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

[Two Dollars]

I wonder how much of the sucking off of MiSTers and original hardware is from outdated views of emulation.

I can vouch for MiSTer being highly accurate - and convenient in quite a few ways - but the whole “100% accuracy” thing is only theoretical.

Someone made a great video where they created an accuracy test ROM for the NES and ran it through a bunch of emulators. According to that, the FPGA core is more accurate than all of Nintendo’s official emulators… but still less accurate than Mesen.

However, that was about half a year ago. So just for fun, I downloaded the latest version of the test ROM myself and ran it in a few places. It scores perfectly on my MiSTer Pi with the latest core.

FPGA: 136/136
Mesen (standalone): 125/136
Bizhawk: 122/136
Mesen (LibRetro): 107/136
Nestopia (LibRetro): 100/136

 

[Grand Ambrew]

MiSTer is also good for consoles that are more obscure/barely have any emulators.

For example, there's a Phillips CD-i core that's been in active development of about a year and a half that's been receiving updates every few weeks. In my opinion, it's the best way to play CD-i given how expensive and hard to maintain they are nowadays (Though I've never owned a real CD-i, so I don't know for sure.). Hell, this core was one of the main reasons I got a MiSTer in the first place. One day, I wanted to play some CD-i games to see if any of them are any good. So, I tried a couple of emulators and all of them were dogshit that could barely get a few minutes in without crashing or glitching out.

I did some research and found out about the core on MiSTer which was still in its early days, and even back when it was in development for only a few months, it looked better than any of the software emulators. I found out about all the other cores on there, how accurate they are, and it could be connected to a CRT, so I decided to get a MiSTer Pi when those were on sale and have been using it ever since.

Today, most CD-i games can be played on there with hardly any issues. It even has support for the Digital Video Cartridge (DVC), an addon for the CD-i to give it digital video support + extra RAM that about half of the games on CD-i require, which no software emulators support (at least in a consistently working manner).

 

[Two Dollars]

Custom Robo
Custom Robo V2
Hybrid Heaven
Mega Man 64 / Rockman DASH (debatable, but Japanese websites count it as an RPG, so...)
Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer 2
Ogre Battle 64
Paper Mario
Quest 64 / Eltale Monsters
Robopon 64
Super Robot Wars 64

Wow, just enough to make a top 10 list out of! It is quite a weird bunch though. The N64 really didn't have any "normal" JPRGs, did it? They're all Action RPGs, Strategy RPGs, a Rougelike, or little kid-aimed games with unusual mechanics.

I mean, some people call Zelda an RPG. Personally, I wouldn’t count half of that list even if they have RPG-like mechanics. I’ve always seen it as the trio of Paper Mario, Quest 64, and maybe Ogre Battle.

 

[Tom Nook's Gloryhole]

I can't be the only one that thinks this but I feel there's something, especially for older millennials, where subconsciously they believe that emulation hasn't changed in the last 20 years, like Project64 being the best but still not very good, Saturn emulation sucking, and other stuff. I was pretty shocked to find out how much NES multicarts had changed in more recent years.

I think part of the problem is that when we were kids, emulation progress felt like it was slow as molasses. It also helps that that Duckstation guy is singlehandedly improving every major emulator around through sheer autism and the improvements in Duckstation, PCSX2 and Dolphin are incredible. I could call all three of those emulators 'finished' and they'll still end up with a huge patchlist every time you boot it up.

Everything up until the PS2/GC/Xbox era is practically 'perfect' as far as emulation goes, as in if the developers are killed in a gas explosion the emulators are pretty much good enough until the end of time. Xbox emulation is still a little sketchy but still acceptable plus there's only like 4 exclusives locked to that specific console (Crazy Taxi 3, Tony Hawk's 2X for example) so typically you can just pick up the PS2 or GameCube versions and they're fine. Some games even run better than the PC ports or are easier to modify or cheat in.

Some games still straight up suck emulated mind, but I'm not sure if it's down to the emulators or unique hardware setups, I was playing Snake Eater on PCSX2 and the pyro spaceman fight was a sluggish mess running at like 3 frames per second, but I'm also playing on near 10 year old hardware (which comfortably plays the bulk of games I throw at it) so maybe a decent hardware upgrade will see things fixed or maybe I just genuinely haveone of those weird edge case graphics cards that just doesn't play ball with some settings. Plus maybe I'm just retarded and haven't clicked a specific option that fixes it.

 

[Never Scored]

I can't be the only one that thinks this but I feel there's something, especially for older millennials, where subconsciously they believe that emulation hasn't changed in the last 20 years, like Project64 being the best but still not very good, Saturn emulation sucking, and other stuff. I was pretty shocked to find out how much NES multicarts had changed in more recent years.

I wonder how much of the sucking off of MiSTers and original hardware is from outdated views of emulation.

