games for that system but I just don't like to use the PSP or Vita. I heard the emulation for that system is pretty solid.

The Last Bandit

Thanks for the info !! Just trying out 'redream' and it looks pretty good alright.

I've no shortage of ways to emulated the older 8/16 bit stuff, using Retroarch on both the Nvidia Shield TV and Switch - the Switch is epic for 16 bit RPGs

Its the later stuff I don't emulate yet, that said I'll definitely be keeping PS2 & Xbox.

I think with me its a case of way too much stuff and nowhere near enough time to use it so going to trim the fleet down to the essentials with both consoles and computers. Seriously, I don't need 5 MSX computers !!

Retr0gamer

You still need one though. Those Konami games are *little chef kiss*

Inviere

Retr0gamer wrote: »

I find with Dreamcast, PS2 and Gamecube they have the popular games working nicely. However I've played those already and like to explore the weirder stuff in the libraries which is what makes those consoles so special. And its there that you run into lots of issues. PS2 emulation in particular has a very long way to go.

Have you any examples of this, and do you know what versions of the emulators you were using? I'm not at all saying that these emulators are perfect, but PS2 aside, I've never run into anything on GameCube for example that gives 'lots of issues'...

Take look at the Dolphin compatibility list - https://dolphin-emu.org/compat/ Playable games listed at 61.4% (Runs well, only minor graphical or audio glitches. Games can be played all the way through), Perfect games listed at 32.9% (No issues at all!), that's 94.3% of games can be played either perfectly, or very well all the way to completion.

PS2 does have a long way to go, but it has made large strides of late. It's seemingly because the PS2 used bespoke hardware, with virtually no documentation available for it.

CiDeRmAn

Wow, emulation has really come a long way alright, though I do miss those heady, late 90's days when I was using Nesticle and Mame, disk-spanning the bigger files across a couple of floppies in a Internet Cafe in Dublin, before getting them home!

Hmmm....

Maybe a forum rename is in order....

Inviere

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Maybe a forum rename is in order....

Arcade Retro & Systems Emulation..........

Inviere

For the first time Silent Hill 2 is rendering more in-game than just a grey screen. Actually, we're not far from what is expected from this game (visual issues left for now are some transparency problems, wrong color of the text in-game and ligthing in darker areas). Performance wise very good (even with my old and slow i3 2100) and it' stable (never found a crash or hang after many tests).

​No interest in Silent Hill 2? Great! This also improved rendering in many other games, here's a list based in all my tests:

Bloodrayne: fog now renders correcly
Dragonball Z Sagas: video before in-game is rendering for the first time
Halo: menus are now visible
Kill Switch: character model now is rendered better (still incorrect, but improved)
Commandos Strike Force: screen flickering fixed, characters and enemies models are rendering better
​
Code is still in development/testing, there's still some regressions to take care before making this part of the development builds, but I'm sure we can all agree this very promising

AND...

Thanks to kd-11's contributions this month, Gran Turismo games are now running with near-perfect graphics!

^^ framerate still has a ways to go, but it's crazy to think Gran Turismo 5 & 6 are within reach now of emulation.

RPCS3 is nothing short of amazing considering it may as well be emulating extraterrestrial technology. Seriously impressive emulator

Inviere

Just on the topic of more 'recent' console emulation, here's a quick & brief (albeit technical) state of play video from MVG on original Xbox emulation. The heart of the matter is Cxbx originally came along, had a very HLE approach, compatibility was low, and eventually died off. Then some years later, Cxbx-Reloaded came out, still had the same HLE approach but certain facets of it shifted to LLE, compat is improved, but as it's based on Cxbx, still has the same limitations. A more recent emulator has come out, Xqemu, with is an LLE based approach, still very early days, but should overtake Cxbx-Reloaded at some stage.

Retr0gamer

Inviere wrote: »

Have you any examples of this, and do you know what versions of the emulators you were using? I'm not at all saying that these emulators are perfect, but PS2 aside, I've never run into anything on GameCube for example that gives 'lots of issues'...

