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- Aug 4, 2025
What are the worst versions, then?
Retro games and emulation - Discuss retro shit in case you're stuck in the past or a hipster
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Retarded Weeb
kiwifarms.net
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- Dec 17, 2022
I dunno. I guess version 1.00 would be problematic since it's the earliest, so the most likely to have some kind of compatibility issue. I know I had some issue with trying to use firmware after 2.00 where the emulator just wouldn't boot games with it. I can't remember now though if I tried every version after 2.00 (2.10, 2.20, 2.30, and 2.50), I just remember 2.50 in particular didn't work, seemingly because it's from some weird Japan-only hardware revision from 2010. I just know for sure I have 2.00 set in my PCSX2 options and it's the firmware from the first Slim model, so it's probably fine.
Really though, you might as well just download every PS2 bios so you have them in case there is some random game where you need a different version from usual to work for some reason. I was just giving a version that generally works with everything to keep things simple.
YouDoNotHaveTheRight
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Mar 25, 2022
I love to see the BIOS requirement filter work as intended.
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2019
I think I'm going to wait and see what happens with the M64 now. That's also supposed to have the Mister Cores and I have a ton of N64 carts.
I bought an Analogue 3D and I really like it, but if the M64 is comparable in terms of N64 performance, I'll probably sell the 3D and put that money toward the M64 so I get all the cores. The worst thing about the M64 is it's kind of fucking ugly compared to the 3D. It'd be nice if Analogue would release some 8 and 16-bit cores for the Analogue 3D, but I don't think they will.
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- Joined
- Nov 29, 2020
I hope you weren't on your hands and knees waiting:
I think this quote from when this whole thing popped off sums it up best:
Two Dollars
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2022
Accuracy tests show that the M64 is 1:1, but we’ll see how true that is when Kaze does/doesn’t throw a massive bitchfit over it like he did with Analogue. Also, will the M64 support Mister cores? I’m seeing conflicting reports between “yes” and “we don’t know, but it’ll be easy to port them”.
One thing I really hope is that N64 controllers can be used to play more than just N64, unlike current SNAC adapters. Or at the least the Bluetooth controllers since I’ll be getting a ModRetro controller to complement my 8BitDo 64.
I disagree, but I do wish they had non-transparent color options.
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2021
analogue has really disappointed me with their lack of support for cores or updates besides the pocket, which I wouldn't want at all. The M64 will most likely end up better than the 3D from what ive seen so far. The core in it running n64 itself is developed by the guy who made the mister n64 core originally. Their goal with it is to be a replacement mister because it's got a more powerful fpga chip in it than a mister, but people really hate the guy making it so I dont know that it will really gain any developers or anything crazy like dreamcast or anything, but I think all the mister cores will probably eventually definitely get ported over, and probably pretty soon. I thought about buying one of those too.
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2019
I'm just not a fan of the big knob where the n64 reset button would be. I kind of wish they just put a more discreet button similar to the power one that brings up a menu as opposed to a physical knob for selecting stuff. Nothing that would keep me from buying it or anything like that.
From what I read it would be trivial to get the Pocket's Open FPGA cores running on the 3D if they opened it up a bit. It's weird they wouldn't at least do NES, SNES and Genesis themselves to steal a bit of the M64's thunder, because it's not like analogue is restocking their old consoles anyway.
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- Joined
- Sep 20, 2024
I’d avoid using Slim BIOS versions, as the Slim had a different I/O system that replaced the PS1 chipset in the fat models, which can cause issues for some older games.
I’ve never heard of any issues with older BIOS versions, aside from some of the bottom-of-the-barrel shovelware from the EU market toward the end of the generation.
I’d buy anything ModRetro over anything Analogue, because Analogue are basically the hardware equivalent of Limited Run Games, cranking out scalper bait with no regard for quality or timelines, while ModRetro is Palmer Luckey’s hobby company making the best products they can because he loves retro gaming and wants to keep it going for everyone.
The way Analogue handled the color variants for their N64 clone really shows their utter lack of respect for their customers.
