The State of Emulation topic

[Xyga]

I'll give that a try, thanks.

Not guaranteed it will work as well for you though, I'm using quite an old XP computer, the results might be different on a different and more modern OS/hardware. ^^

[soprano1]

Chronicles doesn't have crackling anymore, so that's good i guess.

[ZellSF]

Tried getting Grandia II working in Dreamcast emulators. All of them have glitches and none has seen development since 2013.

Well there's an excuse to order a Dreamcast

[soprano1]

Tried getting Grandia II working in Dreamcast emulators. All of them have glitches and none has seen development since 2013.

Well there's an excuse to order a Dreamcast

You won't regret getting one, i can assure you. Got one in 2010 myself, so much fun!

[Immryr]

yeah I just bought a dreamcast earlier this month, absolutely loving it! get one.

[Zeether]

The Nintendo 64DD is getting disks dumped slowly, so an emulator could not be far off. So far 3 games have been dumped (Mario Artist Communication Kit, that one golf game and the RANDnet disk)

http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/sh ... rews/page4

[Ed Oscuro]

PlayStation emulators: pSX was good but seems a bit too dated now. That leaves ePSXe, PCSX-Reloaded, and XEBRA / ARBEX. What does everybody think?
Naturally, accuracy is key here. Good features, modern UI, and not getting worried about enhancements also suits me well.

[soprano1]

PlayStation emulators: pSX was good but seems a bit too dated now. That leaves ePSXe, PCSX-Reloaded, and XEBRA / ARBEX. What does everybody think?
Naturally, accuracy is key here. Good features, modern UI, and not getting worried about enhancements also suits me well.

XEBRA seems to be the most accurate, but in terms of features and GUI i like PCSX-Reloaded, which i have recently started using instead of pSX.
You might want to check previous posts between me and Xyga.

[ZellSF]

XEBRA is the most accurate, but it has no options for increasing 3D resolution and it doesn't even have options for scaling. Expect ugliness.

I would keep all three around and decide which to use on a per game basis. Same as for any modern system really.

Also you forgot Mednafen's PSX core, which is pretty nice (also included in RetroArch).

[Ed Oscuro]

Still have to follow that lead up - thanks folks!

Thought I'd bump this topic with an excellent sign:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8941/giga ... x-review/3

Top-tier review site AnandTech has put a Dolphin emulator benchmark in a review. It's not listed with the other "Gaming Benchmark" entries, but instead with "Performance Metrics" including a bunch of utilities.

While MAME probably still is heavily popular for performance usage, this might be a sign that Dolphin's pushing drivers and features gives reviewers hope that it will be a relevant and well-rounded metric with relatively few performance blind spots - while also being a relevant benchmark for many of their users. Unfortunately it's a synthetic benchmark, and as delroth says:

It's a very synthetic benchmark and might not be completely representative of in-game performance (which involves other things like your GPU/drivers/...) but should still be a good indication of what CPUs are good/bad with Dolphin.

[soprano1]

Are Ootake and Magic Engine still the "better" options for PC Engine (plus CD) emulation? Is MESS an option?

[soprano1]

Are Ootake and Magic Engine still the "better" options for PC Engine (plus CD) emulation? Is MESS an option?

Sorry for bumping, but i'm still wondering about this.

[KAI]

Ootake is the best option.
Magic Engine is also good, but it crashes randomly on a lot of PCE-CD games.
MESS=SHIT

[soprano1]

Ootake is the best option.
Magic Engine is also good, but it crashes randomly on a lot of PCE-CD games.
MESS=SHIT

Yeah, Star Parodius doesn't work at the ship select screen...
Thanks for the info.

[trap15]

Mednafen is also good for PCE.

[Xyga]

A view of the very near future (posted by mamesick in his fx dev thread)

Hopefully one day we'll get things like this and more (like crt-royale) on most popular emulators, or via a simple frontend that actually works, and finally give the finger to RetroArch.

[BPzeBanshee]

I've noticed MAME itself has had quite a considerable restructure lately. Huge "3rdparty" folder added to the source, debugger changes, new build tools that make compiling MAME considerably easier for the ones that can't figure out %PATH% defines using some fancy terminal app called Cmder, having the OpenGL renderer as part of the baseline options instead of being locked in to SDLMAME, etc.

Apparently LUA plugins eventually will be a thing too which may allow for stuff like autofire that's previously been hacked in. A lot of the proposed changes from Micko sound like wishful thinking at the moment but then again I didn't think the BGFX/renderer overhaul was actually going to happen either so who knows. MAME ain't kickin the bucket yet.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Is Mednafen on Wii fast/accurate enough at PCE emulation?
My only issue with Ootake is no screen refresh rates higher than 60 Hz (I could use 120 in 640x480 on a CRT for the sake of less apparent screen tearing because I'd rather not resort to v-sync).