Well the definition of lots of issues is different for some people. Graphical glitches and games just not looking right is enough to turn me right off. Admittedly it was a while ago when I tried redream and dophin but I remember Maken X had sound issues, D2 didn't run and Lack of Love and Jet Set Radio had minor graphical glitches which put me off. Dolphin I tried Super Mario Galaxy, F-zero GX, Contra, custom Robo and Geist. Contra rebirth didn't work while the others while playable were just off enough to annoy me.

I think Redream and dolphin will get there in the end and be great emulators and are already impressive but PS2 really has a long way to go. I'm not saying that to belittle the work done by the people behind it, it's more that there's a huge amount of work that needs to be done to get that system well emulated.

Inviere

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Well the definition of lots of issues is different for some people. Graphical glitches and games just not looking right is enough to turn me right off. Admittedly it was a while ago when I tried redream and dophin but I remember Maken X had sound issues, D2 didn't run and Lack of Love and Jet Set Radio had minor graphical glitches which put me off. Dolphin I tried Super Mario Galaxy, F-zero GX, Contra, custom Robo and Geist. Contra rebirth didn't work while the others while playable were just off enough to annoy me.

You should try a more recent build to be fair. Similarly, your own personal hardware will affect results, which if not up to the task, shouldn't be used to criticise the emulator (not saying this point is relevant to you, it's just a broad point). I know Mario Galaxy and F-Zero GX, and Contra etc all play beautifully, at resolutions the Switch can only dream of, let alone the Wii.

I do accept your overall point, that any glitches/bugs generally stand out big time when it comes to emulation, and can severely break the experience. I share that same opinion, so I'd consider myself to have high standards in context. I still maintain though, that particularly with Dolphin, it's good enough to replace original hardware (for 90%+ of the games anyway). That's if the users hardware is good enough, and they've configured everything properly too.

Redream is very cool, and gets better all the time, but I'm not sure it's enough to supersede a real Dreamcast just yet - for the very reason you mention, graphical bugs and glitches. It's very, very playable though.

I think Redream and dolphin will get there in the end and be great emulators and are already impressive but PS2 really has a long way to go. I'm not saying that to belittle the work done by the people behind it, it's more that there's a huge amount of work that needs to be done to get that system well emulated.

Fully agree. The PS2's hardware has no real documentation, so anything we have today is by trial and error, hard work, and luck. Within 1 year, Dolphin and Redream will have bettered themselves significantly, PCSX2 though, that's going to need far more than 12 months to reach maturity. I'd agree, very impressive work so far, but a LOT more needed.

KeRbDoG

'Modern Vintage Gamer's take on 'The Current State of Original Xbox Emulation on the PC'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiWH4TcFCAY

Inviere

Why I love emulation....

Inviere

Great to see progress on the Xbox 360 front....in time it'll restore life to all those XBLA games that can't get got/played any more short of a modded console.

Retr0gamer

Tried out PSP emulation on retroarch last night and the results weren't great. Played Final Fantasy Tactics as I thought it would be a good way to play the game on PC.

While graphically it wasn't too bad the sound unfortunately likes to mess up a lot in this game. It's very distracting, especially when FFT has one of the finest soundtracks of all time.

Seems there is a fix by downgrading the emulation core.

megaten

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Tried out PSP emulation on retroarch last night and the results weren't great. Played Final Fantasy Tactics as I thought it would be a good way to play the game on PC.

While graphically it wasn't too bad the sound unfortunately likes to mess up a lot in this game. It's very distracting, especially when FFT has one of the finest soundtracks of all time.

Seems there is a fix by downgrading the emulation core.

PPSSPP has a great controller focused UI so I'd say your better off just using the standalone emulator.

Retr0gamer

Reading up on it it's a emulation issue with the updated core. They tried to improve the sound and in doing so screwed up how reverb works in some games. So the core needs an update or I could downgrade while I wait.