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- Joined
- Mar 27, 2025
Wait, giving the public a general license to use, copy, redistribute, and modify my work means they can do whatever they want with it? You're telling me now for the first time. I was curious what the reason was for them to be so upset, and apparently it's even worse than an ideological reason.
The original team published an early draft of their work 12 years ago looking for help, but they published it in an intentionally broken state so that nobody could use it, and surprisingly nobody volunteered to help. Then along comes a guy named eadmaster, who sees the project hasn't been updated in 10 years and rightly presumes they gave up, so he decides to finish it. Notably, the project was published as GPL code, so he probably has a moral objection to what they actually did, which was hide their work from the public so nobody could interfere. Eadmaster publishes an alpha 0.3 version of the translation, and they get mad because they want full control over the project, so they put out some statements
>heh, that translation sucks and the patch is buggy
>heh, we're embarrassed that anyone saw that translation which we published
Turns out, the reason eadmaster picked up the project is that he's a translator, and he finished the translation within a year, and because he published a working patch and was visibly working on the project, people agreed to help him (notably with "engrish" fixes, in my experience Japanese translators tend to not be great at English). This makes the original team very angry, and they ragequit, because they can't criticize the new translation in a way that a sane person would care about. They reveal that they actually had finished the translation sans perfectionist autism (it's just a video game, nobody cares, nigga) and agree to give the translation to anyone who wants to patch the PSP version, without bothering to explain why anyone should prefer their translation to the one that exists publicly.
Oh, and they intentionally lied about the 0.3 release:
>This Eadmaster guy took our old version 0.2, made it barely functional, and released it as complete.
The BIOS thing is dumb, none of these companies care about the digital locks on their old consoles, not even Nintendo, as is proven by the fact that neither Dolphin nor RetroArch have ever been taken down. Oh, and also the fact that popular ROM sites like Myrient (literally used by Reddit's r/roms) get to stay up despite having the entire library of all consoles freely available.
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2019
Nintendo blocked Dolphin from going into the Steam Store.
Nintendo regularly sends DMCAs to rom sites hosting roms for old systems. Vimm's Lair has gotten hit a bunch of times. Some sites fly under the radar or are in jurisdictions where it is harder to issue takedown notices. IIRC The Internet Archive specifically has a special DMCA exemption that gives them some leeway, but they can still be sued and have been forced to take down things like issues of Nintendo Power and roms in the past.
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- Joined
- Mar 27, 2025
False. https://dolphin-emu.org/blog/2023/07/20/what-happened-to-dolphin-on-steam/
tl;dr Valve is a very cautious company and likes to ask for permission, which of course Nintendo will never give in fear that they would somehow forfeit their rights. This is the same thing that happened to Portal64. In reality, Nintendo does not care at all as long as they can pretend to be unaware of it, and in fact even if they can pretend to pretend, as happened with Dolphin. Nintendo is very willing to attack emulators if they believe it's a threat to their revenue, as happened with Yuzu, where they explicitly said it's illegal to bypass the digital lock on Switch games (which is true, although there's a good chance that a judge would just declare it legal, like what happened with iPhone jailbreaking).
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2019
I feel like you're just being pedantic if you're going to try and argue Nintendo requesting Valve not allow Dolphin in the Steam Store citing the DMCA is not "blocking" Dolphin from the Steam Store.
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- Joined
- Mar 27, 2025
Maybe I didn't explain it very well, so let's start with the basics:
Naively, we could say Nintendo loses money from retro piracy, and therefore they should shut down all rom sites, just like they did with LoveRetro. But this brings up the question, is Nintendo just too lazy to search "roms" on Reddit? Why did they never take down Myrient? The obvious reason presents itself: lawsuits cost money, and more importantly takedowns cost goodwill. The reason why that matters is goodwill drives sales (in fact, goodwill is Nintendo's greatest asset, just like it is for Apple, as strange as that might sound), and therefore goodwill counts as money in GAAP. Every time Nintendo considers taking down a rom site, emulator, or fan project, they need to ask themselves a question: will this help us or hurt us? As a layman, how much money do you think Nintendo loses from retro piracy, and how much goodwill do you think the average takedown costs them? Also, consider the fact that Nintendo's first party Wii titles are probably more valuable than Sony's entire first party retro library. Consider the fact that Nintendo is more able to weather these sorts of "bad PR" moves because of their more devoted fanbase.