I think there's two things with emulation that drive enthusiasts away these days:

1) Input delay. High end emulators on good hardware mitigate it to the point where it's not noticeable, but it's present on most Android devices because of the way Android handles gamepad input and most low end hardware. You might have a setup where it's not noticeable, but some guy who bought a super console X or handheld with preloaded software off ali express doesn't. This one is highly game dependent too. It matters more in a game like Mega Max X than it does in Chrono Trigger. I'm curious about projects like ReplayOS where they attempt to mitigate it. I was skeptical of the project at first, but the creator seems to have dedicated his nuclear autism toward it so it'll be interesting to see where it goes. Obviously Mister is a solution, but it can get costly and the community loves the smell of its own farts.

2) Part of the nostalgia associated with childhood games is very tactile. Stuff like putting the big plastic cart in the console, flicking on the big chunky button, and the thing just powers on with your game ready to go. A lot of people find shrinking their entire childhood library down onto a micro SD card a little depressing. Turning on an SNES and seeing the little "Nintendo Presents" on screen instantly just hits different. Picking a game from a menu of a thousand games doesn't give a lot of people the same dopamine hit.

 

[Baraka Obama]

High end emulators on good hardware mitigate it to the point where it's not noticeable

It doesn't seem to come down to either of those things, emulators on a fucking Wii will do extremely well for latency, and better still you can easily hook it up to a CRT and get 240p. Android especially seems like just a mess of a platform.

---

Personally I believe there's an experiential aspect to all of this where I get more invested and more into a game with the right setup, I view it as a bit of a continuum where emulators on a PC usually come dead last -- I don't rule it out entirely for example I don't own a PC-98 (yet? life goals) so I recently played through 46 Okunen via Neko Project II/W.

A good emulator on a CRT focused console is a step up, my usual way to play Game Gear and Master System games (such that there are any worth playing) is on a Wii because the real hardware options for those aren't great (and MS controller mapping on genesis bothers me).

Then comes using an actual console with ROMs, either via a flash device or hacks. Sometimes the hacks are a major improvement like with PSP, or it's required to play a translated version.

Then the best is having a real copy to put in. Part of this is because you get instant boot, but I also like the tactile aspect of it, committing to just one thing being in there at a time, and it all being the real deal. I have an MSX but don't own any games and I'd rather play Metal Gear 2 in English, but if it were an option to own the real thing I'd much rather do that than deal with a MegaFlashROM SCC+ & Sofarun.

 

[Never Scored]

It doesn't seem to come down to either of those things, emulators on a fucking Wii will do extremely well for latency, and better still you can easily hook it up to a CRT and get 240p. Android especially seems like just a mess of a platform.

I think the number of layers between the emulator itself and bare metal is also plays a role, but I don't know enough to speak definitively about it. That's probably what's happening with Android and why some older consoles seem to work so well. So like, on a modern OS, it takes time for an input to get from your controller, up through the layers of software running under the OS to the emulator, but it's less of an issue if the emulator is designed with that in mind, or if the hardware is super fast so all that interplay between layers of software happens faster, or if the code for the emulator is being executed on bare metal. But that's just my take away as a person without the particular brand of autism required to spearhead one of these emulation projects.

 

[Two Dollars]

I think the number of layers between the emulator itself and bare metal is also plays a role, but I don't know enough to speak definitively about it.

That’s a point that I think will get more focus going forward. Batocera is great, but it takes like 30 seconds to boot up, then you still have to navigate menus. FPGA takes probably 2-3 seconds, and if you combine that with Zaparoo to have NFC cards for your favorite games, then you can usually have the game fully loaded by the time you walk from the console back to your couch.

 

[Finder of Games]

Custom Robo
Custom Robo V2
Hybrid Heaven
Mega Man 64 / Rockman DASH (debatable, but Japanese websites count it as an RPG, so...)
Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer 2
Ogre Battle 64
Paper Mario
Quest 64 / Eltale Monsters
Robopon 64
Super Robot Wars 64

Wow, just enough to make a top 10 list out of! It is quite a weird bunch though. The N64 really didn't have any "normal" JPRGs, did it? They're all Action RPGs, Strategy RPGs, a Rougelike, or little kid-aimed games with unusual mechanics.

There's a PD ultraman RPG (really cool, and meant to be a competitor in spirit to Monster Rancher, it used the gameboy transfer pak to summon different kaijuu/characters based on gameboy games you put in and has turn based battles between the characters), Aidyn Chronicles, shadowgate 64, and Wonder Project J2 (Although this one's closer to princess trainer than a 'traditional' jrpg to be fair), pretty much nailed it otherwise yeah.

 

[Retarded Weeb]

There's a PD ultraman RPG (really cool, and meant to be a competitor in spirit to Monster Rancher, it used the gameboy transfer pak to summon different kaijuu/characters based on gameboy games you put in and has turn based battles between the characters), Aidyn Chronicles, shadowgate 64, and Wonder Project J2 (Although this one's closer to princess trainer than a 'traditional' jrpg to be fair), pretty much nailed it otherwise yeah.