Inviere

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Tried out PSP emulation on retroarch last night and the results weren't great. Played Final Fantasy Tactics as I thought it would be a good way to play the game on PC.

While graphically it wasn't too bad the sound unfortunately likes to mess up a lot in this game. It's very distracting, especially when FFT has one of the finest soundtracks of all time.

Seems there is a fix by downgrading the emulation core.

Use standalone emulators for certain modern systems like PSP, Wii, Wii U, PS3, etc. Grab the latest PPSSPP standalone and compare...

Retr0gamer

It's a emulation core level issue it seems, nothing to do with retroarch. they're trying to sort and it's in the to do list. Apparently the game has always have audio issues with emulators. At least it can be used as a good barometer for whether PSP emulation is getting better!

Think I'll give Tactics Ogre a go instead, I've never finished it unlike FF Tactics. Hope it fixes my hunger to play FF Tactics again after the recent retronauts episode.

Inviere

Retr0gamer wrote: »

It's a emulation core level issue it seems, nothing to do with retroarch. they're trying to sort and it's in the to do list. Apparently the game has always have audio issues with emulators. At least it can be used as a good barometer for whether PSP emulation is getting better!

Think I'll give Tactics Ogre a go instead, I've never finished it unlike FF Tactics. Hope it fixes my hunger to play FF Tactics again after the recent retronauts episode.

Retroarch cores can lie behind when it comes to fixes and updates, you'd be best off using PPSSPP regardless, it's far more flexible than the RA core would be.

Retr0gamer

Ok I'll give it a go

Retr0gamer

So I gave the PPSSPP emulator a go and the sound issue still persists. Definitely a emulation core issue than anything else and plenty of people on their forums documenting the issue.

I decided to just keep playing the game as it only pops up in certain areas (when there is lightning and more annoyingly when selecting troop starting positions and the victory fanfare every time).

Inviere

Retr0gamer wrote: »

So I gave the PPSSPP emulator a go and the sound issue still persists. Definitely a emulation core issue than anything else and plenty of people on their forums documenting the issue.

I decided to just keep playing the game as it only pops up in certain areas (when there is lightning and more annoyingly when selecting troop starting positions and the victory fanfare every time).

Using the standalone over RA always means you're getting the latest version anyway, so if you do run into issues, it's best to just cross-reference the RA core against the lastest standalone. That said, RA handles probably 90% of what I need perfectly, it's just the few modern systems you need to use standalones for to be sure you're getting the latest version/fixes.

Have you cranked up the resolution beyond stock at all?

Retr0gamer

I didn't expect PPSSPP to be perfect but good enough for me as I've seen videos of it looking rather good but it seems to be an issue that's cropped up as they are trying to improve the accuracy of sound emulation and sound issues really are grating in this game unfortunately.

Still the desire to play the game is greater than the annoying occasional grating static noises. I could play the PS1 version but the translation is so bad it's barely English. PSP version has much better translation and adds a few small extras. Just finding it easier to stick with games on PC as I've abandoned the game twice on Vita. It's one of the very best RPGs of all time, and in my opinion the best in the FF series.

I added a few improvements to the game actually. Running it at 4x the internal resolution. I've also removed the texture filtering as the original PSP game just blurs everything and it looks like a mess. Also installed a patch that restores the 4:3 aspect ratio (the PSP release just stretches the image to an ugly 16:9) and also a patch to remove the slowdown in the game which is there because it's a very shoddy port.

brianregan09

So I'm gonna have a go at modding my girlfriends Wii during the week (she was gonna dump it ) any advice or suggestions guys ? been looking at a few youtube videos and seems a simple enough job , want to get Wii and gamecube games going on it because I have Snes mini for the older games

Star Lord

It's very easy tbh, there are even apps where you can download all you need to mod it and the homebrew apps in one go, and then just copy to your sd card. Unfortunately I can't remember the name, as it's been years since I did it, but it's pretty hard to go wrong tbh!

Relikk

Star Lord wrote: »

Unfortunately I can't remember the name, as it's been years since I did it, but it's pretty hard to go wrong tbh!