Of course, these are not the only considerations, games companies also benefit from retro piracy, emulation, and fan projects, because these keep the brand relevant without them having to do anything. They also provide other benefits, for example Nintendo was proven to have downloaded a pirated rom of Super Mario Bros for sale on Wii VC, and Nintendo undoubtably used AM2R as a way to gauge interest in and gain free marketing for their own Metroid 2 remake. It should be pretty obvious from the things I've mentioned that the analysis skews towards taking down current gen roms and such, and away from taking down retro roms.
But of course, even this is too simple, after all, Nintendo does take down retro roms sometimes, what's the missing piece? If Nintendo is seen to approve of a rom site existing, this can be interpreted by the court as giving a general license to the public to pirate their games. That doesn't mean it will be, but Nintendo cannot afford to take that risk. Therefore, if Nintendo can pretend to be unaware of a retro piracy site, they will ignore it, and if they can't, then they are forced to take it down. A former Nintendo lawyer actually explained this principle 2 years ago. https://aftermath.site/pokemon-lawyer-cease-desist-fan-project-pikachu-movie/
I probably don't need to explain why the distinction I pointed out with regard to Dolphin matters, but if Nintendo gave permission to Dolphin to exist in the way that they currently do, that could potentially be interpreted as giving up the right to sue over any decryption of Nintendo games, even current gen, which is something that they cannot risk, which should be very obvious from the Yuzu lawsuit. In actual fact, if Valve had never asked permission, Nintendo probably would have completely ignored Dolphin being available on Steam, just like they ignore it being available on Google Play (and would ignore it being on the App Store if Apple allowed JIT). Valve asking for permission put them between a rock and a hard place, because they could not give permission, and they also really don't want to take down Dolphin, which should be very obvious from the way they handled the situation. They were forced to choose an option which admits they are aware of Dolphin (and therefore they probably will be unable to sue them in the future), while still asserting their rights with regard to digital locks.
- Joined
- May 5, 2020
Wasn't that disproven by people who actually know what they were talking about when it came to roms in terms of them actually selling the roms back?
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2019
There is a very big difference between they "Don't care" as you started out saying and arguing that small rom sites and open source projects fly under the radar because "lawsuits cost money, and more importantly takedowns cost goodwill". I would agree with the latter, but not the former.
Two Dollars
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jan 6, 2022
That’s a lot of words for “yes you’re right Nintendo did indeed block Dolphin from being on Steam”.
But yes, even Reggie said in an interview a little while after he left Nintendo that they turned a blind eye to copyright-infringing content way, way more often than people think.
But yes, even Reggie said in an interview a little while after he left Nintendo that they turned a blind eye to copyright-infringing content way, way more often than people think.
- Joined
- Mar 27, 2025
I stand corrected, and this shows Nintendo was benefited by piracy in a more nuanced way than I said, after all, it is still illegal for Nintendo to pirate their own games and they could get sanctioned for selling pirated games (as if, lol). I still think it's quite likely that other companies would be willing to resell pirated roms.
But what about big projects like Dolphin and Myrient? I have a feeling you don't actually agree with what I said. The takeaway should absolutely not be "Nintendo is afraid of bad PR" (
) but rather that Nintendo really doesn't want to take down Dolphin because it's beneficial to them. In other words, despite their neuroticism, they don't care about the infringement of their supposed rights as long as it doesn't trickle down onto their current generation.I'll say it in a few words instead, Valve blocked Dolphin from being on Steam and blamed it on Nintendo.
- Joined
- Apr 11, 2018
You must know that you need to keep quiet about BIOS if you are in the PCSX2 forums, which ban ynone who remotely brings up anything pirate related, though they at leas tell you to enjo your piracy.
Honestly, their approach made me apprehensive to the point of PCSX2 feeling 'tainted' to me.