[Xyga]

Yay ! 0.160

http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/sh ... ber=338043

OpenGL on windows now supports glsl options

Going to try MAMEUIFX w/ T. Lottes crt shader asap.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Since Project 64 1.6, among its other shortcomings, wouldn't display transparencies in S&P with my current graphics card (unless with alpha-something hack, that would produce other glitches), I installed now-free 2.1 iteration and what do you know - it sees every direction I press my flight stick in as one. That makes the device virtually usless with this version. Which is bloody MAJOR as I found S&P mighty delicious played this way (deadzone 0%, range 50%). That renders the latest emulator version garbage.
Flight stick + S&P was a match made in heaven, but alas...

[JBC]

Is Mednafen on Wii fast/accurate enough at PCE emulation?

I use it all the time & it works blissfully. I can't really compare it to an actual PCE/CD since I haven't had one since the heyday but I can say it works well enough that I usually forget I'm using an emulator after playing awhile.

Sorry to hear about your S&P woes, but you could still snag up a wad manager for Wii & install the VC version. Unfortunately, I think it only allows for classic & Gamecube controller support. It's still an emulation, but from what I can tell it's the most accurate way to play besides the original cart. S&P series is tops, & part 2 in particular is my favorite game of all time.

[OmegaFlareX]

There's also BizHawk for PCE emulation (and many others), it's developed by the folks at tasvideos.org, so all cores include re-recording support and other fancy tools if that's your thing.

Just tried out the latest version of MAME and a relatively new romset (0.156). Was tickled to find Cave CV1000 support, when did that happen? I gave DDP DaiFukkatsu a whirl, expecting my 2009 C2D to choke on it... nope, full speed, no hiccups. Amazing.

[BryanM]

Was tickled to find Cave CV1000 support, when did that happen?

Januaryish of 2014.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I'm seeing only one NES emulator listed here and - apparently - FDS compatibility is limited. Now THAT demands improvement.

[Ed Oscuro]

I installed now-free [Project64] 2.1 iteration and what do you know - it sees every direction I press my flight stick in as one. That makes the device virtually usless with this version. Which is bloody MAJOR as I found S&P mighty delicious played this way (deadzone 0%, range 50%). That renders the latest emulator version garbage.
Flight stick + S&P was a match made in heaven, but alas...

You should head over to their forums and give 'em a bug report, if you've tried other values and it doesn't work. Their FAQ does make it clear that different deadzone settings are needed for different sticks (and games, by implication).

At least they've gone free and are making progress - unfortunately they don't have an easily-digested WHATSNEW file but they do have the source and issue tracker which allows following improvements. They did have a bit of a rough start with the code release but I think the modern repository-based development should mean that won't be a big stumbling block again.

I think the only package option being an installer is a mistake, though, and their "get" link leads to an outdated page mentioning beta access.

[soprano1]

I think the only package option being an installer is a mistake, though, and their "get" link leads to an outdated page mentioning beta access.

Yeah, fuck that shit. Just use an unpacker program to take out the folder. Works great and no stupid hassle.

[Ed Oscuro]

Hey guys, I just noticed that Exodus (for the Sega Genesis, get it? Megado live as well) got a new release:

http://www.exodusemulator.com/

Let's all test the shit outta it so people have a real alternative to using ancient emulators from the last decade.

I'm still looking through the options, but E-SWAT looks and sounds great (kind of a Genesis 2 sound IMO) and the huge number of debug menu options is rad, impressive, amazing. It's even rendering some overscan area stuff that I don't remember seeing in other emulators (though a future wishlist item might be adjustable overscan).

The menus don't cause rendering to stop or stutter like a certain world-famous SNES (and other things) emulator, it loads ZIPs, etc.

I don't know if it has fullscreen or 15KHz rendering modes, but it does fit-to-screen with the right aspect ratio if you just maximize the window. Might not work well with adaptive sync yet.

In order to play with the few rendering options, go to Mega Drive -> Settings -> VDP -> System Settings. Strangely, I'm not seeing checkboxes or anything identifiable as a control, just a white box to the right of each labeled entry. Clicking the white box will toggle appropriate options. "Enable Line Smoothing" will swap some kind of blur filter with a nearest-neighbor scaler (which I prefer for PC use).

Snap judgement: REAL COOL, E-SWAT rank! Using other emulators is like pissing about in plainclothes.

[soprano1]

Finally, an alternative to Fusion.
Still a bit lacking in the compability department, but still looking good.

[Ed Oscuro]

A little (bad) update: I haven't been able to get the controls responsive. The in-program key configuration is broken, and loading a generated and hand-edited XML file isn't doing the trick for me either. I'll have to see if this is mentioned on their Forum.

[trap15]

This is excellent news. Maybe I should just abandon my emulator and help out on this... heh...