I'm guessing it's ModMii?

http://modmii.000webhostapp.com/home.html

brianregan09 wrote: »

want to get Wii and gamecube games going on it because I have Snes mini for the older games

Use an app called Nintendont for GC games.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/nintendont.349258/

Inviere

Retroarch 1.7.8 new features (touch screen light guns!)

RPCS3 continues to improve...

MGS4 in-game for the first time, again RPCS3

Bsnes overclocking demo

Inviere

Inviere wrote: »

MGS4 in-game for the first time, again RPCS3

aaaaaand merely one week later, most of the graphics problems have been fixed....

brianregan09

Relikk wrote: »

I'm guessing it's ModMii?

http://modmii.000webhostapp.com/home.html



Use an app called Nintendont for GC games.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/nintendont.349258/

Got it going the other night , Luigis Mansion and Rogue Squadron 2 wow never played these before so good

Stoner

Anyone use RetroArch on Android TV.

The Last Bandit

Stoner wrote: »

Anyone use RetroArch on Android TV.

Ya I use it with my Nvidia Shield TV without any problems, using ARCbrowser as the frontend.

Inviere

Stoner wrote: »

Anyone use RetroArch on Android TV.

Same, Nvidia Shield. I haven't set up a frontend on it though, I've scanned the libraries so just launch games directly through the built in GUI. Is ARCbrowser any good TLB?

The Last Bandit

Its nice enough, handy if you have different emulators installed so its one central place to launch them.

Ya if everything is running thru retoarch then its gui is fine.

Stoner

Stoner wrote:

Anyone use RetroArch on Android TV.

I'll give it a lash this weekend

I was more interested in non shield installs, like just android TVs, Sony Bravia etc

I wouldn't Imagine a shield would struggle, I should have been more precise in my question.

Inviere

80s Synth Pop

That emulator sold me on a gateway2000 pentiumIII with a voodoo3 card

The whole thing was like a story from eastenders on daveslassics.com with one of the authors getting divorced over it.

It was a great time though to play zelda in high resolution a few months after release.

horgan_p

80s Synth Pop wrote: »

T on daveslassics.com with one of the authors getting divorced over it.
.

Now thats a site I havent heard of in an awfully long time....

Inviere

A basic explanation of the voodoo that is the run-ahead feature in RetroArch

Sparks43

Inviere wrote: »

A basic explanation of the voodoo that is the run-ahead feature in RetroArch

Extremely interesting.

Used Retroarch for online snes play and even though it’s not perfect it’s still very good.

Doge

Interesting....
A Chinese emulation device that runs MAME called PS1 that looks like an Xbox one! :pac:

€ 67,82 35%OFF | PS1 Video Game Console 64Bit 4K HD HDMI Output Retro 800 Classic Family Retro Games TV 32G XPRO joystick for gift xbox ones
https://star.aliexpress.com/share/share.htm?redirectUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aliexpress.com%2Fitem%2F4000052636149%2F4000052636149.html%3Fmb%3Djkqwjap54AaJRVr%26srcSns%3DCopy%2520to%2520Clipboard%26tid%3Dwhite_backgroup_101&image=H0ee4b67b97e2484f9777c5976b6d612bF.jpg&businessType=ProductDetail&templateId=white_backgroup_101&title=%E2%82%AC%2067%2C82%20%2035%25OFF%20%7C%20PS1%20Video%20Game%20Console%2064Bit%204K%20HD%20HDMI%20Output%20Retro%20800%20Classic%20Family%20Retro%20Games%20TV%2032G%20XPRO%20joystick%20for%20gift%20xbox%20ones&platform=AE

Inviere

^^ Save your money folks Here's the route to take, for a few extra quid, blows any Pi and Mini console away...

Inviere

byuu on the very last step in achieving perfect Snes emulation. Unfortunately, it's not an easy one to take - tis a bit of a technical read, but very interesting all the same - https://byuu.org/articles/edge-of-emulation