There doesn’t seem to be a major emulation thread so I’ll put one up and we’ll see what happens.
So if you don’t know about emulators, which I’m unsure of how you wouldn’t, an emulator basically runs a virtual system of a game system, computer, or something. Now to avoid the whole “warez” thing, lets please not discuss rom sites or anything and talk about legit stuff here
So since I have gotten my amiga I have been trying to find a gotek. I potentially have one on the way, so while I am waiting I’ve been looking into some stuff like UAE and amithlon, which both are pretty fascinating.
So UAE is just a system emulator you can run on a system as an app. For linux theres FS-UAE or Janus-UAE. I’m using FS because it has less bugs and is more accessible. Whats also fascinating with FS is theres a PSP port that actually runs amazingly well. I’ve only played SimCity 2000 on it, but I want a nice AOS 3.1 setup running on my PSP. That sounds so weird… Anyways, been trying to figure that whole thing out. Its pretty confusing sometimes. Like I can’t disk swap, at least it seems that I can’t. IDK I’m still learning about stuff.
Just getting into emulation. On the lookout for some broken beyond repair n64/snes consoles so I can reclaim the controller ports and build an arduino based usb gamepad hub.
I love emulation for the sake of saving what was old but is still good, or relevant.
So many good games won’t get remakes for newer hardware, and are often proprietary by the nature of the original hardware. Emulation allows those games to be conserved for future generations to enjoy. I don’t think it should be criminalized to the extent that it is.
Also, seeing an emulator being developed is interesting. There are developers working on an Emulator for the Nintendo 3DS, and it runs like garbage on all hardware. I think it’s because they still haven’t managed to implement support for multiple cores and threads, as well as GPU acceleration.
This is a problem because all the game engines for that platform are tied to the fps. The games are designed to run at 60fps or close to it. And if they run slower or faster, the game’s playback speed is affected accordingly.
It’s just funny to think about a multiple thousand dollar computer struggling to get 60fps on a simple Nintendo handheld game.
You also have to consider the os I guess. Its like USB sticks. You can only have so many of them plugged in and the games come with the OS plugged on them like old 80’s computers. Then the GPU…
Emulated a whole bunch of stuff at one time or other. Oddly I think the most I had, used and were the best set up as far as time invested and usability goes were all on my phone. Had everything available up to PS1, even a Dreamcast and Wii emu all on my phone. Granted the Dreamcast and Wii ones did not run the greatest but did run which was amazing all in itself.
Right now I am waiting for the PS3 RPCS3 emulator to improve to the point I can play the MotorStorm games on PC. It is doing pretty good but not there yet for that one, though they did it right. Got it to run at full speed, Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, which was a good little game but was dropped by Ubisoft in record time and was only released on consoles so died and could no longer be played. Big shame, well made, fun, good music, just had a shite publisher. So the emulator set out to get that working first and they did.
I use MAME for arcade games. the mame project is incredible as its developers are solely focused on developing an accurate PCB recreation in software. The downside is that newer machines arent emulated yet.
When using retroarch i also tend to use accurate emulation instead of upping the resolution and applying filters to the textures. I prefer the original feel. Also CRT shaders help a LOT in getting the best possible representation of the original game being played in the original hardware.
I feel like I could talk at length about DOSBox. It has been on my to-do list to write a blog post about running DOSBox based games from GOG in Linux.
Funny thing about that. You’d think, “Hey, these games run in DOSBox, so they should be listed on GOG as being available for Linux. Makes sense, right?” Turns out, no. The biggest hurdle with GOG getting the go-ahead for putting old games on Linux is actually licensing from the IP holders, who usually have roughly 0 interest in anything that resembles work for games that are well past their prime.
I have sent out a few emails to companies regarding games I’d like to be playing in Linux, and a few have responded positively once put into no uncertain terms that no effort would be required of their devs to make this thing happen. I don’t think I’d say that my emails were a tipping point, but some of those games did get official Linux releases on GOG.
For the DOSBox based games that are still listed as Windows only, you can still play them in Linux. But I’ve seen a number of people fall into a common trap when doing this. You need wine in order to run the GOG installer. This gets the game on your system. But you absolutely cannot just up and run the game via the icon that GOG provides. If you do this you will run the game in DOSBox through wine.
In order to comfortably run “Windows only” DOSBox based games in Linux it is important to know how to setup a good DOSBox environment. That’s primarily what I’d be talking about.
I agree with you with just one caveat, The hardware as to be abandoned by its creator, it has to be obvious the technology is abandoned or the creator doesn’t intend to do anything with his creation. Of course current copyright laws and patens protect the creator so you can’t use their hardware lawfully. I just wish this wasn’t so.
I am using ppsspp…
It works just fine for whatever I am using it. Even the free mobile version is working just fine on my 100€ phone…
Basically I am fairly happy with it