Fair on PD Ultraman Battle Collection 64. And it's yet another monster-raising type of game instead of a more traditional RPG. There's actually another one such game for N64 I saw when glancing through the library, Onegai Monsters, which I just skipped over in my list because it's a really obscure Japan-only game that's supposedly really shitty. People sometimes make fun of all the Pokemon clones that came out in the late 90s and early 00s, but the West only really got the good ones. There was a lot of absolute trash that was coming out in Japan in Pokemon's wake that never came close to getting localized.

The original statement was about JRPGs, so Aidyn Chronicles wouldn't really count given it was made by a Canadian dev team. Shadowgate 64, now that's a weird one. It's an American IP, but N64 one was developed by a Japanese team so I guess it passes there. But gameplay-wise it's not much of an RPG and is focused on puzzles, in fact, it advertises itself as an adventure game, and the original Shadowgate was a point-and-click adventure game. So I'd say it doesn't count as a JRPG.

 

[Tom Nook's Gloryhole]

I have literally never noticed an issue with input delay in all my time emulating games going back to the early 00s. I'm genuinely convinced it's a skill issue at this point, or at the very least a placebo effect (like how some audiophiles are convinced they can tell the difference between 16 and 24bit FLAC)

I also think people are completely forgetting that the move to 3D games saw framerates that were BARELY double digits on the actual consoles themselves. For the most part, emulating on any modern PC is going to be better than playing on the console (or even a souped up repro console). If you're emulating on a Raspberry Pi then I get it, the hardware is being maxed out trying to maintain a stable framerate... but a PC? A Ryzen 2600 (probably even less than that) will comfortably power through the majority of what you throw at it.

 

[Baraka Obama]

I'm genuinely convinced it's a skill issue at this point, or at the very least a placebo effect

It's immediately obvious and borderline game ruining. Even menu based games like RPGs the delays make quick actions feel like shit.

I also think people are completely forgetting that the move to 3D games saw framerates that were BARELY double digits on the actual consoles themselves. For the most part, emulating on any modern PC is going to be better than playing on the console (or even a souped up repro console).

Playing PS1 games on a PS1 is kino.

 

[Never Scored]

I have literally never noticed an issue with input delay in all my time emulating games going back to the early 00s. I'm genuinely convinced it's a skill issue at this point, or at the very least a placebo effect (like how some audiophiles are convinced they can tell the difference between 16 and 24bit FLAC)

There are youtube videos that pretty objectively show it's a thing.

 

[Tom Nook's Gloryhole]

There are youtube videos that pretty objectively show it's a thing.

The virgin "The framerate dipped from 60fps to 59.5fps and caused me to break my combo" vs the chad "I haven't updated PCSX2 in 7 years and play with a bluetooth controller"

I know I'm being facetious here, but it's telling that almost every input delay video features the big wall of text stats box at in the top corner of the screen. I have never ever felt the need to be aware of my fps and a billion other stats while playing a video game. If it's got a shit framerate that's visible from the human eye and the control scheme just 'feels' bad then I don't play it.

 

[MongolianMongoose]

Has anyone been let down by emulation deep into a playthrough and been unable to complete the game they were playing?

I just had this 14 hours into a playthough of Another Code R on Wii, the sequel to Trace Memory on DS.
Literally all I have to do is tilt the Wii Remote up but I can't. Tried with 2 different remotes, still broken.
This is LITERALLY the last bit of gameplay. After this there's an hour long cutscene. I've already given up and watched the rest on Youtube.
Video of what is supposed to happen.

He makes it look so effortless. So strange. First time I've had any problems with Dolphin.

 

[Never Scored]

The virgin "The framerate dipped from 60fps to 59.5fps and caused me to break my combo" vs the chad "I haven't updated PCSX2 in 7 years and play with a bluetooth controller"

When people talk about input delay or input lag, do you think they're talking about framerate?

 

[foam rolla]

Been watching all the 3DS prices shooting up recently. I always thought once the Switch game out, these things wouldn't be go up in price if anything.

 

[Mr. 0]

So according to this xeet thread, Tooty was supposed to be playable in Banjo-Tooie, but got replaced by Mumbo:

https://x.com/Ghoulyboy/status/1999630194865291327

The part of the Banjo-Kazooie ending where you play as her after the final boss was confirmed to be a literal footnote:

 

[A Deer In Headlights]

Has anyone been let down by emulation deep into a playthrough and been unable to complete the game they were playing?

I used some shitty DS emulator on my Android tablet growing up because I was too poor to afford DraStic. There was a game that for the final part you needed to blow into the mic and my tablet didn't have one built-in and i couldn't spoof it

 

[Baraka Obama]

Been watching all the 3DS prices shooting up recently. I always thought once the Switch game out, these things wouldn't be go up in price if anything.

I watched DS games 20x what I paid, I knew it was going to happen a decade ago. What's surprising is that there was never a sweet spot where 3DS games were especially cheap.